[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6853-S6854]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to address 
the situation regarding the policy of the United States and the way in 
which we relate to the nation of China. The President of the United 
States is making a trip to the People's Republic of China, and there 
has been significant debate about this trip, which provides us an 
opportunity to ask ourselves what kind of policy should we have toward 
the world's most populous nation.
  There have been a number of us who have questioned whether or not the 
President should go to Tiananmen Square, for example, to celebrate, in 
some way, his arrival with those who pulled the triggers at the square 
to crush dissent in 1989. There are a wide variety of pluses and 
minuses about the Presidential trip. I want to try to put this trip and 
our policy toward China into a broader perspective in terms of the way 
foreign policy perhaps ought to be conducted.
  First of all, the President has suggested that we either have to do 
it his way--to support the Presidential visit, welcomed by leaders at 
the site of a tremendous violation of human rights--or else we have no 
engagement with China at all. I think this is a false choice. It is not 
necessary, in order to have a relationship with countries, that we 
automatically have to have a summit. As a matter of fact, we engage in 
relationships with very important countries--countries far more 
influential in some respects than China--and we don't have summits with 
them on a regular basis. This is the second summit in less than a year 
with the nation of China.
  So the first thing I would like to say is that it is not necessarily 
essential, in order to pursue a productive policy for a long-term 
constructive relationship with China, that you have a summit. As a 
matter of fact, it might be counterproductive. It might impair the 
development of the kind of healthy, long-term relationship we need if 
we send the President unduly, or prematurely, to negotiate with or 
otherwise concede to individuals whose conduct doesn't merit the 
President's dignifying presence--whose participation in world events is 
not of a quality that should be legitimized by a visit from the 
President of the United States.
  There has been a false dichotomy presented to the American people, 
and it has been the choice between either supporting the President's 
trip to China or being labeled isolationists. That is simply an 
inappropriate framework to force upon the American people. Most 
Americans understand that our objectives ought not to be involvement or 
isolation per se, but that the United States--the greatest Nation of 
the world--would relate constructively with the People's Republic of 
China on the basis of sound policy that leads to a constructive and 
mature relationship.
  I believe that we have to have a policy toward China. While I 
question what the policies the President is pursuing, my reservations 
in no way suggest that I don't seek good relations with China. As a 
matter of fact, I think the road to good relations would be paved with 
better policy and fewer summits.
  Allow me to explain. Whether we are talking about the relationships 
between individuals, or businesses, or institutions, or countries, 
there are principles that undergird and provide the foundation for good 
relations. Integrity is one. Relationships have to be based on 
integrity. People have to be able to trust one another. They have to 
know that when one says something, it can be trusted. Another component 
of a good relationship is responsibility. Individuals have to act 
responsibly. They can't threaten or otherwise endanger the other party 
if there are going to be sound relationships. Third, there has to be 
accountability. If we want long-term relationships, if we want a 
productive relationship, if we want something that can be relied upon 
and built upon, we have to have the foundation of integrity, 
responsibility, and accountability.
  I suggest that our relationship with China is no different, an must 
include these kinds of building blocks. We have to have a relationship 
of integrity, responsibility, and accountability with China. If we 
don't have it, the future of U.S.-China relations is not bright.
  I have some real problems with the way the Chinese have dealt with 
us. It is a way that does not reflect integrity. It does not reflect 
responsibility. It does not reflect accountability.
  Take, for example, integrity. China last year, after almost 20 years 
of assuring the world that it doesn't proliferate weapons of mass 
destruction, was labeled by our own CIA as the world's worst 
proliferater of weapons of mass destruction. In spite of that, the 
President said, ``We will invite them over for a summit.'' And the 
Chinese were invited to the United States in October. As a matter of 
fact, there were nonproliferation assurances at that summit similar to 
the assurances that have been made over the past two decades. China 
pledged that it did not proliferate weapons of mass destruction. We 
don't involve ourselves in that.
  Frankly, just a few short months later, our intelligence resources 
intercepted negotiations between China and Iran for China to provide 
anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, a material used to upgrade industrial-
strength uranium to weapons-grade uranium. The material was destined 
for Isfahan, one of Iran's principal sites for manufacturing the 
explosive core of an atomic device.
  It is pretty clear that the absence of integrity in the conduct of 
the Chinese is dramatic. It is an absence of integrity prior to the 
last summit, and it is an absence of integrity that followed on the 
heels of that summit. They will tell you one thing, and they do 
something else. That is not the basis of integrity that provides the 
foundation for a sound relationship.
  Responsibility is the second key ingredient. I think most Americans 
were shocked--I was shocked; I was stunned--when it was revealed by our 
own intelligence sources that the nation of China had as many as 13 
intercontinental ballistic missiles targeted on American cities, armed 
with massive nuclear warheads, termed ``city busters.'' Every city in 
the United States of America north of southern Florida is within range 
of these missiles, and they are targeted on the United States of 
America.
  I don't think that is the foundation for summitry. I don't think that 
is the foundation for a good relationship. We never appeased the Soviet 
Union while it was targeting nuclear warheads on American cities. 
Ronald Reagan had a sense of principle. He had a sense of determination 
that you don't stand as a target, while at the same time offering 
privileges to your adversary. That is not the kind of policy America 
has pursued in the past. A policy which sells out America's long-term 
security interests might facilitate a particular sale, it might obtain 
a particular favor, but it is not in the long-term best interests of 
the United States to stand as a target offering concessions to a 
country pointing nuclear weapons at our cities.
  I think it is, of all things, terribly irresponsible of the Chinese 
to have 13 American cities targeted with their ``city buster'' nuclear 
weapons on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching 
virtually every city in the United States.
  The third important element is accountability. Where do the Chinese 
stand on accountability? The trade barriers that China has toward the 
United States are incredible. In recent years, China's tariff levels 
have been about six times as high on our goods as our tariffs are on 
Chinese products. Not only that, China imposes nontariff barriers that 
make it impossible for our companies to penetrate the Chinese market. 
China treats American companies differently, so that U.S. firms don't 
have the protection of law in Chinese courts commensurate with the 
protection the United States extends to foreign investors in our 
market.

