ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610290009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
When Harry Wu was arrested as a "counter-revolutionary" in 1960, Chinese security officers took him to a police station where the telephone barely worked.
When guards at a remote customs outpost arrested the political dissident as he tried to slip into China last year, they were carrying Motorola cellular phones.
"This is progress, right?" Wu says wryly.
Supporters of increased trade with China argue that economic growth in the world's most populous nation will eventually produce political reforms. They argue that capitalism naturally brings more power to individuals and thus weakens control by the government.
Harry Wu doesn't buy that argument.
He fears the money now flowing into China is actually propping up its communist dictatorship. Economic growth will make China stronger and make it a bigger threat, he argues.
"You cannot deny that an economic giant is also a political and military giant," he says.
The idea that trade will produce political reforms in authoritarian governments is called "constructive engagement." It's a buzzword that was hotly debated during apartheid in South Africa. In the end, apartheid opponents won trade sanctions that helped force the white government to open the political system to the black majority.
Wu says constructive engagement with China is really about making money from cheap labor.
"If I am a billionaire," he says, "I want to do business in China. There's no strikes. No unions. No health insurance." If workers object to conditions, he says, the government is willing to move in and "maintain order."
Wu says there's "no fundamental difference" between the China policies of Republican President George Bush and his Democratic successor, Bill Clinton.
Wu wants the United States and other nations to do more to prevent the importation of goods made by prison labor, revoke China's "most-favored-nation" trade status and loudly condemn China for selling arms and nuclear technology to Syria, Iran and Pakistan.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB