The battle is in some ways one of populists versus elites. East Gates has worked with the Chinese government and its official church structure to bring Bibles and other evangelistic material into the country. Mission groups who favor MFN speak of their close ties to China, and claim Chinese Christians do not want a change in trade status. They agree with business proponents who talk of China's economic learning curve, as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial did, and predict that China will grant greater personal freedoms when its middle class swells under free trade, sometime around 2015. They say MFN has a cost at home since China imposes stiff import duties on many American-made goods.
Slave labor is cheap.
Missionary groups are in a tight spot on MFN as well. Mr. Wolf fears no permanent rift in the evangelical community over this issue, but he does fear that Christians who favor MFN have missed the nuance behind the effort to revoke it. What the MFN debate will lead to, he hopes, is a change in Clinton administration policy. Mr. Wolf wants a list of religious prisoners in the pocket of every American official who visits Beijing. He wants Chinese investors out of the White House.