Mike Levin: “I am opposed to the Solomon resolution. I am deeply concerned about our relationships with China. They need more…”

“I am opposed to the Solomon resolution. I am deeply concerned about our relationships with China. They need more attention, not less. This is true of trade relations, of human rights, of Tibet, of proliferation issues. And I think the question really is whether denial of MFN or NTR will accomplish that goal in any of these areas, and I think the answer is no, it will not work. I want to spend my few minutes talking mostly about trade, but I do not view that any more importantly than I do human rights issues--I have worked on them over the years, or Tibet, our family has been deeply involved in that issue, or proliferation issues. Let me focus for a minute on trade. We have a skyrocketing deficit with China, and one can explain it in various ways. In some respects it is not as large as it seems if we look at the whole region. But look, the point is, denial of MFN will not settle the problem of the trade deficit. China is a large, burgeoning, controlled economy. They have a very different system than we do. They have State subsidization. They have control of wages and working conditions. And it raises more dramatically than any other country how this country of ours, this beloved Nation with our free market, will relate to nations that control their economies, control their wages, subsidize their industries and the like. And what is true of China is true of other nations, especially in what was once called the Third World.”