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Clinton Expected to Sign PNTR Bill Next Week
US President Bill Clinton is expected next week to sign into law a bill to grant China permanent normal trade relations, achieving one of his last foreign-policy goals, administration officials said Monday.
The legislation, overwhelmingly approved by the US Senate on Sept. 19 and the House in May, will end a 20-year-old annual ritual of reviewing China's trade status and guarantees Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to the US market as products from nearly every other nation.
In exchange for the rights, China agreed to open a wide range of markets from agriculture to telecommunications under the terms of a landmark agreement setting the stage for Beijing to join the World Trade Organization later this year.
"The president would be expected to sign the bill next week," a White House spokeswoman said.
Granting permanent normal trade relations to China marks a turning point in relations between the world's richest nation and its most populous one. Comparisons have been drawn to President Richard Nixon's milestone 1972 visit to China and the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979.
The legislation will give US businesses unprecedented access to the vast Chinese market, potentially the world's largest with 1.3 billion consumers.
The White House said China's accession to the WTO would also benefit US national security as Beijing joined the global trading system and opened its markets and society to the West.
The China bill was Clinton's biggest trade-policy victory since the passage in 1993 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which tore down trade barriers separating the United States, Mexico and Canada.
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