[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5552-S5553]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TIME TO FACE THE TRUTH ABOUT CHINA

  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, almost 60 years ago, President 
Roosevelt, in his State of the Union Address, challenged the American 
people to not simply be content with our own freedom or our own 
economic progress but to fight for what he called, a world founded upon 
four essential human freedoms. He described them as the freedom of 
speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God as he 
sees him in his own heart, freedom from want, and freedom from fear of 
attack and aggression anywhere in the world.
  There was a sense of immediacy to President Roosevelt's remarks. He 
reminds us that these were not simply distant hopes for another time, 
but in his words, ``It is a definite basis for a kind of world 
attainable in our own time and generation.''
  The world we live in, Mr. President, is largely the fulfillment of 
his vision on that day. After two world wars and a long-enduring cold 
war, we live in a time where democratic values have become common, 
markets are open, the rule of law governs the many nations of the 
globe. From South Africa to the former Soviet Union, across Latin 
America, freedom--free markets and free expression--have become the 
common coin of the realm in our time.
  But because these values are succeeding does not mean that they have 
met any final triumph. We have been reminded that in the fight for 
human freedom, there is no final victory. That is why, Mr. President, I 
take the floor today to remind our country and my colleagues that it is 
time to face the terrible truth about China. I raise this question not 
because China is not important but because it is central to the issue 
of prosperity and security in the 21st century. There will be no 
separate future. The free peoples of the world and those who live in 
China, because of its massive size, rising military power, enormous 
economic growth and even greater potential, the question about our own 
freedom and prosperity and most certainly the security of the United 
States and the allies and other free peoples of the world are 
inexplicably, inevitably tied to the fate of the Chinese people.
  We have learned in the 20th century the painful lesson that nations 
that may obtain great economic power inevitably translate that economic 
power into military means, and that military power invites its own use. 
We have also tragically learned that those nations that rule without 
the consent of their own people are inherently unstable and inevitably 
aggressive.
  These are truths we do not want to have to recognize. They are facts 
that I wish could be otherwise, but there is nothing in the history of 
our time that would lead us to any other conclusion and nothing that 
can lead us to believe that China in any way will be any different.
  Indeed, Mr. President, the record of the Beijing Government, for 
those who would promote most-favored-nation status and those who do 
not, for those who seek constructive engagement and those who argue 
against it, the record is not only remarkably clear but largely 
indisputable.
  In recent years, the Peoples Republic of China has shown little to no 
regard for commitments that have been made under the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, the Missile Control Technology Regime, or the 
Chemical Weapons Convention. China has had a largely open policy 
regardless of international commitments or responsible policies of 
nonsignatories by selling technology of a nuclear and missile basis to 
Pakistan, Iran, and other governments.
  In a 1992 memorandum of understanding, China vowed to prohibit the 
export of any product manufactured by prison labor, but it has almost 
certainly systematically and knowingly ignored this pledge. Indeed, the 
activist Harry Wu has documented labor camps where millions of Chinese 
prisoners, against their own will, manufactured goods for export to the 
United States and other countries.
  In March 1996, the Beijing Government responded to the first ever 
free election held by a Chinese people on the island nation of Taiwan 
by firing missiles off the coast of Taiwan, seeking to intimidate its 
people and its government.
  Similarly, the human rights situation within China has continued to 
deteriorate since the horrible results of its policies in Tiananmen 
Square. These 8 years later, there not only is no progress on free 
speech or expression, there is no free speech or expression. Even 
today, 300 demonstrators who survived Tiananmen Square with their lives 
remain in jail. Indeed, Mr. President, not a single demonstrator or 
organizer or individual who spoke in sympathy of the events of 
Tiananmen Square and was jailed in the days that followed has been 
released.
  There is no freedom of religion. The Dalai Lama remains in exile, a 
prominent Catholic bishop was recently brutalized, and China has 
persecuted more Christians than any other nation on Earth for the 
single crime of worshiping their God.
  There is no freedom from want. The benefits of liberalized trade and 
high import tariffs flow to a small, corrupt, ruling elite while 300 
million Chinese live on a single dollar a day.
  Finally, its neighbors live in increasing fear of attack. A China 
that cannot provide for its own people finds the means to build 
increasing military capability with new technology that it both exports 
at will and builds to potentially intimidate its neighbors, including 
the free government of Taiwan.
  Mr. President, the facts that I mention today are remarkably not in 
dispute. Those who even now decide their

[[Page S5553]]

own position on free and liberalized trade with China and those who 
argue for or against constructive engagement will, in a matter of 
weeks, come to this floor to dispute not the facts, only the policy 
conclusion, because there are those who argue in good faith and will do 
so in this Chamber that regardless of these conclusions and all the 
evidence at hand, that if we will only put these facts aside and 
continue with a policy of liberalized trade, almost certainly as the 
day follows the night, the Chinese leadership will recognize the error 
of their ways, share their new prosperity with their people, allow free 
expression within their institutions and among the Chinese people, and 
in due course a new government more respectful of international 
commitments and of human rights will almost certainly evolve.
  Mr. President, the simple truth is 8 years have passed since 
Tiananmen Square. Free expression is not better; it is worse. Respect 
for the many faiths has not been enhanced; it has deteriorated. 
Commitment to arms control and a more responsible policy of restricting 
dangerous technologies for nuclear weapons and missile technologies has 
not been enhanced; it is also worse.
  Mr. President, we do the cause of freedom and the security of our 
country no benefit by postponing reaching the horrible truth. The 21st 
century, Mr. President, will be guided by whether or not there is 
progress in China in respecting her own people and being a responsible 
member of the international community. This relationship, more than any 
other in the world, will answer the critical question of whether the 
21st century will be more peaceful, more respectful of humankind, and 
respect human life more than any other single relationship the United 
States will have with any other nation in the world. The facts would 
argue that this policy of constructive engagement is not leading us to 
that different future.

