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• Clinton: Terms for WTO membership must be 'clear'
• Most-favored-nation status discussed
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SHANGHAI, China (CNN) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton called on China Wednesday to open its trade markets, and he urged American investors in the world's largest country to help it battle huge environmental problems.

Addressing a breakfast of U.S. and Chinese business leaders in a booming financial district, Clinton said he could not, as president, ask China to adopt environmental standards that would slow economic growth.

"But as a citizen of the world and the leader of my country, I have a responsibility to ask us all to work together for a planet that our grandchildren can still enjoy living on," he said, adding, "And so do you."

He also urged American firms to set a good example on fair labor standardsand business practices. He called on China to dismantle its ailing state-run industries and improve its legal and regulatory system. Pointedly, he urged "strong efforts to combat corruption."

In another direct remark, Clinton suggested that China protect personal rights and constrain "arbitrary government."

Clinton spoke with business leaders in the atrium of a high-rise hotel before touring Shanghai's Stock Exchange, a shimmering symbol of China's march toward a market economy. In the towering steel and glass building housing the exchange, the president was having lunch with young Chinese entrepreneurs.

Clinton: Terms for WTO membership must be 'clear'

Clinton said China must agree to "strong terms" to qualify for membership in the World Trade Organization, which sets the rules for global trade. That would require opening markets and allowing investment opportunities here for foreign firms. The terms have to be "clear and unambiguous," the president said, although he said China should be granted some concessions as a developing nation.

"China's economy still is burdened with complicated and overlapping barriers," the president said. "More open markets are important to the United States, which buys today about a third of China's exports -- and in turn should have a fair shot at China's markets. It is important to China as it builds an economy that must compete globally."

He said rapid change and disruptions caused by economic reform "make it tempting to turn inward and to slow down. But for China, as for America, the promise for the future lies in helping our citizens to master the challenges of the global economy, not to run away from them."

U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley, speaking to the same forum, said China's leaders, in meetings over the last week, insisted they could not open their markets because domestic industries cannot compete in the global economy.

"We believe the opposite is true," Daley said. "The more China opens its markets, the more its domestic industries will be able to compete."

Clinton said China will have to develop worker retraining and social security programs as it transforms its massive state-run industries into market-based companies. He said the United States stands ready to help with ideas.

There was a strong environmental message in Clinton's remarks, noting that China will soon surpass the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases that many scientists believe are responsible for global warming.

He said 1998 promises to be the warmest year in recorded history and that environmental pollution in any nation is a global problem.

Clinton said Shanghai, a flashy center of global trade and finance, could be the center of an energy revolution in China.

"We have to do something to break the idea in people's minds that the only way to grow the economy of a developing country is to adopt industrial-age energy use patterns. It is not true, it is a huge problem, it is still a problem in the United States. I ask you to lead the way."

Most-favored-nation status discussed

Clinton is also urging Congress to grant permanent most-favored-nation trading benefits for China, saying the United States could not turn its back on the world's largest nation.

A key U.S. House committee overwhelmingly passed the measure last week, and both houses are expected to take it up in July.

Clinton said on Wednesday that failure by Congress to renew China's most-favored-nation status would result in severing of economic ties.

China has long demanded an end to Washington's annual review of its MFN status, which grants to Chinese exports the same tariffs allowed for the products of other countries.

Renewal has been a hotly debated issue in Congress since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and has taken on greater intensity this year due to allegations that China tried to influence the 1996 presidential election through campaign contributions.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• Clinton fields calls on Chinese radio talk show - June 30, 1998
• U.S. firms in China: Frustration amid big potential - June 30, 1998
• Clinton to China: 'Human rights are universal' - June 29, 1998
• Capitalism, Shanghai-style, thrives again - June 29, 1998
• Clinton to discuss human rights in university speech - June 28, 1998

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