[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 190 (Thursday, November 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17858-S17859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CHINA'S ARREST OF DISSIDENT WEI JINGSHENG

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, last week, while the world's attention was 
focused on new hopes for peace in Bosnia, the Chinese Government 
formally arrested and charged its most famous dissident with sedition. 
Wei Jingsheng, who has been imprisoned without charge for the last 20 
months, is known as the father of China's still-fragile democracy 
movement. Wei's formal arrest signals a renewed hardline approach on 
the part of the Chinese leadership to internal criticism of the 
Government.
  The timing of Wei's arrest is telling. It comes alongside China's 
push for entry into the World Trade Organization as a developing 
economy. The United States, joined by the European Union, Japan, and 
Canada, insists that China has a strong exporting economy that can meet 
the open-trade standards demanded of other member economies. China 
continues to reject this standard and argues that it is being excluded 
from the organization and isolated by the United States and the West.
  I strongly believe that we need to engage China and my reading of 
current 

[[Page S17859]]
United States policy is that we are doing so. The United States has no 
containment policy and we are not isolating China in any way. But if 
China wants the benefits of being an active member of the international 
community, it must accept the standards and play by the rules of that 
community. On human rights or on trade, China cannot expect to 
flagrantly violate international norms with impunity. United States 
criticism is not an attempt to isolate China, but the opposite; China's 
willingness to abide by international standards will make its 
acceptance into the international community all the easier.
  On trade, I commend the administration for continuing to insist that 
China meet the standards which are commensurate with its economic 
status. On human rights, I urge the administration to lead the West by 
working for a resolution censuring China's human rights abuses at the 
next annual meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. 
There has been growing world support for such a resolution in recent 
years as China's treatment of its own citizens and of Tibetans 
continues to fall far short of the criterion of the international 
community. Now is not the time to reduce our efforts to pass this 
resolution; Wei Jingsheng's arrest shows the necessity for continued 
international focus on China's behavior.
  China has urged the United States to overlook its human rights abuses 
and forgo working for a U.N. resolution, just as it has urged the 
United States to ignore its growing economy and allow its entry into 
the World Trade Organization using lower standards. In both cases, the 
U.S. response must be the same. If China wants to be respected as an 
important international actor, it must meet the expected behavior of 
one. If it wants the United States to stop criticizing its human rights 
practices, it must stop giving us reason to do so. Releasing Wei 
Jingsheng and other political prisoners would be an important first 
step.

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