[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 73 (Tuesday, June 9, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H4310-H4316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GROWING THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor on April 30 as the
chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. As someone who
holds that title, I have the responsibility to oversee NASA and
America's space effort.
My purpose in that April 30 speech was to disclose what appeared to
be a horrible threat to our national well-being. American companies, I
charged, may have upgraded Chinese strategic missiles, compromising the
safety of the American people, putting every man, woman, and child in
our country in greater vulnerability to nuclear attack, a nuclear
attack launched from the mainland of China.
Technology transfers, at the least, may have undercut our country's
ability to deal with an aggressive Chinese Communist regime in the
future. Even worse, of course, our gallant defenders in the future may
be shot out of the sky or die in their submarines, victims of weapons
researched and developed by the American taxpayer and delivered to our
potential totalitarian foe by greedy American businessmen.
Since my initial warnings in that April 30 speech, information that
has emerged suggests the horror story that I described of our country
being more vulnerable to nuclear attack from the Communist Chinese and
the upgrading of other weapons systems, that horror story that I
described is much worse than I originally imagined, as I have continued
to look into this matter.
[[Page H4311]]
That is what I would like to report tonight to my colleagues and the
Members in the House, to those people watching on C-Span and reading
the Congressional Record. I thought I would give them a little update
of what has happened since the last time I gave a special order on the
floor of this House concerning this, what I consider to be the worse
scandal not only of this administration, but perhaps the worst scandal
in terms of the transfer of deadly technology to a potential enemy of
the United States since the Rosenbergs transferred the atomic bomb
secret to Josef Stalin back in the late 1940s.
As I have continued to look into this, I and others have heard
testimony and discovered evidence that not only verifies the serious
charges that I have made, those charges in general that we have
upgraded the missile system and other weapons systems, but suggest that
there is even a greater threat to our safety.
In that April 30 speech, I suggested, number one, that as a
Presidential candidate, Bill Clinton chastised President Bush for
coddling Communist China and granting the despots in Beijing most
favored trade status, which is what he opposed during the election,
coddling the Communist dictators in Beijing and opposing most favored
trading nation status.
I thought President Clinton would probably be easier to work with
than President Bush was. After being sworn in as President, Bill
Clinton did an immediate about-face. He boldly, or perhaps the better
word is brazenly, decoupled any linkage between human rights and trade
negotiations in our dealings with the Communist Chinese. This was the
worst single setback to the human rights movement in my lifetime.
I remember when it happened, I was out of town. All of us in Congress
were out of town. The President expected that all of the controversy
would just sort of pass over by the time Congress got back into
session.
{time} 2200
In the years since the decoupling, in the years since he, and we can
only use the word ``betrayed,'' the human rights movement and betrayed
our fundamental principles in doing so, the brutality against religious
believers and against democracy advocates in Communist China has
intensified. The regime in Communist China, since the decoupling of
trade negotiations with any human rights considerations, the human
rights situation has gotten worse. The genocide in Tibet is worse. The
killing of the Muslims in the far reaches of the western part of China
has gotten worse.
President Clinton, even seeing this, has done nothing to rectify his
precipitous decision to decouple those negotiations.
As a result, the tough guys in Beijing are confident that anything
that is said by this administration about human rights is a hollow
gesture for domestic consumption only. In fact, the Chinese Communist
rulers have used the upcoming presidential visit to China, with its
opening ceremonies scheduled to be held in Tiananmen Square, they have
used this in their callous campaign to stomp out the memory of those
who were slaughtered in 1989, those hundreds of democracy activists who
were slaughtered in that very same square.
On the recent June 4 anniversary of that tragedy, and it was just 10
years ago June 4 when the gallant democracy advocates were mowed down
in Tiananmen Square and their papier-mache copies of the Statue of
Liberty crushed under the treads of the tanks. On that anniversary,
Communist China claimed the Communist Party and government made a
correct conclusion, end of quote, to order that slaughter. And they
ruled out any revision of that official judgment.
And this morning, this very morning, scoffing at congressional
requests that Clinton not be received in Tiananmen Square, the U.S.
Ambassador, our Ambassador to China, James Sasser, told the Chinese
press that the President, quote, will be pleased to be welcomed in the
Great Hall of the People, which of course is right next to Tiananmen
Square. And that gesture on the part of our President will further the
concept that we have heard recently coming from this administration of
a, quote, strategic partnership, end of quote, between our two
countries. That is what our Ambassador is suggesting.
In that mind-boggling atmosphere, if the President even mentioned
human rights there while he is in Tiananmen Square or right next to
Tiananmen Square in his upcoming visits, if he mentions human rights it
will only be making things worse because the ruling clique in Beijing
will know that it is just for show and that even our own President is
willing to make a cruel joke, a mockery out of what many of us have
been raised to believe is the essence of America, that being a sincere
belief in democracy and freedom.
