Red-carpet treatment.

• Position: U.S.-China trade relations, human rights - Column

When President Bill Clinton rolled out the red carpet for President Jiang Zemin in October, it marked the triumph of commerce over human rights.

Clinton did scold Jiang over Tiananmen Square, but he didn't let the continued suppression of freedom in China, the slave labor, or the subjugation of Tibet get in the way of the main chance: big profits for U.S. companies.

"China is the fastest-growing market in the world for our goods and services," Clinton said at the joint press conference, and urged China to open its economy up even further. If it does so, Clinton pledged to pressure the World Trade Organization to admit China as a member.

He celebrated the signing of a Boeing contract with China worth $3 billion in commercial jets. And he opened the door for Westinghouse and GE to bid on some $60 billion in commercial nuclear-power plants, which could up China's reliance on nuclear energy ten-fold. Little wonder, then, that the CEOs of Boeing, Westinghouse, and GE received White House invitations to sup with Jiang. But they weren't alone. The invite list was a Who's Who of the international manufacturing and entertainment industries. In attendance were the CEOs from Apple, Atlantic Richfield, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Cargill, CNN, Eastman Kodak, GM, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Miramax, Mobil, Motorola, Pepsico, Procter & Gamble, Time Warner, United Technologies, Walt Disney. The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Viacom, and Xerox.

Somehow, actor Richard Gere, who's been speaking out about the human-rights situation in Tibet, didn't make the list.

Clinton contends that the more trade with China the better. But it doesn't help American workers when U.S. companies export jobs to China. And it doesn't help human rights there, either.

As China has opened its doors to foreign capital, it has slammed doors shut on political freedoms. According to press accounts, every Chinese dissident is either in exile or in prison today, Tibet is still under occupation, thousands of Chinese work in labor camps, and forced abortion is the order of the day.

China now combines the worst of two worlds, Stalinism and capitalism. And the U.S. government is going along. It doesn't mind the Stalinism too much, so long as there's money to be made.

Jiang, who once called the massacre at Tiananmen Square "much ado about nothing," was largely unrepentant about human-rights abuses in general and Tiananmen Square in particular. "The political disturbance that occurred at the...