  Last year, the United States had a $40 billion trade deficit with 
China. This year, it will pass $50 billion. Patience and understanding 
is not leading China to recognize their obligations as a trading 
partner. From piracy of copyrighted CD's, to laser discs, to 
pharmaceutical products, the United States is losing billions of 
dollars' worth of intellectual property of our own people. In trying to 
continue to riddle our barriers with exports, with high tariffs, 
quotas, licensing agreements and discriminatory practices, patience is 
not leading China to become a responsible trading partner any more than 
it is leading to respect of rights, or religion, or arms control.
  Mr. President, last week in Detroit, the House minority leader, Mr. 
Gephardt, asked that we ground our policy toward China on principle and 
that it be consistent with other aspects of American foreign policy in 
our own history. He asked us to remember the words of William Allen 
White, who said, ``Whoever is fighting for liberty is defending 
America.''
  The questions that we face with regard to policy on China may be 
larger because of the enormous power and size of the Chinese nation, 
but they are not novel. We have faced these issues before in Rhodesia, 
South Africa, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. We have 
found that trade sanctions--and in its most modest form, the denial of 
preferred trade status--is not only a legitimate but an effective means 
of promoting human rights and changing national policies. Jackson-Vanik 
was a remarkable success in leading the Soviet Union to change its 
immigration policy toward Jews and dissidents by withholding trade 
preference. Apartheid in South Africa was met by a denial of a policy 
of constructive engagement by simply refusing to allow our markets to 
be open until South Africa abandoned apartheid, and it succeeded. Those 
policies worked in the past.
  Today, we impose much stricter policies toward Cuba, Libya, Iraq, 
Iran, and North Korea--in many instances, for the same violations of 
arms control agreements, irresponsible sharing of dangerous 
technologies, violations of human rights, of religion and speech, for 
the very same instances that I take this floor today to cite in the 
case of China and which, ironically, will be ceded by proponents of 
most-favored-nation status for China, we have a policy of denying trade 
preference. For China, we seek to see a different conclusion, while we 
cede the same facts.
  Mr. President, I argue, however, for more than consistency. I argue 
that because China has violated these critical rights of her own 
people, because her Government continues without the consent of the 
governed and therefore is inherently unstable and potentially 
dangerous, because these rights have been violated, trade agreements 
with the United States have been ignored, because dangerous 
technologies are being shared with the world despite commitments to the 
contrary, China should not be the exception, she should be the rule. 
Withholding these trade preferences are not less important because of 
China's size and power. They are more important.
  Mr. President, regardless of our party, our philosophy, or our 
ideology, I know no Member of the Senate wants anything but friendship 
with the Chinese people. They have a rich culture, a great history, and 
in their hands, perhaps more than those of any other people on Earth, 
lies the question of peace, freedom, and prosperity for the many 
peoples of the globe.
  Mr. President, as President Roosevelt concluded in his State of the 
Union Address 60 years ago, he reminded us that we needed to be 
governed by reality and not hope. He concluded, Mr. President, by 
saying:

       No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace 
     international generosity, or return of true independence, or 
     world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of 
     religion--or even good business. Such a peace would bring no 
     security for us or our neighbors.

  Mr. President, so be it. The world turns, generations succeed 
generations, but some truth remains eternal. The wisdom that Roosevelt 
brought to that dark day facing the authoritarianism of the Third Reich 
and of fascism, facing the prospect of a cold war he may not have been 
able to predict, but whose dimensions were beginning to become clear, 
the wisdom of that day can govern us as well. It is time to face the 
truth about China.
  I know every Member of this Senate wishes they had a chance to 
revisit in history the gulag, the concentration camps, all the 
blindness that we brought, the terrible problems of fascism and 
communism. We all wish that we could have seen the world as clearly as 
Roosevelt saw it on that day. We didn't all have his wisdom. We could 
not have all seen the future as clearly.
  Mr. President, there is no changing history, but there is still time 
for the 21st century. I rise today, Mr. President, to ask my colleagues 
to see China as it is, not as we would have it be. Someday, we will be 
accountable to the Chinese people themselves, and they will ask: Did 
you stand with us while we sought to worship our God? Did you defend us 
when we wanted to speak to our own future? Did you stand with us when 
we sought to choose our own government? Or, as you did in Iran, as you 
did often in the cases of communism, as you did in the early years of 
fascism, did you pretend to see the world as you would have it rather 
than the facts as they were presented to you? Were you part of change? 
Did you challenge our leaders? Did you put a price on their oppression? 
Or did you conspire with them in silence?

  Mr. President, that is the choice before us. It is not new. It has 
faced every generation that has ever stood on the floor of this Senate, 
every generation that ever succeeded the governance of this country. In 
a few weeks, when most-favored-nation status becomes an issue on the 
floor of this Senate, it will come again. I urge my colleagues to 
confront it with wisdom and reality, recognizing the extraordinary 
consequences for a new time and a new century, which we so desperately 
want to be different than the past.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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