[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 14, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2612-H2613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             MFN FOR CHINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, before I get into my 5 minutes I 
would like to yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf], if I 
may.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that, and I just 
wanted to thank the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] for 
speaking out on Mr. Wei and, second, to say that he was arrested after 
meeting with John Shattuck from the Clinton administration. After the 
meeting he was arrested, and I guess I would just say to my colleagues 
in the House this Congress ought to do something about it.
  When Sakharov was under house arrest in the 1980's and Scharansky was 
in Perm Camp 35, we did resolutions, we did everything, and now we are 
in the 1990's, in a Republican Congress I might say, so I would say to 
the leadership on our side we should be doing something to demonstrate 
that we care.
  So I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] for taking this 
time, and I thank the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] for 
doing it because this Congress, if we do nothing, we are going to be 
somewhat complicit in what the Chinese government is doing.
  So hopefully the Congress will make this a point of reference and we 
will talk about it until Mr. Wei is released.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Florida will yield, I 
want to thank the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] and the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] for taking this time, and I 
associate myself with Ms. Pelosi who has been a giant in the leadership 
on the issue of dealings with China, human rights in China, and in the 
Far East generally, as someone who has been very involved with my 
colleague on the Helsinki Commission as we focused on the former Soviet 
Union and Sakharov and other heroes of the Helsinki movement, which 
articulated principles of recognition of human rights in every Nation.
  The former Foreign Minister, now the Prime Minister, articulated the 
fact that the Helsinki final act adopted a premise that it was of 
concern to all of us how a nation treated its own citizens. 
Historically, it has been the premise of nations of how they treated 
the other nation's citizens might be their business, but how they 
treated their own citizens should not be of their attention.
  The fact of the matter is, of course, our world is a better place 
because nations, and particularly the United States, has taken a focus 
on how other nations treat their own citizens.
  I will be voting against MFN for China, as I have in the past, with 
some exceptions, when I join the gentlewoman from California [Ms. 
Pelosi]. But the fact of the matter is we ought to say in the strongest 
possible terms, as we did to the Soviet Union, ``If you treat your 
citizens badly, you will not be able to deal with us on a business-as-
usual basis.''
  Constructive engagement was not good in South Africa, and I suggest 
to this administration and previous administrations that constructive 
engagement, as if we were dealing with nations that adopt our own 
standards of conduct, should not be the policy of this Government and 
this Nation.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer], and the point I was trying to make 
with the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] is that this is an 
arena or area where leadership from the White House I think is very 
essential, and I do not believe we are getting that kind of leadership 
from the administration. I think the leadership is coming from this 
body, Members like the gentlewoman from California, like the gentleman 
from Maryland, the gentleman from Virginia, and there is a vacuum in 
this cause of human rights, and when we have a high ranking State 
Department official meeting with somebody and then immediately 
afterward an arrest occurring and then there is really no outcry coming 
from the Office of the President, the President of the United States 
himself, that is a problem, and I think it is incumbent upon us, and 
particularly people within the President's party, to bring pressure to 
bear on him to take a more aggressive role in this issue and speaking 
out on it.
  Mr. Speaker, the last Democrat President who occupied the White 
House, Jimmy Carter, had a very, very strong record on doing this, and 
he would aggressively move on these issues, and I believe we are not 
seeing the kind of leadership that we need from the White House on 
this, and I very much appreciate, needless to say, the comments that 
the gentlewoman has made because this issue is very disturbing to me 
when we are having a

[[Page H2613]]

vote coming up in the next month on MFN for China. It is going to be 
very difficult for people to justify this in the light of the human 
rights violations that are occurring in China.

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