[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 53 (Monday, May 4, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4199-S4202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE GROWING THREAT OF CHINA TO THE UNITED STATES

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Madam President, the headlines in last week's 
newspapers ought to bring pause to this body and to all of us as 
Americans. The Washington Times, on Friday, had the headline ``China 
Targets Nukes at U.S.'' The inside part of that article, on a graphic, 
it says ``China's Long-Range Missiles,'' quoting a CIA report last May 
that ``13 of China's 18 CSS-4 missiles are now targeted at cities in 
the United States of America.''
  This report was followed by a report in the Washington Times today, 
headlined ``U.S. Firms Make China More Dangerous: Technology Aid Helps 
Missiles Reach America.'' I will say that again. ``Technology Aid Helps 
Missiles Reach America.'' This was also reported in the New York Times, 
another major newspaper in the United States. These stories are based 
on a new CIA report released last week that noted that 13 of China's 18 
long-range strategic missiles have single nuclear warheads aimed at 
U.S. cities. These missiles, with a range of over 8,000 miles, prove 
convincingly that China views the United States as its most serious 
adversary. This is further proof, I believe, that the current 
administration's policy of so-called constructive engagement has 
failed, and failed terribly, as China continues to go this route, as 
China continues to take provocative actions and actions that seriously 
endanger the security of the United States. It is important to note 
that these missiles are in addition to China's 25 CSS-3 missiles, with 
ranges of more than 3,400 miles, and its 18 CSS-4 missiles, with ranges 
exceeding 8,000 miles, and its planned DF-31, with a range exceeding 
7,000 miles.
  Until last year, China lacked even the intelligence, and certainly 
they lacked the technology necessary to manufacture boosters that could 
reliably strike at such long distances. In fact, it is reported that in 
a launch test of the boosters, their technology failed to launch the 
boosters three out of five times. That is a 60-percent failure rate. 
Likewise, they were years from developing the space technology 
necessary to launch multiple, independently targetable reentry 
vehicles, otherwise known as MIRVs, multiple warhead missiles. Now they 
are only years away, if not months, from having such technology.
  Some time ago, I participated in a firing-line debate on the campus 
of the University of Mississippi. During that debate, when the issue of 
national security was raised, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger 
reassured the audience of thousands, and the nationwide television 
audience of millions, that we need not be concerned about China's 
capability to launch missiles that might place American cities at risk. 
He said, in fact, it would be a couple of decades before China was 
anywhere near having the technology that could place the United States 
and American citizens at risk. Well, now we find that because of our 
own aid, and because of our own technology transfers to China, already 
we are seeing these missiles targeting American cities, and that this 
advanced technology is very much now at their disposal.

  How did China get this technology? Two U.S. companies--the Loral 
Space and Communications Company and the Hughes Electronic Company--are 
under investigation by the State Department following a classified 
Pentagon report that concluded that the two companies illegally gave 
China space expertise during cooperation on a Chinese commercial 
satellite launch. This report concluded that ``the United States 
national security has been harmed.''
  Here are the details: In 1996, during the course of an investigation 
of a Chinese rocket carrying a $200 million Loral satellite, scientists 
allegedly shared with their Chinese counterparts a report explaining 
the cause of the accident, which turned out to be an electrical flaw in 
the flight control system. This system is similar to those used on ICBM 
launch-guidance systems.
  In February, with the investigation of this incident underway, 
President Clinton permitted Loral to launch another satellite on a 
Chinese rocket and to provide the Chinese with the same expertise that 
is at issue in the criminal case, officials have said. A senior 
official said the administration recognized the sensitivity of the 
decision but approved the launch because the investigation had reached 
no conclusions, and Loral had properly handled accident launches. The 
administration, he said, still could take administrative action against 
the companies if they were found to have violated export laws in their 
earlier dealings with the Chinese.
  Another company--Motorola--is also involved in upgrading China's 
missile system. The chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Space 
and Technology received word from an unnamed official from Motorola 
that they, too, have been involved in upgrading China's missile 
capability. Interestingly, this executive claims the work is being done 
under a waiver--a waiver granted from the Clinton administration--thus, 
circumventing all of the bans and restrictions on such technology 
transfers. This technology was supposed to be controlled, restricted. 
Madam President, trade in missile and space technology to China was 
supposed to be severely restricted under the sanctions related to the 
crackdown of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Unfortunately, this 
administration has implemented a give-give