Is that not what our country is supposed to be about? Is that not
what that flag is supposed to stand for? We are not just a geographic
location. We are people who came here from all parts of the world,
every race and ethnic background and every religion. We came here
because our Founding Fathers and the people who came before us believed
in freedom. That is what separated us from the rest of the nations in
the world and that was our responsibility, to carry the torch when they
put it down that they had so gallantly fought for, this freedom in the
last 200 years.
Well, that is not what going to Tiananmen Square will signal the
world. It will signal the world that America no longer holds that dear
to our hearts. And maybe in times of trial and in times of the Cold War
we had to compromise and associate ourselves with such dictatorships,
but in a time of peace there is no excuse for this.
But most alarming, it appears that this administration's flawed
strategic partnership view towards this brutal dictatorship in Beijing
has even permitted the Communist Chinese to have access to the most
sophisticated weapons that we built during the Cold War for our own
domestic protection.
This idea of a strategic partnership has permitted sophisticated
weapons related to aerospace technologies and defense technologies to
be made available to a brutally harsh Communist dictatorship, a
belligerent country that some day may be our enemy and may kill
Americans. And even while making these technologies available, the
administration cast a blind eye toward Beijing's role in spreading
these weapons of mass destruction and the components of these weapons
of mass destruction to other unstable areas of the world, making a
mockery not only of America's fundamental beliefs in freedom and
democracy and human rights, but also making a shambles out of our
efforts to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology so
that countries like India and Pakistan do not face each other and
possibly ignite a horrific conflagration that could cost millions of
lives.
So this administration even turns an eye while Chinese Communists
ship these weapons to these countries, causing great instability and
causing a cycle of violence and a cycle of weapons advancement that
will only put the entire world in greater threat.
In my April 30 speech, I outlined how our own country's elite has
maintained a policy that has steadily shifted resources and power to
China at the detriment of our own people. Not only the security of our
own people, but to the economic well-being of our people.
What are we doing this for? Why are we making the Chinese better off,
stronger, more capable of military aggression, more capable of beating
us economically, putting our own people in jeopardy not only from
nuclear weapons but also from being taken and shoved into the cold
without a job, being shoved out of their jobs because of slave labor
being used in China?
We have been watching a policy, an intentional policy that has been
to the detriment of our people and building up China as a competitor
and an adversary. Who is watching out for the American people? Is this
not the fundamental job that we have as elected representatives? Who is
watching out for the interests of our people?
First, we have obscured the trade relationship that allows China to
charge 30 and 40 percent tariffs on American goods, so when we
manufacture something here and want to sell it in China, they charge us
30 and 40 percent tariffs on the goods that are imported from the
United States, while under Most Favored Nation status the Chinese goods
which they produce over there flood into the United States with a
[[Page H4312]]
mere 3 percent duty. How unfair is that to our own people? How about
those people who are manufacturing those goods in the United States who
are put out of work? It is one thing to say then Americans can buy low-
cost Chinese commercial goods, but if our companies cannot sell over
there without a large or huge tariff, then there are not any other jobs
being created for these people who are put out of work.
Again, Mr. Speaker, this is a betrayal of the interests of our own
people and it has been going on year after year after year. And when we
try to fight against Most Favored Nation status, we are being told that
it creates jobs. Yet we are using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the
building of factories in China that will end up exporting goods to the
United States in competition with our own people, the people who pay
those tax dollars to begin with.
This is the reason that we have this $50 billion annual trade deficit
with Communist China. Fifty billion dollars. And that is a minimum
every year that we have had for many years now with Communist China.
That puts our money into their pockets. Fifty billion dollars a year.
What do they do with those $50 billion? First of all, it builds up
their own dictatorship. It permits the Communist dictatorship to keep a
stranglehold on anybody who would want democracy in that country. We
upgrade their police techniques. We have trained their policemen for a
totalitarian country. What do those people do when they go back? They
throw Christians and other people in jail. They use their techniques to
find out who wants democracy and to persecute them. We have them over
here training in our country.
And that $50 billion, what is it used for? Yes, it pays for some of
that training. Perhaps we might charge them a little. And it finances
their arms buildup and puts our own people out of work. More than
putting dollars in their pockets, the trade relationship is so
unbalanced and we have permitted them to have this 30 and 40 percent
tariff against our goods, which is unfair to us because their goods
come in at 3 and 4 percent. But we have also permitted them to make
outrageous demands over and over again of our own business community.
And again these demands have been to the horrible detriment of
thousands of American working people.
For instance, in order to sell airplanes to China, and there will be
someone in my office tomorrow from Boeing Corporation, the largest
employer in my district, to tell me why we have to make sure that we
have those airplane deals to China. But in order to sell those
airplanes to China, in the past the Communist Chinese leaders have
demanded that we build airplane manufacturing and spare parts factories
in Communist China. That means 10 years from now, they will have a
modern aerospace industry to rival our own. It is short-term profit and
even medium-term selling out our economic interests, not to mention the
national security interests.
