Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, just 2 days ago, the Washington Times carried a fine article by our former colleague, Rudy Boschwitz, and Robert Paarlberg, who is a professor of political science at Wellesley College, entitled ``China Trade Boosts Farmers,'' subtitled, ``Senate should back PNTR.'' Farm state legislators should be particularly sensitive to the fact that China's joining the WTO will be a pre-emptive strike benefiting American farmers. Membership in the WTO will preclude China from later raising trade barriers on agricultural products. It is a very thoughtful, factual, and persuasive article. In view of the serendipitous visit to this Chamber by our former colleague, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, seeing no Senator seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, before our beloved chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico, leaves, may I thank him for his remarks. All anyone need say is what he has said. I would just supplement them with one comment to reinforce what he has said. We, the Finance Committee, held a long series of hearings on the bill. It happens, in the last paragraph of the last witness, the Honorable Ira Shapiro, who has been previously our chief negotiator for Japan and Canada at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said thus: This vote is one of an historic handful of congressional votes since the end of World War II. Nothing that Members of Congress do this year or any other year could be more important. He was not simply speaking of trade and the standard of living. He was talking about the large geopolitical fact of do we include one- fifth of mankind in the world's system we wish to create, we have created, and are creating, or do we say, no, you are out, and invite hostility that could spoil the next half century? We have not. Today we voted by a two-thirds majority to go forward. I thank the Senator for his vote and his leadership throughout. It is a cheering experience in what has not been always a cheering year.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, if I might respond, there is an extraordinary symmetry to what we are doing today. Toward the end of the Second World War, when China was our ally, we gathered at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire and drew up the plans for what became the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and an International Trade Organization to establish common rules for trade that would be abided by, a rule of law that could be adjudicated and settled. China was a full participant at the Bretton Woods Conference. China joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade after the International Trade Organization, sir, was defeated in the Senate Finance Committee. They withdrew after the Chinese Red Army overran the mainland. But now the People's Republic has asked to come back and join the revived International Trade Organization, now the World Trade Organization, which has rules that are to be abided by, and nondiscrimination is the first rule. That is why this measure is so important because we could not be in the WTO with China if we had a provision that we must renew normal trade relations status once a year. No, but each of us must abide by the rules. It is now up to the vigilance of our Department of Commerce, the Trade Representative, American business, and labor unions to see to it that the rules are abided by. You can't hope for more. Let us go forward in confidence and determination, as the Senator described. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, might I inquire, I understand there are to be 2 minutes of debate between each of the specified votes.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4123

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I very much support that view, and I think our indefatigable chairman might also agree.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. If I might say, these amendments get 18 votes, 22 votes; we now have a pattern. The Senate made its decision about this legislation midday. The sooner we are in the aftermath, the better relations will be, and the Senate can go on to other business.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly to the important issues my friend, the Senator from North Carolina, has raised and to suggest that we have the necessary international agreements already in place to address the more fundamental issues with which he is concerned, as is my friend from Minnesota. It happens I have spent a fair amount of my early years as a student of the International Labor Organization which was created as part of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1918. Samuel Gompers of the AFL-CIO was chairman of the commission in Paris that put it together. A very major matter in the mind of President Wilson as he campaigned for the treaty, he talked about the ILO as much as any other thing. The first international labor conference met here in Washington, just down Constitution Avenue at the building of the Organization of American States. It was a dramatic time. President Wilson had been struck down by a stroke. The Congress, the Senate was tied up with the question of ratifying the treaty. But the treaty provided that this meeting should take place in Washington, and it did. It did so with great success. International labor standards were set forth, and China was one of the nations