COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, WORLD NEWS: The trade bill now faces a U.S. Senate vote, one it is also expected to win. CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor looks at how new trade rules are likely to affect U.S.-China relations.</s>DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the next few decades, China's military could become the greatest national security threat to the United States. The vote in Congress does not change that. Though China's huge armed forces have relatively out-of-date equipment, Beijing has ambitious long-term plans to build its power on land, in the air and at sea. But experts say the yes vote on trade makes a peaceful relationship with the next emerging superpower much more likely.</s>RICHARD SOLOMON, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: This leadership in Beijing, I think, is deeply divided over how to deal with the United States. Are we the bad guys? Are we willing to help them in their reform and their emergence as a major power? By passing the permanent trade legislation and then by working to get them in the World Trade Organization, it seems to me we put ourselves on the side of the reform elements in China.</s>ENSOR: The vote means U.S.-Chinese military to military exchanges planned this summer will go ahead. They were only recently resumed after a hiatus because of the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The vote improves chances for progress in U.S.-Chinese talks, where Washington seeks Chinese promises to stop selling missile technology to Iran, Pakistan and others. By improving U.S.-Chinese ties, analysts say it may also reduce chances of a war in the Taiwan Strait, and it makes continued Chinese help more likely on curbing North Korea's ambitions to become a nuclear weapons power. (on camera): China's wealth and military might are expected to grow in coming years, and the importance, analysts say, of a better relationship with China for U.S. national security will grow right along with them. David Ensor, CNN, Capitol Hill.
How Passage Of China Trade Bill Will Affect U.S.-China Relations