[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 132 (Tuesday, October 18, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2105]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        YAHOO SHOULD BE ASHAMED

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 18, 2005

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I recall with great irony the heated annual 
debates in Congress surrounding Most Favored Nation trade status and 
ultimately Permanent Normal Trade Relations for China. The coalition 
that battled granting China this privilege faced an almost certain 
perennial loss. Even so, it served as a valuable forum in which to 
highlight just what kind of a country we are dealing with in China. The 
list of egregious actions laid at the feet of the communist government 
of the People's Republic of China is long and spans decades--human 
rights abuses, religious persecution including torture and 
imprisonment, slave labor practices, forced sterilization, espionage 
operations against U.S. businesses, software piracy and intellectual 
property theft, military spying. At the time many argued with 
tremendous passion, business interests foremost among them, that trade 
with China would change China, not the other way around.
  It strikes me that those may have been hollow promises--that little 
has changed in China. Rather it appears that some American companies 
are increasingly honoring repressive Chinese laws so that they might 
keep their seat at the table and with it the promise of great profit.
  Shi Tao, a freelance journalist for Internet publications, was 
recently sentenced in China, to 10 years in prison for ``leaking state 
secrets abroad.''
  Tao was arrested in November 2004 after Yahoo, an American company, 
cooperated with Chinese government authorities to grant them access to 
Tao's personal e-mail account. Tao simply e-mailed portions of a 
directive issued by China's Propaganda Department that instructed the 
Chinese media as to how to cover the 15th anniversary of the military 
crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Incidentally, even today it is still 
impermissible to use the term ``4 June,'' the date of the brutal 
government crackdown on pro-democracy activists, student leaders and 
workers in Tiananmen Square, in the press or online.
  Yahoo justified their actions by claiming that to do business in 
China, they had to follow Chinese laws--a morally bankrupt argument 
which excuses doing business with the worst actors on the world scene, 
under the guise of respect for the law. But even if one subscribed to 
that argument, it is noteworthy that the information that Yahoo turned 
over to government authorities was stored in Hong Kong, outside of the 
jurisdiction of the mainland police.
  Yahoo's chairman and chief executive officer Terry Semel, after 
vigorously defending his company's decision, is reported to have said, 
``on a personal level, I wince.'' I would say to Mr. Semel, I too 
wince. And I would venture to guess that Mr. Tao's family winced when 
police grabbed him on a street, searched his house and confiscated his 
computer and other items, thus launching the ordeal that culminated his 
eventual prosecution and imprisonment.
  During the dark days of the Cold War the vast majority of those 
living behind the Iron Curtain saw America as a friend--we represented 
their hopes and aspirations. But today in China some are complicity 
with the oppressors.
  Mr. Semel and the company he leads is a beneficiary, as we all are, 
of this great experiment in self-governance, free enterprise and 
individual liberty that we call America. When faced with a choice 
between the bottom line, and betraying the very tenets that underpin 
this nation, Yahoo chose profit. They should be ashamed.

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