Administration promises new trade enforcement unit if China bill passes

WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration, stepping up its campaign for a China trade package, promised Congress yesterday ''the most intensive enforcement'' effort ever to hold Beijing to its commitments to open its markets to U.S. goods and services.

An Associated Press poll, meanwhile, showed that nearly half of the House's 211 Democrats say they will oppose the package. The survey showed fewer than three dozen have vowed publicly to support it, while more than 80 say they are still undecided.

With three weeks to go to a showdown vote, and organized labor waging a fierce campaign against the bill, there is little incentive for members to declare themselves before they have to, sponsors suggested.

The administration pressed its case for granting China permanent normal trade relations through a high-powered array of present and former Clinton administration officials.

Minority Whip David Bonior of Michigan said the administration's proposal for an enforcement program was ''a desperate gesture to sell this flawed China deal that is floundering here in Congress.''

''China has repeatedly violated every trade agreement it has ever signed with the United States,'' Bonior said.

The bill would give China the same permanent low-tariff access to U.S. markets now routinely extended to nearly every U.S. trading partner. China now must have this status renewed every year.

The bill would also ease China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based organization that sets the rules for world trade.

Organized labor is opposing the trade bill, fearing it will cost U.S. jobs. Business groups, eager to gain access to a vast market in China, are supportive of it.