[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 81 (Tuesday, June 2, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H6040-H6049]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   COMMEMORATING 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIANANMEN SQUARE SUPPRESSION

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to 
the resolution (H. Res. 489) recognizing the twentieth anniversary of 
the suppression of protesters and citizens in and around Tiananmen 
Square in Beijing, People's Republic of China, on June 3 and 4, 1989 
and expressing sympathy to the families of those killed, tortured, and 
imprisoned in connection with the democracy protests in Tiananmen 
Square and other parts of China on June 3 and 4, 1989 and thereafter.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of the resolution is as follows:

                              H. Res. 489

       Whereas freedom of expression and assembly are fundamental 
     human rights that belong to all people, and are recognized as 
     such under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 
     International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
       Whereas June 4th, 2009, marks the 20th anniversary of the 
     day in 1989 when the People's Liberation Army and other 
     security forces finished carrying out the orders of Chinese 
     leaders to use lethal force to disperse demonstrators in and 
     around Beijing's Tiananmen Square;
       Whereas the death on April 15, 1989, of Hu Yaobang, former 
     General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, was 
     followed by peaceful protests calling for the elimination of 
     corruption, acceleration of economic and political reforms, 
     especially freedom of expression and freedom of assembly; and 
     calling for a dialogue between protesters and Chinese 
     authorities on these issues;
       Whereas by early May 1989, citizens advocating publicly for 
     democratic reform across China included not only students, 
     but also government employees, journalists, workers, police, 
     members of the armed forces and other citizens;
       Whereas on May 20, 1989, martial law was declared in 
     Beijing after authorities had failed to persuade 
     demonstrators to leave Tiananmen Square;
       Whereas during the late afternoon and early evening hours 
     of June 3, 1989, ten- to fifteen thousand helmeted, armed 
     troops carrying automatic weapons and traveling in large 
     truck convoys moved into Beijing to ``clear the Square'' and 
     surrounding streets of demonstrators;
       Whereas on the night of June 3 and continuing into the 
     morning of June 4, 1989, soldiers in armored columns of tanks 
     outside of Tiananmen Square fired directly at citizens and 
     indiscriminately into crowds, inflicting high civilian 
     casualties, killing or injuring unarmed civilians who 
     reportedly ranged in age from 9 years old to 61 years old; 
     and whereas tanks crushed some protesters and onlookers to 
     death;
       Whereas after 20 years, the exact number of dead and 
     wounded remains unclear; credible sources believe that a 
     number much larger than that officially reported actually 
     died in Beijing during the period of military control; 
     credible sources estimate the wounded numbered at least in 
     the hundreds; detentions at the time were in the thousands, 
     and some political prisoners who were sentenced in connection 
     with the events surrounding June 4, 1989, still languish in 
     Chinese prisons;
       Whereas there are Chinese citizens still imprisoned for 
     ``counter-revolutionary'' offenses allegedly committed during 
     the 1989 demonstrations, even though, according to the 1997 
     revision of China's Criminal Law, the ``offenses'' for which 
     they were convicted are no longer crimes;
       Whereas the Tiananmen Mothers is a group of relatives and 
     friends of those killed in June 1989 whose demands include 
     the right to mourn victims publicly, to call for a full and 
     public accounting of the wounded and dead, and the release of 
     those who remain imprisoned for participating in the 1989 
     protests;
       Whereas members of the Tiananmen Mothers group have faced 
     arrest, harassment and discrimination; the group's Web site 
     is blocked in China; and international cash donations made to 
     the group to support families of victims reportedly have been 
     frozen by Chinese authorities;
       Whereas Chinese authorities censor information that does 
     not conform to the official version of events surrounding the 
     Tiananmen crackdown, and limits or prohibits information 
     about the Tiananmen crackdown from appearing in textbooks in 
     China;
       Whereas Chinese authorities continue to suppress peaceful 
     dissent by harassing, detaining, or imprisoning advocates for 
     democratic processes, journalists, advocates for worker 
     rights, religious believers, and other individuals in China, 
     including in Xinjiang and in Tibet, who seek to express their 
     political dissent, ethnic identity, or religious views 
     peacefully and freely; and
       Whereas Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain 
     advocates for democratic processes, such as Mr. Liu Xiaobo, a 
     Tiananmen Square protester, prominent intellectual, dissident 
     writer, and more recently a signer of Charter 08 (a call for 
     peaceful political reform and respect for the rule of law 
     published on-line in December 2008 by over 300 citizens, and 
     subsequently endorsed by thousands more), who remains under 
     house arrest: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
       (1) expresses sympathy to the families of those killed, 
     tortured, and imprisoned as a

[[Page H6041]]

     result of their participation in the democracy protests in 
     Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China on June 3 and 4, 
     1989, and thereafter, and to all those persons who have 
     suffered for their peaceful efforts to keep that struggle 
     alive during the last two decades;
       (2) calls on the People's Republic of China to invite full 
     and independent investigations into the Tiananmen Square 
     crackdown, assisted by the United Nations High Commissioner 
     for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red 
     Cross;
       (3) calls on the legal authorities of People's Republic of 
     China to review immediately the cases of those still 
     imprisoned for participating in the 1989 protests for 
     compliance with internationally recognized standards of 
     fairness and due process in judicial proceedings, and to 
     release those individuals imprisoned solely for peacefully 
     exercising their internationally-recognized rights;
       (4) calls on the People's Republic of China to end its 
     harassment and detention of and its discrimination against 
     those who were involved in the 1989 protests not only in 
     Beijing, but in other parts of China where protests took 
     place, and to end its harassment and detention of those who 
     continue to advocate peacefully for political reform such as 
     Mr. Liu Xiaobo, a signer of Charter 08 who remains under 
     house arrest, and his wife, Liu Xia;
       (5) calls on the People's Republic of China to allow 
     protest participants who escaped to or are living in exile in 
     the United States and other countries, or who reside outside 
     of China because they have been ``blacklisted'' in China as a 
     result of their peaceful protest activity, to return to China 
     without risk of retribution or repercussion; and
       (6) calls on the Administration and Members of the Congress 
     to mark the 20th Anniversary of the events at Tiananmen 
     Square appropriately and effectively by taking steps that 
     includes--
       (A) meeting whenever and wherever possible with 
     participants in the demonstrations who are living in the 
     United States;
       (B) meeting with others outside of China who have been 
     ``blacklisted'' in China as a result of their peaceful 
     protest activities;
       (C) signaling support for those in China who demand an 
     accounting of the events surrounding June 4th, 1989; and
       (D) expressing support for those advocating for accountable 
     and democratic governance in China.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Levin) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) each will 
control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan.


                             General Leave

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this 
resolution. I now yield myself as much time as I may consume.
  This resolution recognizes the 20th anniversary of the suppression of 
Chinese protesters and citizens in Tiananmen Square. Freedom of 
expression and freedom of assembly are fundamental human rights that 
belong to all people and are recognized as such under the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights. In the last 20 years since Tiananmen Square, the 
significance of the U.S.-China relationship has grown dramatically on a 
variety of foreign policy issues and on our economic relationships. In 
pursuing these relations successfully, a key challenge has been to find 
the right combination of pursuit of basic American values. That was a 
challenge in consideration of trade relations with China in its 
accession to the WTO. There was incorporated in the legislation before 
Congress in 2000 the creation of the Congressional-Executive Commission 
on China to pursue issues relating to human rights, including labor 
rights and the rule of law. The commission has actively engaged on 
these issues and has issued a comprehensive report every year since its 
inception.
  When peaceful protesters gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and 
in over 100 other Chinese cities, it represented a burst of freedom. 
They called for the elimination of corruption and the acceleration of 
economic and political reforms, especially freedom of expression and 
freedom of assembly. These protesters included not only students but 
also government employees, journalists, workers, police and members of 
China's armed forces. People peacefully filled the square until 
thousands of armed forces moved in, surrounding the demonstrators. On 
June 4, 1989, soldiers fired directly into the crowds outside of 
Tiananmen Square, killing and injuring unarmed civilians. The exact 
number of the dead and wounded remains unknown. The wounded are 
estimated to have numbered at least in the hundreds. Detentions at the 
time were in the thousands. Some political prisoners still languish in 
Chinese prisons.
  We today express our sympathy to the relatives and friends of those 
killed and injured on that day, and we stand with them as we honor the 
memory of those whose lives were lost and those who continue to suffer 
today. Let us be absolutely clear: this resolution asks nothing of 
China that is inconsistent with commitments to international standards 
to which China, in principle, has already agreed. We ask of China's 
leaders full and independent investigations into the Tiananmen Square 
crackdown with a full commitment to openness, and we call on Chinese 
authorities to release those individuals imprisoned solely for 
peacefully exercising their internationally recognized rights. We call 
on Chinese authorities to end the harassment and detention of those who 
were involved in the 1989 protests and to end the harassment and 
detention of those who continue to advocate peacefully for political 
reform.
  I encourage my colleagues to support those in China who demand an 
accounting of the events of June 4, 1989, and to express support for 
those advocating for accountable and democratic governance in China.
  In closing, let me note that two decades ago, the Chinese people 
stood up at Tiananmen, but China's leaders ordered them to stand down. 
Many defied that order, choosing instead to remain faithful to their 
aspirations. The world took note, and we today preserve that memory for 
history.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  The Chairman of the committee will take over the remainder of the 
time. I salute him, if I might, for his work and that of the ranking 
member on the committee and all of those who joined in supporting this 
resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
California will control the remainder of the time.
  There was no objection.

