[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 62 (Friday, May 15, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4937-S4939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       PROHIBITING CONVEYANCE OF LAND AT LONG BEACH NAVAL STATION

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to share with you and with my 
colleagues something I think is quite significant that is taking place, 
and also to correct some of the things that I have said that I found to 
be untrue.
  I was on the floor yesterday introducing an amendment to the 1999 
Senate defense authorization bill. In this authorization bill, I have 
an amendment that would stop the transfer of land in California at Long 
Beach to the COSCO, which is the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company. I 
would like to share why this is an important amendment.
  I don't criticize any of my fellow Senators. But when I started 
talking about this yesterday, and I moved to set aside the Feinstein 
amendment in order to consider my amendment to stop the transfer of 
land to COSCO out in California, there was objection to that unanimous 
consent request. In a way, I think that is good because it gives me an 
opportunity to go into a lot more detail and to talk on some talk radio 
shows to alert America as to the seriousness of something that is 
happening out there.
  I would like to start off by saying, however, that when I talked on 
the floor about the fact that President Clinton signed a waiver back in 
1996, and then another waiver in 1998 that allowed the transfer of 
technology to the Chinese, this was something that I thought was done 
in secret. I found out just this morning that it was not done in 
secret. He signed a waiver. He apparently did not disobey any law or 
violate any law in so doing. However, since I am a member of both the 
Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, and I 
was not aware that he signed the waiver in 1996 or 1998, and not one of 
my colleagues who I have talked to was aware of it, I reasonably 
assumed that it was done in secret.
  To kind of give you the sequence in which this happened, I will tell 
you, Mr. President, that in June of 1989 we all saw what happened on 
the Tiananmen Square. At that time, as a result of the Tiananmen Square 
massacre, our country imposed some sanctions banning U.S. trade in 
dual-use technology. The President retains the power to grant waivers 
on a case-by-case basis. It seems to me that this President has an 
obsession in granting waivers and preferential treatment to China. In a 
minute I am going to read an article from this morning's New York Times 
that might shed a little light as to why the President was doing this. 
Let me finish with this sequence of events.

  From 1990 to 1995, there were some waivers given for certain 
technologies. In 1995, President Clinton offered a waiver for 
commercial satellites, allowing U.S. satellites to be launched on 
Chinese rockets. The Loral Corporation--maybe it was a coincidence--
which was the single largest contributor to the Democratic National 
Committee in two Presidential elections, in 1992 and 1996, took 
advantage of this waiver. So we had our commercial satellites placed on 
rockets that were designed and manufactured by the Chinese government. 
Anyway, one of these rockets went off, and there was an explosion in 
1996, and they went in to investigate as to why the explosion took 
place. In 1998, just 2 months ago, in February of this year, the 
President granted another waiver allowing the transfer of information 
to China which gave them more reliability and accuracy in their 
missiles.
  Now, I would like to put this in a context that is easier to 
understand for a lot of people who are not involved in these issues. I 
am from the State of Oklahoma. It is a known fact--there is nothing 
classified about it--that both China and Russia have missiles that can 
reach the United States from anyplace in China or Russia. Specifically, 
in the case of China, they have their CS-4 missile that has a range of 
8,000 kilometers, and by going the polar route, it will reach anyplace 
in the continental United States or any part of the United States. So 
this missile will do it.
  However, with the technology the Chinese had before the President 
allowed our technology to go over there and give them more accuracy, 
their missile could hit my State of Oklahoma but it could not pinpoint 
any particular city like Oklahoma City or Tulsa or Fort Sill or any of 
our military establishments. With this technology, it gives them the 
accuracy to do that. So that is what the President did. I am very 
concerned about this obsession that the President has to share 
everything that we have with the Chinese.
  Let's keep in mind we are talking about the China Ocean Shipping 
Company. It is not just owned by the Chinese. It is owned and run by 
the Communist Chinese military. It was only a week ago Monday that the 
Washington Times came out and disclosed the content of a CIA report. 
This report stated that there were some 18 CS-4 missiles that China had 
that were targeted at various places around the world, and 13 of those 
missiles are targeted at cities, major cities in the United States of 
America.
  Now, when you get a little bit concerned about the President giving 
preferential treatment to China with all these waivers, allowing them 
to have our technology so they can pinpoint their targets, and then we 
find out, as I think most of us knew anyway, that there are rockets in 
China, ICBMs aimed at major cities in the United States of America, it 
is very, very distressing.
  This morning in the New York Times this article on the front page 
right here says, ``Democrat Fund-Raiser Said to Name China Tie.'' This 
is a major breakthrough, and it may shed some light as to why the 
President has been granting these waivers and giving this Presidential 
treatment, and in my opinion changing his policy to the Far East from 
what it was when he ran for President in 1992. I recall that he made 
statements in opposition to MFN status for China. Now he is the leading 
advocate for MFN status for China. He was one who was opposed at one 
time to the normalization of our relations with Vietnam, and, of 
course, now, as we all know, he has headed up an effort that has 
successfully normalized those relations. He is right now spending much 
of his time trying to convince Congress to let the IMF bail out some 
Far Eastern banking concerns to the extent of $18 billion.

