[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 149 (Thursday, October 30, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11399-S11402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 UNITED STATES-CHINA RELATIONS AND AMERICA'S POSITION AS A WORLD LEADER

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the Senate floor 
today, joined by my friend from our neighboring State of Arkansas, 
Senator Tim Hutchinson.
  As the 21st century approaches, Senator Hutchinson and I both share a 
desire to see the United States maintain its position as a world 
leader--a world leader that emphasizes opportunity and freedom. A 
strong America abroad preserves the safety of our citizens at home and 
helps advance the ideals of liberty around the world.
  The United States is involved internationally in very substantial 
ways, and in some of those settings it is my fear that, instead of 
exhibiting strong leadership, we have demonstrated that we are 
incapable of demanding integrity and of requesting that others deal 
with us honestly.
  We are in the waning moments of a summit meeting between the 
President of China, Jiang Zemin, and President Clinton. Summit meetings 
can be very important times. They can provide opportunities for the 
United States to demonstrate leadership, to demonstrate a commitment to 
freedom and integrity in international relationships. Or they can do 
the converse and they can demonstrate that America will not demand 
integrity, will not demand a commitment to freedom and fair play. 
Summits can indicate that America does not have the kind of care for 
the rights of individuals generally around the globe that we would be 
known for historically in this country.
  When we have summit meetings, we need to advance America's security 
and economic interests. Summit meetings should be times of structural 
advance for the United States, when we put in place the kind of 
framework that will result in our country being stronger--the kind of 
framework that will preserve our security and advance freedom around 
the world.
  If statesmanship is not present, summits can become transactional 
rather than address the critical structural issues in a bilateral 
relationship. We have seen that during the United States-China summit 
this week, where the President of the United States has been eager for 
certain businesses to sell their goods to China, and has, in this 
particular summit, made it possible for the Chinese to gain access to 
some of the most important and sensitive nuclear technology in the 
United States. But the real issues in United States-China relations, 
however, have been deferred. Critical national security challenges, a 
staggering trade deficit, and an appalling human rights record in China 
all took a backseat to business contracts.
  Summits can turn into shallow media events when the critical 
bilateral issues are ignored. The United States-China summit was worse 
than just a shallow event. Unfortunately, it was an event which 
demonstrated that we were willing--in order to acquire certain business 
contracts--to look past what ought to be clear, structural issues that 
ought to galvanize our attention. China did not come to the summit to 
make real concessions on any front, and we responded with accommodation 
and appeasement. We agreed to have the summit anyway, in spite of the 
fact that China didn't come to provide genuine progress for the people 
of China or for the people of the United States.
  Whenever we don't achieve structural change, such as progress in our 
trading relationships, which would be a reduction in tariffs or 
nontariff barriers from China; whenever we don't see an improvement in 
the human rights situation in China so that personal freedom is 
advanced; whenever we don't have a clear record which demonstrates that 
China will cease proliferating nuclear and chemical weapons and mass 
destruction technology--we have lost the ability to advance our 
nation's fundamental interests and we have traded principle for a few 
commercial contracts.
  The real opportunity of summitry is the opportunity for structural 
change--not of transactions alone. It is an opportunity for 
statesmanship--not just salesmanship.
  I don't think it is wrong for the President of the United States to 
want to sell our goods abroad. But when we sell our goods and our 
principles along with them--the kind of commitment we have to freedom, 
the kind of commitment we have to integrity, the kind of commitment we 
have to stopping the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons 
around the world--I think the price is too high.
  I think we will have to ask ourselves when we look at the record of 
this summit, ``Has this been an exercise in statesmanship, or has this 
been an exercise in salesmanship?'' If it has just been an exercise in 
salesmanship, what have we sold? Have we bartered away our credibility, 
our commitment to freedom and liberty, and our demand for fair and 
balanced trade? Have we compromised our position when it comes to 
combating the proliferation of chemical and nuclear weapons? In my 
judgment, I think we have to ask those questions very, very soberly.
  Did the summit advance America's economic and security interests? Did 
it put United States-China relations on a firmer footing by addressing 
the critical issues in our bilateral relationship, or was it centered 
around accommodation and big-ticket commercial deals? Have we, instead 
of engaging in statesmanship, just found ourselves engaged in 
salesmanship and perhaps selling some of the things which we hold most 
dear in the process?
  My distinguished friend from Arkansas has shared many of these same 
concerns about our policy towards China. Senator Hutchinson has looked 
at this situation. He has grasped, I think, what is happening pretty 
well.
  Senator Hutchinson, is there any indication that the administration's 
China policy is defending American security, economic, and human rights 
interest? Or has this been something that