[[Page S4200]]

strategy of appeasement, which has weakened or eliminated most of these 
restrictions.
  Politics must not supersede national security concerns. Why did this 
administration make such an incredible and risky decision? Loral has 
numerous business deals with China. Loral has close ties to the White 
House. Its chairman and chief executive officer, Bernard Schwartz, was 
the largest individual contributor to the Democratic National Committee 
last year. Motorola's involvement and ties with this administration are 
just now being investigated. This raises serious questions and puts a 
dark cloud over these dealings, particularly in light of the CIA report 
indicating China is now targeting American cities.
  In addition to legally getting this technology through these waivers 
from the current administration, China has twice violated its agreement 
to follow the principles of the missile technology and control regime. 
Yet, under this administration's policy of appeasement, the 
administration is asking China to sign on to the missile technology 
regime. This is like stacking new promises on top of broken promises 
and then calling it progress. It is important to note that China's 
inclusion in the missile regime would allow even greater technology 
transfers to be made, thus, putting more Americans at even greater 
risk.
  Madam President, most importantly, China continues to repress and 
oppress its own people, in violation of international law. The latest 
State Department Report on Human Rights in China shows that China is 
still a major, if not the major, offender of internationally recognized 
human rights in the world today.
  This report from our own State Department notes that China continues 
to engage in ``torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrest and 
detention, forced abortion and sterilization, crackdowns on independent 
Catholic and Protestant bishops and believers, brutal oppression of 
ethnic minorities and religions in Tibet and Xinjiang and, of course, 
absolute intolerance of free political speech or free press''--from our 
State Department report.
  These are not new charges. The tragedy is not that we are hearing 
these charges repeated; the tragedy is that we continue the same policy 
that has allowed these kinds of repression and repressive practices to 
exist. We continue along the same line as if everything is fine. Human 
rights abuses, religious persecution, forced abortion, and slavery are 
all raised at the staff level, with only token concern expressed by 
senior officials in this administration.
  In addition to this report from the State Department, there are well 
documented abuses. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New 
York has indicted two Chinese immigrants for the sale and marketing of 
human body parts. I raised this allegation at a speech that I gave at 
the Fulbright Institute on the campus of the University of Arkansas in 
Fayetteville, with many visitors there from outside the State of 
Arkansas, and their disbelief and skepticism was expressed to me that 
this in fact was factual.
  Well, it is factual. It is beyond dispute that two indictments have 
been brought down regarding the sale of human body parts and harvesting 
of these body parts from Chinese prisoners with the full cooperation of 
the Chinese Government, and in some instances U.S. businesses. In this 
case, U.S. industry is alleged to have provided the Chinese Government 
with a dialysis machine to assist the harvesting of organs in their 
prison hospitals.
  On the policy of appeasement--the administration calls it 
``constructive engagement''--I think indisputably today a policy of 
appeasement to the Chinese Government is obviously failing. According 
to a report in the Washington Post on Friday titled ``U.S.-China Talks 
Make Little Progress on Summit Agenda,'' the United States, we find, is 
getting few concessions from China relating to the inspection of 
technology that we share with them; we are getting few concessions on 
limiting proliferation of technology to third-party states like Iran; 
and we are getting few concessions on the most important issue of all--
that of human rights conditions, particularly in Tibet.
  As the President prepares to travel to China, as he prepares to 
continue this policy of so-called ``constructive engagement,'' we find 
that even as we seek concessions in line with international norms, that 
we meet a stone wall. Our only token concessions are the release of 
high-profile prisoners. Despite this very obvious failure, we continue 
to give, and give under the guise of ``constructive engagement.''
  We have provided key technology that puts our own country at risk. We 
have set up a hot line that reaches from the White House to China. We 
have begun assisting China in its efforts to gain membership into the 
World Trade Organization, even as our balance of trade with China 
reaches new levels, new highs. Yet we try to orchestrate their efforts 
to get into the WTO. We dropped our annual push for a resolution 
condemning China's human rights record at the United Nations. This is 
something we have done year in and year out. We called upon the 
United Nations to condemn the abuses that are ongoing in China. This 
administration has dropped even that kind of symbolic gesture that has 
been a part of our foreign policy.

