With President Clinton gearing up for a trip to China next month, Congress is set to highlight the many shortcomings in U.S. policy toward Beijing. Republicans, in particular, have been stirred to action by a series of stories in the New York Times alleging that two American companies may have provided illegal assistance to China's ballistic-missile program, and that even after this was known, one of the companies, Loral Space and Communications, was given White House approval to export similar technology to China. Loral's chairman happens to have contributed more money to the Democratic National Committee last year than any other single donor. Did this factor into the White House decision? That's the key question to be answered in the coming weeks.
In the House, hearings on the transfer of technology are likely to be held in a number of committees in the weeks ahead, while this week Sen. Thad Cochran's subcommittee on international security and proliferation is scheduled to probe the national-security implications of the administration's liberalization of export controls.
Most significant, the Loral controversy has sparked the interest of House speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate majority leader Trent Lott, neither of whom has a record of expressing skepticism about Clinton policy toward Beijing. On May 8, the two top Republicans sent the president a letter expressing concern about the news reports and asked for greater cooperation with the congressional committees investigating the matter. Lott is sufficiently agitated that he followed up on May 13 with the abrupt announcement that he's rethinking his past support for renewal of China's most-favored-nation trading status.
Congress will have to act before July 2 if it's going to do anything about MFN, but in the meantime Lott has lent his support to an effort by Sen. Tim Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican, to stiffen the administration's China policy. The effort got off to a good start May 14 when the Senate approved on voice vote a bill to help prevent Chinese goods made with slave labor from entering the United States, along with a bill requiring cabinet agencies to publish a list of companies owned by the Chinese military that operate on American soil.
Hutchinson wants the Senate to pass the rest of the legislation approved by the House last November, which includes a bill expanding Radio Free Asia broadcasts in China and another bill that would block Chinese officials guilty of religious discrimination from entering this country. Hutchinson says if these bills aren't passed out of committee, he's prepared to attach them as amendments to every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate floor.
All in all, it should be an interesting walk-up to the president's late- June summit in Beijing.