[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
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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
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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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