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simply ended up as being a transactional experience where we sold some 
goods and apparently were sold a bill of goods in return?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. First, may I say I am glad that I am able to join my 
distinguished colleague from Missouri.
  When he speaks of ``statesmanship'' on the issue of foreign policy, I 
think he exemplifies that term.
  To answer the Senator's question, I think it is unfortunate that 
after the summit the whole issue of human rights has really taken a 
back seat to commercial interests and that the attention that has been 
given to human rights is primarily attributable to those who have been 
willing to protest the presence of Jiang Zemin in our country, coming 
to the United States with the kind of attention at a state dinner, with 
a 21-gun salute, and with the red carpet treatment he has been 
accorded.
  So I am glad for those who have pushed the issue of human rights.
  The President was praised yesterday for chiding Jiang for the human 
rights record in China. But I think the chiding at whatever level it 
may have occurred and to what extent it may have occurred is greatly 
undermined when it is accompanied by 21-gun salutes, red carpet 
treatment, and state dinners, that, in fact, the ultimate end result of 
this summit will be to give greater acceptance of the Chinese Communist 
Government and greater willingness to accept and condone the oppressive 
practices that have become characteristic of this regime.
  So instructive engagement has degenerated, I am afraid, into an 
exercise of appeasement. I think ``appeasement'' is a very strong word 
to use. But when we look at the last 4 years, I think it is not too 
strong a term to use to describe what the administration's policy has 
been.
  The logic behind constructive engagement, as my colleague well knows, 
has been that expanded trade would lead to political liberalization and 
that economic freedom frequently leads to political freedom.
  I have had meetings with a number of dissidents this week from China, 
the most famous of whom in this country is probably Harry Wu. When I 
raised this issue with Harry Wu, I said, ``Harry, when they talk about 
economic liberalization leading to political liberalization and that 
trade ultimately always leads to political liberty if we will just give 
it time, that greater trade opportunities, the higher standard of 
living, and what they experience with economic prosperity has to 
ultimately lead to political liberalization and greater freedom,'' his 
response was if the administration were sincere in that, if they were 
genuine in that conviction, why not use that in North Korea, why not 
use that in Cuba? If, in fact, trade ended totalitarianism, we would be 
practicing that in other places.
  I would be delighted to yield to my colleague.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. Wu is a person who speaks with some experience as 
it relates to the human rights situation in China because he spent some 
considerable time in Chinese jails as a result of speaking openly, 
didn't he?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. That is correct. I believe Mr. Wu spent a total of 19 
years in Chinese prisons.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Is this because he attempted to rob a bank, or launched 
an assault on the Government?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. His incarceration was because he was drawing 
attention to something that China is sensitive to, which is the slave 
labor camp system that exists within China, and most recently, of 
course, his drawing attention to the Chinese Government's policy of 
selling organs from those who have been executed within those prisons.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. So for telling the truth in China, he spent 19 years in 
Chinese prisons.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Simply for being willing to express a dissenting 
opinion.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. During the time when he was in prison, was there 
expanding trade or contracting trade with the United States?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. As the Senator knows, trade has consistently 
expanded. I might also add that our deficit in trade with China has 
expanded as well, so that this year it is anticipated we will have a 
$44 billion trade deficit.