[[Page S6854]]

  The absence of integrity, the absence of responsibility, the absence 
of accountability--the absence of these cornerstones of what ought to 
be U.S. policy means that the house of cards being constructed in 
summitry with China is in danger of collapse. I think if we are really 
interested in China policy over the long term, we ought to build the 
U.S.-China relationship on a foundation that demands integrity, 
responsibility, and accountability.

  When the President's presence implicitly accepts atrocities in China, 
and when the Administration continues to pursue a bankrupt policy of 
engaging the Chinese at any cost, the interests of the American people 
are not served and the United States is not served at its highest and 
best. It is no wonder that individuals on both sides of the aisle have 
protested this trip. It is no wonder that this is not a partisan issue. 
Sure, there may be more Republicans who are willing to stand and talk 
about this now. But in our news conferences together, we have brought 
these concerns to the President, saying, you are making a mistake with 
the kind of things that you are intending with this summit.
  The President will likely try to come home with some transaction, or 
some deal, to say that it was an achievement of the summit. But let us 
not forget that the real purpose of summits ought to be the development 
of sound structural relations, the kind of underpinning and foundation 
that will result in the potential for long-term, beneficial, 
constructive relationships between countries. As long as we ignore the 
absence of integrity, we ignore the absence of responsibility, we 
ignore the absence of accountability, it seems to me that we are not 
building the kind of relationship based on mutual respect.
  I would say this: As a minimum, this summit must end with the 
President returning to the United States with an assurance that United 
States cities are not targeted by Chinese ICBMs--with some kind of 
verification to ensure China's detargeting of American cities is 
genuine.
  The Chinese know that they have not acted with the requisite 
integrity. They know that they have not acted with the requisite 
responsibility. I think they understand that they have not acted with 
the kind of appropriate accountability that would provide the basis for 
the right foundation for a sound U.S.-China relationship. China, in 
some ways, may not expect to get the kind of relationship that mature 
nations dealing with one another on the basis of these values would 
have.
  Maybe that is why the Chinese have attempted to influence elections 
in America with donations to buy the kind of respect they have not 
earned with good will.
  Of all the things I would expect us to demand at the upcoming summit, 
one is that illegal contributions from subsidiaries of the Chinese Army 
not come to contaminate the political process in the United States of 
America.
  I want to say with clarity that an important challenge for the United 
States is to develop sound long-term relationships with important 
nations around the world. We cannot develop those relationships, 
however, without the fundamentals of integrity, responsibility, and 
accountability.
  We have in China today a regime whose brutal repression at home 
betrays its intentions abroad. America should be sounding liberty's 
bell, not toasting the tyrants who sent tanks to Tiananmen Square and 
pulled the triggers there.
  I believe we need to find a way to make sure that integrity, 
responsibility, and accountability are the fundamental components upon 
which our China policy rests. To legitimize Chinese conduct absent 
those values, those principles, is likely to result in a long-term 
U.S.-China relationship with more risk than reward, with more 
difficulty than cooperation.
  Mr. President, I thank you for this opportunity. I thank you for the 
time you have spent in the Chair.
  I yield the floor.

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