We even use U.S. tax dollars when they make these demands. ``If we
are going to buy your planes, you have to set up the wing manufacturing
facility here in China,'' and we even use tax dollars through the IMF,
through the Export/Import Bank and OPIC and other government subsidized
agencies with our tax dollars, we use this tax money to guarantee the
deal which builds those manufacturing operations in China.
We are building manufacturing units in China that will rival our own
and put our own aerospace people out of work. In the medium run, again,
a few fat cats may get rich. The Chinese will get a few more freebies.
They get the technology and the American people will end up getting the
pink slip.
With the wealth of technology that Bill Clinton and the corporate
power brokers are transferring, China is steadily building a state-of-
the-art Army, Navy, and Air Force and strategic missile force. This is
a power that will threaten anyone who gets in their way. And we are
financing it. We are subsidizing it. We are facilitating it. And this
administration is celebrating it. And when the party is over, as I say,
a very few rich Americans are going to be better off and a multitude of
our own working people will be displaced by low-tariff imports.
And something else to consider: Our military personnel will be in
grave danger and our country vulnerable to nuclear attack and high-tech
warfare attack. All of this from this nonsensical policy. And it goes
on and these are easy to calculate. They are easy to see.
What spurred my interest in this area was a few months back when I
stumbled upon evidence that American technology was being used to
upgrade Chinese rockets. It actually took my breath away to learn that
U.S. aerospace companies may have flippantly violated lawful safeguards
provided by previous administrations by providing the Chinese with
technology they needed to upgrade their rockets and interballistic
missiles putting millions of Americans in danger of incineration by a
nuclear ballistic missile launched from China.
Recently, I have had a series of meetings with aerospace workers and
I would invite anyone listening to this who has information about this
to contact my office, because a number of aerospace workers, patriots
in the aerospace industry, had information about this and contacted me
and I met with them. They were disgusted that as patriotic Americans,
technology was being used, American technology was being used in a way
that would put our own country in jeopardy.
These workers that I have already talked to have firsthand knowledge
of security breaches that put our country in jeopardy. I was told that
U.S. technology to ensure stage separation of Chinese rockets had been
addressed. Guidance systems and control systems were upgraded. There
was MIRVing that was not possible by the Chinese before, and yet on May
2 the Chinese launched a Long March rocket.
{time} 2215
Three out of four of them used to blow up. This is a perfect launch.
And not only did it get up there, but once it was up, it was able to
spit out two satellites instead of one because it now has MIRVing
technology, the same technology that permits that very same rocket to
carry multiple warheads, warheads that could be aimed right at Los
Angeles or Chicago or Detroit or anywhere, anywhere in the United
States.
I was also told about the laser ring magnetic gyroscope, this system
that was so important that Americans discovered and built to make us
the technological leader of the world, a stabilizing system that is
absolutely essential for MIRVing and for submarines and other launch
rockets launched from other places, and for airplanes. If these things
do not have this type of high-tech gyroscope, they cannot really fire
their weapons as accurately, and the fear is that the Chinese
Communists now have that gyroscope.
All of these items, I was told, of course, are built at taxpayer
expense. These aerospace workers knew all along they were working for
the taxpayers. This was money that we spent during the Cold War to give
us the edge. This was things that we spent billions of, hundreds of
billions of dollars we spent to make sure that our people had the
qualitative edge.
While talking to these aerospace people, I was told that among those
involved in this diabolical betrayal of America's security was a senior
vice president from Loral Corporation. Some of his fellow workers had
been appalled years ago by this very same man's breach of routine
security procedures, yet the company had inexplicably sided with the
security violator instead of the whistleblower. Now we are told that
this same top executive, who is now even higher in the company than he
was then, was the point man in getting U.S. missile technology and
know-how into the hands of the Communist Chinese.
In the investigating of this controversy, much attention has been
paid to what occurred after the explosion of the Communist Long March
rocket in February of 1996 and the 200-page technical review report
given to the Chinese by a U.S. technical team. We have heard the claim
that this report concerns a simple soldering problem; a soldering
problem, that is what we are being told. Yes, that is it, a few bad
solders is what caused two out of every three Chinese rockets to
explode at launch, a few bad solders.
Some of the aerospace engineers I have been talking to about this
told me
[[Page H4313]]
when they heard that, they almost fell off their chairs laughing. To
say that was not a believable explanation to these engineers who spent
a lifetime building rockets.
