[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 42 (Thursday, April 10, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1414-H1415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CHINA AND MFN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, we will be addressing for the next couple of 
months in this body whether or not to grant the most-favored-nation 
trading status to China. I just had a series of town meetings. This 
issue came up in every town meeting. Clearly the American people are 
opposed to the Congress granting continuation of the most favored 
trading status to China.
  Some of the issues and why. It is important for Members of this body 
to know that in China, there are Catholic priests who are in jail. 
There are Catholic bishops who are in jail. In China there are 
Protestant pastors who are in jail. In China almost on a weekly basis, 
evangelical and house churches are raided whereby people are arrested 
and they are taken away.
  We have seen the Chinese Government plunder Tibet and expel the Dalai 
Lama where the Dalai Lama can no longer return to Tibet. We have seen 
the persecution of many who are Buddhist, both nuns and priests. We see 
persecution of Moslems in the northwest part of China. There are more 
gulags in China than there were in the Soviet Union. We all recall 
Solzhenitsyn's book, Gulag Archipelago.
  It is important that the American people know and that the Members of 
this body know that there are more gulags, slave labor camps, in China 
than any other country of the world and certainly many more than there 
were in the Soviet Union. We have seen China sell military weapons, 
equipment, to Iran, which is not in the best interests of this country. 
We have seen technology transferred to other countries with regard to 
nuclear technology, which again is not in the best interests of this 
country. As many Americans know, China sold weapons to Saddam Hussein 
in the Desert Storm fighting that were used against American forces 
during that time.
  We know what took place in Tiananmen Square, whereby we watched the 
activity. The government called out military forces to crush the 
Tiananmen Square demonstration, which was totally peaceful. I had the 
opportunity to visit Beijing prison No. 1 shortly thereafter, whereby 
we saw 40 Tiananmen Square demonstrators who were working on socks for 
export to the West. Again, how can Americans companies and textile 
companies compete with something like that?

  Mr. Speaker, there have been reports that in China they arrest people 
and those who are sentenced to death, some who have committed crimes, 
others who have not, whereby there was an organ donor program whereby 
after they shoot them, they take out their kidneys for sale, for 
transplantation. And there is even one report of an individual who was 
still alive and had both

[[Page H1415]]

of his kidneys taken out for sale to people in the West.
  There is much more that will take place, and we will document it over 
the next several months. However, it is clear to say that during the 
1980's, during the Reagan administration, we would have never granted 
MFN to the Soviet Union when they were doing terrible things. I 
remember when the Reagan administration and President Reagan gave the 
speech in Orlando, the evil empire, where he talked against the 
activities that were taking place. We in the Congress in a bipartisan 
way stood in solidarity to those in the Soviet Union, the dissidents, 
those that wanted to leave the Soviet Union and those that were being 
persecuted because of their faith and whatever reasons they were being 
persecuted, we stood in solidarity. Even during the Reagan 
administration, 250,000 people came and rallied on the Mall on behalf 
of those people.
  Every time there were visits from the Reagan administration and also 
the Carter administration to Russia, they may very well have met with 
Brezhnev and met with Gorbachev, but they also met in the American 
embassy in solidarity with those who were being persecuted in the 
Soviet Union. We stood with those people during that period of time, 
and we ought to stand with those people in China during this period of 
time.
  When I talked to Natan Shcharansky, who was in Perm Camp 35 in the 
Soviet Union, Shcharansky was baffled that we would ever grant MFN to 
China because he maintained that the reason he was released from Perm 
Camp 35 prison during that period of time was because of our activity 
in regard to MFN.
  Mr. Speaker, in summary, I might say that we will cover a number of 
these issues and urge the Members to seriously look at religious 
persecution, persecution of dissidents, the Catholic church, the 
Protestant church, the Buddhists, and many others as we make a decision 
whether or not we would grant MFN.

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