[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 146 (Monday, October 27, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11231-S11232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PRESIDENT JIANG ZEMIN'S STATE VISIT

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Madam President, I rise today, on the eve of Chinese 
President Jiang Zemin's official state visit to the United States. I 
rise today because I believe that, while it is important to continue 
relations with a country that contains one-fourth of the world's 
population, it is also important for us to remember that this one-
fourth of the world's population--these 1.2 billion people--suffer 
today under an oppressive regime committed to a violent suppression of 
dissent, a regime which steadfastly refuses to recognize inalienable 
human rights, a regime which uses imprisonment, torture, and execution 
as tools to forge a society that is void of individual liberty.
  It is a regime that has a government program to market human organs 
and body parts, using the execution of prisoners as a profit method for 
the Government of China; a regime that systematically jams Radio Free 
Asia. While coming to the United States and professing their belief in 
liberty, they systematically jam the expression of freedom that this 
country subsidizes, underscoring its importance by broadcasting 
throughout Asia.
  Yet, with all of these facts, all of this evidence, the United States 
rolls out the red carpet for President Jiang Zemin of China, the same 
leader who was named General Secretary of the Communist Party 3 weeks 
after the protests were quelled with violence and bloodshed in 
Tiananmen Square. This is the same leader who is the hand-chosen 
successor to Deng Xiaoping, the so-called Butcher of Beijing. He is the 
same Communist leader who, in a 1990 interview, only a few weeks after 
the Tiananmen Square massacre, in an interview with Barbara Walters 
described the Tiananmen killings as, and I am quoting President Jiang 
Zemin, ``much ado about nothing.'' This is the Communist leader who, in 
an interview published in the Washington Post just last Sunday, 
continued to defend the Tiananmen Square massacre and suggested the 
violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators was the price of allowing 
economic reform in China. Madam President, this is the Communist leader 
who is traveling throughout the country like a king.
  Nothing underscores the differences we have with President Zemin more 
than his recent comments on the subject of human rights. Earlier this 
month, as he prepared to come to the United States, President Zemin 
said, ``Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts and not 
absolute and general.'' That bears repeating. President Jiang Zemin 
said about democracy and human rights, they are not absolutes, they are 
not something that is essential, something that is God given, something 
that is basic to being human beings. But, he says, they are relative 
concepts.
  As citizens of the United States, the great foundation on which our 
country was built is the undeniable and unchanging principle that all 
mankind is created equal, and that we are endowed by the Creator with 
certain unalienable rights. Those rights attend to us as human beings, 
whether we live in China or whether we live in the United States. 
Nothing is more central to our understanding of the role of government. 
President Zemin and the Chinese leadership flagrantly reject this and 
over 1 billion Chinese know oppression and fear and violence as part 
and parcel of their daily lives. I would say to President Zemin that 
human rights are not the possession of governments, to be dispensed at 
the will or the discretion of those who wield power. Human rights is 
not, as he has insisted, a relative concept. It is a transcending value 
that crosses cultures, societies, and forms of government. Liberty is 
not the province of America, and to my colleagues and to this 
administration I would say that our defense of freedom must not stop at 
our own shores.
  The values which we cherish as Americans we must defend for people 
everywhere. We always have. The Great Wall that separates our 
governments today is the great wall of human rights violations. I hope 
the President and the leadership of Congress in their meetings with 
President Zemin this week will, frankly and forcefully, communicate the 
deep sense of anger and the deep sense of outrage that is stirred in 
this country by the ongoing human rights abuses in China.
  It is time for straight talk with the Chinese leadership. It is time 
for an American foreign policy guided by a commitment to the cause of 
freedom. I urge the President to remember the words that he spoke in 
December 1991 as he campaigned for the office which he now occupies. 
Candidate Clinton in 1991 said, in reference to the Bush 
administration:

       The administration continues to coddle China, despite its 
     continuing crackdown on democratic reforms, its brutal 
     subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and 
     missile technology, and its abusive trade practices.