After the explosion in 1996, Loral apparently went forward and
intentionally and systematically upgraded the Chinese rockets, and we
are not just talking about a few bad solders. As is clear in a letter
from this very same Loral vice president, who they complained about
years ago for not following security procedures, that Loral vice
president, a man named Wah Kun, stated in a letter, and I believe that
this letter is a smoking gun, if there ever was a smoking gun, of
evidence of a crime, in this letter from Dr. Wah Lim the vice president
of Loral to Lou Jiyuan, to the chairman of the China Aerospace
Corporation, which is a part of their government and a part of their
military, that Loral Vice President Lim states that an important goal
for this review was, quote, using the failure, that means the 1996
blowup, as an opportunity to ensure that the Long March vehicles have
the best reliable record in the future. We at Space Systems Loral would
like China to be a strong supplier of launch services, and we will do
everything in our power to help you, end of quote.
And to ensure that, he says, your company, and I quote, your company
will take their share of the world market for satellite launch
services, end of quote.
Only a week and a half earlier, in a committee strategy report, Lim
outlined, that is vice president of Loral Lim outlined the objectives
for the review team that has gotten so much attention these last few
weeks, including recommending to China Aerospace and its launching
subsidiary, the Great Wall, any other areas of improvement. So thus
they will give them any advice they need in any areas of improvement
for their system so that they can capture a share of the world's launch
services. I am including, and I will include in the Congressional
Record tomorrow, a copy of the full text of the letter from Mr. Lim to
the Chinese aerospace leader.
In May of 1996, before the draft committee, this is after the work of
this committee, and it had a 200-page report on this blowup of this
Chinese missile, but before that report was submitted to the State
Department for security review, the security review is mandated under
export control law, Vice President Lim of Loral faxed a copy of that
report to the Chinese. Lim did this knowing full well that China
Aerospace Company, which controls all space launches, is the same
military-owned company that builds China's ballistic missiles, the same
company that builds the missiles that would land atomic weapons in our
country and incinerate our people. It is the same company that builds
the satellite launching rockets, almost the same technology.
According to U.S. intelligence, at least 14 of these missiles that
the Chinese already have are targeted at the United States. That was
denied by this administration, of course. And just as the President has
sometimes mentioned things that sort of do not make sense and we
disagree with, in this particular case the President suggested that
there are no missiles aimed at the United States in Communist China. Of
course, we all know that it takes about a half an hour to retarget a
missile, and I am not so sure how much credence you have to put in a
situation like that in terms of people's statements that we do not have
much to be worried about.
The New York Times published this story that we are talking about in
terms of the Loral upgrading of the Chinese missile, and to its credit
that paper and several other publications have done a diligent job in
providing this all-important information to the American people.
This past Sunday, for example, 60 Minutes, the news program on CBS,
did a compelling report on a story concerning the transfer of deadly
weapons and technology to Communist China. The 60 Minutes program,
which was also covered by the Washington Post, described how in 1993,
the McDonnell Douglas Company was blackmailed by the Chinese Communists
into selling at fire sale prices sophisticated machine tools for the
building of jet fighters, the B-1 bomber and the cutting edge C-17
transport airplane. And like a scene out of a movie, the American
workers at the Columbus, Ohio, factory who had offered to buy the
equipment, they wanted to keep that plant going, and they were willing
to buy it for $10 million, twice the price which the Chinese Government
offered, those workers were turned down by the company, and like right
out of a movie, they were there yelling epithets and attempting to
block, quote, dark-suited Chinese officials, end of quote, who came
there to inspect these huge machine tools which were used to
produce sophisticated weapons.
And yes, our working people wanted those jobs, and they deserved the
jobs that those tools could provide, but they also knew that those
tools were going, Communist China would produce things that would kill
Americans. But unlike management, the workers knew, I guess, and that
plant, that when you see the term ``U.S.,'' that means not just United
States, it also means us. Who is the United States? When we are talking
about America, the U.S. security interests, we are talking about us,
all of us together, e pluribus unum. We are all together in this, and
we believe in freedom. That is what ties us together. They knew they
were being betrayed, and their interests were being betrayed. They
could not even offer more money than the Communist China expected to
get those pieces of equipment that would permit them to earn a decent
living. They had only given half their lives in service to building
weapons during the Cold War to protect our country.
The aerospace workers, the unsung hero of the Cold War, the aerospace
workers are the ones who developed the technology we needed to deter
war with Russia until it collapsed in its own evil. They were the ones
that gave us that technological edge because we could not have matched
them man for man. Now when it is all over, we sell our tools to
Communist China, and they give their jobs away.
Although the sale of these tools was opposed by the Defense
Department in the end, it had the support of the Clinton
administration, and the Chinese got these tools, of course, and when
they were buying the tools, they said they were going to use them to
build civilian aircraft. Of course, guess what? Many of these same
tools ended up in a Chinese factory that produces Silkworm missiles,
missiles that will threaten American ships if we ever try to protect
Taiwan again, thousands of our sailors put in jeopardy with American
technology.
