Labor, Environmentalists Score China Deal

April 13, 2000

Thousands of union members turned out on the West Front of the Capitol Wednesday to denounce the Clinton Administration’s efforts to get permanent normal trade relations for China through Congress. Meanwhile, the Sierra Club voiced its opposition to the China pact, joining the AFL-CIO which is leading the union opposition.

"Our growing trade relationship with China has not led to reform, despite what backers of permanent free trade status claim," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "China continues to brutally suppress freedom of religion, expression and association, and the price of free speech and freedom of religion in China is extremely high: imprisonment, re-education in forced labor camps and even death."

In its Wednesday edition, THE WASHINGTON POST published an article from Beijing that the Internet posting of an essay by one of China’s most prominent academics calling for political reform prompted the Chinese government to undertake an old-fashioned purge of officials believed to support Western liberal values and privatization.

"In what looks like a throwback to the political struggles of several decades ago, two attacks have been published against the officials, accusing them, without naming them, of `Westernization’ and failure to follow Marxist tenets," the article said. The purge "seems unusual in the China of 2000."

Sweeney also commended the Sierra Club for its opposition. "It’s good news for working families that the Sierra Club is joining the campaign," he said. "We will be successful together because concerns about the impact of a corporate-driven global economy on our people and our planet are inseparable."

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said, "We are once again confronted by a trade agreement that fails to protect workers, their families and the environment. The United States must retain the leverage afforded by annual review of our commercial relationship with Cina in order to ensure fair trade, clean trade and green trade," a reference to the annual renewal of most favored nation status for China Congress has given for several years.