GOP Split Over China Trade Bill

WASHINGTON —  Republican lawmakers from Orange County long have made a name for themselves in Congress as fervid critics of communism in general and Chinese Communists in particular. And so it followed in years past that Reps. Christopher Cox of Newport Beach, Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Ed Royce of Fullerton opposed granting normal trade ties to Beijing.

But as a showdown House vote looms later this month on a major new China trade bill, the threesome is all over the map. Rohrabacher opposes the measure, Royce supports it and Cox is undeclared.

Their diverging positions reflect the intense pressures facing Republicans from districts throughout the country as party leaders and business lobbyists mount an all-out drive in favor of the bid to grant China permanent status as a full trading partner. It is one of the few issues that unites the GOP leadership with President Clinton.

Democrats Expected to Oppose Bill

So far, the political spotlight leading up to the vote has fallen almost entirely on divisions among Democrats. Under heavy lobbying from unions opposed to the trade deal, most of the 211 Democrats are expected to vote against the president’s position.

Less noticed but no less real are divisions among Republicans weighing their support for expanding market opportunities for U.S. business with their abhorrence for the Chinese regime. One Republican, Rep. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, even spoke against the trade bill last month at a Teamsters rally on Capitol Hill.

China’s trade status with the United States is reviewed annually, and last year 71 House Republicans voted to deny Beijing full privileges. That is nearly a third of the GOP’s 222 House members. This year, every one of those 71 lawmakers who changes position--like Royce and perhaps Cox--represents a crucial and potentially decisive counterweight to the strong Democratic opposition as both sides in the debate seek to cobble together a slim majority.

The GOP split is not lost on Democrats. At a meeting last week of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Gerald D. Kleczka (D-Wis.) lashed out at the Republican committee chairman for noting that the House’s two top Democrats oppose the China trade bill.

“How many Republicans are you aware of who are not supporting this proposal . . . ?” Kleczka asked the chairman, Rep. Bill Archer of Texas. “Well, the fact is there’s probably 50 to 75 Republicans [opposed].”

The hearing’s first witness was, in fact, a Republican who opposes the China trade bill. Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia laid out a blistering critique of China’s human rights abuses.

Wolf recounted what he had seen from his own extensive travels in China and heard from experts and dissidents: Chinese jails filled with prisoners of political and religious conscience, Tibetan monasteries under siege, the persistence of slave labor camps, and continued government policies of promoting forced abortions and sterilizations for population control.

Such arguments make many Republicans squirm, reminding them that their party has long defined itself as the defender of freedom and opponent of communism around the world.

Indeed, Republicans still relish the role former President Reagan played in America’s crusade to topple the Iron Curtain. Within the last month, many have accused Clinton of coddling Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba in connection with the Elian Gonzalez controversy. And a substantial number of Republicans remain deeply concerned about the military threat communist China poses to Taiwan and to the United States.

Even so, most Republicans are rallying behind their leaders on the China trade issue.

“The Republican Party is the party of free trade,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), chairman of the House Rules Committee. “The natural party position is yes” on the bill.

On Saturday, Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist used the GOP’s weekly radio address to urge the measure’s passage, saying it is needed to ensure that U.S. businesses gain opportunities in “the world’s biggest and most important emerging market.”

In the view of GOP supporters, voting for China trade is not incompatible with opposition to Chinese communism. The first, they contend, will lead eventually to the fall of the second.

That is the scenario Royce has embraced. Royce, who announced his support for the bill last week, depicts himself as a free-trader with a conscience. He notes that he backed legislation to promote democracy on mainland China through U.S.-sponsored radio broadcasts.

Royce said that he was persuaded to support the China trade bill after traveling to Asia in January and meeting with democracy activists in Hong Kong who favor the deal. “This vote runs completely in our direction. You know, we’re not giving up anything. And we are gaining significant trade benefits.”

Rohrabacher Calls Bill a China Giveaway

Rohrabacher, proud to call himself an “old-line anti-communist,” criticizes the trade bill as a giveaway to a few American billionaires and to the Beijing regime. He led the floor fight last July against annual approval of normal trade ties with China. And he sees no reason to change his mind.

Calling Chinese leaders as trustworthy as Al Capone, Rohrabacher said: “Why do you put the biggest gangster in town on the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce?” He added: “The president can call communist China ‘our strategic partner’ until his face turns blue, but it won’t make them any less red.”

For Cox, the issue is more complicated. Though he made a name for himself last year by leading an investigation that cataloged U.S. national security losses through Chinese espionage, he also has a hand in the House leadership as chairman of the party’s policy committee. It would be especially hard for him to vote against what House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) calls the year’s most important bill.

Yet he remains one of a couple dozen or so GOP lawmakers who are torn over human rights and national security issues and whose votes are still in play.

Cox, asserting that he is a free-trade advocate, said he wants to pursue legislation to continue regular oversight of China’s human rights record. Voting only on China trade, he said, would be “throwing the human-rights baby out with the bathwater.”

Cox cautioned against predicting how he will vote based on his past opposition to granting China normal trade ties. “That’s always been a protest vote. This is a real one.”