  He accused the Bush administration of coddling China because of these 
circumstances within China--brutal subjugation of Tibet, irresponsible 
export of nuclear missile technology, and crackdown on Democratic 
reforms. He said, because of that, the Bush administration is doing too 
little. They are coddling China. I ask the President, what has changed? 
The only thing that has changed is the condition of the Chinese people 
and the oppression under which they live every day. Conditions are 
worse by every measure and by every standard. Things have gotten worse 
in China. Yet the administration has totally changed its position. The 
position of the President has changed. The condition of the Chinese 
people has changed also, but only for the worse.
  I believe that China's flagrant disregard for human rights should be 
enough. But, since our policies toward China have not changed, the 
human rights abuses continue to take a back seat to a foreign policy 
that seems to be driven by profit projections. The administration now, 
instead of sanctioning China, wants to sign an all-encompassing new 
nuclear pact with China; in effect, to reward them.
  The logic in all of this new policy, called constructive engagement, 
is that if we will engage China and we will trade with China and we 
will see economic expansion in China--and their

[[Page S11232]]

economy is growing in double digits every year--that human rights 
conditions will improve, that the rights of the Chinese people will be 
enhanced. Such has not been the case. And if such a policy were one 
that we consistently enforced around the world, it would result in the 
lifting of sanctions on Cuba, the lifting of sanctions on North Korea, 
because if we believe that increased trade is going to bring the 
downfall of totalitarianism, it ought to work not only in China but 
North Korea and Cuba, too. But we hear no mention we ought to change 
our trade policies toward North Korea or Cuba; all the time saying if 
we just continue to trade with China, things will get better there. 
Now, in the midst of all of this, the administration admits to signing 
an all-encompassing nuclear pact with China. Lets look at the facts, 
because I think they speak for themselves.

  In December 1992, the Government of the People's Republic of China 
violated the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Administration Act 
of 1979 with the transfer by the Ministry of Aerospace Industry of 
approximately 24 M-11 missiles to Pakistan.
  Let's look at the facts. From September 1994 to June 1996, the 
Government of the People's Republic of China again violated the Arms 
Export Control Act and the Export Administration Act of 1996, with the 
transfer by the Ministry of Aerospace Industry of as many as 30 M-11 
ballistic missiles to Pakistan.
  In August 1996, the Government of the Peoples Republic of China again 
violated the Arms Export Control Act, the Export Administration Act of 
1979, and the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act of 1992, with the 
transfer by the China Precision Engineering Institute to Iran's defense 
industries of gyroscopes, accelerometers, and test equipment for the 
construction and test of ballistic missile guidance systems.
  While looking at the facts, it was reported in August of this year 
that the United States Central Intelligence Agency discovered a 
shipment by the People's Republic of China to the Syrian Scientific 
Studies and Research Center, a Syria Government agency that oversees 
missile development, of guidance equipment for M-11 ballistic missiles. 
This alleged system would be a violation of the Missile Technology 
Control Regime. This alleged shipment would have taken place after the 
limited sanctions imposed by the United States on China for shipments 
of M-11 missiles and components to Pakistan had been lifted following 
the assurances by China that it would comply with the Missile 
Technology Control Regime.
  So we see these ongoing violations. After each of these violations, 
and there are many more, our administration either failed to take 
appropriate actions to deter future violations of such acts, took the 
least onerous action against the Government of the People's Republic of 
China that was possible under such acts, or rescinded previous actions, 
thereby diluting or eliminating the deterrent effect of sanctions under 
such acts with respect to China.
  This inaction has forced three important results. First, this 
Congress renewed MFN to China. Second, we are now honoring the 
Communist leader in our country. Third, the public has been convinced 
that through such nearsighted ill-advised strategies like constructive 
engagement, China would change.
  Yes, Madam President, China has changed--for the worse. And this 
Congress and this President, I believe, has done too little. If you 
will, we have stood idly by. We have said too little. We have done 
virtually nothing.
  What is truly unprecedented is the administration's recent campaign 
to draw a bright and attractive picture of Communist China. I ask the 
President and I ask this Congress, and I have turned to this before and 
I will turn to it again, have you not read the 1996 United States State 
Department's China Country Report on Human Rights Practices? Because I 
have read it. The information in it is horrific. Once again, allow me 
to quote from this report:

