The US Senate on Tuesday afternoon passed a bill on permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China by a vote of 83-15 after a heated debate.

Once the legislation is signed into law by President Bill Clinton, the United States will terminate its practice of reviewing China's "most-favored-nation (MFN)" status on an annual basis according to the relevant articles of the 1974 Trade Act and establish permanent normal trade relations with China after the latter joins the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The establishment of permanent normal trade relations will help create a long-term stable environment for the economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States, serve the fundamental interests of their people and is of great importance to the healthy development of China-US relations.

On the other side, however, the Senate legislation kept the contents in the House bill that harm China's interests and interfere in China's internal affairs. The Chinese government has taken up the issue with the US government and expressed strong opposition to these contents.

The US House of Representatives adopted the PNTR bill on May 24 by a vote of 237-197. On September 5, the Senate began comprehensive debates on the bill and voting on the relevant amendments.

During the debates, most senators held that granting PNTR status to China conforms to the economic and security interests of the United States and will help promote the smooth development of US-China relations.

A few senators, however, in order to block the bill from passage, proposed more than 20 amendments trying to link trade with China with issues unrelated to trade. After repeated votes, the Senate overwhelmingly rejected these amendments.

When China and the United States established diplomatic ties in 1979, they signed an agreement on bilateral trade relations, which would grant MFN treatment to each other.But after the agreement went into effect in 1980, the US side, in accordance with the relevant articles of the 1974 Trade Act, insisted on reviewing annually whether or not to give MFN status to China.

This discriminatory practice on the part of the US side has for long constituted an impediment to the healthy and steady development of the economic and trade relations between the two countries. The Chinese side has always opposed this unilateral annual review and called for an early solution to the issue of MFN treatment.

In July 1998, President Clinton signed a tax reform act, formally changing the parlance of "MFN" into "normal trade relations". Last November, the two countries signed an agreement on China's entry into the World Trade Organization. In March this year, President Clinton submitted a legislation proposal to Congress, urging it to grant PNTR status to China.

Since then, President Clinton and senior administration officials repeatedly urged Congress to adopt the PNTR bill as early as possible. While many national economic organizations, major businesses in the industrial, commercial, financial and other sectors and far-sighted personages in various walks of life in the United States actively urged Congress to pass the bill, more and more Congressmen also gave clear-cut support to permanent normal trade relations with China.

Establishing permanent normal trade relations with China has become the mainstream aspiration in the United States.

(People’s Daily 09/20/2000)