                              {time}  1715

  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in very strong support of this resolution 
``recognizing the 20th anniversary of the suppression of protesters and 
citizens in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing, People's Republic 
of China, on June 3 and 4, 1989.'' The words ``Tiananmen'' mean ``Gate 
of Heavenly Peace.'' Sadly, however, the events of that dark night 20 
years ago were anything but heavenly or peaceful.
  It was during that dark night that the hopes of a generation for a 
new and democratic China were cruelly smashed along with the papier-
mache and wire statue of the Goddess of Democracy, built with youthful 
idealism by art students in Tiananmen Square. It was during that dark 
night that a single, brave figure in the picture seen around the world 
stood in silent defiance of army tanks as they rolled toward the 
square.
  It was during that dark night that the people of China watched in 
horror as their own so-called ``People's Army'' turned assault weapons 
and bayonets on their own people, who reportedly ranged in age from 9 
years old to 61 years old, all of whom were participating in a peaceful 
demonstration.
  It was during that dark night that the blood of student martyrs 
stained a square where a previous generation of students had petitioned 
the rulers of China for democracy during the May 4 movement in 1919.
  It was during that dark night that the pain began for the Tiananmen 
Mothers who, through two decades of harassment and intimidation, have 
displayed the courage to keep their dead children's hopes alive and 
their dreams alive of liberty.
  It would be easy to forget that night of the long knives. It would be 
easy to look at the glittering business towers rising above an 
increasingly prosperous China and say that is in the past and

[[Page H6042]]

that it is over. That would be the easy thing to do, Madam Speaker. But 
that would not be the right thing to do.
  A rising China is increasingly taking its place on the international 
stage. But it is a rising China that has no moral compass. That compass 
was lost in that dark night in Tiananmen Square when they murdered 
their own people, mostly students.
  Now, two decades later, a time for truth and a time for truth telling 
is overdue. That is why this resolution calls on the Chinese 
authorities to invite full and independent investigations into the 
Tiananmen Square crackdown, assisted by the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the 
Red Cross.
  A famous saying goes that ``Those who forget their past are destined 
to repeat it.'' Neither China nor the world could stand a repeat of 
that horrific tragedy of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
  It is time to honor the dead, express profound sympathy to the 
surviving family members, and to seek a full and honest accounting of 
the shocking events that occurred two decades ago this week before that 
gate which is meant to symbolize heavenly peace.
  I urge my colleagues to strongly support this resolution, and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I'm very honored to yield 1 minute to the 
Speaker of the House. For those of us who were in this Chamber at the 
time of the Tiananmen Square movement 20 years ago, we all remember 
that there was no one more passionate or eloquent on the aspirations of 
those students and more outraged by the dashing of those aspirations, 
whether the people at the square or of the Chinese people generally or 
the thousands of Chinese students who were studying in the United 
States at that time and watching that happen, than Leader Pelosi.
  I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the Speaker of the House.
  Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  And I thank him and Sander Levin and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen for bringing this legislation to the floor. I associate myself 
with the comments of Mr. Poe and my friend, Mr. Wolf. We have been 
working on this issue for a very long time in our task force on China 
ever since I think even before Tiananmen.
  Human rights in China is a very, very important issue. China is a 
very important country. The relationship between our two countries is 
very important economically, security-wise, culturally, and in every 
way. But the size of the economy, the size of the country, and the size 
of the relationship doesn't mean that we shouldn't speak out. I have 
said that if we don't speak out about our concerns regarding human 
rights in China and Tibet, then we lose all moral authority to discuss 
it about any other country in the world.
  Today we come together to support a resolution on the floor of the 
House of Representatives recognizing that 20th anniversary of the 
Tiananmen Square massacre. Again, I thank my colleagues for bringing 
this legislation to the floor.
  Twenty years ago, a generation ago, thousands, millions of Chinese 
students, workers, and citizens assembled in Tiananmen Square and all 
of the streets leading to it and from it to bravely speak out. It was 
about promoting more freedom in China in terms of accountability of the 
government in ending corruption. It was about, again, more transparency 
and the ability to speak and to assemble. It was about the aspirations 
of people in a country that they love and their desire to have dialogue 
with their leaders on the future of China.
  It will be forever seared in our memory what happened next. The 
People's Liberation Army, the People's Army was used against the 
people, crushing demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and crushing dissent 
throughout China. And so again, Tiananmen Square is the place where 
many people assembled, but the demonstrations were beyond that and well 
into Beijing and across the country.
  We remember, again, one of the most enduring images which actually 
happened after the crush, after the order was given to clear Tiananmen 
Square by such and such a time on June 4. A day or two later, a brave 
man stood before the tank. One of the most enduring images of the 20th 
century will forever be seared again in the conscience of the world, 
the picture of the lone man standing before the tank in the street 
bringing a line of tanks to a halt. When the tanks moved, he moved. He 
even climbed on the tank to communicate to the person in charge of the 
tank that Beijing was their city and they did not want tanks overtaking 
it. Today that spirit of Tiananmen lives in the hearts and minds of 
those continuing to work for freedom in China and beyond. The heroes 
had the courage to speak out for freedom.
  There will be other observances of the Berlin Wall coming down 
throughout Europe in the next weeks and months. And actually, while the 
Chinese students, workers, and demonstrators used the Goddess of 
Democracy as the symbol in Tiananmen Square, inspired by our Founders, 
they, in turn, inspired others throughout Europe and the rest of the 
world to speak out for freedom, and they did achieve freedom. 
Unfortunately, the Chinese did not.
  Some of the people arrested at the time of Tiananmen Square are still 
in prison. We really don't have all of their names, but we do have the 
names of some prisoners of conscience that I brought to the attention 
of the Chinese Government. In a letter to the President of China, I 
included some of those, and I want to read them into the Record. And I 
will submit their names and the description of their situation into the 
Record.
  Before I read them all, I want to talk particularly about Liu Xiaobo. 
Liu Xiaobo is one of those individuals who spoke for freedom. He spent 
5 years in prison and in reeducation-through-labor camps for supporting 
the Tiananmen students and for questioning the one-party system. Late 
last year, he was again arrested for being one of the organizers of the 
Charter '08, an online public petition for democracy and the rule of 
law. About 5,000 people signed it. Imagine the courage of these people 
to sign such a petition. Liu continues to be held without charges. We 
call for his immediate and unconditional release.
  Let me read the name of Dr. Wang Bingzhang. He is very famous. There 
was an article in the paper yesterday about him. Hu Jia, Shi Tao, Chen 
Guangcheng, Gao Zhisheng, Yan Zhengxue, Pastor Zhang Rongliang, Bangri 
Chogtrul Rinpoche, and Ronggyal Adrag are being held. Some of these are 
from Tibet as well. There are others, but I want to submit these names 
for the Record as they are representative of the situation.
  I just had the privilege of visiting China last week. We had 
magnificent hospitality from the Chinese Government, and I am grateful 
for the opportunity they gave us to hear about their plans for climate 
change and issues of global concern. It also afforded me the 
opportunity to speak about human rights in China and Tibet and 
congressional concern about it to the President, the Premier and the 
Chairman of the National People's Congress. In terms of our dialogue, 
congressional and interparliamentary dialogue, I think it was clear 
from our visit that this concern is bipartisan, and any dialogue we had 
between our two congresses would have to include a discussion of human 
rights.
  When we were there, the first meeting we had was with Bishop Jin of 
Shanghai to discuss the status of religious freedom in China. He was 
optimistic about the Catholics that he led in Shanghai having some more 
freedom and making progress in that regard. And I respect that. But 
that is not the case for all who wish to exercise their religious 
freedom in China. And again, China is a country of contradictions. You 
see progress here and you see oppression there. Perhaps it is how 
regions deal with these issues. But the fact is that much more needs to 
be done in terms of religious freedom.
  I mentioned that we had submitted this letter to the Chinese 
Government. When we were in Hong Kong we met with Han Dongfang. Mr. 
Wolf, you know him. Han Dongfang was in Tiananmen Square as a bus 
driver at the time, and he gave us his view about what was happening 
and what opportunities that could be there.
  It is something that is not taught to children. What we learned is 
that some

