[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H5052-H5053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THOUGHTS ON EVENTS IN TIANANMEN SQUARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr.  Diaz-Balart). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INGLIS of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman 
from New Jersey for allowing me to proceed at this moment, appreciate 
that very much.
  In May of 1989, students began a protest for democratic reforms in 
Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Their movement began modestly, then swelled 
to thousands as they occupied the square in what they saw as a people's 
movement. From the flat stone of the square they erected a 10-foot-tall 
likeness of the world's most recognizable symbol of freedom, the Statue 
of Liberty.
  Threatened, divided, Beijing's hard-line leaders invoked martial law 
and ordered the army to the square. Huge throngs, possibly amounting to 
more than 1 million Chinese, took to the streets to defy martial law 
and block troops from their planned crackdown on China's young freedom 
fighters.
  The world saw gripping pictures of an unarmed man refusing to give 
way to an approaching tank.
  ``With the people behind us, we'll succeed,'' one student told a 
reporter. ``No government can survive by using the Army against its own 
citizens.''
  Tragically, he was wrong.
  The New York Times reported the following scene on June 4, 1989:

       Tens of thousands of Chinese troops retook the center of 
     the capital early this morning from pro-democracy protesters, 
     killing scores of students and workers and wounding hundreds 
     more as they fired submachine guns at crowds of people who 
     tried to resist.

  The hard-line leaders gave personal attention to the students' Statue 
of Liberty. ``Push it down,'' they ordered.
  We stand with the students. We do not stand with the dictators. The 
students of freedom look to their teachers, to the shining city on the 
hill. Lady Liberty searches the horizon for her fallen likeness. She 
listens for our voice. Let us be her voice.
  Let us say for her, as Moses said to Pharaoh, ``Let my people go.''
  Let them go out of your prisons of conscience. Let them go out of 
your slave labor camps. Let them go out of your forced abortion 
clinics, and let our brothers and sisters worship our God, the creator 
and sustainer of the universe. Yes, with Lady Liberty, let us say, 
``Let my people go.''
  Last week, 51 Members of this House sent a letter to the President 
pleading with him not to be received in Tiananmen Square. Go, if you 
must, to China, but do not go to Tiananmen Square, we urged. Do not let 
compromise and cajoling wash away the memory of those students.
  They died for freedom. Let that stand. Let the dictators know that no 
American President will be received

[[Page H5053]]

there, not until the dictators are gone and the teachers of freedom 
have erected a new Lady Liberty, our gift to the students, the students 
of freedom.
  I was in school when President Reagan, standing in front of the 
Berlin Wall said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall.''
  Many saw the scene as a reckless, silly old man standing against the 
night calling for the light and truth of freedom. But President Reagan 
was sure of what he spoke. He stood for freedom. He stood for 
principle, and he dared to dream of a different and better world.
  How can it be that we have shifted so quickly to a place of 
compromise and appeasement, to a place of favoring corporate profit 
over foundational principles, to a place of investigating the nearly 
unutterable, that campaign contributions may have driven the transfer 
of American-made missile guidance systems to an enemy of freedom?
  Last week the House voted 409 to 10 to set up a special nine-member 
committee with far-reaching authority to look into whether U.S. 
national security has been undermined in this matter. According to our 
intelligence agencies, at least 13 intercontinental ballistic missiles 
with American missile guidance systems may be pointed at the United 
States of America.
  ``Knock it down,'' the dictators ordered. God forbid that it should 
happen to the real Lady of Liberty. God forbid.

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