WASHINGTON-Amid an uproar of protest within an earshot of the White House against China’s human and religious rights record and its sale of nuclear technology to rogue states, President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin announced China will sign a global pact to phase out tariffs on telecom, computer and information technology products by the turn of the century.
Last year, the United States and other World Trade Organization members reached an International Technology Agreement that zeroes out telecom equipment tariffs for most countries by 2000. The ITA became effective in the United States July 1. China is not a party to the international telecom services pact struck earlier this year.
China, the world’s largest emerging market with a largely untapped multibillion dollar telecom infrastructure business, wants into the WTO to legitimize it as a mainstream global economic actor.
The White House said it would welcome China into the WTO, but said its support is contingent on China lifting trade barriers that keep telecom service providers and other industrial service sectors in control of the central government.
While Motorola Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. have made inroads into China’s telecom equipment market, Ameritech Corp. recently pulled out after two frustrating years of vying for cellular telephone service contracts. Officials from Motorola and Lucent as well as from AT&T Corp., Bell Atlantic Corp. and other high-tech companies, with either ties to China or to the Democratic Party, attended the state dinner for Zemin and his wife last Wednesday. The giant Asian nation of 1.2 billion people represents an enormous wireless business opportunity for the U.S. and other countries.
“President Jiang’s pledge to make firm, committed progress toward bringing China into the ITA, and therefore closer to accession to the World Trade Organization, should be commended,” said Matthew Flanigan, president of the Telecommunications Industry Association. TIA represents telecom equipment manufacturers.
By 2000, it is predicted that China will have 30 million wireless phone subscribers. That number is probably conservative, given the antiquated and missing telecom infrastructure in most of the country and the prospect that wireless technology will leapfrog wireline technology and serve as basic communications.
The U.S. decision of whether to usher China into the world community is complicated not only by China’s protectionism of telecom services, but also by documented ill treatment of pro-democracy dissidents by China, punctuated by the 1989 bloody massacre of Tiananmen Square protesters, China’s confirmed sale of nuclear raw materials to Iran and Pakistan and its alleged efforts to influence U.S. elections and foreign policy through illegal campaign contributions.
Clinton, who is comfortable with China’s pledge to cease exporting nuclear weapons technology, agreed as one of the summit accords to supply China with nuclear reactors. “Just as China can compete freely and fairly in America, so our goods and services should be able to compete freely and fairly in China,” said Clinton, with Zemin standing along side and listening through an interpreter.
“In the Information Age,” added Clinton, “the true wealth of nations lies in people’s ability to create, to communicate, to innovate.”
Zemin carefully drew the diplomatic line where U.S. input was welcome and unwelcome.
“Both sides are of the view that it is imperative to handle China-U.S. relations and properly address our differences in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and seeking common ground while putting aside differences,” said Zemin.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
