[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 73 (Tuesday, June 13, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S5021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 TIBET

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, last year I delivered a statement for 
the record commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan 
uprising, during which His Holiness the Dalai Lama and more than 
100,000 Tibetans were forced to flee their homeland as a result of 
brutal suppression by the Chinese government. Unfortunately, the human 
rights situation in Tibet has not improved, and has if anything 
deteriorated over the past year.
  U.S. Administration officials and Congressional supporters of 
Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China often claim that more open 
trade with the West will expose ordinary Chinese to new ideas, new 
ideals, and a new independence from the State. This will awaken their 
desire for more freedom, paving the way for democracy in China. I have 
often voiced skepticism about these claims.
  We do not have to wait for the people of Tibet to express their 
yearning for freedom. They have continuously struggled for their rights 
for over forty years, and have paid dearly for their actions. Their 
efforts so far have failed, not because they do not yearn to be free, 
but rather because their efforts are brutally suppressed and we are 
apparently little able to help them. Even our efforts in March to 
introduce at the annual meeting of the UN Commission for Human Rights a 
resolution condemning PRC officials' human rights practices in China 
and Tibet were blocked by the PRC and most of the industrialized 
nations.
  If the Administration and Congress are serious about their efforts to 
promote human rights in China, surely Tibet should be the bellwether. 
We need to find concrete ways to demonstrate this commitment, and to 
encourage other countries to do the same.

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