And in 1996, the U.S. Justice Department opened up a criminal
investigation into whether McDonnell Douglas knew or should have known
that the Chinese commitment to using these tools for civilian use was
bogus. To their credit, the McDonnell Douglas officials reported that
Chinese treachery immediately upon discovering that the tools had gone
to the wrong location. However, neither the administration nor the
company should have succumbed to the Chinese blackmail in the first
place.
Even if the Chinese would not buy the civilian airplanes, we should
not have told them we were going to build them a plant to build
airplanes themselves. And even if those tools would have been used to
build civilian airplanes rather than military planes, we should not
have made that as part of our deal in the first place. Even if it did
not put our national security in jeopardy, it certainly put our working
people in jeopardy. Their jobs were in jeopardy.
In the end the Chinese, here is the hook on this whole thing, in the
end the Chinese had promised to buy billions of dollars worth of planes
from McDonnell Douglas if they sweetened that deal, if they could get
their hands on all that defense-related technology, those tools and
machine things that would permit them to build these weapons, but as
soon as they got their hands on that technology, guess what, the rest
of the deal fell apart. McDonnell Douglas did not even get the sale of
their airplanes. They cut the deal short and only give them a minor, a
minor purchase of McDonnell Douglas airplanes, while at the same time
they not only now have all this technology at their disposal, but 1,000
skilled American workers were denied the chance to rescue their
factory.
They wanted to buy it for $10 million, and they were denied that and
denied
[[Page H4314]]
the decency of earning a living and owning part of the company, which
they wanted to do out of some scheme that they thought would bring them
untold riches from the China market.
{time} 2230
Even if the deal was kept, the American workers would have had the
shaft in the long run. The company sold out the ability of its own
workers to compete by giving that technology to the Communist Chinese.
And as I say, even in the short term, that profit was not realized
because the Communists reneged on their agreement to buy all those
airplanes.
In response to the public disclosure of these type of reckless export
deals, the Clinton administration has reacted with its typical
obfuscation and evasion, and this is what we have come to expect from
this administration. This administration and its media allies have
turned on the confusion machine now that this missile upgrade situation
has reached a national controversy. Their confusion machine is designed
to get the American people confused and mixed up.
First of all, the first purpose of the administration's strategy for
confusing the American people is to minimalize the facts. We have been
told, of course, that these technology transfers by Loral and others to
the Communist Chinese were a little more than a few solderings, which
we have already discussed. So you minimize. ``Don't worry about it.
We're just talking about a few solderings.''
This is parallel to the FBI file scandal when President Clinton
himself claimed that it was only a few FBI files that were mistakenly
sent over to the White House by a Defense Department detailee. Remember
those words? We all remember that being said on the White House lawn,
only a few FBI files, and it was made by accident by a detailee from
the Defense Department. Of course later we found out that that detailee
was not just a detailee, after all. He was someone who had been placed
at the Defense Department by the Clinton administration and sent back
to the White House intentionally, and he was one of their people. He
happened to be an opposition researcher for the Democratic Party, and
he did not have just a couple of FBI files, he ended up with hundreds
of FBI files in his possession. Of course this is all about just a few
solders. Remember, just a few solders in a Chinese missile. That is all
this is about.
Another tactic being used by this administration is to sidetrack the
growing public rage over this scandal with an obvious attempt to
confuse the public about what is the central issue that we are all
upset about. If President Clinton and his apologists, his allies in the
media, of course, if they can confuse the people, this incredibly
serious issue might just be shrugged off as yet another attempt by
Republicans to get this guy, as my good friend Geraldo Rivera implied
on television and has implied several times, we are just out to get the
President. No matter what, we want to get him.
No, that has nothing to do with what is going on in this case. I
cannot talk for the other issues because I have not participated in
these other scandals that have been talked about over this last year,
but I can say this issue is very serious and deals with the survival or
perhaps the death of millions of Americans who otherwise would not die,
dying at the hands of Communist Chinese tyrants who have American
technology.
So let me warn everyone about what they are facing, this tactic to
try to confuse them. This administration and its liberal allies are
trying to get you to believe that what we are upset about is nothing
more than a decision to permit U.S. satellites to be launched on
Chinese rockets. You will hear that over and over again. U.S.
satellites launched on Chinese rockets, that is what everybody is upset
about. Any newspaper or radio or television journalist or
administration spokesman, or whoever, who starts talking about U.S.
satellites on Chinese rockets as being the crisis or the scandal, at
that moment, understand that that person is intentionally trying to lie
by confusing you. So put that in the back of your head, if you hear
someone say that, they are trying to confuse you, they are trying to
lie, to get you not to understand the magnitude of what is going on.
They know exactly what they are doing. It is called deception. So,
please, my friends, do not be deceived.