  But I think at the time Harry Wu was first incarcerated, it was down 
in the single digits.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. The expanded trade didn't expand his rights very 
effectively. He is free, and has to be outside of China to be confident 
of his ability to continue to speak freely.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I believe what underscores that even more is during 
the 8 years since Tiananmen Square and during the 4 years since we have 
adopted this so-called policy of instructive engagement, by every 
measure, human rights conditions in China have deteriorated, which 
seems to me to greatly undermine this approach that economic trade will 
lead to greater political liberty.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. So the administration's decision not even to consider 
human rights abuses when dealing with China has proven, I think, 
disastrous for the people of China and they have been removed from the 
threat of any repercussions; that is, the Chinese Communist government 
in their trade relationship with the United States and the Chinese 
Communist leaders have succeeded in jailing every last dissident in a 
country of over 1 billion people. So rather than seeing expanded 
liberties, we have seen those contracted by the jailing of every last 
dissident as our country has turned a blind eye to the atrocities that 
have escalated, and the oppressive government in China has strengthened 
its hold on fully what is one-fourth of the world's population.
  Since the United States formally delinked American trade with China 
from its human rights performance of abuse, much has changed, but 
nothing has changed for the better.
  I had in my office yesterday--I share this with the Senator from 
Missouri--a number of Chinese political dissidents, democracy 
dissidents, those who had raised their voices on the side of freedom. 
One was a former editor with the People's Daily, a Communist Chinese 
newspaper. He resigned that position because they would not allow him 
to speak the truth.
  But the one I remember the most and that made such an impression upon 
me was the young man who said that on the very day that President 
Clinton announced his policy of delinking in which he said no longer 
will we tie human rights abuses and violations to our attitude toward 
trade with Communist China, it was on that very day that they came and 
rounded him up and his incarceration and his prison term began.
  So the policy of constructive engagement has simply failed. It has 
produced more persecutions of Christians, more forced abortions, more 
sterilizations to the mentally handicapped, more incarcerations of 
political dissidents, and the near extinction of the expression of any 
opinions contrary to that of the Communist regime.
  I participated yesterday, I believe it was yesterday, in the ``Adopt 
a Prisoner of Conscience'' Program that began on the House side in 
which Members of the House and Senate were invited to adopt a 
particular individual who today is languishing in a Chinese Communist 
prison for no other reason--not because they robbed a bank or because 
they mugged somebody, or they robbed--for no other reason than they had 
expressed their own conscience contrary to that of the Communist 
government.
  The ``prisoner of conscious'' whom I adopted, and whose name I do not 
seek to say, was charged with this crime: Helping Christians. That was 
the charge. That is why he is incarcerated. The date of release is 
unknown. How long he will stay in prison we don't know. But his crime 
was simply helping Christians.
  So I suggest, as I yield to the Senator from Missouri, that this 
policy of constructive engagement has failed, and at some point, if 
time allows, I would like to talk about how this foreign policy 
contrasts so poorly with the very firm foreign policy that we had under 
Ronald Reagan.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator.
  I have to say in response to the Senator that the contrast between 
the rights of man in America and the kind of lip service given to 
freedom by the Chinese leadership could not be more striking.
  When asked about the nature of liberty, Chinese President Jiang said 
that liberty, in and of itself, is not an absolute, that it is a 
relative thing. He

[[Page S11401]]

