[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 40 (Monday, March 15, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2622-S2624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on 
East Asian and Pacific Affairs, I come to the floor today because I 
believe that the time has come for a thoughtful and critical re-
examination of United States policy towards the People's Republic of 
China.
  There had been encouraging developments in China in the past two 
years. China has begun tackling the staggering job of reforming an 
antiquated command economy and opening it to private enterprise; and 
have begun to move the military out of the private sector. They've 
taken this difficult step even though they know it will result in the 
displacement and unemployment of literally millions of people. In 
addition, the government has greatly increased the number of democratic 
elections taking place at the village level throughout China. And 
Beijing has, for the most part, avoided interfering in Hong Kong 
affairs now that it is again a part of the PRC
  But Mr. President, despite these improvements, I cannot ignore the 
fact that for every step China has taken forward, it appears to have 
also taken one or two back. And a bilateral relationship that 10 months 
ago looked as though it were showing improvement is instead, I believe, 
headed down a rocky road.


              For example: Nuclear and Technology Transfer

  Recent press reports have indicated that over the span of the last 
several years there have been damaging leaks to the Chinese of 
sensitive United States nuclear technology which has enabled them to 
advance their own nuclear program. The exact facts of the case are 
still unclear, and I am sure will be the subject of intense 
Congressional scrutiny in the months ahead, but what is clear to me is 
that there is a credible foundation for the accusations and that they 
are not, as the Chinese would have us believe, the figment of some 
supposed ``anti-China'' media bias. My examination of the Cox report 
leads me to the identical conclusion with regards to the transfer and 
acquisition of satellite technology.
  Now it would naive to deny that espionage is a fact of geopolitical 
life, or that countries act in their own best interests; we should 
neither be shocked nor appalled that it goes on. But still, China's 
willingness to systematically circumvent our laws and acquire over the 
last several years--by stealth or otherwise--nuclear and computer 
technology is troubling to me, and demonstrates a willingness to take 
advantage of our relationship when possible.


                                 Taiwan

  After a long-standing chill in relations across the Taiwan Straits, 
during which the two sides failed to carry on even basic dialog, things 
had begun looking up lately. The two sides resumed direct meetings last 
year, and the head of the Taiwanese department that oversees cross-
straits affairs visited Beijing a few months ago; his PRC counterpart, 
Wang Daohan, has agreed to a return visit to Taipei in the near future.
  Recently though, there have been some signs that things might turn 
chilly again. In the last several months, the PRC has relocated a 
number of its missiles from the interior of the country to Fujian, 
Zhejiang, and Guangdong Provinces--the three provinces directly across 
the Straits from Taiwan. Moving so many missiles into these coastal 
provinces is clearly meant, and understood, to send one signal to 
Taiwan. Remember, Mr. President, that it was from these provinces

[[Page S2623]]

that China launched a series of ``missile tests'' just north and south 
of Taiwan during its 1996 presidential elections which effectively 
blockaded the ports of Kaoshiung and Taipei and which we felt were 
threatening enough to require the movement of part of the 7th Fleet to 
the Straits.
  The movement of those missiles, and the not so veiled threat that 
accompanies them, can only prove to be another destabilizing effect in 
the region. Accompanied by rather bellicose statements in the last two 
weeks by PRC Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan which pointedly omitted any 
promise to rule out the use of military force to achieve the 
reunification of Taiwan with the PRC, Taiwan cannot be faulted for 
feeling that the threat against it from the mainland has increased; nor 
can it be faulted for feeling the only way to protect themselves from 
that threat is to explore participating in the discussions about 
establishing a theater missile defense (TMD) system in East Asia.
  In reaction to the TMD discussions, last week Beijing started a media 
blitz charging that any Taiwanese participation in a TMD ``would be the 
absolute last straw'' is US-PRC relations, and have threatened a series 
of serious--albeit unspecified--retaliatory steps. Yet China completely 
overlooks the fact that their missile movements have, in great measure, 
precipitated Taiwan's interest.


                                 Tibet

  Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of a failed 
Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation of their country--an 
uprising that was brutally suppressed. And which resulted in the death, 
arrest, or imprisonment of more that 87,000 Tibetans. It is unfortunate 
that since that time, the core position that China has vis-a-vis Tibet 
has changed very little.
  Despite a sincere ongoing effort on the part of the Dalai Lama to 
engage the PRC in a dialog about the future of Tibet, the Chinese have 
repeatedly refused to meet with the Dalai Lama or his representatives 
to discuss the issue. Each time Beijing has placed preconditions on the 
commencement of those talks, and the Dalai Lama has acceded to those 
conditions despite their unpopularity among his people, the Chinese 
have effectively moved the goalposts. For example, the Dalai Lama has 
agreed to negotiate within the framework enunciated by Deng Xiaoping in 
1979; namely, that he does not seek independence for Tibet but rather 
the opportunity for Tibetans to handle their domestic affairs and 
freely determine their social, economic, and cultural development. Once 
he acquiesced to that position, however, Beijing apparently decided 
that Deng's framework was no longer sufficient.
  Most recently, during his meeting with President Clinton last year, 
Jiang Zemin suggested he would meet with the Dalai Lama if the latter 
would recognize that Tibet and Taiwan are a part of China. His Holiness 
subsequently made a statement to that effect. But then the Chinese said 
that ``he is not sincere" in his statement--that the Dalai Lama is 
lying--and therefore still refuse to negotiate with him.
  And in the meantime, China continues to do all it can to squelch the 
Tibetan identity. Large numbers of ethnic Han Chinese are still being 
moved into Tibet in an apparent effort to make Tibetans a minority in 
their own land. Buddhist monks and nuns are imprisoned, and monasteries 
closed or their populations severely reduced. The government continues 
to manipulate and direct the selection of religious leaders more 
agreeable to the party line.
  When confronted with these facts, the Chinese are fond of 
sidestepping them and noting that the life of the average Tibetan --
from a health and economic standpoint--is better than it was 
before they took over. That may be. But that isn't the issue. The issue 
is whether the Tibetan people are free to worship as they please. 
Whether they are free to express their cultural and ethnic identity. 
Whether they are free to determine their futures for themselves. And at 
present, the answer to those questions is a simple no.


