38 



In todays Washington Post, there is a lead editorial that says, 

 "How to Help Russia." Russia has no low-priced exports and no 

 market for our products, but China does. Why are we having one 

 set of rules — because this has pretty well been the administration's 

 policy toward Russia and the former countries of the Soviet 

 Union — a single condition ought to be democratic self-government. 

 We don't require that of China. We don't even come close to requir- 

 ing that of China. 



I think that is the height of hypocrisy and I hope that the admin- 

 istration will know very soon how much we're concerned about 

 them getting MFN treatment. I am chairman of the Subcommittee 

 on Specialty Crops and National Resources. The subcommittee with 

 jurisdiction over the honey program. My honey producers say that 

 we are being flooded with Chinese honey and the import duty on 

 our honey going into China is 60 percent. 



Maybe the American psyche is more business-oriented than I 

 thought. If they got a low-priced export and a market for our prod- 

 ucts, we don't really care about whether they have democratic self- 

 government. But on poor places like Russia that don't, by God, we 

 are real patriots. I hope you will do what you can to check into 

 these things. 



Ambassador Kantor. Let me address that on the honey first. 

 That is a serious problem. In 1990 I guess about 25 million pounds 

 of honey came in and then it went way up over the last 2 years 

 up to about 60 million. But you raise a much larger and critical 

 issue about the Chinese. The Chinese want GATT accession, MFN 

 status, yet we are concerned about transshipments, mislabeling, 

 nuclear proliferation, use of prison labor, other human rights viola- 

 tions, shipments to the Middle East, and that is just the beginning. 



Mr. Rose. That's right. 



Ambassador Kantor. This administration is working on a coordi- 

 nated policy toward the Chinese which we hope is going to be effec- 

 tive, and not just in trade. As you know, we suffer a $19 billion 

 trade deficit with the Chinese today, which is unacceptable, frank- 

 ly, given the fact that they have not given us the market access 

 they agreed to give us, yet we have opened our markets quite wide 

 to Chinese products. 



So we need to look at it as a seamless web and not just one 

 area — whether it is trade or nuclear proliferation. This administra- 

 tion is going to try to look at it as a total picture, as I think you 

 are suggesting. I agree with you. 



Mr. Rose. I am also suggesting that there is a hypocrisy here 

 when we insist on democratic institutions and self-government as 

 a condition to our help for Russia and don't require anything close 

 to that for doing business-as-usual with China. I think the hypoc- 

 risy is just screaming at us. And that is what the hard liners in 

 the Russian Parliament have said to me at NATO parliamentary 

 meetings. 



They say, "Why is America pressing us so hard to set up demo- 

 cratic self-government and you don't do a thing about pressuring 

 the Chinese in the same way?" 



Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 



