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America's Problems with China and Human Rights

By Anuradha Mittal*
November 1999

China's possible integration into the World Trade Organization (WTO), after 13 years of negotiations to re-enter, has intensified the debate on human rights in China. One of the main hurdles standing in the way of China's entry to the WTO was knocked down Monday when Chinese and U.S. officials signed an agreement on market access in Beijing. It is a true reflection of the unjust distribution of power in our uni-polar world that a private side deal with the U.S. was the pre-condition for entry into a global body, despite support from most other nations. While the Chinese may suffer from their government's rush to enter the WTO, I cannot support a system that gives one country--the U.S.--veto power. Yet that only scratches the surface of the contradictions surrounding this issue.

Union leaders in the U.S. are pledging to block the Congressional approval of the Clinton administration's deal for China to join the WTO. They feel betrayed that President Clinton, after having promised to put a "human face to the global economy," is willing to reach a trade-liberalization pact with a country that has dubious human rights records. They want a social clause and a labor clause added to the WTO agreement which would allow WTO members to restrict imports from other members by citing human rights offenses.

Those castigating China, however, need to recognize that using trade sanctions to punish countries that violate human rights is just another way of forcing Western morality on the rest of the world. They forget the fact that even the U.S. continues to spurn half of the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)--economic and social human rights which guarantee the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being. It is not coincidental that the only industrialized country to reject economic and social rights also boasts the highest disparity between the rich and poor and the highest child poverty rates among the industrialized countries.

Anyone who is opposed to the Chinese joining the WTO needs to be reminded that the USA has been acting like a rogue nation forever. Since when has the U.S economic system become the paragon of virtue? We have prison labor and sweat shops right here in the U.S. And many other members of the WTO, including democratic countries like India, have child labor. Maybe other WTO members should be offended by the quasi-slavery conditions faced by many farm workers in parts of the U.S. A member country could say that U.S. law, which makes it possible to execute a teenager, is an offense against humanity. These and other charges might form the justification for an embargo on U.S. exports!

Of course it is appropriate to castigate China for accepting only those human rights that suit the regime's political and economic interests. Different cultures might nurture different values, but the UDHR was drafted 50 years ago to reflect universal aspirations and standards for human dignity.

However, the present approach, as expressed by the U.S. conditions placed on China, is tantamount to moral imperialism. It is clearly framed to suit rich countries. They would write the Social Clause and as a result child labor be banned (without any guarantee that their parents could find jobs), but inhuman treatment of migrant farmworkers would not. Many of the developing nations that belong to the WTO complain that the previous Uruguay Round of trade talks (1986-94) only yielded benefits for industrialized countries. Mostly they are right. Northern countries have continued to protect their home markets while dumping surplus production on the South, undercutting local production and driving unemployment.

We need to point the finger at trade agreements such as the WTO and NAFTA, rather than at China. Let's not forget that NAFTA eliminated over 400,000 jobs in the U.S., and drove some 28,000 small businesses in Mexico out of business. The WTO and NAFTA are the dierct cause of unemployment and poor working conditions, not the tool to correct these problems! Instead of adding hollow social clauses we should block these inhuman treaties.

The time has come to step back from this mania for free trade at any cost and the selective bashing of some countries while turning a blind eye to others, assess the damage, and seek a new start. Trade bills and treaties designed to benefit the most powerful corporations at the expense of everyone else are wrong. Its time to reflect on the leadership of the American labor movement--as they support anti-labor Al Gore for President, who claims to support both 'free trade' and 'union solidarity--without any recognition of the contradictions between them.

The bottom line is that while China should have the same right as any nation to join the WTO, we should recognize that in fact the WTO is bad for people everywhere, whether they are Chinese, American, Mexican or Indian. It's not China joining the WTO that hurts America workers--it is the WTO itself.

* Anuradha Mittal is Policy Director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, has just published the book "America Needs Human Rights."