[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 45 (Thursday, March 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3124-S3125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                WAIVING CERTAIN ENROLLMENT REQUIREMENTS

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of House Joint Resolution 168 received 
from the House.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 168) waiving certain 
     enrollment requirements with respect to two bills of the One 
     Hundred Fourth Congress.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the immediate 
consideration of the joint resolution?
  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the joint 
resolution.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint 
resolution be considered, read a third time, and passed, and the motion 
to reconsider be laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 168) was passed.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senator.

[[Page S3125]]



   FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION ACT, FISCAL YEARS 1996 and 1997--
                           CONFERENCE REPORT

  The Senate continued with consideration of the conference report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized for up 
to 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference report 
on H.R. 1561, the State Department Reorganization Act, and of the 
distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
  I do not need to reiterate for my colleagues the tortuous route that 
this bill has followed to make it to the floor today; I believe we are 
all aware of it. Let me just note why I feel this bill is important.
  This legislation was the first authorization measure to reach the 
floor of the Senate within budget targets, fulfilling the mandate the 
American people gave us last November. This bill is a promise kept: 
money is saved, redundant bureaucracies eliminated, and the ability of 
our Nation to conduct foreign policy enhanced.
  We will hear all sorts of arguments against this legislation. Let me 
just address a few that fall within the jurisdiction of my Subcommittee 
on East Asia. Several of my Democrat colleagues circulated a ``Dear 
Colleague'' letter last week on the China-specific provisions of the 
conference report. In it, they expressed concern that ``[s]everal 
provisions in this report are unnecessarily provocative to China and 
precipitate continuing destabilization of U.S.-Sino relations.''
  Let me say here that I am a great supporter of improving relations 
with the People's Republic of China; I am supportive of the one-China 
policy. But I have examined the sections with which they were 
concerned, and find them essentially to be strawman arguments, without 
impact on our adherence to the one-China policy. Let me go through them 
one by one.
  First, they are concerned with section 1601, which declares that the 
provision of the Taiwan Relations Act (22 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 3301 et 
seq.) supersede provisions of the United States-China joint communique 
of August 17, 1992.
  Frankly, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific 
Affairs, I don't share their opposition to this particular provision. 
The Taiwan Relations Act, which governs our relationship with Taiwan, 
is a statute and as such is the law of the land. The only thing which 
could supersede it would be a treaty. The communique, however, is not a 
treaty; it was never presented to the Senate for its advice and 
consent. Rather, it is simply an official announcement of the 
intentions of the respective parties. Consequently, it is not binding 
on either party, and has no force of law in the United States.
  Section 1601 is therefore simply a restatement of legal fact. As 
such, I am at a loss to understand why it would be objectionable to the 
Chinese, objectionable to my colleagues, or a source of encouragement 
to pro-independence elements on Taiwan.
  Second, they fault section 1708 which supports the admission of the 
President of Taiwan with all appropriate courtesies. Mr. President, 
while I myself am not a fan of this section, I would note first that 
the section does not mandate the admission of President Li. Second, I 
would note that just this week President Lee said we would not seek to 
make such a visit.
  Third, they fault section 1606 which would according to them, and I 
quote, ``impose unnecessary new reporting requirements on the State 
Department to provide detailed information and political judgments on 
the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong 
Kong''.
  I find this the least compelling of their concerns. We regularly 
require the State Department to make these reports all the time; the 
Department probably prepares such a report on almost every country in 
the world save some of the smaller ones.
  We have a real interest in assuring that the People's Republic of 
China lives up to their agreements, and such a report would be 
extremely important that they do so in relation to their promise to 
protect democracy there after 1997. An annual report would be 
especially helpful to this body in following developments there.
  Their next complaint is that section 1603 would change the name of 
Taiwan's office here from Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative 
Office to Taiwan Representative Office. I fail to see how this simple 
name change can cause so much consternation.
  Finally, Mr. President, they oppose section 1303, regarding Tibet. I 
would note, however, that this section simply authorizes the President 
to appoint a special envoy; it does not require him to do so. If he 
finds the idea so objectionable, then he does not have to make the 
appointment.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. THOMAS. I yield.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, what I meant is sort of a precipitating 
event that caused this tit-for-tat thing, and the Chinese are clearly 
greatly to be criticized for all of those things that my colleague 
said, but I really meant the precipitating events. You can point to 
that as the events that started it all, and that has led from that 
point on.
  Mr. THOMAS. I appreciate the comments. I do not think there is any 
question that we should understand how important that is to the 
People's Republic of China. It probably means more to them than it does 
to us and we need to recognize that.
  So my colleagues can see that these five sections, taken 
independently, are of little if any import. Some of my colleagues have 
said that, while that may be the case, taken together they are 
alarming. Well, Mr. President, if separately these sections equal zero, 
then they still equal zero when added together.
  I take exception to the argument of the Senator from Louisiana that 
United States-China relations were going along fine until we decided to 
admit President Li to the United States, and that these sections will 
simply make matters worse. Frankly, that's a statement I would expect 
to hear from the Chinese Ambassador here. What about their nuclear 
transfers to Pakistan? What about their failure to live to the 
intellectual property rights agreement? What about their pretensions in 
the Spratly Islands? What about human rights violations? What about 
their back-sliding regarding Hong Kong?
  Mr. President, the present state of affairs is hardly the sole fault 
of the United States. And these give sections are hardly going to cause 
a precipitous downturn in those relations. As the Chinese say, it takes 
two hands to clap.
  So again Mr. President, I rise in support of this proposal. I think 
it is one of the things that the voters said to us in 1994. They said 
we need to make some changes in the way the Federal Government 
operates; that the Government is too big, it spends too much, and that 
we should find better ways to deliver services, that we should find 
more efficient ways to use tax dollars.
  This bill is the way to do that. Mr. President, every other sector of 
our Government is facing difficult cuts and reorganization; the foreign 
policy sector should have to bear the same burden as any other. This is 
not about isolationism, though many Democrats would have the public 
believe otherwise in a hope to obscure the issue, not about usurping 
the role of the executive branch, nor is it about a vendetta aimed at a 
particular set of bureaucrats.
  I cannot commend Chairman Helms enough on his hard work and 
persistence on this legislation; I urge my colleagues to support it.

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