[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1343-H1344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            CONTINUATION OF DISCUSSION ON CHINESE SANCTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I thank the Speaker, and I yield to the gentlewoman 
from northern California [Ms. Pelosi].
  Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the 
Speaker for his directing our debate in this way.
  I appreciate the remarks the gentleman has made because indeed the 
Chinese Government has not only been ripping off our intellectual 
property, they also have been exporting this intellectual property 
which they have pirated to other countries in Asia, again hurting 
United States jobs here at home.
  So I commend the administration for finally placing sanctions on 
China. I think it is important that our colleagues know because many of 
us who voted together on this issue that the sanctions that were placed 
on the Chinese Government are the self-same sanctions we were 
recommending that the administration at that time said were unworkable 
when we were proposing them for promoting human rights in China and 
Tibet.
  I would like to make a further point that since the President made 
his MFN decision, human rights violations in China have increased. The 
crackdown has intensified in China and Tibet. That can be documented 
when we have more time.
  The trade deficit has increased to $30 billion in 1994 and is 
growing. The proliferation issue is still not resolved in China. 
Indeed, the evidence is that they are still exporting dangerous 
technology to unsafeguarded countries.
  Having said that, I still commend the administration for finally 
standing tall and taking the action that they did.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. As the gentlewoman knows, many of the businessmen 
who decided they were going to make a quick buck and an easy buck 
making a deal with this dictatorship on the mainland are now finding 
that they are being ripped off by that Government. The fact is that our 
own business community that was so much in favor of the most favored 
nation for the Chinese and said forget human rights are now finding 
that the Government that abuses the human rights of its own
people will certainly negate a contract with a foreigner. And millions 
upon hundreds of millions of dollars are being lost. I predict even 
billions of dollars will be lost because this is an outlawed gangster 
regime and America should be on the side of freedom. It is right in the 
  long run, it is beneficial in the long run.Ms. PELOSI. If the 
gentleman will yield further, once again I thank the gentleman for the 
opportunity to extend my remarks and those of my colleague. The fact is 
that we will have another evening to talk about the violations of human 
rights in China, but in addition to the violations of the intellectual 
property rights--and in China the piracy is rampant, enforcement is 
absent and the cost to the United States taxpayer and the American 
worker is huge. In addition to that, they are violating our trade 
relations with transshipments, exporting of products made by prison 
labor, by market barriers to United States products going on into 
China; the list goes on and on. As my colleague so ably said, there is 
a connection between human rights and business, and that promoting 
human rights is good for business because then American businesses 
going into China will know that their contracts will be honored, that 
 [[Page H1344]] their products will not be made by slave labor and that 
the rule of law will prevail. And that is a lesson they have learned in 
the last 8 months. They are not as head over heels in love with going 
into China doing business now. But we still have to fight for human 
rights, fight the fight to free Wei Jingsheng and his assistants and 
some hundreds, maybe thousands of political prisoners as well as the 
millions in the slave labor camps in China.

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