[[Page H6043]]

students in Beijing University did not have any idea of who the man 
before the tank was. They didn't have any idea. They could not relate 
to that. It was not part of their knowledge. It didn't trigger anything 
that they had heard about in China. That is pretty remarkable. But the 
fact is that the world will never forget, and that image is one that 
inspires those who aspire to freedom wherever it is in the world.
  I do believe that all countries of the world have to get to a place 
of more openness, more transparency and more accountability of 
government. And perhaps the issue we visited the Chinese about, climate 
change, is one that can open some doors. Environmental justice can help 
people have clean air and clean water and get answers from their 
government as to why they do not have it.
  Today, on this floor, and this week we are observing something that 
is sacred ground when we talk about human rights in the world. It is a 
remarkable occurrence that will continue to inspire people throughout 
the world and also inspire those in China who hope for and aspire to 
freedom.
  Mr. Lantos, our late colleague, introduced me to the Dalai Lama and 
the issue of human rights in China and Tibet. He was always saying to 
me, ``don't be discouraged; the fight for human rights is a long one.'' 
But who would have thought that 20 years after Tiananmen Square we 
would be observing this, that people would still be imprisoned and that 
we would be submitting names of people who want to be able to speak 
more freely, to assemble and have more accountability from their 
government?
  For this and many other reasons, I'm grateful to our colleagues for 
their leadership in bringing this legislation to the floor. Thank you 
for that opportunity.
  And with that, Madam Speaker, I want to submit, in full, my letter 
and the list of prisoners. This is important because they say the worst 
form of punishment for someone who is a political prisoner is to say 
that no one remembers that you are here. No one remembers why you are 
here. So think about that as you are in prison.
  Well, we want them to know that in the Congress of the United States, 
we do know about them, we do care about them, and that we will continue 
to call for their freedom.

                                                     May 27, 2009.
     Hon. Hu Jintao,
     President,
     People's Republic of China.
       Dear President Hu: I am writing to ask for your assistance 
     in obtaining the release of certain individuals detained or 
     imprisoned in China. It is my understanding that these 
     individuals are prisoners of conscience and they are detained 
     or imprisoned for exercising rights that are guaranteed to 
     them under Chinese law or under international human rights 
     conventions that have been signed or ratified by the Chinese 
     government.
       Attached is a list of selected prisoners and brief 
     descriptions of their cases. I look forward to working with 
     you on a positive outcome on these cases and for the welfare 
     of these individuals. Thank you for your consideration of 
     this request.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Nancy Pelosi,
                                             Speaker of the House.

 Key Prisoners in China Who Should Be Released--Submitted May 27, 2009

       Liu Xiaobo was detained and transported to an undisclosed 
     location in December 2008 without any legal proceeding. He 
     was one of the original signers of Charter 08 that calls for 
     new policies to improve human rights and democracy in China. 
     Liu is reportedly under residential surveillance at a 
     location outside of his residence, in violation of China's 
     Criminal Procedure law. It is my understanding that he has 
     not been allowed to meet with his lawyer or family except for 
     one brief visit with his wife. Under Chinese law, a person 
     under residential surveillance does not need permission to 
     meet with his lawyer.
       Dr. Wang Bingzhang was abducted by Chinese authorities in 
     Vietnam in June 2002 and brought to China. He was then 
     convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in solitary 
     confinement in a trial that produced no evidence or witnesses 
     to prove the charges against him. Dr. Wang is an 
     internationally recognized pro-democracy activist and the UN 
     Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Wang's 
     detention is arbitrary. Dr. Wang is a permanent resident of 
     the United States and his sister and daughter are U.S. 
     citizens. He is currently held in Beijiang Prison in 
     Shaoguan, Guangdong province, and suffers from phlebitis and 
     has had three major strokes. At minimum, he should be 
     released on medical parole.
       Hu Jia was detained in December 2007 and sentenced to 3.5 
     years in prison in March 2008. The decision to take him into 
     custody seems to have been made after leaders in several 
     Chinese provinces issued a manifesto demanding broader land 
     rights for peasants whose property had been confiscated for 
     development. Hu pleaded not guilty on charges of ``inciting 
     subversion of state power'' at his trial.
       Shi Tao is a Chinese journalist serving a ten-year prison 
     sentence for sending an email description of a government 
     order prohibiting Chinese media from recognizing the 
     fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests to a 
     New York-based democracy website. Shi Tao was convicted with 
     email account information provided by Yahoo! China. His 
     lawyer, Guo Guoting, was repeatedly harassed in an effort to 
     prevent him from representing Shi Tao.
       Chen Guangcheng, a self-trained legal advocate who tried in 
     June 2005 to investigate reports that officials in Linyi 
     city, Shandong province, had subjected thousands of people to 
     forced abortions, beatings, and compulsory sterilization in 
     order to meet population control targets. Although central 
     government officials agreed that the officials used illegal 
     means, authorities rejected the class-action lawsuit Chen 
     tried to file. Chen was tried on August 24, 2006, and 
     sentenced to four years and three months for ``intentional 
     destruction of property'' and ``gathering people to disturb 
     traffic order.'' Chen, who is blind, has reportedly been 
     severely beaten in jail and has gone on a hunger strike to 
     protest the beatings. He is serving his sentence in Linyi 
     Prison.
       Gao Zhisheng, founder of a Beijing law firm, has 
     represented numerous activists, religious leaders, and 
     writers. On October 18, 2005, Gao wrote an open letter to Hu 
     Jintao and Wen Jiabao, exposing widespread torture against 
     Falun Gong practitioners. On November 4, officials shut down 
     his law firm and began a campaign of harassment against Gao, 
     his family, and associates. Authorities abducted Gao on 
     August 15, 2006 and convicted him on December 22 of 
     ``inciting subversion of state power'' and subject to a 
     three-year sentence, suspended for five years. After Gao sent 
     an open letter to the U.S. Congress in September 2007, he was 
     taken away by the police for over 50 days, and tortured. Gao 
     disappeared again on January 19, 2009. His current 
     whereabouts are unknown.
       Yan Zhengxue, a 63-year old writer and painter, was 
     detained on October 18, 2006, during a police raid on his 
     home in the Jiaojiang district of Taizhou city, Zhejiang 
     province. The Taizhou People's Intermediate Court convicted 
     him on April 13, 2007, of inciting subversion and sentenced 
     him to three years in prison after he attended a conference 
     in the U.S. several years earlier and published on the 
     Internet three articles critical of the Chinese government. 
     Yang's cell mate reportedly attacked him, causing head 
     injuries. Yang's family is concerned about his diminishing 
     physical and mental health due to harsh treatment in prison.
       Pastor Zhang Rongliang is a Christian leader who was 
     detained in Zhengzhou city, Henan province, in December 2004 
     and sentenced in June 2006 to seven years and six months in 
     prison. Authorities charged him with ``fraudulently obtaining 
     border-exit documents'' and illegally crossing the border in 
     an effort to attend missions conferences. He had been beaten, 
     detained, and harassed a number of times since his conversion 
     to Christianity in 1969. He is reportedly in poor health and 
     suffering from diabetes.
       Bangri Chogtrul Rinpoche, a lama who lived as a 
     householder, was convicted of inciting splittism and 
     sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2000. He and his 
     wife managed a children's home in Lhasa. The Lhasa 
     Intermediate People's Court commuted his sentence from life 
     imprisonment to a fixed term of 19 years in July 2003, and 
     then reduced his sentence by an additional year in November 
     2005. He is serving his sentence, which will be complete on 
     July 30, 2021, in Qushui Prison near Lhasa. He suffers from 
     heart disease and gall stones.
       Ronggyal Adrag, a nomad, climbed onto a stage at a horse-
     racing festival in Litang county, Sichuan province, on August 
     1, 2007, and shouted slogans calling for the Dalai Lama's 
     return to Tibet, the release of Gedun Choekyi Nyima (the 
     Panchen Lama identified by the Dalai Lama), freedom of 
     religion, and Tibetan independence. The Ganzi Intermediate 
     People's Court sentenced him on November 20, 2007, to eight 
     year's imprisonment for inciting splittism.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from Virginia, (Mr. Wolf), the ranking member of the Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, and also, he's the co-
chair of the Tom Lantos Congressional Human Rights Commission.
  Mr. WOLF. I thank the gentleman. I also want to thank the chairman 
and the ranking member and the Speaker for their efforts to bring this 
important resolution to the floor.
  Twenty years after peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators gathered in 
Tiananmen Square and were brutally crushed, the human rights situation 
in China remains bleak. Not only does the government consistently 
silence dissent, repress religious believers and stifle opposition, but 
it is in the business

