WASHINGTON - The U.S.-China agreement on agricultural subsidies clinched Saturday clears one more major barrier to China's entry into the World Trade Organization and gives credibility to President Bush's contention that he can talk tough to Beijing on security and human rights without hurting relations between the two nations in other areas, analysts said.
"The agreement is a victory for the president, who said, `We can treat these things on separate tracks,'" said Nicholas Lardy, a trade specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Some people were worried that you can't really separate these things completely, but I think the president will be able to point to this and say, `OK, we have a robust arms package for Taiwan'" as well as a trade deal with China.
Details of the agreement, which could pave the way for China's entry into the WTO before the end of the year, were sketchy yesterday. The administration, which wanted to brief Congress before making the deal public, planned to release particulars today.
But the contents of the deal might be less significant than its signing, China specialists said.
In the estimation of some, Beijing dragged its feet on WTO entry in the wake of its broad, landmark trade deal with Washington in late 1999. Beijing's slow pace in working out the final details of WTO membership was thought to reflect internal opposition from traditionalists who feared further integration into the world economy.
The agreement reached Saturday suggests that China's anti-Western forces have failed to gain significant influence in recent months, despite Beijing's recent sharp differences with Washington.
"Everybody was surprised at how long it took to get this last bit resolved" in China's WTO bid, said Daniel Griswold, a trade analyst at the Cato Institute. "The reaction of the old guard [in China] was to hold this up. This is like the last piece of a very big and very important puzzle."
In the past three months, Washington has tried unsuccessfully to censure Beijing before the United Nations Human Rights Commission, engaged in a tense 11-day standoff over a downed U.S. spy plane and agreed to the biggest arms-sales package in years for Taiwan, which China sees as a renegade province.
In addition, Bush has antagonized Beijing by vowing to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion and by pushing ahead with plans for a missile defense, which Beijing fears would nullify its nuclear force.
