SACRAMENTO, CA - It's rare for any legislative body to reach unanimous agreement on a contentious issue, especially one involving the potential spurning of billions of dollars in lucrative international commerce. Yet that's exactly what the California State Senate achieved last Friday when it voted unanimously to support a resolution urging Congress to oppose Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status for Communist China.

Cynics may view the State Senate's vote as simple grandstanding by politicians who don't have to take any real heat for the ultimate decision on MFN. Such a view, however, is itself too simplistic.

Consider that in 1996 California exported $2 billion in goods to Communist China. This total represented a 39% increase over 1995 and ranked China 16th on the state's trade list.

Yet, despite this volume of trade, the State Senate decided to put principle above mammon. For example, the evidence is overwhelming that Communist China is one of the most repressive regimes on the face of the earth. California Congressman Chris Cox reports that "Some 6 to 8 million people are currently captive in the notorious Laogai slave labor camps." The BBC has documented the systematic killings of infant girls at Chinese orphanages. Also, Beijing's communist rulers have been so successful in killing, imprisoning, and exiling their democratic opponents that the U.S. State Department earlier this year admitted that all public dissent has been silenced.

Communist China's foreign policy actions have also caused grave concern. The Chinese have sold nuclear materials to Iran, chemical weapons components to Iraq, and lobbed missiles close to Taiwan. Also, top officials of a company sponsored by the Chinese army have been indicted in a plot to smuggle 2000 AK-47 assault weapons into San Francisco for sale to U.S. street gangs.

Especially troubling to California's state senators has been the continuing persecution of religious believers by the Communist Chinese government. Among the persecutions meted out by Beijing: destruction of thousands of Bhuddist and Christian shrines and churches; torture of priests, missionaries, and believers; the imprisonment of Roman Catholic bishops, and the labeling of Christians as "a principal threat to political stability." As Nina Shea of Freedom House has noted, Communist China is "the Evil Empire redux." State Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside), who authored the anti-MFN resolution, commented that the Senate's unanimous vote "sends a very resilient message to the United States Congress -- as well as to China -- that religious persecution of any kind is unacceptable if China intends to continue a healthy trading relationship with California and
the rest of the United States."

Those supporting continued MFN status for Communist China have argued that good trade relations with Beijing are so important to America's economy that we should overlook whatever moral concerns we have with the behavior of Beijing's communist dictators. Given California's sizeable stake in U.S.-China trade, the unanimous anti-MFN vote by the California State Senate has made it much more difficult to use that argument in any credible fashion.

- Lance Izumi