  Let me just read, Mr. President, the first four paragraphs from this 
article in the New York Times, ``Democrat Fund-Raiser Said to Name 
China Tie.''

       A Democratic fund-raiser has told Federal investigators he 
     funneled tens of thousands of dollars from a Chinese military 
     officer to the Democrats during President Clinton's 1996 re-
     election campaign, according to lawyers and officials with 
     knowledge of the Justice Department's campaign finance 
     inquiry.
       The fund-raiser, Johnny Chung--

  We all remember Johnny Chung, this friend of President Clinton's of 
longstanding--

     told investigators that a large part of the nearly $100,000 
     he gave to Democratic causes in the summer of 1996--including 
     $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee--came from 
     China's People's Liberation Army through a Chinese lieutenant 
     colonel and aerospace executive whose father was Gen. Liu 
     Huaqing, the officials and lawyers said.
       General Liu was then not only China's top military 
     commander but also a member of the [top] leadership of the 
     Communist Party.

  It goes on to talk about this. It says.

       . . . investigators regard the identification of Ms. Liu--

  This is his daughter--

       as a breakthrough in their long search for conformation of 
     a ``China Plan.'' The hunt was prompted after American 
     intelligence intercepted telephone conversations suggesting 
     that Beijing considered covertly influencing the American 
     elections.

  I am quoting all this out of an article that is in today's New York 
Times.
  Now, Mr. President, I do want to go back and address my amendment 
because my amendment is going to be before this body this coming 
Tuesday, and when it is, I want to make sure that all of my colleagues 
who are watching right now, or listening, hopefully, have full 
knowledge of exactly what this amendment is all about.
  First of all, I think it is important to look at what is COSCO. 
COSCO--that stands for the China Ocean Shipping Company--is owned by 
not just the Chinese Government, but it is run by China's military. 
COSCO reports to the Chinese Ministry of Communication which falls 
under the State Council

[[Page S4938]]

