[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 75 (Thursday, June 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H4482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SECURITY INTERESTS OF U.S. SHOULD OUTWEIGH COMMERCIAL INTEREST WITH 
                            REGARD TO CHINA

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I would like the White House to answer a 
serious question: Why does the President believe that the Commerce 
Department, and not the State Department, should have the final say 
about a matter of national security?
  Technology transfers to Communist China is a matter of highest 
national security. Why then did the Clinton administration take the 
authority for the granting of waivers from the State Department and 
give it to the Commerce Department?
  Here we have a case of two interests in conflict. We have an 
important and legitimate economic interest in selling goods and 
technology to China, and we have a national security interest in 
preventing Communist China from acquiring technology that can be used 
for military purposes.
  These two interests are at times absolutely in conflict, but it is 
not difficult to decide that national security must always come first. 
Why then would this administration put commercial interests above 
national security interests?
  Mr. Speaker, it is wrong, wrong, wrong for this administration to 
have made this policy change. This administration has its priorities 
utterly backward.

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