[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 137 (Saturday, September 28, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  TRIBUTE TO THE 85TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE REPUBLIC OF 
                                 CHINA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOE SCARBOROUGH

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 27, 1996

  Mr. SCARBOROUGH, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a beacon 
of freedom on the far shores of the Pacific. A nation that has, in its 
own way and in its own part of the world, come to symbolize freedom and 
defiance of tyranny much in the same way that our own Nation has come 
to be seen as a city of hope. The many twists and turns of history have 
obscured it, but when 85 years ago the forces of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's 
Koumintang triumphed over the decrepit and decaying Ch'ing dynasty, a 
whole new epoch in the history of not only China, but Asia itself, 
began.
  Mr. Speaker viewed through the prism of this turbulent and terrible 
century, the establishment of the Republic of China can be seen for the 
significance it held. Few are alive today who can remember the 
importance that the United States attached to the revolution that 
brought the Republic to power. For our Nation, it was proof that China 
was committed to establishing itself as a free and great nation, in 
partnership with the other democracies of the world. From the founding 
of the Republic, a practical, at times difficult, but ultimately sturdy 
relationship was built between the United States and China, a 
relationship that has endured through two world wars, a second Chinese 
revolution whose outcome was not as hopeful as the first, and the 
vicissitudes of the cold war.
  It does no dishonor to the Republic whose establishment I pay tribute 
to today to note that, sadly, the first half of the Republic's history 
did not live up to expectations. Dr. Sun Yat-sen proclaimed for his 
supporters a unique blend of confucianism and Western nationalism that 
promised a new dawn of democracy for China, and that today has 
underwritten the Republic's prosperity. Unfortunately, at the time that 
philosophy was put to the test during democracy's darkest hour. In 
1914, just several years after the founding of the republic and the 
premature death of its founder, World War I began and China saw itself 
used as a battlefield by foreign powers. Then came the Second World War 
and an even more trying time for the people of China, who now found 
themselves caught in both a bloody international war and a civil war. 
Finally, there came the defeat of the Axis Powers, only to see the rise 
of an even more monstrous tyranny led by a megalomaniacal madman, Mao 
Zedong.

  By the unfortunate happenstance of history. By an unhappy turn of 
events. By an inexorable tide that only in the 1980's began to recede, 
the Communists triumphed, drove the nationalists to an island then 
called Formosa, and today we refer to the Republic as the Republic of 
China on Taiwan. I submit, however, Mr. Speaker, that such an 
appellation is a temporary aberration. The tyrants in what is called in 
appropriate Orwellian parlance, the People's Republic of China, are 
living on borrowed time. The so-called People's Republic is a corpse 
that does not yet know enough to fall down.
  We hear today in all the learned journals that China is the 
superpower of the future. Well it is, but not that China. Beijing lives 
on the belief that economic prosperity is the key to the preservation 
of the regime. The Communists lay claim to a false god to which no one 
any longer bows, and sit atop the powderkeg, hoping to keep the 
economic engine going in order to save the regime. That is a fools 
gamble, and all right thinkers know that the future lay across the 
Straits  of Taiwan.

  On that island there is also prosperity--wealth that would have seen 
unimaginable but 30 years ago. Indeed, the second half of the 
Republic's history has been marked by prosperity and freedom unlike 
almost anything known anywhere but in a few fortunate corners of Asia. 
Yet that is not what makes the regime in Taipei great and insures its 
longevity. Wealth is merely the reward. The Republic survives, and will 
endure, not because it can make radios, VCR's, and MTV entertainment, 
but because it is founded on human dignity, on liberty in law, and on 
honor. Economic prosperity is ephemeral. It cannot last forever. Sooner 
or later the lean times must come, and when they do, Beijing will come 
crashing down, while the Republic, a government that is truly a 
people's Republic, will endure.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I congratulate President Lee Teng-hui, the first 
elected leader in Chinese history, and the 21 million hard-working men 
and women of the Republic of China, who stand as a stirring example of 
courage, hard work and dedication. They prove by their exertions the 
triumph of the human spirit. So, on the 85th anniversary of the 
founding of the Republic of China, Mr. Speaker, I pay tribute to this 
lamp of liberty across the sea. I encourage our Government to similarly 
pay tribute by granting to the Republic that which it has earned, 
representation among the nations of the world at the United Nations 
Organization, and I am sure I speak for all of my colleagues when I say 
that we salute this brave and honorable government and its people.

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