Besides all the administration spokesmen who are trying to use this
deceptive tactic, of course, the liberal left media troopers have been
mobilized to throw dust into our face. Let me read to my colleagues a
story from the Los Angeles Times from Monday, June 8:
Republican leaders have charged that Clinton satellite
exports may have jeopardized national security by helping
China develop its missile capabilities.
It goes on.
I am also worried if we can continue to play patty cake
with China while they continue to be involved in weapons of
proliferation, said Senator Majority Leader Trent Lott.
It goes on.
Administration officials have countered that they were
merely continuing the policy of satellite exports initiated
by Presidents Reagan and Bush and that the satellites were
exported under procedures that protected American technology.
Then the last sentence says,
The Loral controversy is now the subject of congressional
investigations.
Oh, all right. So we are talking about satellites here. Listen to the
wording. You end up thinking that we are talking about a satellite
controversy. And if you listen to the President or his paid spokesmen
or his unpaid spokesmen or the spin masters, one thinks the issue is
about satellites. And then it was pointed out that the Republicans,
including Presidents Reagan and Bush and, by the way, including yours
truly, Members of Congress like yours truly, suggested that U.S.
satellites could be permitted to be launched on Chinese rockets. Thus
if you listen to this and get confused enough by it, you believe that
President Clinton is just acting consistently with everybody else and
he is being unjustly attacked, that we are just out to get him and that
everything is justified in what has happened and there is no grave
danger.
Reagan and Bush approved it, so forget it. Go to sleep.
Have a good night's rest. Don't even ask any questions about
it.
No, I am afraid that is not it. When the deception brigade starts
talking about satellites, keep telling yourself, no, this is not
accurate, these people are not concerned about satellites, that is not
what they are upset about. In reality the core issue is not satellites.
The core issue that people are upset about is the upgrading of Chinese
Communist missiles. Let me repeat that. The upgrading of Communist
Chinese missiles that can launch nuclear weapons at the United States
and upgrading the Communist Chinese missiles puts millions of Americans
at risk who would not otherwise have been at risk. All the others
trying to talk to you about the satellite deal and the rest are doing
their best to confuse the issue. Remember, when they talk about it, to
tell yourself that. We are concerned about warheads landing in our
country and incinerating our neighborhoods and with the incredible,
just incredible thought that this could be happening and made more
likely to happen with the use of American technology developed for our
own defense.
The decision to let American satellites be launched on Chinese
rockets may or may not have been a good idea. At the time of Reagan and
Bush, they had strict enforcement provisions to ensure that there was
no transfer of technology. The Chinese would not even gain any
information from that. However, that was also at the time of before
Tiananmen Square when China was evolving toward a more democratic
society. The fact is that that may or may not have been a good
decision, but that is not what is being called into question. Because
no one who decided that those American satellites could be launched, no
one believed that it was at all permissible and it would ever justify
the upgrading of Chinese rockets. No one ever believed that. No one
believed that the military capabilities of these rockets and missiles
would ever be changed. This idea that we had some knowledge of that or
Reagan or Bush thought that that could happen is absurd. I believe that
what we have got here is a Chinese nuclear weapons delivery system that
has been made more efficient with the use of American technology. Is
that enough? Is that not enough? So let us not confuse it by talking
about satellites. Even though
[[Page H4315]]
we did not think that could ever happen, it apparently happened.
We also know that some Federal watchdogs, Federal employees that were
watching out for our security, they were minimalized during this whole
situation. They were not permitted to do their job by pressure from on
top. We also know that when an attempt was made to prosecute Loral for
illegally transferring this technology, for upgrading this Communist
Chinese missile, that President Clinton, against the advice of his own
Justice Department, personally signed a waiver that he was warned would
undermine any prosecution of Loral. In effect he was signing a
retroactive permission for this deadly weapons of mass destruction
technology and know-how to be given to the Communist Chinese. It is all
a bit mind-boggling. There will soon be a House Select Committee to
investigate the issue. It will be chaired by the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cox), a man of impeccable credentials and character.
Each and every American is now in greater danger from Communist Chinese
missiles and our defenders in military uniforms will find their lives
in greater jeopardy.
We should, and this will be true if we ever, ever confront the
Chinese if they become belligerent, this is something that makes the
magnitude of the investigation of the gentleman from California (Mr.
Cox) many degrees more important to our country than any of the other
charges that have ever been leveled at President Clinton. But let us
not overlook that the upgrading of Communist Chinese nuclear weapons
and delivery systems is just the most significant of the betrayals of
our country's national interest in this administration's dealings with
Communist China.
Businessmen, blinded by the prospects of fast megabucks, have been
manipulated and used by the Communist Chinese over and over again. Not
only Chinese rockets but a widening arsenal of high tech weapons have
been provided to the Communist Chinese. These high tech weapons and the
machines needed to build those weapons are now in the hands of the
Chinese. We are upgrading their entire arsenal one way or the other.