                              Human Rights

  There has been a disturbing increase in the last six months in 
government crackdowns on the freedom of expression, as evidenced by a 
sharp increase in the number of arrests and convictions of prodemocracy 
advocates. In addition, the government has shut down fledgling 
prodemocracy organizations, and sought to curb Internet use and access.
  I believe I understand, although I certainly in no way condone, the 
impetus behind the crackdown. As I noted earlier, China has recently 
embarked on a program to restructure its economy along free-market 
lines and to open itself more to the world around it. These changes 
could be viewed as potentially destabilizing for a communist regime 
which controls over 1.2 billion people. President Jiang admitted as 
much at the end of last year when he characterized government actions 
as necessary ``to nip those factors that undermine social stability in 
the bud.''
  As with other campaigns in China's recent past, such as the ``Let 100 
Flowers Bloom'' campaign, when this latest openness campaign took hold 
and began to accelerate, the central authorities got overly anxious 
about their ability to control the pace of reforms and about it getting 
out from underneath them and unleashing democracy. They have thus, true 
to form, begun slamming on the brakes and stifling any dissent, real or 
perceived.
  But in doing so, the Chinese are blatantly flouting international 
norms and agreements to which they had previously pledged to adhere 
among them the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 
International Covenant on Economic, Cultural, and Social Rights. And in 
doing so, the Chinese are turning their backs on us and an issue that 
is of central importance to us.


                              North Korea

  As a participant in the Four Party Talks in Geneva, China has helped 
facilitate getting North Korea to the negotiating table in an attempt 
to stabilize the Korean peninsula. But while purporting to assist us on 
the one hand, despite United States requests the Chinese are still not 
doing all they could--or in their own best interests should--do to 
defuse the potential powder keg that is North Korea.
  Beijing's initial response is to say, as Foreign Minister Tang did 
this week, that we are overestimating the potential threat North Korea 
poses to the region. But to anyone with even a passing familiarity with 
the issue, North Korea is probably the number one threat to peace and 
stability in all of East Asia. The Chinese fall-back position then is 
to say that they have no influence over the North that could be used to 
help us effectuate change. But China continues to supply the North, a 
country that is literally starving its own people to death to maintain 
its military and its political elite, with food and technical goods, 
and serves as its only source of aviation fuel. In fact, it was 
reported last week that China has supplied the North with missile 
technology. All those seem to me to be potent incentives that could be 
used to influence the actions of the North, but which are pointedly not 
being taken advantage of by the Chinese.
  Mr. President, we have had a policy of ``engagement'' with China now 
for a number of years. I have, since I came to the Senate, generally 
supported the concept as the best way--in my view--to effectuate change 
in China. But as a supporter of the concept, I now have to look at the 
facts and ask what the payoff has been to us. Mr. President, this is 
what engagement has gotten us lately: a military buildup that seriously 
threatens Taiwan, a Chinese veto last month in the UN of a proposed 
peacekeeping operation in the Balkans, an upswing in the harsh 
suppression of internationally recognized human and political rights, a 
continuing refusal to address the question of Tibet, the undermining of 
United States efforts to deal with North Korea, a continuing effort to 
purchase or steal sensitive computer and nuclear technology from us, 
and a trade deficit that hit an all-time high this year.
  At times, it has seemed to me that this Administration--one that 
ironically accused its predecessor of ``coddling Beijing''--has been 
more interested in the concept of engagement than in what results, if 
any, the application of that concept is achieving. Call it ``engagement 
for engagement's sake.''
  The most glaring, and disturbing, illustration of that tendency may 
involve the allegations of leaks of nuclear technology from our 
facility at

[[Page S2624]]

Los Alamos to the Chinese which came to light this week. Regardless of 
when the leaks occurred, initial reports suggest to me that this 
Administration knew of the problem but soft-peddled it so as to avoid 
calling its China policy into question. A NSC spokesman recently 
refuted that allegation by saying that the Administration has kept the 
relevant committees of Congress closely informed of the problem over 
the last 18 months, and of what was being done to address it. Mr. 
President, I have been Chairman of the East Asia Subcommittee for more 
than four years now. No one from the Administration has ever mentioned 
it to me, or to my staff. Nor has anyone contacted the staff of the 
full Foreign Relations Committee, or Chairman Helms' Asia advisors.
  I believe it is time to take a step back--on both sides of the 
aisle--and give our China policy a very long, hard, critical look. 
Congress needs to take the lead in examining whether, in the 
Administration's eagerness to engage China, we have overlooked the fact 
that our return--an improvement in China's domestic or international 
behavior--has been negligible at best.
  I am not advocating isolating China, or shutting off our contacts or 
dialog. I do not believe that we can bully or badger the Chinese into 
accepting our view of the world as the only one that is correct. 
Instead, I agree that we need to communicate with Beijing on a whole 
variety of fronts, to engage in open and frank dialog, and that because 
of its size, its economy, and its geopolitical importance we cannot, 
and should not, ignore them. But we need to take a look at the level at 
which that interaction takes place, and what we are willing to give up 
in exchange for that relationship. And we also need to look at what we 
want or expect in return.
  Mr. President, our relationship with them should be grounded in 
reality, not in wishful thinking. And it should be a two-way street, 
not a one-way to a dead-end.

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