  We failed to do that in spite of the adoption of the sense-of-the-
Senate resolution asking this administration to do that. And we 
continue to provide China most-favored-nation status. In return for 
this, we have witnessed the release of three--we have witnessed the 
release of three--high-profile prisoners of conscience from China's 
prisons, three out of the thousands upon thousands of political and 
religious dissidents currently held in Chinese prisons.
  I would suggest to my colleagues in the Senate that we need to 
immediately respond in two ways. First of all, the Senate should 
immediately pass the 8 House-passed bills on China, bills that the 
House of Representatives adopted on huge bipartisan margins, by huge 
margins last year, usually from 350 votes to 400-plus votes on these 
various bills, short of denying most-favored-nation status but at least 
taking targeted measures to tell this repressive government in Beijing 
that the United States is serious when it announces its concerns about 
the abuses that are ongoing in China. Eight bills--ten bills passed the 
House. Two of them we have adopted in the Senate, but eight continue to 
languish without action.
  I asked our majority leader. I talked with him. He has given positive 
indications that we will bring these eight House bills to the floor for 
a vote in the U.S. Senate prior to the President's trip to Beijing in 
June.
  These bills include H.R. 2195 regarding slave labor, which passed the 
House by a vote of 419 to 2. H.R. 2195 was designed to keep slave-labor 
products out of the United States, authorizing needed funding for 
genuine enforcement of the ban on slave-labor products, calling upon 
the President to strengthen international agreements to improve 
monitoring of slave-labor imports. If it passed by this overwhelming 
margin in the House, I suspect if we had an opportunity to vote on that 
in the Senate, it would pass by an equally large margin. It is 
something we need to do before the President travels to China.
  H.R. 967, the ``Free the Clergy'' bill, which passed the House on 
November 6 of last year by a 366 to 54 margin: H.R. 967 targets those 
Communist officials who engage in religious persecution, banning their 
travel to the United States by prohibiting the expenditure of any U.S. 
taxpayer dollars in support of their travel and subjecting it to a 
Presidential waiver allowing them to be denied their visas. I think 
that is a simple step, a very modest step, that we should, that we 
must, do to ensure that United States statements of concern about 
religious persecution in China have some validity--even the denial of 
visas, travel opportunities, for those officials in China who continue 
to practice and implement the policy of religious persecution.
  H.R. 2570 regarding forced abortions passed the House on November 6, 
1997, with a 415-to-1 margin, yet the Senate these many months later 
has not yet had an opportunity to vote on this bill. This bill, H.R. 
2570, targets those Communist officials involved in forced abortion 
sterilization, banning once again their travel to the United States. I 
think that, once again, is a very modest move. It is about the most 
modest

[[Page S4201]]

move that we could possibly take regarding Communist government 
officials who are implementing a policy of forced abortion and 
sterilizations in China today and prohibiting them from traveling to 
the United States.