Economic cooperation with the Communist Chinese made sense at one time
because the Communist Chinese were loosening their grip. It looked like
the country might evolve. But that was reversed 10 years ago in the
bloody action that took place in Tiananmen Square. That was almost 10
years ago exactly. The country had been seeming to move toward freedom.
However, since that Tiananmen Square massacre, China has been sinking
deeper into the vice grip of gangsters and thugs who are responsible
for more tyranny, more terror, more human rights abuses, more
belligerence than ever before. Even as they have broken promise after
promise on their weapons of mass destruction program and even as they
have transferred technology to other dangerous nations, this
administration continues to lavish favors on its buddies in Beijing.
For the past 2 months, this administration has been suggesting that
President Clinton would be proposing a, quote, strategic partnership
and even more aerospace technology deals with this regime during his
upcoming visit in Beijing. It was also leaked to the press that the
President might even propose a greater cooperation in space efforts.
When I heard the administration official at the International Relations
Committee call for a strategic partnership, I could not help but ask,
Against whom? Who are we going to have this strategic partnership
against? Against India that has a democratically elected government?
Against Taiwan with a democratically elected government? Against South
Korea with a democratically elected government? Thailand with a
democratically elected government? The Philippines with a
democratically elected government? Or how about Japan with a
democratically elected government?
We are going to have a strategic partnership with the one massive
Communist dictatorship in a region filled with democracies? Give me a
break. And then the administration official said,
Well, partnership doesn't mean you're against anyone.
I said,
Well, what does the word strategic mean if it doesn't mean
you're putting yourself in juxtaposition with someone else
and it has something to do with a military and economic
power?
We should not be in a strategic partnership with a bloody Communist
dictatorship. We should be encouraging people to invest in the
democracies of the area instead of giving them an unequal trade
relationship and subsidizing our businessmen when they want to do
business in those areas. We should be directing them to the Philippines
that are struggling for democracy, or some other country. If we are
going to direct them anywhere, it should be to a democratic country.
But not to a dictatorship where if a union person wants to form a
union, he is thrown in jail or he is sent to the gulag, their laogai
which is the equivalent of the gulag and worked to death so that they
can export products here without any unions and without any labor
legislation and without any dignity and without any ability to
complain, without any ability to change your job, without any ability
to worship God or have a day off.
{time} 2245
So this administration wants to have a strategic partnership with
that kind of regime.
So this looks a little bit, what we see happening and seen happening
looks a little bit like parallel to what happened and was described in
Gerry Aldrich's book, Unlimited Access. The standards have broken down.
This administration has blurred the lines, have violated the standards
right from the beginning, the standards of being right and wrong, of
good and evil, of democracy versus tyranny, of patriotism versus
globalism. The standards have been broken down.
Unlimited access; there is unlimited access to the White House and
unlimited access to American technology, and one cannot, and we must
recognize, and this is what we are seeing right now, one cannot give up
one's standards, one cannot give up time-honored principles without
paying a serious price. And today we are increasingly in jeopardy.
American national security has been undermined by political leadership
without principles, and of course businessmen are blinded by the dream
of a fast buck in the so-called China market. And we have been put in
jeopardy because we have left our principles behind.
This fantasy of this fast buck in the Chinese market has made idiots
out of executives who should have known better. There are cases, the
McDonnell-Douglas fire sale and transfer of defense machine toolery to
China, where much of it landed in this weapons factory. Motorola built
a computer chip factory there, and now there are these chips being
used. Guess where? Guess what we found the latest? The latest we found
Motorola chips in land mines that have been built by the Chinese and
put all over Southeast Asia. In Cambodia we have a U.S. Army team
trying to deactivate some of those mines, and they found out that the
new mines were blowing up, and they were killing the people who were
trying to diffuse them. And why were they blowing up? Because these
were different kinds of mines. These were smart mines, and when they
finally got them open, what did they find out? They were smart mines;
they were killing the people who tried to diffuse them. They were
designed that way because they have a computer chip inside these mines,
a computer chip made that came from a factory, a Motorola factory that
had been built by Motorola in Communist China.
Is that what we want? And is that making people in the United States,
are the workers at Motorola any better because we built that factory
over there? Nobody is any better, nobody is any better.
What about airplane wings? They are now being manufactured for
transport planes. They were supposed to be, you know, for civilian
aircraft. Yes, in order to have a deal to sell more airplanes, we set
up the factory to build the airplane fuselages and their wings. And
guess what? Now that factory is producing wings and fuselages for
cruise missiles and Chinese fighters that will be sent against American
forces if we ever have to confront them in the Taiwan Straits again.
American military personnel put at risk. We closed our eyes against
even
[[Page H4316]]
as Israel has transferred war technology, and AWACs technology was sent
over there as well as other sophisticated radar communications gear has
been sent by Israel to the Communist Chinese. We have closed our eyes
to that.