which in turn is led by Communist Party politburo member and Premier Li 
Peng.
  Now, I noticed the other day--I am quite sure it was in the 
Washington Times--that Sven Kramer, who has long served the National 
Security Council under both Democratic and Republican administrations--
I think everyone in this body is familiar with Sven Kramer--said he is 
disgusted with the cavalier actions of an administration that critics 
say put a dial-for-dollars campaign ahead of national security. Kramer 
asserts he finds it difficult to believe that the United States would 
surrender key ports in Long Beach and at either end of the Panama Canal 
to the PLA--that is the People's Liberation Army--led shipping company 
called COSCO. He cites the ``foolishness of the intelligence 
community'' for not blowing the whistle on these operations.
  So we have COSCO as a government-owned shipping company that is 
planning to take over the land in the Long Beach area which requires 
the President of the United States to sign a waiver.
  Now, does anyone doubt that the President will sign this waiver? I 
have no doubt at all. I can stand on this Senate floor, and say that 
the President is planning to do that, because any President who signs a 
waiver allowing, in 1996 and in 1998, the Chinese to have technology 
that will give their missiles more accuracy to hit targets in the 
United States when we already know there are some 13 missiles that are 
targeted to the United States, would certainly not hesitate to sign 
this waiver. And so we have areas of concern about this company COSCO.
  One of these areas of concern is that in March of 1996, in Oakland, 
CA, the COSCO ship Express Phoenix--that is the name of the ship--
transported 2,000 illegal Chinese weapons, AK-47s--these are the 
machine guns, not the AK-47s that will fire one round at a time; those 
are replicas; these are the real things--transported 2,000 illegal 
Chinese machine guns to be used on and sold to California street gangs, 
to be used by street gangs. Fortunately, we found out about it and the 
guns were confiscated by the FBI.
  This is also the same shipping company that has been stopped by the 
U.S. Coast Guard some six times because of various violations. This is 
the one that, in December of 1996, created a lot of damage to a 
boardwalk in New Orleans in their harbor. It also is the same shipping 
company that is in the process of gaining control of both the entrance 
and exit--it depends on which way you are going--of the Panama Canal, 
on the Atlantic and on the Pacific sides.
  So we do have great concern over what COSCO has been doing. Last 
year, in the 1998 Senate authorization bill, the Senate defense 
authorization bill, I had an amendment that I wanted to put on. We were 
unsuccessful in getting it on. Congressman Duncan Hunter over in the 
House of Representatives was unable to get his amendment on also. So he 
and I have been trying to do it this year. It is an amendment that 
would stop COSCO from being able to benefit from the transfer of this 
property.
  On April 29, 1998, an appeals court decided that the Port of Long 
Beach followed State law in its environmental review process to plan to 
lease the land of the former Long Beach Naval Station to COSCO. So you 
can see, we are much closer than we were last year at this time when we 
tried to put these amendments on.
  Anyway, I applaud Congressman Duncan Hunter, who was able to offer 
and successfully pass an amendment in the House National Security 
Committee by a margin of 45 to 4. I am introducing an amendment that 
does exactly the same thing.
  For people who are not aware of the process that is used around here, 
when you pass the defense authorization bills, they are passed by both 
the House and the Senate. Those items that are different from the House 
and Senate bills go into a conference committee. That conference 
committee is manned by both Members of the House and Members of the 
Senate. I will be a conferee on that conference committee.
  By passing this amendment this coming Tuesday, we will be able to use 
the same language as Congressman Duncan Hunter used successfully in 
putting it on the House version of the authorization bill and it will 
not be what we call a conferenceable item; in other words, it will be 
in there and it will be a done deal. So that is how significant this 
is, that we are able to get this passed.
  I am hoping, if there is anyone out there who is really concerned 
about what is going on in our relationship with China, about the China 
missiles that are targeting sites in the United States, and are 
concerned about the preferential treatment we have been giving China 
when China--and you stop and think about this. Now the administration 
admits that there are some 25 nations that have weapons of mass 
destruction, either biological, chemical, or nuclear. And some of these 
nations are run by people who murder their own grandchildren, so they 
would not have any reluctance about sending a missile in our direction.
  You might remember Saddam Hussein, who made the statement during the 
Persian Gulf war that if he had just waited a little bit longer to take 
his action in Kuwait, he might have had a missile that he could have 
used to stop us from interfering with what he was doing in Kuwait. That 
is pretty much a direct threat. You might remember also, it wasn't very 
long ago, a little over a year ago, when Taiwan was wanting to hold its 
elections and China was trying to intimidate Taiwan, that they were 
firing missiles in the Taiwan Straits. The second highest Chinese 
military official said: No, we are not concerned about the United 
States getting in here and getting involved, because they would rather 
defend Los Angeles than defend Taipei.
  So, I say there is a threat out there. Those individuals, most of 
them liberals, most of them who want to continue the demise of our 
military defense system in this country where right now we are 
approximately one-half the force strength we were back in 1991--those 
individuals like to perpetuate this notion that somehow the cold was is 
over and there is no longer a threat out there, let's take that money 
and put it in social policy. And that is what we have been doing since 
this President was elected in 1992.
  With that, while this doesn't resolve all the problems that we have, 
we still do not have any way of defending ourselves. I hope that 
everyone who is concerned with this issue, who is concerned with the 
transfer of our technology to China to allow them to pinpoint areas in 
the United States of America, will be aware of the fact that we do not 
have a national missile defense in America. How many people in America 
are aware that, if they fire a missile from Beijing and it comes over 
toward the United States of America, and it is headed for Washington, 
DC, it takes 35 minutes to get over here? If you ask the average 
person, what would Government do if that should happen--because 
certainly we have the satellite technology to know when they are 
launching these missiles--they say, well, I assume that Government 
would do something and knock down this missile during that 35 minutes 
it is coming over.
  Here is the problem. We don't have the capability to do that. 
Somebody very smart, back in 1983, decided they were going to put 
together a program to deploy a national missile defense system by 
fiscal year 1998. That is now, fiscal year 1998. They were pretty smart 
back then, because now is when we need it. Now is when the threat is 
out there. Now is when we pick up the newspaper and we see things that 
are happening and that there are countries out there with weapons of 
mass destruction and now with the missile capability of hitting the 
United States. We need to do something.
  The reason we cannot knock down a missile is not that we don't have 
missiles that will knock down missiles, it is just that in trying to 
adhere to these silly treaties like the ABM Treaty and some of the 
START treaties, disarmament treaties, we have agreed with parties in 
the former Soviet Union not to defend ourselves, or have a system that 
will adequately defend ourselves against a missile that is coming over 
from a foreign country. This is insane that we are doing this, but we 
are.
  So, while we do have missiles, we can't knock down a missile that is 
coming over to the United States until it reenters the atmosphere. By 
that time, you have only 1 or 2 minutes to

