Democrat Berkley, GOP Gibbons on same side against China trade status

RENO, Nev. (AP) - Rarely aligned on national policy issues, liberal Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley and conservative Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons are united in their opposition to permanent, normal trade relations with China.

The two Nevada lawmakers intend to vote against normalizing trade with China on Wednesday when the House considers the measure that is opposed by labor unions and human rights activists but backed by the Clinton administration and Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Berkley opposes it out of a concern for human rights abuses in China, and Gibbons fears the Chinese military poses a threat to U.S. national security.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is the lone Nevada lawmaker urging approval of permanent naturalized trade status. He said isolating China with less-than-normal trade status undermines efforts to change human rights and military policies there.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is undecided, aides said Tuesday.

Berkley, a freshman from Las Vegas, is bucking the Clinton administration after voting last year in favor of extending normal trade status to China on a one-year, renewable basis.

''I was willing last year to grant a one-year extension, hoping that the Chinese government would demonstrate good faith in areas I think are important to show they are truly moving towards democratizing their country,'' Berkley said Tuesday.

''There is nothing that has occurred this year to demonstrate that. Instead we have witnessed saber rattling and additional threats to dissidents,'' she said.

Gibbons, a former fighter pilot who is the only member of Congress to fight in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, said he cannot support anything that makes China ''more economically secure, economically stronger, when those resources will flow directly to its military.

''Today, China has 20 intercontinental missiles capable of reaching every state in the United States, all of which are aimed at the United States with a strategy of holding 20 percent of the U.S. population hostage to a nuclear strike,'' he said.

As a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, Gibbons said he has been ''privileged to certain information that gives me great concern about China's military strategy, its armed forces development, its espionage practices.

''All have grown to such a degree that I feel they currently pose a significant threat to U.S. national interests,'' the congressman said.

The bill would extend permanent normal trade privileges to China, guaranteeing China the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets that nearly every other country in the world has. For the past 20 years, China has received the status - but it had to be renewed annually.

Former Rep. John Ensign, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, voted against favorable trading status for China when he was in the House but hasn't seen the wording of the latest proposal, his campaign aide Mike Slanker said Tuesday.

Ensign's likely opponent, Democrat Ed Bernstein, generally advocates free trade but opposes the measure before the House, his campaign spokeswoman Kelley Benander said.

State trade officials eyeing the potential for expanded Nevada trade overseas urged Gibbons and Berkley to support the measure.

Nevada exported $11.7 million in products to China in 1999, one of the smaller totals nationally.

''It's not significant yet. That's one of the reasons we need it opened up,'' said Alan DiStefano, director of global trade and investment for the Nevada Commission on Economic Development.

Nevada's export numbers fell from $25.5 million in 1997, primarily due to a slowdown in the mining industry, he said.

Bryan, a traditional labor ally who is retiring at the end of this year, said China will have access to goods and services in the international market regardless of its trade status with the United States.

''The question is whether American workers and American producers are going to provide them,'' Bryan said.

The trade status is ''not a reward for good conduct. It is not a housekeeping seal of approval. It is simply normalized,'' he said.

The United States should continue to vigorously pursue concerns about human rights in China, he said.

''The human rights violations are horrendous. Their actions toward Taiwan are mischievous. Their involvement in the proliferation of certain weapons systems, is in my view destabilizing. In no way are we signaling we are in agreement with them in those areas,'' Bryan said.

''But I don't see how America is benefitting by depriving American businesses and American workers from selling into the world's largest market.

''You simply cannot ignore 1.3 billion people. One out of every five human beings on the face of the planet live in China,'' he said.

''The Chinese are going to be a player in the international arena and to ignore them and attempt to isolate them is counterproductive to our efforts to try to get their conduct in human rights and proliferation of weapons and other issues modified.''