[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 25, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         THE WOLF AND THE LAMB

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, just before we quit for 1993 in our 
formal congressional sessions, the New York Times published an article 
by Wei Jingsheng, China's most prominent political prisoner, who was 
recently released after 14 years in prison. He warns us not to be 
fooled and not to be talked too easily into making concessions to 
China.
  My instinct is, that is precisely what is happening. We are selling 
the new, sophisticated computer to China, and I can see nothing 
concrete that we are getting in return.
  Not only is China one of the worst abusers of human rights in the 
world today, if you look down the road 30 years from now, and ask what 
nation may be a significant military threat to its neighbors, one of 
those has to be China. I hope before we get to that period when a 
dictatorial China represents a threat, democracy can take hold, and 
China will live in peace with its neighbors.
  But I believe it is unsound policy to assume that will happen.
  I ask to insert the Wei Jingsheng article in the Congressional Record 
at this point.
  The article follows:

                         The Wolf and the Lamb

                           (By Wei Jingsheng)

       Beijing.--Most Americans don't really understand China, 
     just as most Chinese don't understand America. This leads the 
     two Governments to make numerous miscalculations in their 
     relations and leads the two peoples toward numerous 
     misunderstandings of the opposing regime's conduct.
       For example, the Chinese Government holds that America 
     cares nothing for the fate or future of the Chinese people; 
     this means that raising human rights issues becomes nothing 
     but a political tactic used in laying siege to the Communist 
     Party or merely an economic bargaining tool.
       So China treats human rights as a problem of foreign 
     relations. And the primary pretext for refusing to bend under 
     international pressure on human rights is that China ``will 
     not allow interference in its internal affairs.''
       Furthermore, there is a tendency on the part of China to 
     view the detention and release of dissidents as a hostage 
     transaction, in which freedom for the prisoner is just a 
     bargaining chip in an economic poker game.
       The reason the Chinese Government is willing to make such 
     unclean transactions is that it does not understand why the 
     U.S. might be unwilling to continue lucrative trade relations 
     if China's human rights environment does not improve. China 
     doesn't understand, because it thinks this way: Is it really 
     likely that Americans would befriend a people they are not at 
     all familiar with?
       Is it really likely that Americans would abandon an 
     opportunity to make money just to protect the human rights of 
     those they have befriended?
       Is it really likely that the American people's 
     determinations of right and wrong could ever influence the 
     judgment of the U.S. Government?
       It looks as if the Communist Party has answered these 
     questions in the negative. So even though it may have 
     realized that its own conduct might have been in error, it 
     still firmly pursues a strategy of brinkmanship, giving 
     ground only when absolutely necessary and always in the last 
     five minutes of negotiations. For example, Chinese officials 
     last week agreed to give ``positive consideration'' to 
     allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to 
     inspect prisons.
       The party holds that in such ways it will save face, and in 
     the end will debunk Yankee protestations of seriousness over 
     human rights, which the party believes are just an 
     affectation. Pursuing this strategy, Beijing believes, will 
     free it to deprive the people of their freedom. It also seems 
     that the U.S. Government has misunderstand the true mind-set 
     of the Chinese Government. Washington evidently believes that 
     the Communist Party resembles a bunch of slow-witted rulers 
     of a backward culture and that China doesn't comprehend that 
     violations of human rights are evil.
       Therefore, the Clinton Administration now plans to abandon 
     policies of pressure in favor of a policy of persuasion and 
     ``enhanced engagement''--a misguided shift to be symbolized 
     in Seattle today by the handshake between Presidents Clinton 
     and Jiang Zemin. Unfortunately, the reality is more like the 
     Aesop's fable in which a lamb tries to reason with a wolf. 
     After the wolf accuses the lamb of fouling his drinking 
     water, the lamb protests: ``I could not have fouled your 
     water because I live downstream from you.'' The wolf eats the 
     lamb anyway.
       I fear that no matter how much the two contries debate, the 
     old wolf in China will still complain about its drinking 
     water. China not only doesn't understand reason but also does 
     not intend to reason.
       I'm unclear about the American people's understanding of 
     changes in China-U.S. relations, but the Chinese people's 
     understanding of their own Government is very precise. The 
     present leaders were the most outspoken group of men, 
     shouting their support of human rights and democracy before 
     they ascended to power. But their subsequent dictatorship 
     made clear that they have no intention of making good on the 
     promises they once made to the masses.
       The Chinese people's understanding of the new direction of 
     U.S. policy toward China leads them to believe that the party 
     was right all these years in saying that the American 
     Government is controlled by rich capitalists. All you have to 
     do is offer them a chance to make money and anything goes. 
     Their consciences never stopped them from making money. I 
     don't really believe in this kind of understanding--or rather 
     I'm not willing to believe in it.

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