[[Page H6044]]

of actively rewriting history, almost like the communist government did 
in Russia.
  Today's Washington Post features an op-ed, which I'd like to submit 
for the Record, which opens with an exchange that the author, Dan 
Southerland, had with a Chinese student a couple of years ago. 
Southerland, chief of the Washington Post's Beijing Bureau in the late 
Eighties, references his time as a reporter in Beijing on the now 
infamous June 4, 1989.
  He writes, ``but it soon became clear that June 4 meant nothing to 
her,'' a student. ``Chinese censors have managed to erase all mention 
of that tragedy from the country's textbooks and state-run media.''
  The human rights situation in China is made worse by America's 
diminished commitment to raise these issues and be a voice for the 
voiceless. I'm saddened to say today that this has been true of 
successive administrations of both political parties.
  In her first trip to the region, Secretary of State Clinton failed to 
make even a cursory public mention of human rights, saying that, 
``those issues can't interfere with economic, security or environmental 
matters.''
  Now, why would the Secretary of State say that? A Washington Post 
editorial following her trip and similarly dismissive comments on human 
rights in Egypt said that Secretary Clinton is, quote the Washington 
Post, and I thank them for this editorial, ``sending a message to 
rulers around the world that their abuses won't be taken seriously by 
this U.S. administration.''
  Nor were they taken seriously in the waning days of the last 
administration. Congressman Smith and I traveled to Beijing last July, 
just 1 month prior to the commencement of the 2008 Olympics. We brought 
with us a list of over 700 political prisoners to present to Ambassador 
Li, the current chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 
National People's Congress, and pressed for the release of all 
political prisoners in China.
  One night during our trip we were scheduled to meet with several 
human rights lawyers for dinner. All but one person scheduled to meet 
us was detained or otherwise prevented from attending by the Chinese 
security forces. The one activist with whom we were able to meet was 
arrested later that evening, and he and his family continue to face 
harassment by security forces. Very little was done by the Embassy or 
the State Department in the last administration when that took place. 
Silence was their response, basically, to this problem.
  Now we see just this week, news reports indicate that Treasury 
Secretary Geithner desperately sought to assure China, our biggest 
creditor, that their billions of dollars in U.S. government debt were 
not a liability.
  Why didn't Geithner at least raise the issue of human rights? 
Couldn't he have just said something about it? Couldn't he have made a 
statement about it? Couldn't he have done something about it? And the 
answer? He did nothing about it. Perhaps if he's caught up or wherever 
he is in Beijing today he will correct the record and at least say 
something.
  Our own economic reality has effectively silenced our voice, a tragic 
loss for all those political dissidents who languish in the Chinese 
laogai, those house church Christians who worship secretly in their 
homes, the Tibetans--and I've been to Tibet. They have plundered Tibet. 
The Uyghurs who are being persecuted, the Muslims who are being 
persecuted by the Chinese Government.
  And the Catholic Church. There are 34 bishops in jail today in the 
Catholic Church, and yet no one speaks out on behalf of the Catholic 
Church.
  And lastly, the Falun Gong who have suffered so much.
  Since my first trip to China in 1991 with my good friend, Congressman 
Smith, the human rights situation has gotten worse, despite promises to 
the contrary during the debate to grant China most favored nation 
status. One of the worst votes that this institution has ever cast was 
to give this evil empire, if you will, in China the most favored nation 
trading status.
  It was during this trip that we visited Beijing Prison Number One. 
Chinese authorities informed us that approximately 40 Tiananmen Square 
protesters were in prison. Our requests to visit the demonstrators were 
denied. But instead, we found some demonstrators making socks for 
export to the United States whereby they were working on free and cheap 
labor to sell things to the United States.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. WOLF. Unbelievably, 20 years after Tiananmen, our own State 
Department Human Rights Report indicates that the Chinese Government 
still has not provided a comprehensible, credible accounting of all 
those killed, missing or detained in connection with the violent 
suppression of the 1989 demonstration.
  But Tiananmen is not simply a commemoration of a past event. Dozens 
of people are still believed to be imprisoned in connection with the 
demonstrating at Tiananmen, and millions more Chinese citizens still 
hope for the end to their oppression.
  In a Constitution Day speech, President Ronald Reagan described the 
United States Constitution as ``a covenant we have made, not only with 
ourselves, but with all of mankind.''
  In closing, Madam Speaker, we have an obligation to keep the 
covenant. And I continue to pray, as many people prayed during the days 
of the evil empire in the Soviet Union, pray for the fall, the collapse 
of the Chinese, of the Russian Government, and the collapse of the 
Wall, many and millions are praying here in the United States and 
around the West for the fall, the fall of the Chinese Government, 
whereby there will be freedom, the government will be changed and the 
people of China, the good people of China, and they are good people.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
  Mr. WOLF. The good people of China will be able to live in freedom, 
and there can be a rally in Tiananmen Square, a prayer meeting in 
Tiananmen Square, where millions can come from every denomination and 
worship in peace and have freedom and justice and democracy.
  So we must remember, remember those who suffer. They are the heroes 
for China. And we will see this government change and we will see, in 
my lifetime, freedom in China.

                [From the Washington Post, June 2, 2009]

                      Tiananmen: Days To Remember

                          (By Dan Southerland)

       Two years ago I met a Chinese student who was entering 
     graduate school in the United States. I told her I had been 
     in Beijing during ``6-4,'' the Chinese shorthand for the 
     massacre of June 4, 1989.
       ``What are you talking about?'' she asked.
       At first I thought she might not have understood my 
     Chinese, but it soon became clear that ``June 4'' meant 
     nothing to her. I probably shouldn't have been surprised.
       In the 20 years since that day in 1989 when Chinese troops 
     opened fire on unarmed civilians near Tiananmen Square, 
     Chinese censors have managed to erase all mention of that 
     tragedy from the country's textbooks and state-run media.
       But for me, Tiananmen is impossible to forget. As Beijing 
     bureau chief for The Post, I covered the student 
     demonstrations that began in mid-April, tried to track a 
     murky power struggle among top Chinese leaders and managed a 
     small team of young, Chinese-speaking American reporters.
       What I remember best was the sudden openness of many 
     Beijing citizens of all professions. They were inspired by 
     throngs of students calling for political reform, media 
     freedom and an end to ``official profiteering.''
       People I believed to be Communist Party supporters were 
     suddenly telling me what they really thought. Some who had 
     been silent in the past even debated politics on street 
     corners.
       In early May, Chinese journalists petitioned for the right 
     to report openly on the Tiananmen protests, which on May 17 
     swelled to more than a million people marching in the 
     capital. Journalists from all the leading Chinese newspapers, 
     including the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist 
     Party, joined in. Their slogan was ``Don't force us to lie.''
       For a brief period, Chinese journalists were allowed to 
     report objectively on the student protests. But this press 
     freedom was short-lived and ended May 20 with the imposition 
     of martial law and the entry of the People's Liberation Army 
     into Beijing.
       At first, Beijing residents manning makeshift barriers 
     blocked the troops. But late on the evening of June 3, tanks, 
     armored personnel carriers and soldiers firing automatic 
     weapons broke through to the square.
       The death toll quickly became a taboo subject for Chinese 
     media.

