[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 7, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E71-E72]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          REPRESENTATIVE PELOSI HONORED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WORK

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                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, January 7, 1997

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi was cited in a 
recent New York Times article for her work as a tireless advocate on 
behalf of human rights in China. She has been the persistent voice 
reminding this Congress and the administration that we cannot ignore 
the atrocities in China. They are too awful, too numerous for us not to 
recognize.
  A large market like China can be seductive for those who see 
commercial gain to be made. They do not want to see the pain wrought by 
the Chinese Government operating in its normal course whether it be 
false imprisonment, loss of freedom of religion, speech and 
association, proliferation of nuclear weapons or even the illegal 
shipping and sale of AK-47s to our own streets.
  Representative Pelosi is the voice that reminds us that there is no 
such thing as business as usual with China. She is to be commended for 
her tireless efforts. I commend to you the enclosed article by A.M. 
Rosenthal:

                        Clinton's China Wriggle

                          (By A.M. Rosenthal)

       President Clinton, his supporting cast of bureaucrats and 
     even most of his political opponents are so twisting the 
     essence of the visit to the White House of Communist China's 
     top weapons dealer that the deeply important meaning is wrung 
     right out of it. And that is no accident.
       Mr. Clinton is doing what comes naturally at times of 
     political embarrassment, the old Washington dance. Wriggle, 
     two, three, four, wriggle, two three, gliiide, everybody sing 
     out together: ``Doin' the White House wriggle!''
       ``It was inappropriate,'' the President says with a fine 
     show of chin. Screening must be tightened!
       Republicans and Democrats un-in-love with Mr. Clinton say 
     no, the problem is political money.
       Wang Jun, the Chinese Army's chief arms broker, missile 
     salesman and weapons smuggler, was brought to a White House 
     reception by an Arkansas businessman who became a hotshot 
     Democratic fund-raiser.
       Taking some of the stink out of fund-raising would be real 
     nice. But it won't get at the why and how come of Mr. Wang, 
     whose job is to make money and build power for the Chinese 
     armed forces by peddling weapons worldwide, and whose name is 
     known to every China expert, spook and high military officer 
     in the world, getting to a White House do with the President.
       Nor will it deal with the hypocrisy of the Administration 
     now clucking about this fellow's visit in February when the 
     man he reports to was the official guest of the United States 
     Government just a couple of weeks ago. This one got to the 
     White House not for a handshake but for a real sit-down 
     meeting with none other than the old screening-tightener-
     upper, Mr. Clinton himself. He is Gen. Chi Haotian, who 
     gave the order to kill dissidents in and around Tiananmen 
     Square in 1989 and was promoted to Defense Minister by a 
     grateful Politburo.
       No, the answer to how these characters got to the White 
     House is not political money or screening. It is Mr. 
     Clinton's decision to base America's policy about Communist 
     China on trade.
       For Beijing, the principal purpose of trade is to build up 
     its police and military power. The biggest owner of Chinese 
     industry and commerce is the military establishment. It uses 
     the profit to build more weapons to sell, particularly 
     missiles amusingly forbidden under U.S. regulation, and to 
     modernize its armies, including the police army operating the 
     Chinese gulag.
       There is no hiding place, not for Mr. Clinton, not for 
     America's allies, not for American C.E.O.'s, not for the 
     American consumer or stockholder: doing business with China 
     means providing money for the Chinese armed forces. So let's 
     not get all wriggly when China's killers and arms-selling 
     chiefs show up at our parties.
       Most of Mr. Clinton's political opponents are trapped by 
     and with him. They went along with him in sacrificing 
     democracy and American security to the Trade Gods. So, like 
     him, they have to do something when a killer-salesman comes 
     to Washington. Watch them dance.
       How did a nice young fellow from Arkansas, who preached 
     human rights when he ran for President the first time, sell 
     them out a year later? Why did that nice Assistant Secretary 
     of State for China affairs go along, after attacking the 
     early Bush clone of the Clinton policy?
       Why did Bob Dole, and his party, wipe out any difference of 
     principle between them and Mr. Clinton on providing China 
     with the huge trade profits to build its military power? Oh, 
     who cares why; they did.
       Well, it is holiday time. Here's a fine present: three 
     names among those Washingtonians who fight for Chinese human 
     rights and American democratic honor. In government, Nancy 
     Pelosi, San Francisco's Representative, and in this cause 
     truly all America's. Among the experts: William C. Triplett 
     2d, former chief Republican counsel to the Senate Foreign 
     Relations Committee; indispensable to the struggle. In 
     journalism, the conservative Washington journal The Weekly 
     Standard--may its editorials against the sellout of China 
     reach the conservative movement and awaken the liberal.

[[Page E72]]

       And to all readers who have written that they will not 
     support the suppression of Chinese freedom by purchasing 
     China-made goods, this column goes with respect and thanks. 
     These people, they just do not know how to wriggle.

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