analogized it to Einstein's theory of relativity. For President Jiang, 
liberty is something that can grow or shrink depending on the need, or 
the circumstance of the moment. Freedom might be something to be 
cherished; it might not.
  In contrast, the United States of America was founded on the concept 
in our Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator 
with inalienable rights. And this means a couple of things. One, that 
these rights are not relative, they are not adjustable; they are 
immutable, they are unchangeable--that these are given to us by God. It 
also suggests to us that they are given to everybody because it is the 
Creator that gives the right. It is not even governments which give 
rights. Rights are something that we are given by virtue of being 
created, and these rights are for the benefit of people all across the 
globe.
  We have on the one hand a Chinese leader that would have total 
latitude to adjust rights based on a theory of relativity. That is 
precisely what is happening in China. Someone being an accessory to 
Christianity, helping a Christian, finds himself in jail for an 
indeterminant length of time; someone who not only is not engaged in 
domestic unrest or criminal activity, but is just assisting other 
people in their own ability to recognize the existence of a Creator in 
accordance with their beliefs. In China, accessories to Christianity 
are criminals.
  That is the extent to which liberty can be withheld or granted in 
China, and that makes it very difficult to deal with such a goverment. 
The administration invites the Chinese delegation to the United States 
and we talk to them about human rights issues. While those officials 
are here in this country, it is very easy for them to make commitments 
to human rights in China. Since rights are relative, promises can be 
made now, but when the delegation returns to Beijing, the commitments 
take on new meaning.
  The truth of the matter is that I think America has it right about 
rights, that rights are something granted by the Creator, guarded 
perhaps by government, sometimes threatened and taken away by 
government. But rights are something we have because of our creation 
and our existence. They are not relative. They are not dependent upon 
whether someone thinks the condition is favorable to the rights of man. 
These are things which we are born with, we are created with. They are 
inalienable. They are immutable.
  President Jiang often says the right thing on human rights. Even 
China's constitution provides for fundamental human rights. China 
signed the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural 
Rights this week. Signing documents is painless, but if you really 
believe that rights are relative, that circumstances determine rights, 
what does the signature mean? It means that the rights will be granted 
so long as we want them to be granted.
  The 1996 State Department human rights report says, ``All public 
dissent against the party and government was effectively silenced by 
intimidation, exile, the imposition of prison terms, administrative 
detention, or house arrest. No dissidents were known to be active at 
year's end.''
  Now, that is a sobering concept, when our own State Department says, 
``No dissidents were known to be active at year's end.'' That has a 
very sobering tone. I believe that we ought to demand and expect a 
better human rights record from the Chinese Government.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. If the Senator will yield?
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I am pleased to yield.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I was impressed with the Senator's comments as he 
reminds us of what Jiang has said concerning rights, that they are 
relative, that they are not absolute. And how do you deal, how do you 
negotiate, how can you trust a leader that has that concept of 
liberties, and how that contrasts in fact with our own Founding 
Fathers--the attitude that they seem to have that rights are like 
aspirins to be dispensed as needed by the government and to expand or 
to contract as the situation may require?
  The ideals of the American Revolution were not narrow. They were not 
culturally limited appeals without relevance beyond our shores. Our 
Founding Fathers recognized that when God gave rights, when the Creator 
gave rights, he didn't just give them to Americans; that he gave them 
to all human beings. And so the efforts of the Chinese leadership to 
depict Western democracy as being only a Western phenomenon, that it is 
a Western cultural thing like business suits or like eating with knives 
and forks is I think contrary to the reality that in fact rights are 
absolute and that civil liberties, that human rights transcend cultures 
and they transcend societies and they even transcend various forms of 
government.
  The young students in Beijing 8 years ago who defied the tanks, I say 
to the Senator, were not there making papier-mache models of Chairman 
Mao but of Miss Liberty. They didn't quote from Marx. They were quoting 
from Thomas Jefferson. And we may not be able to save the lives of 
every young, brave student in the world, but we should always make it 
clear that our prayers and our policies are on the side against the 
tanks of terror and that we should never sell out his cause of freedom 
for trade opportunities.
  I recall, as does the Senator, when the copyright issue came up with 
China and that China was violating American copyright laws. It was at 
that point that the administration threatened sanctions against China. 
When I was talking with Harry Wu, he replied as only Harry Wu could, 
that copyright equals sanctions, human rights equal no sanctions. And I 
think it really puts in perspective the attitude of the administration 
that profits seem to be more important and will bring greater 
repercussions and consequences with the Chinese Government than will 
the violation of human rights.

