XN000022-1993-05-04 — Page 38

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1993

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In showing that interest, I hope that our

friends will understand the difference between trade and

I

economics on the one hand and politics on the other. hope they won't get the two confused. I must say it would

help me to make that point rather more successfully if it

was a little clearer that China, a GATT applicant of

course, understood that the two are different, as well.

I understand and respect the fact that United

States foreign policy has traditionally been infused with

a sense of values. Those who have benefitted from the

consequences of that, as my generation did, for example,

in Western Europe, do ill to criticize it. Foreign policy

shouldn't be just about a utilitarian sense of national

interest. Self interest invariably is served by trying to

behave well, too. But as we say in England, I think one

has to take account of running the right horse on the

right course. I don't believe that trade and economics

are a good vehicle except in extreme cases for pursuing

political goals.

One reason why I take that view is because as

Marxists, when there were any, used to believe, there is a

relationship between economic and social progress and

political progress. I don't argue for one moment that

Washington or Westminster style democracy is everywhere a

consequence almost mechanistically of a given level of GNP

growth. Different cultures, different traditions,

different periods of history produce different results.

/But I