[[Page H6045]]

       Chinese doctors and nurses who had openly sided with 
     students on the square, and who had allowed reporters into 
     operating rooms to view the wounded, came under pressure to 
     conceal casualty figures.
       One brave doctor at a hospital not far from Tiananmen 
     Square led me and a colleague to a makeshift morgue, where we 
     saw some 20 bullet-riddled bodies laid out on a cement floor. 
     I later learned that the doctor was ``disciplined'' for 
     allowing us to view that scene.
       A Chinese journalist I considered a friend tried to 
     convince me that government estimates of fewer than 300 
     killed were correct and that these included a large number of 
     military and police casualties. I later learned from 
     colleagues of his that this journalist was working for state 
     security.
       After comparing notes with others, my guess was that the 
     actual death toll was at least 700, and that most of those 
     killed were ordinary Beijing residents.
       It's almost incredible that the Chinese government has 
     succeeded for so long in covering up a tragedy of this 
     magnitude.
       But for those who closely monitor the continued repression 
     of civil liberties in China--and the government's 
     stranglehold on news deemed ``sensitive''--it's not 
     surprising.
       Chinese authorities continue to intimidate reporters, block 
     Web sites and jam broadcasts of outside news organizations. 
     China is the world's leading jailer of journalists and cyber-
     dissidents.
       Chinese youths are among the most Web-savvy in the world. 
     But Chinese search engines, chat and blog applications, as 
     well as Internet service providers, are equipped with filters 
     that block out certain keywords incorporated in a blacklist 
     that is continually updated.
       China's censorship is multipronged, sometimes heavy-handed 
     and sometimes sophisticated, allowing debate on some issues 
     and shutting it down on others, such as Tiananmen.
       Censors hold online service providers and Internet cafe 
     owners responsible for the content that users read and post. 
     A small blogging service will usually err on the side of 
     caution rather than lose its license because of a debate 
     about June 4.
       Lines that cannot be crossed shift from time to time, 
     leaving citizens uncertain and therefore prone to self-
     censorship.
       The good news is that the blackout isn't complete. We know 
     from Radio Free Asia's call-in shows that some younger 
     Chinese know just enough about Tiananmen to want to learn 
     more.
       I work with several Chinese broadcasters who were students 
     in Beijing on June 4. Many of them saw more than I did. And 
     they are here to remind me--and many Chinese--of a history we 
     should never forget.

  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 5 minutes to 
the chair, or co-chair, of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Caucus, an 
outspoken advocate for human rights internationally and domestically, 
the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Berman), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, 
for his leadership on this issue and for his advocacy of human rights.
  And I also want to thank my good friend, Congressman Sander Levin, 
for introducing this resolution.
  I want to thank Congressmen Frank Wolf and Chris Smith for their 
dedication to promoting human rights in China.
  And I especially want to thank the Speaker of the House, Nancy 
Pelosi, for insisting that we keep alive the memory of Tiananmen 
Square.
  Madam Speaker, 1989 was a tumultuous year. It was the year Solidarity 
won the elections in Poland, the year the people of Germany tore down 
the Berlin Wall, and the year six Jesuit priests were murdered by the 
Salvadoran military.
  And in May and June of 1989, it was the year when the people of China 
spontaneously came together calling for political and economic reforms. 
Students, journalists, workers, government employees, police, and even 
members of the Armed Forces, nonviolently raised their voices and asked 
their government, the Chinese Government, to listen to the people and 
engage in direct dialogue on how to reform the nation.
  Because the largest gathering was in the largest main square of 
China, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, this moment in history is known as 
Tiananmen Square.
  After an internal struggle, the Chinese authorities decided they did 
not want to talk directly with their people. Instead, they chose to 
respond with brute force that forever links the words ``Tiananmen 
Square'' with the brutal quelling of democracy, dissent and human 
aspiration.
  Earlier today the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing 
entitled, ``20 years After the Crackdown: Tiananmen Square and Human 
Rights in China.'' And I would like to briefly describe just two of the 
individuals who testified before the Commission.
  Mr. Fang Zheng was leaving Tiananmen Square in the early morning of 
June 4, 1989, along with other student protesters in an orderly 
retreat. He suddenly realized that a military tank was approaching them 
from behind. Sensing the imminent danger, he used all his strength to 
push a female student out of the tank's path. In doing so, both his 
legs were crushed by the tank's rolling treads.
  Fang Zheng has continued to live in China. He has refused to 
cooperate with the government in its effort to cover up the truth of 
his lost legs and the massacre that took place. For the past 20 years 
he's been harassed and closely monitored by the police.
  Always an excellent athlete, he excelled at sports, even after his 
legs were amputated. He won two gold medals and broke two Chinese 
national records at the 1992 All-China Disabled Athletic Games. And in 
1994 he was forbidden to participate in the Far East and South Pacific 
Region Games, and last year he was banned from competing in the 2008 
Special Olympics held in Beijing.
  With the help of the mothers of Tiananmen Square and other brave 
Chinese who keep alive the memory of Tiananmen Square inside China, 
Fang Zheng is here in Washington to remember the 20th anniversary.
  And even before Tiananmen, another brave man, Mr. Wang Youcai, was 
active in the Chinese democracy movement. In 1989 he was the Secretary-
General of the Beijing Higher Education Students Autonomous Union in 
the Tiananmen Square protest. A graduate student at Peking University, 
he was arrested in 1989 and sentenced in 1991 to 4 years in prison for 
counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement. He was paroled in 1991, 
following a visit by then-Secretary of State, James Baker.
  In 1998, Wang and a group of fellow Chinese citizens tried to 
officially register the China Democracy Party, but it was banned by the 
Chinese Government. And in December of 1998, Wang was sentenced to 11 
years in prison for subversion. He was released in 2004, due to U.S. 
and international pressure, and sent into exile.
  He has since lived in the United States, studying at Harvard and the 
University of Illinois, and he continues to be a member of the Chinese 
Democracy Party and firmly believes that the transition to 
constitutional democracy will occur in China.
  These are just two of the millions of stories surrounding the events 
known as Tiananmen Square. And I would like to take a moment to 
remember the hundreds, perhaps thousands who were murdered in Tiananmen 
Square or later imprisoned or sent into exile. And I want to remember 
the families and friends and the colleagues of those who died and those 
who survived.
  Madam Speaker, I will enter into the Record articles by Dr. Jianli 
Yang and Mr. Ha Jin, both of whom live in Massachusetts, and have 
recently published reflections on Tiananmen Square. Dr. Jianli was a 
student in Tiananmen, and Mr. Ha, a member of the People's Liberation 
Army and a student in the United States.
  This week there will be a number of events on Capitol Hill and around 
Washington to remember Tiananmen Square. I encourage my House 
colleagues, congressional staff and House employees to take advantage 
of this opportunity and hear from firsthand eyewitnesses like U.S. 
journalists.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. BERMAN. I am pleased to yield the gentleman an additional 30 
seconds.
  Mr. McGOVERN. They will be able to hear from firsthand eyewitnesses 
like U.S. journalists speaking at the Newseum on reporting live from 
Tiananmen Square, watching the documentary ``Tank Man'' in the 
Congressional Visitor Center, celebrating around a replica of the 
Goddess of Democracy Statue on the west lawn of the Capitol, or 
attending other hearings and events.
  The Chinese Government wants not only the Chinese people but the 
world to forget Tiananmen Square. It is up to each of us to keep the 
memory alive.