Over and over again we see our technology paid for by billions of
dollars just for our own security, and the American people believed we
should give our military a qualitative edge so we would not have to
fight, we could deter war. Like the C-17; the C-17 was developed for
what? To give our military the most efficient and reliable military
transport plane in the world, and now they are talking about turning it
into a civilian model and selling it to the Communist Chinese. Of
course the civilian model will be painted in pastels rather than that
military green.
It is absurd. We did not develop the C-17 with all its incredible
capacity to fight a war in order to help the Chinese Army move into
Tibet, to destroy the Tibetan people, or to fight the Muslims in the
far reaches of their country or to put down Christians in some part of
their country. We did not do that. We did not build a C-17 for that. We
built the C-17 to transport our own military in the defense of our
country, and we were willing to put the research and development into
that plane.
It is not just the C-17, but all of these equipment that we are
talking about, all of this gear that we are talking about. We invested
in it willingly. The American taxpayers did this because it would give
us the edge to preserve our precious freedom, and we wanted our
defenders to have that qualitative advantage so they could win and come
home safely.
Well, today these weapons are being handed over for nothing, for
nothing, to the Communist Chinese, and nothing maybe perhaps except for
campaign contributions, some political campaign contribution. We will
never get to the bottom of that. I wonder where all those Buddhist
monks who gave those $5,000 contributions in that Buddhist monastery,
where did they get that $5,000 from? They were impoverished Buddhist
monks. They did not get it themselves. Where did it come from? We will
never find that out.
We permitted an unfair trade relationship to provide Communist China
with $50 billion in hard surplus and hard currency and their trade
surplus to purchase high-tech weapons and tools and machines needed to
produce these weapons. At a tiny fraction they are getting them of the
cost that we invested in those weapons and those machines in the first
place. They are getting the weapons at a bargain-basement rate, and the
taxpayers are ending up through the Export-Import Bank financing some
of these sales, some of the sales from manufacturing units. And what
are the Communist Chinese--this is practically giving them this
technology that will put us in danger and endanger the lives, endanger
the lives of our military personnel if there is ever a confrontation
with this bloody and belligerent Communist regime.
I think this is a scandal of monumental importance.
America's future is at stake. Our young people will live in a
dangerous world, and what will they think when they learn that we made
it more dangerous because we provided the world's most dangerous
military power with weapons as well as tools and machines to produce
their own tools and their own weapons. What will they think? And what
will America's military personnel think when they find that their
fellows and their brothers and sisters at arms are being wiped out and
being torn apart, I mean blown out of the sky with weapons that were
perfected by U.S. technology?
The 40 pieces of silver in the pockets of our corporate leaders will
not just weigh upon their consciousness and their consciences if we let
this happen, because it will not be just the corporate elite who is at
fault, although they must bear the burden of making immoral decisions
as well and decisions that hurt our country. But we ourselves will have
to bear some of that responsibility. We ourselves will have to bear
that responsibility if we do not put a stop to this, because today we
are aware of the erosion of our national security, and if we do nothing
to stop it, we must bear some of the blame.
We cannot afford to surrender the future of our country, the future
of peace, forfeit the survival and freedom of America's next
generation. It is impossible that the Chinese military could attack the
United States; is that right? It is impossible; that is, we have heard
that. It is not going to be impossible. Let me tell you in the future
it will not be impossible for them to attack the United States.
We could confront, we could confront the Chinese in the Taiwan
Straits a few years ago when they were launching the rockets across
Taiwan trying to intimidate them. We confronted them with our aircraft
carriers, confident that the aircraft carriers could defend themselves,
all those thousands of our sailors on those carriers, and confident
that our homeland would not be attacked by atomic bombs and missiles
launched from the mainland of China. That is not true anymore, and
every day what we are seeing is our American technology is making not
true, and, if we have to confront them in the future, we will be doing
so at great risk and perhaps lose thousands of our military peoples'
lives.
In 1996, a Chinese publication, in a Chinese publication, a major
general of the Chinese, in fact, it was the vice commander of the
Academy of Military Services in Beijing, was quoted as saying, and I
quote:
As for the United States, for a relatively long time it
will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense
of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our
time.
End of quote.
They are biding their time. They are biding their time until we are
vulnerable.
Finally, if a decade from now a crazed or power-hungry Chinese
general even by mistake or perhaps unintentionally or even
intentionally launches a missile attack on the United States, perhaps
it will be just one rocket or maybe two, but they launch it over
towards our country, millions of our people will be incinerated. The
horror of it, and it is unthinkable, and if that happens at that
ghastly time, we will have to remember that President Clinton opposed
developing a missile defense system, and even worse, we may remember
that the upgrades of those Communist Chinese missiles happened with
American technology under President Clinton's watch. We cannot defend
ourselves, and we have given the technology to kill us.
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