Letters To Leaders:
July 16, 2006

 

To: Senator Arlen Specter (R - PA)

 Subject: No WTO and Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for Communist Vietnam

As history has proved, Vietnamese communists have always achieved their goals by lying and cheating, and have never respected their promises and agreements. For example, North Vietnam did not respect 1973 Paris armistice agreement, which was designed to bring peace to Vietnam, by attacking and defeating South Vietnam while the U.S cut and ran and failed to support its ally. And as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Communist Vietnam has never respected and upheld fundamental human rights by arresting without trial thousands of political dissidents, religious leaders, and even exporting at least 100,000 women to work as prostitutes and sex slaves in Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Cambodia...Some procommunist, hypocrite, and opportunistic politicians have argued that granting Communist Vietnam PNTR status and WTO membership would make Vietnam more democratic in the future and would economically benefit US companies, but this bogus, naive argument cannot be applied to Vietnam, as it has already proven in the case of Communist China, which was accepted into WTO in 2001 but has continued violating human rights as well as violating intellectual property rights (IPR), and dumping textile products and leather shoes in the US and EU countries, so that these countries had to impose anti-dumping duties on Chinese goods. The consequence of China entry to WTO is more jobs lost for Americans as quotas for Chinese goods were abolished, making it harder for US manufacturers to compete with China's (since January 2001, American textile and clothing manufacturers have lost 423,000 jobs, or 40 percent of the industry), and more US trade deficit with China (more than $200 billion in 2005).That is why the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition and other textile groups, learning the lesson of giving Communist China an easy access to WTO in 2001, which is a disaster for American textile industry, have strongly opposed the trade bill with Vietnam, fearing it would mean a flood of cheap clothing coming in from Vietnam. Worse still, some in the Congress have still had a guilty feeling about Vietnam, and want to pass the trade bill with Vietnam as a way of compensation and reconciliation, but again this wrongful act would not benefit the majority of poor Vietnamese but only corrupt, rich top communist party members, because after the fall of the Soviet Union, the oppressive communist regime in Vietnam has heavily depended on generous capital investment and aids from the West, especially the U.S., to survive; and it is totally wrongful and inhumane for America, a land of freedom and democracy, and the Bush administration, which has vowed to expand freedom in all the world and to end tyranny on earth like what it have done for Iraq or Ukraine, to have a shameful double standard, that is, turning a blind eye to terrible human rights violation committed by communist regimes in China and Vietnam, and even awarding them with generous financial help . If the U.S. and the West had used this appeasing policy for Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union in the cold war period, that is, ignoring human rights violation and providing generous investment and funding for these communist regimes, then communist tyranny would have still existed in Eastern Europe; likewise, if the U.S. and the world had not isolated and imposed embargo against former apartheid South Africa, then this oppressive, racist regime would have still survived. If this trade bill was passed by the Congress, then it would undoubtedly give the communist regime in Vietnam a green light to keep suppressing its own people without punishment. Some Americans have argued that it is time for America to forget the past and look forward to the future to collaborate closely with the communist regime, and that economic freedom would eventually lead to political freedom, but this argument is quite unreasonable and unrealistic when applied to strong dictator communist countries like Vietnam or especially China, which is clearly less free and democratic than it was in 1989 right before the Tiananmen square massacre. Moreover, these people are not aware that the communist regime in Vietnam has not represented the majority of 83 millions poor Vietnamese, and has really been the only obstacle to freedom, democracy, and prosperity in Vietnam, as slavery was in America in 19th century, and it is because of the future of a free Vietnam and Vietnamese young generation that America should support any democratic movement, not the communist government, in Vietnam. Therefore, I am urging you not to pass legislation granting Communist Vietnam Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the U.S. this summer, a requirement for Vietnam to join WTO. Because once Communist Vietnam is accepted into WTO, there is no way to expel it from WTO for its continuous violating human rights and agreements with the US.

GARDEN GROVE , CA

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