present at the international labor conference. The person who provided most of the facilities for it was the young Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a man named Franklin D. Roosevelt, who later became involved. One of the first things he did when he became President was move to join the ILO. Now, over the years the United States has been an active member of the ILO. We had the Secretary General at one point, Mr. Morris, a former Under Secretary of Labor. We have not ratified many conventions. I have come to the floor at least four times in the last 24 years and moved a convention. Once it was done by our revered Claiborne Pell, who then turned the matter over to me. We think of there being eight core conventions. The simple fact is that the United States has only ratified one of them, in a membership that goes back to 1934. However, it is not necessarily the case that if you have ratified a lot of conventions, you are very much in compliance with the principles there involved. I once suggested, not entirely facetiously, that there was an inverse relationship between the number of ILO labor conventions that had been signed by a country and the actual condition of labor relations in that country. But no matter. In 1998, at the 86th session of the International Labor Organization, the oldest international organization in the world of this nature--the postal union is the oldest--adopted an ILO declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and its followup. I will read this provision: The international labor conference declares that all members, even if they have not ratified the conventions in question, have an obligation, arising from the very fact of membership in the organization, to respect, to promote, and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with the Constitution, the principles concerning the fundamental rights which are the subject of those conventions; namely:(a), freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right of collective bargaining;(b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor;(c) the effective abolition of child labor; and (d) the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. These are international obligations. They obligate the People's Republic of China, and they obligate the United States. The provision for bringing the issues to the International Labor Conference which meets every year in June in Geneva are well established. I find it very curious, almost at times sinister, that just at the point the ILO has said these are the world's standards, international standards, binding legal commitments, and here we are to do something with them, suddenly people are saying, no, these matters should be dealt with in the World Trade Organization, which can't deal with them. It is interesting that the WTO now occupies the original buildings on Lake Leman in Geneva of the ILO. But why not stay with the ILO and work with this history and hold China to its commitment as China can hold us? It is something we have believed in and worked with from 1918 on. The issue of trade and its effect on the internal behavior of government is an elusive one. But, if I may say, I was in China during the regime of Mao Zedong. I stood there in Tiananmen Square and looked up at these two enormous flagpoles. On one pole were two 19th century German gentlemen, Mr. Marx and Mr. Engels. What they were doing in the center of the Middle Kingdom, I don't know. Over on the next pole was the rather Mongol-looking Stalin, and Mao. That is gone. At one of the entrances to the Forbidden City there is a sort of smallish portrait of Mao. That is all. That world is behind us. The world is looking forward from the 1960s. The Cultural Revolution, which Mao declared because there had always been revolutions, may have resulted--I don't think anybody knows, and I don't think we will ever know--in somewhere between 20 million and 40 million persons murdered, starved, dead. It is beyond our reach of our imagination. It happened. That doesn't happen anymore. Do disagreeable things happen? Do illegal things happen? Do bad things happen? Yes. But a certain sense of proportion, I thought, that was very much in evidence in testimony that our revered chairman will perhaps recall, I am sure he will. Before the Finance Committee on March 23 of this year, Professor Merle Goldman, who is at the Fairbank Center at Harvard University--a name for a great Chinese scholar and very fine group of people--said: . . . the linkage of economic sanctions to human rights is counter-productive. As Wang Juntao [a Tiananmen Square coordinator who was sentenced to 13 years of prison] says, it arouses the antagonism of ordinary Chinese people toward the U.S. and fuels increasing nationalism in China, which ultimately hurts the cause of human rights in China. Even when the threat of economic sanctions in the past led to China's release of a small number of famous political prisoners, it did not in anyway [sic] change or end the Chinese government's abuse of human rights. Nevertheless, China's views on human rights have been changing ever so slowly in the post Mao Zedong era primarily because of China's move to the market and participation in the international community. During the Mao era (1949-1976) when China was isolated from the rest of the world, China's government did not care about human rights and international pressure. But as China opened up to the outside world