[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1342-H1343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 EXPRESSING SUPPORT FOR ADMINISTRATION DECISION TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS ON 
                            CHINESE PRODUCTS
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express support for the 
Clinton administration's decision on Saturday to impose sanctions on 
Chinese products because of China's failure to protect and enforce 
intellectual property rights of United States companies and its failure 
to provide market access for intellectual property-based products and 
industries.
  [[Page H1343]] China's piracy of United States CD's, videotapes, 
software and other intellectual properties costs the United States 
Economy at least $1 billion a year. This means lost American jobs.
  The administration's actions, after prolonged negotiations, are long 
overdue. Indeed, many of us had encouraged President Bush to take this 
action instead of giving credence to the United States-China memorandum 
of understanding on intellectual property a few years ago.
  Indeed, this action is the same one many of us had urged the 
administration to take on behalf of promoting human rights in China.
  While I am pleased the Clinton administration has taken this step, it 
is ironic that such an action is being taken to protect products, but 
that it was not taken to protect human life and human rights. The 
United States business community is now seeing that human rights and 
economic certainty are connected as they face problems with a lack of 
rule of law and respect for contracts in China.
  There are other ironies in this decision, Mr. Speaker. Last year, 
when the President granted MFN to China unconditionally, the argument 
was made that the approach targeting sanctions on State enterprises 
including products made by the People's Liberation Army advanced by 
then Senator majority leader Mitchell, then House majority leader 
Gephardt, majority whip, Bonior, and me, was not 
implementable.

                              {time}  1930

  And in an August 5 letter to Members the Commissioner of Customs 
stated that our approach would not work because there are no longer 
clear distinctions between companies that are State-owned enterprises 
and those that are not. It is important to note therefore, Mr. Speaker, 
that the sanctions scheduled to go into effect February 26 if the 
Chinese do not come around and hopefully they will, specifically target 
some of China's State-owned enterprises including some run by the 
People's Liberation Army. In fact at its February 4 conference 
announcing the imposition of sanctions Ambassador Kantor while listing 
criteria for picking the products for sanctions listed said No. 2, we 
picked products that were more involved with China's state enterprises 
than other enterprises. Indeed I also want to call to the attention of 
our colleagues that last year when we were having this same debate 
about sanctions on products made especially by State-run industries and 
the People's Liberation Army that some of our colleagues in fighting 
our legislation sent a ``Dear Colleague'' which says:

       Imposing sanctions against products produced by the Chinese 
     Army defense-related companies and State-owned enterprises 
     will be unworkable and unenforceable. It would be a 
     logistical nightmare for the U.S. Customs Service to try to 
     manage. Not only is it almost impossible to identify Chinese 
     Army ownership of Chinese companies but in a mixed economy 
     like China's, it is also virtually impossible to draw clear 
     lines between State and nonState activity.

  Well I guess a lot has happened in the past 6 months because we have 
all of a sudden now, the proposal we are making is indeed one that is 
being proposed by the administration. I say that once again in support 
of the action that was taken because those of us who are concerned 
about human rights in China are also concerned about violations of our 
trade relationship and also about the proliferation issues.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Rohrabacher.]
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would just note that the Chinese have a $24 
billion trade surplus.
  Ms. PELOSI. If the gentleman would allow, now $30 billion.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Now $30 billion. Now a $30 billion trade surplus 
with the United States. And for these people, for the Government of 
China to be running these factory operations, stealing our intellectual 
property rights, ripping them off, extracting funds from our pockets to 
the tune of $1 billion a year, these are the factories that are, as the 
gentlewoman has just stated, so clearly these are not private sector 
factors in China, they are factories run by the government and the army 
themselves. And this adds insult to injury. They are not just satisfied 
with a $29-billion surplus, they have to rip us off and then even 
export the intellectual property rights, the CD disks, the software 
that they are producing.
  In our State of California hundreds of thousands of people pay for 
their mortgage, feed their children, clothe their families, educate 
their children with the money that they get from jobs related to the 
entertainment industry. We are now on the edge of a new era where ideas 
and creative instincts become evermore important. This kind of rip-off 
is incredible and I am very pleased that the gentlewoman has taken the 
leadership on this.


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