  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator. I see that our time is fast 
fleeting. I thank the Senator for making the case against China's human 
rights record.
  There are other points to be made about the inequities in the 
relationship between the United States and China. Not the least of 
those is trade. The average tariff that China has on our goods is about 
23 percent. The average United States tariff on Chinese goods is about 
4 percent. That it is basically a 6-to-1 ratio. And as a result there 
is a staggering trade deficit with China. The Chinese citizens do not 
buy nearly as much from us as other countries do.
  The average Chinese buys 10 dollars worth of United States goods 
every year compared to $1,000 for the Taiwanese, $550 for every South 
Korean. Our trade deficit with Japan is troubling, but it only grew by 
10 percent between 1991 and 1996. The United States trade deficit with 
China grew by more than 200 percent during that same period.
  But as important as trade and human rights are, there is another 
important issue: the national security of the United States. China has 
been the worst proliferator of weapons of mass destruction technology, 
according to a CIA report. Today's Washington Times headline reads, 
``Clinton Jiang Reach Nuclear Accord.'' This is an accord which is 
designed to give China the very best of the nuclear information we have 
in this country, much of it sponsored with taxpayers' dollars as a 
result of governmentally assisted research. And not far from the 
``Clinton Jiang Reach Nuclear Accord'' headline is, ``China Aided Iran 
in Chemical Arms.'' This second article talks about a report from our 
Government that indicates that China has helped Iran develop a chemical 
weapons capacity--weapons of mass destruction for the kind of Third 
World rogue regime that we find in Iran.
  To see these things juxtaposed on the front page of a newspaper sends 
a chill, and it should, through my spine. To think that we are signing 
high-level nuclear accords with governments that are helping terrorist 
states like Iran acquire weapons of mass destruction technology is 
incomprehensible.
  To have that article right there, the nuclear accord, right beneath 
the story on China aiding Iran in the development of chemical weapons, 
is a dramatic illustration of this administration's failing China 
policy. The CIA report released this past summer said that China was 
the worst proliferator of weapons of mass destruction technologies in 
the latter half of 1996. A greater degree of caution is needed in 
dealing with such governments.

[[Page S11402]]

  U.S. credibility was at stake in the nuclear cooperation debate. What 
kind of leadership are we providing to the rest of the world? Other 
countries will not take their responsibility to restrain proliferation 
seriously if the United States enters into nuclear cooperation with the 
world's worst proliferator of nuclear and chemical weapons 
technologies.
  I thank the Senator for coming to the floor. If there are other 
questions or comments, I invite them.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the Senator for taking the leadership on this 
issue so forcefully. If I could ask unanimous consent for just 2 
minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will not object but I would ask in the 
unanimous consent that after the 2 minutes I be recognized for a 
statement. I have been waiting for that time to do so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). Is there objection? The Chair 
hears none, and it is so ordered.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. In closing, may I say it is my understanding that 
Jiang will be in Philadelphia, PA, today at the Liberty Bell, this 
great cradle of liberty, this great cradle of democracy in our country. 
I hope he reads well the words that are inscribed in the Liberty Bell 
because it is from the Scriptures. I think it is from the Book of 
Deuteronomy. It says, ``Proclaim liberty throughout the land.'' I hope 
he takes it to heart, that this is a concept he needs to bring back to 
China, and there is much he can do, starting with no longer jamming 
Radio Free Asia. If he believes in liberty, let the message of freedom 
come into his country.

  Among the dissidents I met with this week was an elderly Tibetan lady 
who had been arrested and spent 28 years in prison. She said that all 
of those who were arrested when she was arrested are now dead. And she 
said she has asked repeatedly, why only her? Why did she live? Why did 
she survive those 28 years in prison? And as we met right over here in 
the Foreign Relations Committee room, she looked around--there were 10 
Senators there, and she looked at those Senators and said, ``That's why 
I survived, so I could tell my story.''
  I thank Senator Ashcroft for helping tell her story to the American 
people.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have different things I want to talk 
about. One of the things I might talk about is the beauty of the great 
State of Montana, but I know I would only embarrass the Presiding 
Officer if I did that. So I will hold that for another occasion.

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