politically as well as economically during the Deng Xiaoping period (1978-1997) and during that of his successor Jiang Zemin (1989- ), China began to care about how it was viewed. It wants to be considered a respected, responsible member of the world community. . . . Human rights abuses continue and in fact, increased in 1999, but compared with the Mao era when millions were imprisoned and silenced, the numbers in the post-Mao era are in the thousands. That was from Professor Merle Goldman. I say in conclusion of these small remarks that the head of the Chinese Government, Jiang Zemin, last week was in New York City talking to a luncheon of business executives. That is a world that would have been inconceivable when I visited George Bush in Peking, as it then was in 1975. A quarter century has gone by, and there is the President of China in a blue suit and a white shirt with the correct tie at the Waldorf Astoria or somewhere talking to a luncheon of businessmen interested in trade and development and such matters. That is another world. Let's not put that in jeopardy by losing this extraordinary important trading agreement. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Since the 1930s, section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and the Smoot-Hawley tariff, has made it illegal to send prison labor products to this country. If it still continues to be done, doesn't that problem involve our vigilance? Shouldn't we focus our attention on our own Customs Service, the law is ours to be enforced.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Yes, Mr. President. I believe the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4131

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4132

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, a goodly number of Senators know Adam Clymer of The New York Times as a cheerful, even avuncular, reporter affably working the corridors here in the Capitol carefully chronicling our not always cheerful proceedings. He was prominent in the pages of the Times, but was not much in evidence in the electronic media. Alas, all that changed in an instant last week. This paragon of journalistic self-effacement had celebrity thrust upon him by an open microphone. With characteristic detachment, he related this not altogether welcome experience in an article, ``My Media Moment,'' which appeared in this Sunday's Times. May an admirer and friend wish that it last more than the allotted fifteen minutes. I ask that the article be printed in the Congressional Record. The article follows: [From the New York Times, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2000] A Bush-League Aside Vaults An Onlooker Into the Campaign's Glare (By Adam Clymer) I have been writing newspaper articles for four decades. Broadcasting has never tempted me, except for bit parts on such sober outlets as C-SPAN and WQXR-FM. So what was I doing with an invitation to appear on the ``Late Show With David Letterman''? And seriously thinking about doing it, before saying, no thanks? I am used to being around big news. Checking out the posters in Red Square when Nikita S. Khrushchev was ousted. Sitting with Lyndon B. Johnson (and his dogs) when he congratulated Mike Mansfield on the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Standing on the White House lawn when Richard M. Nixon quit. Elections, trials, Supreme Court confirmations. But being the story is different from observing it. And last week, I seemed to be the story. On Monday, Gov. George W. Bush spotted me at a rally in Naperville, Ill. Not realizing the microphones were working, he told his running mate, Dick Cheney, that I was a ``major- league [expletive].'' This was hardly the first time I have been attacked, though it was the first time the attack accorded me ``major league'' status. It is true that I never made the Nixon enemies list; a deputy press secretary to whom I complained said all that proved was that he had nothing to do with compiling it. But after Vietnamese and Chinese students beat me up in Moscow to cap a demonstration against the United States bombing of Vietnam, the Soviet government expelled me as a ``hooligan.'' A deputy of Sheriff Jim Clark in Selma, Ala., once slugged me (because of an embarrassing article Jack Nelson of The Los Angeles Times had written; I hardly resemble Mr. Nelson, but maybe all newspaper reporters look alike to racists). The Washington Times has called me unpatriotic, and some people at The Weekly Standard have attacked me in print, too. But those attacks all came from the ideological fringes, and nobody took them seriously. Maybe Mr. Bush is entitled to more credence. After all, I sometimes vote for his party's candidates, as I sometimes vote for Democrats. He cares about education and wants his party to attract African-Americans and Hispanics. Sure, he is not as centrist as he tries to portray himself, but then what politician is? (The pre- nomination Joseph I. Lieberman, maybe.) In any case, Mr. Bush is no right-wing nut, so shrugging his remark off as the sound of an extremist was hardly the proper response. Initially, there was only a moment to think of a response when a pack of reporters descended. One smart-aleck answer occurred to me. Since we were not too far from Wrigley Field, I thought of saying something like, ``At least I didn't trade Sammy Sosa,'' a riposte that would have dealt with Mr. Bush's own major-league experience as boss of the