       China has continued to commit widespread and well-
     documented human rights abuses, in violation of 
     internationally accepted norms stemming from the authorities' 
     intolerance of dissent, fear of unrest, and the abuse of laws 
     protecting basic freedoms. Abuses include torture and 
     mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, and arbitrary 
     and lengthy incommunicado detention. The government continued 
     severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, 
     assembly, religion, privacy and workers' rights.

  That's from our own State Department 1996 country report on China.
  In 1989 we watched with amazement as courageous Chinese students 
marched in Tiananmen Square. Today, they are all gone. They are all 
gone. During their struggle they defied the tanks, they looked to the 
United States for inspiration, they quoted our Declaration of 
Independence, they built replicas of our Statue of Liberty, and 
throughout it all United States policymakers have answered that 
economic engagement would stop China's abuses of human rights. As far 
as I can tell, not only are profit projections driving our foreign 
policy, not only is our current policy with China appeasement rather 
than engagement, not only does this Congress continue to turn a blind 
eye to the oppressed in the interests of trade opportunities, but, 
President Jiang Zemin's visit is a clear sign to the world, our 
enemies, and our friends that not only did the United States tacitly 
approve of everything that was going on, I think, from forced 
sterilization to the breaking of ballistic missile treaties, but even 
more important it's a clear message that we can and will tolerate 
anything and everything without repercussion and without a price.
  I am reminded of President Ronald Reagan. I think few have served our 
country more nobly. And I am reminded of my good friend Senator John 
Ashcroft who has spoken so forcefully on the issue of China, especially 
even during this last month. In President Ronald Reagan's second 
inaugural address, he spoke of the danger of simple-minded appeasement. 
He spoke of accommodating countries at their lowest and least. This is 
what former President Reagan said:

       History teaches us that wars begin when governments believe 
     the price of aggression is cheap.

  There have been no repercussions to the egregious human rights abuses 
ongoing in China. There have been no repercussions. There has been no 
price to pay for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that 
the Government of China has carried out. There have been no 
repercussions for the incomprehensible toleration by the Chinese 
Government of laogai camps, the slave labor camps that exist in which 
there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, incarcerated.
  Madam President, President Jiang Zemin's visit proves that China 
believes that the price of aggression and the price of these abuses is 
cheap. It proves that we in this country accept this, and I can 
remember when we did not. It proves that, just as President Clinton 
stated last Friday that China is at a crossroads, well, Madam 
President, we in the United States are at a crossroads as well. 
President Jiang Zemin and his enjoyment of a state visit, a visit that 
has been elevated to the highest level, the red carpet treatment that 
he has been accorded, the 21-gun salute, I believe this is truly a slap 
in the face to every Chinese political dissident that languishes today 
in a Chinese prison. It is time that we as public policymakers, those 
concerned about the welfare of our fellow human beings wherever they 
may live in this world, who are the recipients by their creator, as we 
Americans are, of certain unchangeable, undeniable human rights, it is 
time that we, once again, not only spoke out, but move from debate and 
discussion and outrage to action.
  During the course of this state visit, while I disagree with much 
that has been planned and the royal treatment that he is being given, 
it is an opportunity for us as Americans to show President Zemin what 
freedom really is. It is an opportunity for us, through our protests, 
through our debates, through our congressional oversight hearings that 
are going on, through every means possible, to raise these most serious 
issues to the attention of President Zemin and to show him not only 
what free expression really is, but to show him the true intensity of 
the feeling of the American people, if not our Government, the American 
people at what has been tolerated and what continues to go on in China 
today.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.




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