[[Page H6046]]

                [From the New York Times, May 31, 2009]

                           Exiled to English

                              (By Ha Jin)

       Boston.--I was in the People's Liberation Army in the 
     1970s, and we soldiers had always been instructed that our 
     principal task was to serve and protect the people. So when 
     the Chinese military turned on the students in Tiananmen 
     Square, it shocked me so much that for weeks I was in a daze.
       At the time, I was in the United States, finishing a 
     dissertation in American literature. My plan was to go back 
     to China once it was done. I had a teaching job waiting for 
     me at Shandong University.
       After the crackdown, some friends assured me that the 
     Communist Party would admit its mistake within a year. I 
     couldn't see why they were so optimistic. I also thought it 
     would be foolish to wait passively for historical change. I 
     had to find my own existence, separate from the state power 
     in China.
       That was when I started to think about staying in America 
     and writing exclusively in English, even if China was my only 
     subject, even if Chinese was my native tongue. It took me 
     almost a year to decide to follow the road of Conrad and 
     Nabokov and write in a language that was not my own. I knew I 
     might fail. I was also aware that I was forgoing an 
     opportunity: the Chinese language had been so polluted by 
     revolutionary movements and political jargon that there was 
     great room for improvement.
       Yet if I wrote in Chinese, my audience would be in China 
     and I would therefore have to publish there and be at the 
     mercy of its censorship. To preserve the integrity of my 
     work, I had no choice but to write in English.
       To some Chinese, my choice of English is a kind of 
     betrayal. But loyalty is a two-way street. I feel I have been 
     betrayed by China, which has suppressed its people and made 
     artistic freedom unavailable. I have tried to write honestly 
     about China and preserve its real history. As a result, most 
     of my work cannot be published in China.
       I cannot leave behind June 4, 1989, the day that set me on 
     this solitary path. The memory of the bloodshed still 
     rankles, and working in this language has been a struggle. 
     But I remind myself that both Conrad and Nabokov suffered 
     intensely for choosing English--and that literature can 
     transcend language. If my work is good and significant, it 
     should be valuable to the Chinese.
                                  ____


                    [From Foreign Policy, May 2009]

                    An Alternative History of China

                            (By Jianli Yang)

       The memoirs of Zhao Ziyang provide insight into what China 
     would be like today if the 1989 democracy movement had 
     prevailed.
       ``We must establish that [the] final goal of political 
     reform is the realization of this advanced political system. 
     If we don't move towards this goal, it will be impossible to 
     resolve the abnormal conditions in China's market economy.''
       One of the most sincere advocates for an ``advanced 
     political system'' in China--a system that included an 
     independent judiciary, freedom of the press, and the right of 
     citizens to organize (in a word, democracy)--was not a 
     disenchanted dissident or an armchair academic. Writing at 
     the most unlikely of times, the man was Zhao Ziyang, 
     secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Zhao 
     was toppled in 1989 after trying to peacefully negotiate with 
     student demonstrators--like myself--in Tiananmen Square. His 
     fall paved the way for hard-liners, under the leadership of 
     CCP official Deng Xiaoping, to crush the demonstrations with 
     soldiers and tanks on the morning of June 4, 1989. In one 
     bold, violent stroke, the one-party regime, teetering on the 
     verge of collapse, found reprieve. Zhao's vision of a more 
     moderate democratic future, one meticulously documented in 
     his recently released memoirs, vanished from the scene, its 
     author put under house arrest.
       There could hardly be a better time for Prisoner of the 
     State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang to be 
     published, as the memoirs will be in both English and Chinese 
     this week. Early June marks the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen 
     Square--a memory that will certainly remind China of the 
     democratic ideals left behind in tragedy. Reading Zhao's 
     account, I--and no doubt other readers--cannot help but 
     imagine what China would be like today if Zhao had prevailed 
     in June 1989. What if the dissenters who stood firmly before 
     the government in Tiananmen Square had gained Zhao as a 
     powerful ally to their cause? Would China have devolved into 
     political chaos? Or would it be a robust democracy, steeped 
     in cultural freedoms, social justice, and economic vibrancy? 
     In seeking to answer that question about the past, we can 
     learn much about the present: a China that in terms of its 
     political system and tendency toward authoritarianism has 
     evolved little since 1989, and yet has become both the United 
     States' second-largest trading partner and its most 
     significant competitor.
       Looking back at the crucial moment in 1989, it is first 
     important to keep in mind how easily things might have turned 
     in a different direction. China's movement toward democracy 
     in 1989 was not as far-fetched as it might seem today. In 
     fact, support for the democratic movement was so great that 
     it caused an unprecedented split within the CCP leadership. A 
     quarter or even a third of the officials in Beijing joined 
     the protesters. Most of the rest were sympathetic toward the 
     students. The degree of dissatisfaction within the party was 
     very high, and many agreed with the protesters that the CCP 
     had lost any pretense of being a ``people's'' party and had 
     become a self-serving elite.
       That disillusionment came from a series of market-oriented 
     reforms begun a decade earlier, in 1978. Although the changes 
     produced rapid economic growth, they also led to 
     contradictions: opening the economy negated the moral 
     authority of the Communist revolution and unleashed unbridled 
     corruption in its place. The 1989 democracy movement had two 
     slogans. One was ``Freedom and democracy,'' and the other was 
     ``No official business dealings, no corruption.'' After 
     Tiananmen Square protesters were quashed and their government 
     sympathizers, like Zhao, sidelined, corruption blossomed just 
     as much as China's GDP (the fastest-growing among developed 
     states over the last 25 years) has.
       It didn't have to be this way. If the democracy movement 
     had succeeded, the CCP would likely still be the ruling 
     party. But its policies and goals would have evolved more 
     democratically under Zhao's leadership. In the last chapter 
     of his memoirs, the former general-secretary of CCP praises 
     the Western system of parliamentary democracy and says it is 
     the only way for China to address corruption and inequality. 
     He would no doubt have led the country down this path.
       Zhao's reforms, one might imagine, would have proceeded at 
     a purposeful but amenable pace, beginning with an opening of 
     partial freedoms of assembly and demonstration. Student 
     organizations would have become lawful, eventually 
     precipitating a lift on the ban on political parties. The 
     press would likewise feel a weight lifted, and the country's 
     National People's Congress would have become more than a 
     rubber-stamp assembly. Public participation would have 
     followed, with public debate emerging on difficult questions 
     from ethnic relations, to foreign affairs, to government 
     corruption, to HIV/AIDS and the environment. In other words, 
     China would have embarked on a peaceful transition to 
     democracy. A democratic China--one that followed Zhao's 
     model--would have prospered economically, too.
       Instead, today China feels the consequences of rejecting 
     this path of reform. The same corruption that motivated the 
     opposition 20 years ago is today an open sore on the face of 
     Chinese society. Eighty percent of China's wealth is thought 
     to be controlled by the top 10 percent of party officials. 
     And it's visible. Corruption distorts every aspect of Chinese 
     society, from the shoddy workmanship of the elementary 
     schools that collapsed during last year's earthquake (while 
     the homes of party officials stood firm) to the summary 
     displacement of more than 300,000 Beijing citizens in the 
     name of ``beautification'' to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. 
     No wonder, then, that corruption is still the largest source 
     of alienation between the CCP and the population. Endemic 
     corruption is the grievance cited in an estimated 100,000 
     major protests each year in China.
       To the outside world, Chinese society has prospered. But 
     internally, it has atrophied morally and socially. China 
     maintains its competitive edge through a base exploitation of 
     its workers, who labor without rights or avenues of recourse. 
     Even the most advanced free market economies find it hard to 
     compete. The Chinese government becomes rich, but ordinary 
     people do not. The average Chinese citizen contributes less 
     to the country's GDP today than he or she did in 1988.
       One of the most famous slogans for China's reforms has been 
     to ``cross the river by feeling stones.'' Surely, Deng 
     Xiaoping meant to infer a gradual notion of change. Instead, 
     the metaphor today mockingly describes a society at odds with 
     itself, lacking direction to support its ever-looming one 
     party structure. The contradiction will not easily go away--
     and will likely flare again, just as it did two decades ago. 
     Zhao Ziyang foresaw this perpetual confrontation years ago, 
     arguing that unless the Chinese government moved toward real 
     democratic reform ``it will be impossible to resolve the 
     abnormal conditions in China's market economy.''
       They were prophetic words, indeed. Today, even as China's 
     leadership has moved further from Zhao's vision, the 
     Tiananmen ideals never left the political dialogue. More than 
     at any time in the last two decades, people might just be 
     willing to protest to bring those ideals back again. Until 
     then, we are left to confront the equally predictive words of 
     the Soviet-era dissident, Andrei Sakharov: ``The world 
     community cannot rely on a government that does not rely on 
     its own people.''

