Bush Rebuffed by Lawmakers on China Stand

President Bush’s plan to renew most-favored-nation trading status for China appeared Friday to be heading for a high-profile veto battle, as Bush called leading members of Congress to the White House for a lobbying session where he received a nearly unanimous rebuff.

“I think the President got a dose of what the attitude is on the Hill regarding this issue,” Rep. E. Thomas Coleman (R-Mo.) said after the meeting. “It’s not maybe the one that he wanted to hear.”

The negative congressional reaction to trade benefits for China came even as the White House announced that China had agreed to attend in July a five-nation conference on limiting arms sales to the Middle East. Bush had proposed the conference in his call last month for a Middle East arms limitation agreement, and White House officials portrayed China’s decision to attend as proof that the Administration’s China policy is working.

“This is a positive step that will strengthen international non-proliferation efforts and indicates China’s resolve to contribute to efforts to attain stability in the Middle East,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

China’s agreement, conveyed in a letter to Bush from Chinese President Yang Shangkun, “also indicates the positive effect of staying engaged with China through MFN (most favored nation) and other means,” he added.

France has agreed to host the conference in Paris, and the British government has agreed to send a delegation. So far, of the five major arms-exporting nations, only the Soviet Union has not agreed to attend, although Administration officials expect the Soviets to be at the conference.

In addition, Fitzwater said, Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew plans to travel to Beijing later this month to discuss U.S. concerns about China’s involvement in the spread of nuclear weapons technology. Bartholomew had planned to make the trip earlier in the year but delayed it for personal reasons.

The announcement of China’s willingness to attend the conference, however, seemed to do little to change minds in Congress, in part because the Chinese did nothing other than agree to be there.

Bush announced last month that he wanted to continue China’s current most-favored-nation status, which allows the country to export goods to the United States without facing special tariffs or quotas.

Under current law, Congress may overturn the President’s decision if it acts by early September. Congress also could impose conditions on the trade benefits by passing a new law. In either case, Bush could veto what Congress does. The key question then is whether Bush’s opponents can muster the two-thirds vote needed in both houses of Congress to overturn a veto.

Vote counters on both sides believe that the House probably would overturn a veto and that the outcome in the Senate is too close to call. Because of congressional recess plans, the battle is likely to be fought in July.

The Administration’s position on most-favored-nation status has hardened over the last several weeks. Last month, in a speech at Yale University defending his China policy, Bush appeared to leave some room for compromise, saying he would oppose attaching “sweeping conditions” to a most-favored-nation proposal. Now, however, Administration officials say they will oppose any conditions.

“I think conditionality is a terrible idea, and I think the President does too,” one senior policy-maker said. “He thinks it’s the wrong way to go.”

“Conditionality becomes a tool in the hands of those hard-liners who would like to stop the process of the U.S. having an influence in China,” the official added. If one set of conditions is adopted this year, “then Congress would be back for certain next year with more conditionality,” he said.

Moreover, the official argued, Bush believes that most-favored-nation status is in Washington’s interests, and he does not want to place conditions on it “because we can’t count on the Chinese.”

“It’s not China’s behavior that should condition MFN,” he said.

However, Bush’s hard-line position has virtually no support on Capitol Hill, the 11 members of Congress told the President when they met with him Friday.

“The issue in Congress is no longer between conditions and no conditions, but between manageable conditions and bad conditions,” said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), a key Bush supporter on the issue. With the White House digging in, a veto confrontation is “extremely likely,” he said.

Congress faces several choices in dealing with the most-favored-nation issue.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) has proposed granting the liberal trade status to China only if the Chinese meet a series of conditions involving human rights and arms exports that Beijing is unlikely to comply with.

By contrast, Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), who heads the House panel that oversees policy toward China, has proposed softer conditions that would require Bush to certify, after a year, that China has made some progress toward improved human rights standards.

A veto fight would set the stage for another battle over China policy, one of the few issues on which Bush has been politically vulnerable over the last year. Polls indicate that Bush’s pro-China stand sits badly with both liberals and conservatives, with many Americans arguing that the President is failing to take a tough enough stand on China’s widespread human rights violations.

Some members of Congress believe that Bush may be deliberately courting a veto in order to show the Chinese that he was willing to stand up to Congress on their behalf, even if he loses.

Others, however, suggest that the current hard line is simply a negotiating position.

“If and when it becomes clear to the President and to his associates that there are sufficient votes in the House and Senate to override a veto . . . it may be possible at that point to work something out,” Solarz said.

Times staff writer Jim Mann contributed to this report.