From: xiong@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Bo Xiong)
Subject: [News] Republican Platform Adopts Bush's China Policy Amid Dissension
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 07:48:38 GMT

The following is carried in August 16's CND-US:

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3. Republican Platform Adopts Bush's China Policy Amid Dissension ....... 47
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From: A CND Reader
Source: AP, August 13, 1992

Republican platform writers approved a feisty, conservative document
Thursday after an impassioned debate over China policy and a last-minute,
unsuccessful attempt to mollify supporters of legalized abortion.

Allies of conservative presidential challenger Patrick Buchanan tried to add
an amendment that would have put the party at odds with Bush's decision to
grant most-favored-nation trade status to China.

The proposed amendment said the party would "deny preferential trade status
to communist governments that murder and repress their own people unless
progress is made in addressing such deprivation of liberty."  "I don't think
we should offer MFN to any country that kills its people," Ohio delegate
Paul Mifsud said bluntly.

"It's very important that we continue to trust our president.  We should do
nothing in the platform that shows any lack of trust," countered Tim
Philpott of Kentucky.

Former Rep. Chuck Douglas of New Hampshire, called the administration's
policy "absolutely morally wrong." But Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde, himself a
critic of Bush's decision, said it would be equally wrong to rebuke the
president in his own platform.

"I'm unwilling for us to use the platform to give the Clinton people a club
to whack us over the head and say that we abandoned the president," Hyde
said, referring to Democratic nominee Bill Clinton.

His argument carried the day, leaving intact a paragraph justifying Bush's
China policy as "based on support for democratic reform."

China policy generated the only real controversy in an area widely
considered Bush's strong suit and a platform section devoted largely to
extolling his accomplishments.

Former Rep. Chuck Douglas of New Hampshire, who headed conservative
challenger Patrick Buchanan's campaign in his state, made an impassioned
argument for the amendment.

"We took a big stand here for the preborn," he said, referring to the
committee's strong opposition to abortion. "Does it stop once you're alive?
Does it stop if you have to live in a country like Red China where they have
20 million people in slave labor camps?"

The amendment was tabled on a show of hands, leaving the initial version of
the China section which says Bush's policy "is based on support for
democratic reform. We need to maintain the relationship with China so that
we can effectively encourage such reform."

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