  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), ranking member of the Foreign 
Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and 
Oversight.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, June 4 marks the 20th anniversary of 
the massacre of the Chinese democracy movement at Tiananmen Square in 
Beijing. This date marks a turning point, and it also marks a day of 
shame for the bloody murder, a murder that was committed by the 
Communist party bosses when they sent Chinese troops to slaughter the 
idealistic Chinese people who were demanding democracy in Tiananmen 
Square at this time just 20 years ago.

[[Page H6047]]

  This day the government of China affirmed to the world that it is a 
criminal enterprise that is perfectly willing to murder unarmed people 
in order to stay in power.

                              {time}  1745

  Shame on those Communist Party bosses who still 20 years after 
Tiananmen Square would still massacre advocates of democracy if they 
would gather in their streets, just as they would massacre Falun Gong 
members one at a time as they would arrest them, put them into prison, 
murder them, and would sell their body parts, just as they would murder 
Tibetan nationalists or Christians or other religious believers. Shame 
on Beijing. Shame on the people of the world who would treat the 
Government of Beijing as if it were the same as a democratic 
government.
  June 4 is not just a day of shame for the Beijing regime, however. It 
is a day of shame for our government as well. Under President Reagan, 
we made it clear that the United States would continue providing 
credit, investment, beneficial trade arrangements, and technology 
transfer as long as China was willing to continue on the path of reform 
and on the path of making their society more open. Reagan, had he been 
confronted with Tiananmen Square, would have sent a message: if you 
send the troops in to massacre these people, the deal is off. You will 
pay a price.
  Do you know what our government did? It wasn't President Reagan. It 
was President Herbert Walker Bush. Do you know what his message said? 
It said nothing because he didn't send a message, and that was the 
message the murderers in Beijing needed to hear.
  America really doesn't give a damn about democracy. America doesn't 
care about human rights. We care about making a buck, and if you have 
to slaughter the people at Tiananmen Square, the Americans will never 
ever protest; they won't whisper a protest; they won't cancel 
contracts, because money is more important to the Americans than 
freedom.
  Well, I'm afraid that did not represent the America that I'm all 
about. That immorality of siding with a dictatorship, of siding with 
the gangsters, of siding with the murderers in order to make a short-
term profit--that policy--is coming back to haunt us now. That policy 
has created a monster in Beijing--a powerful, powerful force for evil 
in this world that we now must confront.
  Today marks an anniversary--an anniversary of shame on those who 
committed the murders, an anniversary of shame on what our reaction was 
to those murders and to the repression that took place 20 years ago.
  Let us send a message to the people of China: We are on their side. 
Hopefully, if nothing else, this resolution will let them know that, as 
our people stumble over themselves in trying to make short-term profits 
by making deals with the gangsters who have oppressed the people of 
China, there are Americans here who still hold true to the values of 
Jefferson, of Washington--of our Founding Fathers--and that there are 
Americans who still hold true to those values that liberty and justice 
for all is more important than short-term profit gains for American 
capitalists.
  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, let me first ask you how much time I may 
consume.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has 8 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  First of all, I would like to thank my good friend, Representative 
Sandy Levin of Michigan, for his leadership as the chief sponsor of 
this resolution and as the co-Chair of the Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China.
  First and foremost, I would like to express my sympathy to the 
families of those killed, tortured and imprisoned as a result of their 
participation in the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and in 
other parts of China 20 years ago this week.
  The world must not forget the horrendous events which occurred that 
fateful day when the Chinese Army was ordered to clear the square, 
using lethal force against its own citizens. Hundreds of unarmed 
civilians were killed or injured. The Chinese Government detained 
thousands of Chinese citizens in connection with the protests. Many of 
them still languish today in Chinese prisons.
  Even after 20 years, the precise number of dead, wounded, and 
detained remains unclear. Chinese authorities still censor information 
that does not conform to its official version of events surrounding the 
Tiananmen massacre. The government also limits or bans information 
about the crackdown from appearing in Chinese textbooks.
  How can China claim its place as a major global power if the 
government refuses to address the Tiananmen protests in an honest and 
candid way? How can China develop into a modern society if its own 
citizens are prevented from knowing their own history?
  This resolution calls on the Chinese Government to initiate a full 
investigation into the crackdown, to review the cases of those still 
imprisoned for participating in the protests and to end its harassment 
and discrimination against those who were involved. Finally, this 
resolution recognizes those Chinese citizens who have suffered for 
their efforts to keep the struggle for democracy alive during the last 
two decades.
  I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, in 1992, I had the opportunity to go to Tiananmen 
Square. I was there by myself, but the square was packed. Once again, 
it was packed with a lot of people, with a lot of students. I was well-
received by those students. They wanted to talk to me. They were very 
friendly, and they were friendly to me for the sole reason that I was 
an American. Otherwise, they did not know me at all.
  While talking to some of the students who weren't afraid to talk to 
me because of the authorities that were nearby, one of them whispered 
to me in perfect English that we want what you have in America. Of 
course, he was speaking of that word ``liberty.'' Down in the soul of 
every person on Earth, I believe, is that spirit that the good Lord 
gives us for freedom. I think we are made that way. We are made that 
way in this country, but we are made that way throughout the world, and 
those students in China are made that way as well for they seek and 
hope to obtain the word ``liberty.''
  The rulers in China need to release the Tiananmen Square students. 
China should show the world that they are no longer going to continue 
to murder their own people who peaceably disagree with the government.
  In Beijing, not only is there Tiananmen Square, but also nearby is 
the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City got its name because it was a 
walled fortress where the emperors for thousands of years would live 
and rule the massive country of China, but they forbade the people to 
come into the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City still exists in a 
mentality way in China for the City of Beijing still forbids its own 
people the freedom to speak as they wish, the freedom to assemble, and 
it forbids the freedom of the people to disagree with their government 
in a peaceful way.
  In the name of liberty and in the name of freedom in which we 
believe, we have an obligation here in the United States to speak out 
against the acts of terror that the Chinese Government imposes on their 
own people. We need to remember the dark nights of June 1989. We need 
to light a candle to bring openness and transparency to the acts that 
the Chinese Government committed on its own students.
  And that's just the way it is.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank, Mr. 
Levin for introducing this important resolution commemorating the 20th 
anniversary of the brutal suppression of innocent men, women and 
children in China.
  Twenty years ago, in May 1989, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators 
gathered on Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China to express their 
desire for peaceful democratic reform. In the face of these massive 
demonstrations the Chinese Communist Party hesitated. There were 
apparently some decent men and women in the party's leadership, who had 
begun to understand what a tragedy Communist rule has been for the 
Chinese people, countless millions of whose lives had been destroyed by 
its famines and cultural revolutions and totalitarian social controls.
  But we know what happened. Jiang Zemin [JANG ZUH-MEEN] pushed the 
reformers

