WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to permanently normalize trade ties with China, capping years of negotiations with Beijing and intense lobbying by the Clinton administration, business and labor interests.

The measure granting permanent, normal trade relations passed by a lopsided 83-15 tally in the Senate, after winning approval in the House of Representatives at the end of a bruising battle in May. President Clinton hailed the vote Tuesday as a turning point in relations between the world’s richest and most populous nations.

“This landmark act will extend our economic prosperity at home while increasing the prospects for more openness in China,” he said.

The move is designed to open China’s mammoth market to U.S. businesses and pave the way for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. It ends a 20-year-old ritual of annually reviewing China’s trade status.

The bill is considered the most important U.S. trade legislation since passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. But it faced a long campaign of opposition from labor, human rights and conservative groups who wanted to retain the annual review of trade relations with China.

Critics argued that opening trade with China would reward a repressive communist state, undermine labor and environmental protections and cost jobs for U.S. workers. But Clinton said bringing China into the global trade regime will help make Beijing a more responsible and accountable member of the world community.

“Outside competition will speed the demise of China’s huge state industries and spur the enterprise of private sector involvement. They will diminish the role of government in people’s daily lives,” he said.

“It will strengthen those within China who fight for higher labor standards, a cleaner environment, for human rights and the rule of law. And we will find, I believe, that America has more influence in China with an outstretched hand than with a clenched fist.”

The White House and the business community lobbied hard for the bill, which guarantees Chinese goods lower-tariff access to the U.S. market. In return, China has agreed to open a wide range of industries — from agriculture to telecommunications — to international competition and investment.

“This is legislation that is good for America, that’s good for our working people in America,” said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, as voting began. “It will take a lot of vigilance to see that it is complied with, but it is the right thing to do.”
…
New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan said changing the U.S.-China paradigm is necessary, but may not be easy.
…
China must also grant Americans and others the right to set up distribution points within the country, open its financial and service sectors to international competitors, and allow outside participation in the development of its Internet and telecommunications sectors.
…
The issue has split both parties over the past year. Democrats, led by the president, strained their ties with key allies in the labor movement when they supported the measure; conservative Republicans broke with the party’s allies in the business community to oppose the bill.

Unions warn that the pact could cost hundreds of thousands of American workers their jobs as Chinese goods flood the U.S. market and companies move their factories to China to take advantage of lower wages.

“I believe that we will deeply regret this stampede to pass this legislation and the way in which we have taken all the human rights, religious freedom, right to organize, all of those concerns and we just put them in parenthesis, put them in brackets, as if they don’t exist,” said Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minnesota. Other opponents worried that the U.S. would be unable to influence Beijing over human rights concerns without a yearly vote on trade.

“Giving permanent normal trade relations to the government of China will destroy an important lever that we now have and we have had to influence Chinese behavior,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, argued. “We are tossing it aside.”

To counter some of those concerns, the legislation calls for setting up a congressional-executive commission to monitor human rights in China and creates a so-called surge mechanism to help American industries and workers hurt by an increase in Chinese imports.
…
The Senate beat back 19 amendments on labor, covering environmental concerns, human rights and weapons proliferation, during the two weeks it argued over the measure. Any amendment would have required the bill go back to the House, where opposition was stronger.
…
In addition to Clinton and most of the business community, the major-party presidential candidates — Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican standard-bearer — supported the measure.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush failed to win a commitment from Chinese President
Hu Jintao on Thursday on immediate steps to reduce China’s $202 billion trade surplus with the United States.

Hu did give Bush a general assurance he was working to make the Chinese currency more “flexible” but this fell far short of U.S. demands for a dramatic revaluation of the yuan as a way to make U.S. products more competitive in Chinese and global markets and reduce the trade imbalance.

The two leaders also failed to bridge differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Bush wants China to agree to tougher U.N. Security Council action, but his arguments did not persuade Hu.
…
On a long-awaited visit to the White House, Hu received the 21-gun salute and full military honors the Chinese had coveted as a sign of respect.

But in an embarrassing episode that marred the South Lawn ceremony and created a diplomatic stir, a Chinese woman on a press camera platform heckled Hu just as he began speaking.

“President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong,” she yelled, referring to the spiritual meditation movement that is banned in China.

She was led away by a Secret Service uniformed guard for questioning, and was later identified as Wang Wenyi, 47, a reporter for The Epoch Times, a New York-based newspaper that supports the Falun Gong.

‘NOT A GOOD THING’

Bush personally apologized to Hu for the incident. “I’m sorry this happened,” he told Hu, according to Dennis Wilder, Asia expert on the National Security Council.

The Secret Service planned to charge her with disorderly conduct and was weighing more serious federal charges that she intimidated or disrupted a foreign official.

U.S. officials were annoyed by the interruption.

“The hardliners on Hu’s team are going to ask, why did it take so long for us to pick her up. It is not a good thing,” said a U.S. official involved in Hu’s visit.

Hu’s visit drew hundreds of protesters near the White House gates, from yellow-clad Falun Gong disciples to Taiwanese nationalists waving green flags and Tibetan youth groups.

INTERVIEWER: Was it a good thing to allow China to become an open trading partner?

NEWT GINGRICH: Absolutely.
…