[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 141 (Monday, October 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10832-S10833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       UNITED STATES-CHINA SUMMIT

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor to talk a 
little bit about the summit that is coming up soon--as a matter of 
fact, the 29th and 30th of this month. President Jiang Zemin of China 
will visit Washington to have a summit meeting with President Clinton. 
It is a good time I think for us to do two things. One is to think a 
little bit about our role with respect to the summit, our role as 
Congress. Another is that it is a good time for us to take another look 
at our policy and our bilateral relationships and reevaluate both of 
those with respect to China and its goals.
  As chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, 
this relationship, of course, and its ramifications in the future, its 
impact on the United States and the world is something that is very 
important to me. East Asia, of course, will be a source of one of our 
most important economic and strategy challenges as we move into the 
next century. China, with 1.2 billion people and an increasingly 
expanding economy, will continue, and increasingly, to be a center of 
attention in Asia. To adequately meet those kinds of challenges, 
obviously, why, we need to continue to articulate and develop a 
workable policy with respect to China and then, of course, to all of 
the countries in Asia.
  This administration has and continues to refer to our China policy as 
a constructive engagement, which has a nice sound, a nice ring to it, 
but I am not sure anybody really knows what that means. Apparently, it 
can mean whatever one would like it to mean. If you ask 10 or 12 
different people, each of them might give you a different explanation 
of what it is. Moreover, and probably even more important, the Chinese 
do not know what constructive engagement means. Many of them are not 
persuaded and talk often about the idea that our relationship with 
China is one of containment, which it really is not.
  So I think it is a good opportunity to make clear what our policy is 
with respect to China. And it seems to me that that policy ought to 
reflect those things that are of concern to us, those things that are 
important to us, those things that will over time allow us to have a 
relationship with China. I happened to have the opportunity to visit 
there in August. Most of the leadership was at the coast because of the 
summertime, but I did go there and visit with the Foreign Minister. We 
talked a good deal about the upcoming summit and what it is that it 
might be.
  I was, and am still, a bit concerned that when you have a summit 
there may be a compelling interest among the administration people to 
be able to announce great things at the summit, which would be fine if, 
indeed, they are based on the kind of arrangements and the kind of 
agreements that really need to be made in order to have great things to 
announce. It would be a shame, on the other hand, if we rushed to 
agreement on some things and came up with unsatisfactory agreements 
simply in order to make the summit look as good as it should.
  I agreed with the Foreign Minister that, indeed, it would be better 
to just have a summit to help our relationships, to talk about 
problems, if that is all we could do, than to have some artificial 
arrangements made in order to make some announcements.
  So I think that is a little bit where we are. One of the things that 
I believe is important is that the Congress should be involved. In most 
countries like China and Indonesia that have a different system, of 
course, the people do not really understand that Congress has something 
to do with foreign policy, that Congress is involved in foreign policy. 
That is not the case in most countries. So I am hopeful, and I am now 
fairly confident, there will be some congressional involvement in this 
summit.
  One of the things I am glad has not occurred, however, as sometimes 
does is that--of course, we are free here and should speak out on 
whatever we want--often you see a whole series of sense-of-the-Congress 
resolutions that are not very conducive to having a good meeting--some 
of them saying, well, if you do not behave, we will take away your 
visas and all that sort of business, which may have merit but it does 
not seem it is useful as we come up to a summit with the intention to 
try to improve the relationships we have. I think those things are 
counterproductive, as is the case generally with sanctions; sanctions 
do not work. There are less than a handful of objectives that the 
Chinese simply can't get somewhere else. We have sanctions on something 
when they are bargaining with Boeing for 777's and they go to France 
and buy Airbuses. That is kind of the way that works. We hurt our own 
relationship for no positive reason.
  Now, I am not an apologist for China. There are many things that are 
being done there that we think should be done differently, many things 
that are being done there that are not consistent with our values, but 
I think probably as important as anything, if China wishes to be part 
of the family of business in the world, then there are some rules they 
have to abide by or else they are not part of the family. Countries 
have to stay with agreements that they have, the contracts they have.
  So there are many things that make it more difficult to embrace 
people in the international community. In the case of China, there are 
concerns about Tibet, concerns about human rights, religious 
persecution, rule of law, intellectual property rights, relationships 
with Taiwan. All of those things are concerns. But the issue is how do 
we best deal with them. Nobody denies that there are problems we have 
to deal with, but as in the case of most favored nation, then you say I 
understand the problem. The question is how do we best deal with it. Do 
we best deal with it by standing away? Do we best deal with it by 
sanctions? Or do we best deal with it by articulating a foreign policy 
and then saying we are going to stay with that policy? I believe that 
is the best answer for us.
  There are a number of things that ought to be talked about, I 
believe, at this summit. I have met with Sandy Berger, who is the 
President's adviser and the person I think most responsible for the 
meeting, who seems also to be in tune with this. There are about four 
real issues that I hope are talked about very candidly and talked about 
in depth. One is nuclear proliferation --the idea of parts shipped to 
Pakistan, the idea that Iran and the PRC have a nuclear cooperation 
agreement, changes to domestic law to prevent dual use. These kinds of 
things. Now, we are in the course of the President certifying that 
these things are not in fact happening, and I hope they are not. But we 
need to talk about that. We need to have an understanding. We need to 
be able to have visibility to see if, indeed, that is happening.
  Another is human rights. I think we need to continue to speak out 
about religious freedom. We need to continue to speak out about 
personal freedom. Those are our values. We are not going to be able to 
tell everybody else how to live, but we can promote values that we 
believe are important. And among those at the top is human rights.
  Trade. China, of course, wants to belong to the World Trade 
Organization, and I, indeed, hope they do. I think it would be better 
for us so that when you have trade problems, it is not a unilateral 
kind of thing but, indeed, would fall within the purview of the World 
Trade Organization. And some measures could be put on by other 
countries as well as ours.
  Finally, security. We have had good cooperation from the PRC with 
regard to North Korea. But one of the reasons that we are involved as 
we are in China and in Asia is, of course, to stabilize the security of 
this part of the world, which is terribly important to us. I think we 
have been relatively successful in doing that.

[[Page S10833]]

  Mr. President, as this summit comes close, I am pleased that the 
Congress is somewhat involved. I am actually pleased that these have 
kind of been four issues that at least the National Security Council 
has set forth. I hope we have honest, candid talks with the President 
of China. I hope we say in very understandable terms what our policy is 
in regard to human rights, in understandable terms what our policy is 
with regard to trade. We obviously have to open up China so that our 
trade deficit doesn't worsen.
  So we have real problems to resolve. We do not resolve them by simply 
saying we are going to have ``constructive engagement.'' I think we 
need to be specific on a relatively small number of things that are 
important to us and then, by golly, stick with them. If we have an 
agreement on intellectual property and it is not adhered to, then we 
need to do something about it. We should not try to run everything that 
everybody else does in another country, but those things that are 
important to us I think we ought to stay with. I look forward to the 
summit. I hope it is a useful one. I hope it contributes to world 
peace. I hope it contributes to stability in world trade and perhaps 
most of all the improvement of human rights in that part of the world.

                          ____________________