Texas Rangers. But I rejected that and said simply, ``I was disappointed with the governor's language.'' When reporters asked what he had against me, I suggested they ask him. He was not saying anything, except, ``I regret that a private comment I made to the vice-presidential candidate made it to the public airwaves.'' After that, I tried to fade into the background, which is how newspaper reporters try to work, as much as you can around a presidential campaign that has dozens of photographers and television cameramen following every move. I was in Illinois to cover Mr. Cheney, and when we walked to an El entrance where he would be photographed taking a train, the lenses were on me, not him. Suddenly my voice mail at the office was full. It was Labor Day, and I seemed to be the news flavor of the day. Radio stations in Phoenix and Scotland, Seattle and Australia, the BBC and a sports network said they needed me to fulfill their commitments to informing their listeners and viewers. Among those calling were ``Good Morning America,'' CBS's ``Early Show'' and CNN's ``Larry King Live.'' I had plenty of time to listen to the messages because Mr. Cheney, anxious to avoid the storm Mr. Bush had stirred up, did not want to talk on the record to the reporters traveling with him. So I could not ask the question I had traveled to ask, about why he gave only 1 percent of his income to charity. Almost all the phone calls were either invitations to speak, which I ducked, or encouraging, even envious, messages from friends. ``Can I have your autograph?'' asked one New York Times Colleague. ``We're so proud of you,'' said a Democratic friend in Austin, Tex. Republican friends chimed in, too, to insist that their party was no monolith on the subject of Adam Clymer. But e-mail was a different matter. A right-wing Web site posted my e-mail address and urged its army to charge, so about 300 hostile messages flooded in and choked the system. The next day I went back out with Mr. Cheney, and he discussed and defended his contributions. On a flight to Allentown, PA., he said he should be given credit not just for direct donations but also for corporate matching grants and speaking without charge to nonprofit groups. Television viewers might have expected glares, and at least some reference to the events they were being shown over and over, which includes his loyal agreement with Mr. Bush. Instead I asked questions, some of which he seemed to dislike, and he answered them as he chose. Not buddy-buddy, but strictly professional. The Cheney entourage caught up with Mr. Bush, so his vice- presidential candidate could introduce him in Allentown, Bethlehem and Scranton. Every time we stopped near a television set, some cable channel was showing the clip of Mr. Bush muttering about me to Mr. Cheney and then pondering its impact on his campaign and the future of Western civilization. By Wednesday the e-mail flood was drying up, although I was asked to endorse a T-shirt memorializing his comment, and someone else sent a message saying that an Internet site for my fans was being created. I was back in the office, and colleagues asked if Mr. Bush had apologized to me. I had not heard from him, or from his aides, who were busy telling reporters I had been mean to him when I reported in April that ``Texas has had one of the nation's worst public health records for decades,'' and that Mr. Bush had not made much of an effort to fix things. I was actually proud of that article--which got immensely renewed readership last week as people tried to figure out what exactly was bugging the governor. But if Mr. Bush did not like it, hey, it's free country. After all, if newspaper reporters wanted to be loved by their customers, we could drive Good Humor trucks. Newspapers reporters aren't immune from talking into an open mike either. About 18 months ago, I was editing an article describing how hard Mr. Bush was working to study national issues. With feeble gallows humor, I suggested that perhaps he needed the tutorials more than others. But while my comparable slurs of President Clinton, to cite one prominent example, stayed private, a spectacular typesetting blunder got my wise-crack printed. Through an Editors' Note, the Times apologized, sort of. Now maybe Vice President Al Gore, whose aides seem delighted by this business, could do me a favor and make some comparable stumble. Then I could get back to covering the campaign instead of being part of it.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. So states the balance of payments, sir. They come in under our tariffs, which are already nonexistent. We can't get in under theirs. Under this agreement, they have agreed to bring them down to a reasonably low level and to wipe them out in some cases where they have decided they need American technology and business. They are not doing us any favors.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. No.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It is.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. We do.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It is the best hope of mankind at this moment, sir, because the age of nuclear warfare is not over. If we think we have proliferation today, wait until we see. We won't, but if we were to announce that we want the Chinese on hold, I cannot imagine what the next 30 years would be like.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Internal passports.