[[Page H6048]]

aside, cleared Tiananmen Square with tanks, and shot to death thousands 
of peaceful demonstrators.
  In December of 1996 here in Washington, at the invitation of 
President Bill Clinton, General Chi Haotian, the Defense Minister of 
the People's Republic of China, the general who was the operational 
commander of the soldiers who slaughtered pro-democracy demonstrators 
in and around Tiananmen Square in June of 1989, said, ``Not a single 
person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.''
  According to General Chi, the Chinese Army did nothing more violent 
than, and I quote him, ``pushing of people.''
  General Chi not only met with Mr. Clinton in the White House but was 
accorded full military honors, including a 19-gun salute and visits to 
military bases. Rather than getting the red carpet, General Chi should 
have been held to account for his crimes against humanity.
  To counter the big lie, I quickly put together and chaired a hearing 
of eyewitnesses to the Tiananmen Square massacre, including several 
Chinese, a former editor of the People's Daily, and Time Magazine's 
Beijing bureau chief.
  I also invited General Chi or anyone else to testify before our 
committee from the government of China. They were no-shows, although I 
left a chair for them.
  One of our witnesses, a man by the name of Xuecan Wu, the former 
editor of the People's Daily, was singled out by Li Peng for punishment 
and got 4 years in prison for trying to tell the truth to his readers 
in Beijing.
  Mr. Wu called General Chi's lie about no one being killed 
``shameless'' and told my subcommittee that he personally saw at least, 
and I quote him here, ``at least 30 carts carrying dead and wounded 
people.''
  Eyewitness Jian-Ki Yang, Vice President of the Alliance for a 
Democratic China, testified, and I quote, ``I saw trucks of soldiers 
who got out and started firing automatic weapons at the people. Each 
time they fired the weapons, three or four people were hit, and each 
time the crowd went down to the ground. We were there for about an hour 
and a half. I saw 13 people killed. We saw four tanks coming from the 
square, and they were going very fast at a very high speed. The two 
tanks in front were chasing students.''
  He went on to say, ``They ran over the students. Everyone was 
screaming. We counted 11 bodies.''
  Time Magazine's David Aikman, another eyewitness said, and I quote, 
``Children were killed holding hands with their mothers. A 9-year-old 
boy was shot seven or eight times in the back, and his parents placed 
the corpse on a truck and drove through the streets of northwest 
Beijing on Sunday morning. `This is what the government has done,' the 
distraught mother kept telling crowds of passersby through a makeshift 
speaker system.''
  Madam Speaker, 20 years after Tiananmen Square, the Chinese 
government perpetuates General Chi's Orwellian fabrication that no one 
died. In truth, thousands died and approximately 7,000 were wounded.
  Twenty years after Tiananmen Square, an untold number of democracy 
activists remain incarcerated for peacefully advocating human rights. 
To be jailed by the Chinese, as we all know, means torture, 
humiliation, and severe deprivations. The ugly spirit of the Tiananmen 
Square Massacre continues. The brave and noble human rights attorney 
Gao Zhisheng has been subjected to excruciating torture that continues 
today. We must raise our voice on his behalf--and for others like him.
  Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she 
wouldn't let China's shameless human rights record ``interfere'' with 
other issues including and especially China's purchase of U.S. treasury 
securities to finance America's debt. Wittingly or not, that kind of 
attitude enables abuse and torture.
  In the early 1990s, Congressman Frank Wolf and I visited Beijing 
Prison Number 1, a bleak gulag where 40 Tiananmen Square prisoners were 
being unjustly detained. We saw firsthand the price paid by brave and 
tenacious individuals for peacefully petitioning their government for 
freedom. And it was not pretty. They looked like the walking skeletons 
of Auschwitz.
  Despite the hopes and expectations of some that robust trade with 
China would usher in at least a modicum of respect for human rights and 
fundamental liberties, the simple fact of the matter is that the 
dictatorship in China oppresses, tortures and mistreats millions of its 
own citizens.
  Moreover, China is the land of the one-child-per-couple policy, a 
barbaric policy that makes brothers and sisters illegal. Forced 
abortion, force sterilization and ruinous fines are routinely deployed 
to ensure compliance with this Draconian and utterly cruel family 
planning policy.
  The criminal slaughter of Tiananmen has had terrible and lasting 
consequences for the Chinese people, and for the world. China had 
reached a turning point, and failed to turn. Twenty years later, it 
still has not turned.
  The Chinese people still live under a one-party government that 
ruthlessly represses dissenters and democratic activists, that controls 
all news media and blocks and censors the Internet. The Communist party 
still enforces a one-child policy that makes brothers and sisters 
illegal, and regularly conducts campaigns of forced abortion. It still 
persecutes religious believers, and it has stepped up its campaign of 
cultural genocide in Xinjiang [SHIN JANG] and Tibet.
  The men and women who rule China today are the proteges of the 
criminals of Tiananmen, and, in order to claim legitimacy, do 
everything they can to suppress the facts about Tiananmen. Last summer 
Frank Wolf and I walked across Tiananmen Square--officials searched us 
before we entered the square, and squads of police surrounded us while 
we were on it, terrified we might hold up a simple sign or banner. 
Later, we tried to look up ``Tiananmen Square'' on the tightly-
controlled Chinese Internet. Of course, mere mention of the slaughter 
has been removed from the Chinese Internet. As noted in the resolution 
before us, the Chinese authorities censor any effort to inform the 
public about what occurred in June 1989.

  I also want to say that our government has not done enough to support 
the Chinese people. And our failure has been a defining event for our 
own foreign policy, also with terrible consequences for the world.
  The Chinese Communist Party, and dictators around the world, drew the 
conclusion that America's talk of human rights was just hot air, that 
the only interests that really matter to us are financial.
  Our government has a duty to speak up more on human rights in China. 
Unfortunately, they have been doing the opposite. President Obama has 
not shown much interest in human rights. In our policies towards Cuba, 
Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, to name a few countries, human rights has 
been dramatically downgraded, and everyone understands this.
  And Secretary Clinton has effectively taken human rights off the U.S. 
agenda with the Chinese Government, telling the global media that 
concern for the protection of human rights of the Chinese people can't 
be allowed to ``interfere'' with the economic crisis, climate change, 
and security--as if human rights were disconnected and irrelevant to 
those issues.
  And so, Madam Speaker, it is all the more important that the House of 
Representatives pass this resolution, and by doing so:
  express sympathy to the families of those who suffered so terribly as 
a result of the Chinese Government's actions 20 years ago, and our 
solidarity with those who continue to suffer human rights abuses at the 
hands of Chinese Government officials;
  call for a full and independent investigation into what occurred 
during the Tiananmen Square suppression;
  call on the Chinese Government to release all those, including those 
who participated in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, who are 
wrongfully imprisoned in violation of their human rights; and
  call on the Administration to take aggressive action in support of 
China's human rights defenders.
  Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, this week, on June 3 and 4, we will mark 
the 20th anniversary of the tragic events at Tiananmen Square in 
Beijing in 1989. I remember very vividly the terrible images of tanks 
rolling through the square. At the time, I happened to be in Krakow, 
Poland as an election observer for Poland's first free elections. As we 
watched the television coverage from Solidarity Headquarters, we did 
not know the context or the details of the event that was unfolding 
before us. We didn't know what we were witnessing, and speculated that 
it was stock footage meant to intimidate the Polish people from voting 
the next morning.
  Of course, the reality of what had happened soon became clear: a 
brutal crackdown on Chinese supporters of democracy. Twenty years 
later, on the occasion of this anniversary, we should take the 
opportunity not only to remember the victims of that terrible event, 
but to assess both the path that China has since followed and our 
bilateral relationship.
  We know well that China has a very long way to go in eradicating 
human rights abuses. Unlawful and politically motivated imprisonments, 
ethnic persecution and restrictions on free speech rank highest among 
the abuses that persist. But that is only part of China's story in the 
past two decades. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people have also been 
lifted out of poverty because of economic reforms, and today have a far 
better quality of life than ever before. Chinese civil society has 
developed, government transparency has improved and a number of key 
human rights laws have been passed. Of course, laws aren't worth the 
paper they are printed on if they are not enforced, but that only 
highlights the need to develop legal institutions and a professional, 
independent judiciary that can enforce the laws that have been passed.
  All of this paints a mixed picture--but one that is slowly improving. 
In China's 5,000-year

[[Page H6049]]

history, no period has seen more rapid and dramatic change than the 
last 20 years. The pace of progress may seem glacial by American 
standards; but in the Chinese context, this is important progress that 
must be continued. It is also important to recognize that this progress 
has been made possible through U.S. engagement. By working with the 
Chinese and encouraging economic and political reform, on a bilateral 
and multilateral basis, we have been able to ensure that the move 
toward greater freedom and accountability continues. By bringing China 
into the WTO and other multilateral institutions, we have bound the 
Chinese to a rules-based system where the rule of law is the only 
arbiter.
  Looking down the road, we see that the Chinese government has a very 
long way to go indeed before it has the moral authority that only comes 
from being of the people, by the people and for the people. But we also 
cannot lose sight of the road behind us, the progress that has already 
been made. Any improvement in the quality of life of the Chinese people 
since 1989 is due in large part to engagement with the American people. 
If we are to ensure that progress does not stop until every Chinese 
person is free and the rule of law prevails, we must continue to 
engage, encourage and hold China accountable.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I yield back.
  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman has yielded back the 
balance of his time, I will yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 489.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________