[[Page S4939]]

hit it, and it is going at such a velocity, our technology doesn't have 
anything that goes fast enough to knock it down. So we are naked right 
now to any kind of an attack that comes by way of missile from any of 
these countries that are out there that have access to missiles.

  Don't think that just because China and Russia are the only countries 
that have these missiles, and they love us so dearly, supposedly, that 
no other countries can have missiles to deliver these weapons of mass 
destruction, because we know that both China and Russia are dealing, 
selling their technology to countries like Iran and other countries. So 
they are going to be able to have these missiles.
  About a week ago, I was reminded again about how we are being lulled 
into, I suppose, a euphoric feeling of complacency, that there is not 
any threat out there. In a recent letter to a member of the Senate, 
Gen. Henry Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said we 
are going to have 3 years' notice before there is any real threat of 
any missile coming over.
  He said he thought we would have 3 years' notice because our 
intelligence tells us we are going to have 3 years' notice. It was only 
days later after he made that statement that we found out about the 
nuclear tests in India. And India--we find out in only this morning's 
paper it is understandable why they are doing this, because with the 
preferential treatment that we have given China, they are trying to 
build some type of system that will give them the capability of 
deterring aggression from the adjoining countries, both China and 
Pakistan.
  So the threat is out there. I suggest, if our intelligence is good 
enough to rely on that we are going to have 3 years' notice before any 
ICBM comes over, that is the same intelligence that told us there 
wasn't anything going on in India.
  On Tuesday, we will be offering this amendment. I am hoping all of my 
colleagues will be very sensitive to the fact that the No. 1 purpose 
for Government is to defend Americans against attack. We will have an 
opportunity to go a long way in accomplishing that this coming Tuesday, 
by passing my amendment to the defense authorization bill that will 
stop the transfer of this land from the United States to the China 
Ocean Shipping Company.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________