[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 71 (Thursday, June 4, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5659-S5660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            COMMEMORATION OF PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS OF 1989

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to join in marking 
the ninth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, a tragic day 
when a still unknown number of Chinese--some say hundreds, others, 
thousands--died at the hands of the People's Liberation Army, and 
perhaps thousands more were placed in detention.
  Despite this monumental tragedy, China's leaders remain unwilling to 
re-examine the events of June 4, 1989. Indeed, they would like nothing 
more than to have Tiananmen fade from the world's memory.
  But today, the spirit of Tiananmen lives in our memory in the 
strongest way. We have recently welcomed to the United States two key 
pro-democracy leaders who were released from Chinese prisons. But as 
lucky as we are to have Wei Jingsheng, Wang Dan, and others in our 
midst, we are all well aware that they are not yet free; they remain in 
the United States because they cannot return freely to their homeland.
  Moreover, at least 158 people remain in prison for their role in the 
1989 demonstrations. Certainly for these people and their families, 
Tiananmen remains a part of daily life.
  For those of us who are concerned about human rights in China, the 
very date of June 4th remains a powerful reminder that the Chinese 
Government has not changed.
  But despite the lack of progress, the executive branch of our 
government continues to pursue a policy of constructive engagement with 
China, a policy that will be capped off by the President's visit to 
Beijing at the end of the month. This upcoming summit is yet another in 
a long line of unwise steps that the Administration has taken with 
respect to China. I have generally opposed all of these steps because I 
do not see that progress has been achieved on human rights in China. 
This includes the October 1997 state visit of Chinese President Jiang 
Zemin. That was a mistake. We should challenge China's leaders rather 
than toast them.
  The failure of the United States to sponsor a resolution condemning 
human rights abuses in China and Tibet at the most recent meeting of 
the United Nations Commission on Human Rights was also a mistake. The 
Administration made this decision despite the overwhelming support in 
the Senate of a resolution that urged the United States to ``introduce 
and make all efforts necessary to pass a resolution'' at the Commission 
on Human Rights. I was proud to co-sponsor that resolution.
  As we all know, for the past few years, China's leaders have 
aggressively lobbied against resolutions at the UN Human Rights 
Commission earlier and more actively than the countries that support a 
resolution. In 1997, China threatened Denmark, which had made a 
difficult and courageous decision to sponsor a resolution on human 
rights in China. This year, Chinese officials played a diplomatic game 
with various European governments, and succeeded in getting European 
Union foreign ministers to drop any EU co-sponsorship of a resolution.
  The complete failure of the United States and the EU to push for a 
resolution at the Commission was, in my mind, gravely unfortunate. The 
multilateral nature of the Commission makes it an appropriate forum to 
debate and discuss the human rights situation in China. By signing 
international human rights treaties, China has obliged itself to 
respect international human rights law. One of the basic purposes of 
the Commission is specifically to evaluate China's performance with 
respect to those commitments. The Commission's review has led to 
proven, concrete progress on human rights elsewhere, and the 
expectation has been that such scrutiny would lead to concrete progress 
in human rights in China, but China's rulers cynically ignore their 
legal and moral duty to respect the human rights of their own citizens. 
And they do it with impunity.
  Despite China's announcement last year that it would sign the United 
Nation's Covenant on Economic, Social

[[Page S5660]]

and Cultural Rights and take a few other token steps, I see no evidence 
of real human rights improvement on the ground in China. The fact that 
human rights conditions in China are growing worse, not better, demands 
that human rights continue to be a top priority in our China policy--
but it is not a priority, and the rulers in Beijing know that.
  Nearly four years after the President's decision to de-link most-
favored-nation status from human rights--a decision I have always said 
was a mistake--we cannot forget that the human rights situation in 
China and Tibet remains abysmal. Hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese 
and Tibetan citizens are detained or imprisoned for their political and 
religious beliefs. The press is subject to oppressive restrictions. And 
monks and nuns in Tibet are harassed for showing reverence to the Dalai 
Lama.
  In a well-quoted sentence, the most recent State Department human 
rights report notes that ``the Government of China continued to commit 
widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, in violation of 
internationally accepted norms, including extra-judicial killings, the 
use of torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and 
sterilization, the sale of organs from executed prisoners, and tight 
control over the exercise of the rights of freedom of speech, press and 
religions.'' If that shameful litany is not grounds for a tougher 
policy, please, somebody, tell me what is!
  Today, on the ninth anniversary of one of the most traumatic events 
in the modern history of China, we remember the courageous people who 
stood before the tanks, who gave their lives for bravely choosing to 
express their notions of freedom and breathed their last on the bloody 
paving stones of Tiananmen, and we honor those heroes who continue to 
take risks to struggle for real change in China and Tibet.
  It is unfortunate, then, that the President's proposed trip to 
Beijing, which will take place in just a few weeks, will send the wrong 
signal--not only to China's leaders, but also to those in China and 
Tibet who have worked so tirelessly to achieve the basic freedoms that 
we, as Americans, take for granted. In particular, in a move that 
almost adds insult to injury, the President has agreed to stage his 
arrival ceremony in Tiananmen Square itself.
  If ever a moment cried out for a gesture, Mr. President, that will be 
the moment. That will be the chance for our President to restore some 
small moral weight to our China policy.
  Mr. President, if the President of the United States feels he must go 
to Beijing, if he feels he must go there this month, a month when we 
remember and honor the heroes of Tiananmen, and if he feels he must 
visit the site of that horrible 1989 massacre, I hope he will take the 
time to visit with the families of the victims--a suggestion I made to 
Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth in a recent Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee hearing.
  Finally, it is imperative that throughout his visit to China, the 
President send a clear unequivocal message about the importance of 
human rights, of the rule of law and of democracy. The students at 
Tiananmen erected a goddess of democracy. Our China policy worships 
trade and pays short shrift to the ideal of freedom. Our policy has got 
to change.
  We owe as much to the victims, to the champions of democracy in China 
today, and to the American people.

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