  H.R. 2358 on human rights monitors passed the House by a 416-to-5 
vote. It would increase six-fold the number of U.S. diplomats at the 
Beijing Embassy assigned to monitor human rights.
  I visited China in January. I know firsthand how short-handed our 
State Department officials and diplomatic officials are and how limited 
they are in their ability to monitor the ongoing human rights abuses in 
China. If we are to have the knowledge, if we as a body are to have the 
information that we so desperately need, these human rights monitors 
are needed. In addition, the new law will add at least one human rights 
monitor to each U.S. consulate in Communist China.
  H.R. 2232 on Radio Free Asia passed the House by a 401-to-21 margin 
and would fund a 24-hour-a-day broadcast throughout Communist China in 
each of the major dialects spoken in China. This Radio Free Asia bill 
will allow the truth of freedom to penetrate Communist China. And, in 
fact, the truth will set them free. And, as we are allowed to give the 
story of freedom and the story of democracy, the democracy movement, 
which was so alive almost 9 years ago on Tiananmen Square, will be 
alive and evident again in China. It passed by an overwhelming margin.
  H.R. 2605 on World Bank loans passed the House by a 354-to-59 margin. 
This bill would direct U.S. representatives at the World Bank to vote 
against below-market subsidies for Communist China. This is far short 
of denying MFN. I have heard all of the arguments against denying MFN 
in China. Indeed, this is not a blunt instrument. This is a very sharp 
scalpel, a very small instrument that can be used, simply denying 
subsidized loans by the American taxpayer to the Government of 
Communist China, which continues to practice these horrendous abuses 
against their own people.
  H.R. 2647, the People's Liberation Army companies, corporations--
companies and businesses and enterprises owned and operated by the 
People's Liberation Army, which passed the House by a vote of 405 to 
10, would require the Defense Department, the Justice Department, the 
FBI, and the CIA to compile a list of known PLA commercial fronts 
operating in the United States and would authorize the President to 
monitor, to restrict, and to seize the assets of and ban such PLA 
companies within the United States.
  For my colleagues, I would say these are companies predominantly 
owned and operated by the military of Communist China. These companies 
should not be free to operate and to trade freely in the United States. 
So this would authorize our various agencies--the Defense Department, 
Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and so forth--to monitor, to provide a 
list and authorize the President to restrict and seize the assets of 
such companies.
  H.R. 2386, this legislation, passing by a vote of 301 to 116, 
provides that the United States shall help Taiwan to develop and deploy 
an effective theater missile defense system. It has been obvious by 
some of the actions and some of the statements of the Beijing regime 
that they had designs on free Taiwan. This would simply be a step in 
ensuring that Taiwan would be able to defend themselves against any 
overt military action by the mainland Chinese Communist government.
  The second step I believe that we should take as a body, the Senate 
should support the resolution that I introduced on releasing the 
remaining dissidents in China. Senate Resolution 212, which I 
introduced on April 22, last month, with six cosponsors, has been 
referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and expresses the 
sense of the Senate that at the upcoming United States-China summit the 
President should demand the release of all persons remaining imprisoned 
in China and Tibet for political or religious reasons.
  I hope that as our President journeys to China these most important 
issues--human rights, religious persecution, weapons proliferation--
would not be relegated to staff level discussions but, in fact, the 
President himself would elevate them and would ensure that these issues 
become the primary focus of our relationship with China and that 
progress on these fronts is directly linked to the trade opportunities 
that China seeks. This resolution states that in the upcoming proposed 
summit between President Clinton and President Jiang of China, 
President Clinton should demand the immediate and unconditional 
release, consistent with established principles of human rights, of all 
persons remaining in China and Tibet for political or religious 
reasons.
  It says, secondly, the President should submit a report to Congress 
as soon as possible after the proposed summit in China concerning his 
progress in securing the release of persons imprisoned in China and 
Tibet.
  Third, it says one prisoner released into exile does not change the 
fundamental flaws within the Chinese judicial and penal system.
  Fourth, it states that the U.S. policy of granting concessions to the 
Chinese Government in exchange for the release of high-profile 
prisoners is an offense to the thousands of dissidents remaining in 
prison.
  I, as all Americans, rejoice and am thrilled at the release of any 
prisoner of conscience in China. Wang Dan's release, I am glad for 
that. Wei's release, I am glad for that. But I also know that the 
release of a handful of well-known dissidents is no substitute for 
change in the fundamental policy of the Chinaese Government, which 
continues to be one of repression and persecution of those who would 
raise their voice for freedom or raise their voice for their own 
conscience.
  And then the resolution states that the President should not offer to 
lift the sanctions imposed on China after the 1989 crackdown in 
Tiananmen Square, and those measures should not be reversed until we 
see substantive and real changes in the policies of the Chinese 
Government. I am not anti-Chinese. I was thrilled while I was in China 
to meet scores of individuals in China who are going about their daily 
lives making a living. I was glad to see the progress in moving toward 
a market system. I was glad to see the churches that are, though 
regulated stringently by the government, filled to the brim every 
Sunday. I was glad to see the Buddhist temples, though, once again, 
strictly regulated by the government, seeking to operate and continuing 
to operate. But I was chagrined to see that the government's 
fundamental policy towards its own people has not changed, that their 
concept of freedom is not that which is embedded in the founding 
documents envisioned by our Founding Fathers and appreciated and 
admired and accepted by the international community all over this 
world.

  This is not a case of the United States seeking to impose its ideas 
of democracy upon another culture. It, rather, is seeking to have our 
country, as it always has, reflect in our foreign policy the underlying 
values of freedom that are not American but are human, that transcend 
every national boundary, that transcend every culture and society and 
are fundamental for basic respect of human dignity and human rights.
  It is that, I think, President Reagan had in mind when he spoke of 
this country as a shining city on a hill, a nation that could be 
admired and respected the world over because of a foreign policy, 
reflected in its attitude and in its policies toward our neighbors 
around the world, of fundamental respect for human rights. It was 
almost 9 years ago when the massacre at Tiananmen occurred--June 8 and 
June 9, almost 9 years ago. Those students, hundreds of them that were 
massacred, looked to the United States as its emblem, as its symbol of 
freedom in the world. It was Lady Liberty that they erected that stood 
there in Tiananmen Square day after day, week after week, testimony to 
the desire of Chinese people for greater freedom. Now it is our time to 
stand with them. It is time for our President as he journeys to China 
to take this stand forcefully and to elevate this as the primary 
reason, the primary purpose in his journey to that important nation in 
the world. And as he is willing to do that, this body will stand with 
him. I hope, once again, that the Senate will adopt the House-passed 
bills, that we will adopt the sense of the Senate, and in so doing we 
will arm the President with the forceful opinion of the American people 
that fundamental change needs to take

[[Page S4202]]

place in the Chinese Communist government in its attitudes and its 
policies toward its own people.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed 
as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Bumpers pertaining to the introduction of S. 2030 
are located in today's record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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