[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 83 (Thursday, June 4, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1327-E1328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE CONTINUES IN CHINA OFTEN OUT OF SIGHT BEHIND 
                              CLOSED DOORS

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 4, 2009

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, the brave and tenacious 
heroes of Tiananmen Square will never be forgotten nor will their huge 
sacrifice--for some torture and for others even death--be in vain.
  Future generations of Chinese--and other advocates of democracy 
worldwide--will forever honor their courage, vision and dream of 
democracy. The Chinese people deserve no less. The Chinese are a great 
people--and deserve democratic institutions and respect for the rule of 
law that reflects that greatness.
  Twenty years after Tiananmen, pro-democracy advocates remain in 
concentration camps subjected to torture, myriad forms of humiliation 
and degrading treatment.
  They must be freed, unconditionally.
  The Tiananmen Square massacre was a turning point in China--and not 
for the better. The hard-liners in Beijing have since unleashed 
unprecedented cruelty on labor leaders, political prisoners, religious 
believers, and have committed massive crimes against women and children 
through forced abortion.
  The ugly spirit of the Tiananmen Square massacre continues today 
unabated throughout China, with brutality and efficiency only the Nazis 
could love.
  With some notable exceptions including last year's savage crackdown 
on Tibetans the Chinese leadership has taken their murder and torture 
behind closed doors, where the cries, screams, and tears of thousands 
of dissidents are heard by no one except the torturers themselves.
  For its part, the international community has failed to seriously 
challenge China's massive human rights violations--and that includes 
the weak and feckless response of the United States of America. That 
includes the Bush Administration, that includes the Clinton 
Administration, that includes the Obama Administration and that 
includes Congress.

  That must change.
  When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited China a few months 
ago to peddle U.S. treasury bonds to finance U.S. debt, she said human 
rights shouldn't be allowed to ``interfere'' with that and other 
issues.
  Wittingly or not, that attitude enables the Chinese dictatorship to 
continue brutalizing its own people.
  And while I respect President Obama's outreach to Muslims in Cairo 
today, that event surely could have been scheduled for any other day 
but the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
  This solemn remembrance of the victims of mass murder at Tiananmen 
Square and the crushing of their bodies and hopes by tanks and 
bayonets, should have been the White House's major event today.
  Meanwhile, on this tragic 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square 
Massacre, I am afraid that, American technology and know-how is 
actually enabling the Chinese Government to repress the truth about 
what happened on that day--about which it is absolutely vital that the 
Chinese people know the truth. After all, it is the truth about their 
history.
  Similarly, while the internet has opened up commercial opportunities 
and provided access to vast amounts of information for people the world 
over, the internet has also become a malicious tool: a cyber 
sledgehammer of repression of the government of China. As soon as the 
promise of the Internet began to be fulfilled--when brave Chinese began 
to email each other and others about human rights issues and corruption 
by government leaders--the Party cracked down. To date, an estimated 49 
cyber-dissidents and 32 journalists have been imprisoned by the PRC for 
merely posting information on the Internet critical of the regime. And 
that's likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. Of course, one of the 
points on which the Chinese Government is most eager to crack down is 
dissemination of the truth about Tiananmen.
  Tragically, history shows us that American companies and their 
subsidiaries have provided the technology to crush human rights in

[[Page E1328]]

the past. Edwin Black's book IBM and the Holocaust reveals the dark 
story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. Thanks to IBM's 
enabling technologies, from programs for identification and cataloging 
to the use of IBM's punch card technology, Hitler and the Third Reich 
were able to automate the genocide of the Jews.
  U.S. technology companies today are engaged in a similar sickening 
collaboration, decapitating the voice of the dissidents. In 2005, 
Yahoo's cooperation with Chinese secret police led to the imprisonment 
of the cyber-dissident Shi Tao. And this was not the first time. 
According to Reporters Without Borders, Yahoo also handed over data to 
Chinese authorities on another of its users, Li Zhi. Li Zhi was 
sentenced on December 10, 2003 to eight years in prison  for ``inciting 
subversion.'' His ``crime'' was to criticize in online discussion 
groups and articles the well-known corruption of local officials.

  Women and men are going to the gulag and being tortured as a direct 
result of information handed over to Chinese officials. When Yahoo was 
asked to explain its actions, Yahoo said that it must adhere to local 
laws in all countries where it operates. But my response to that is: if 
the secret police a half century ago asked where Anne Frank was hiding, 
would the correct answer be to hand over the information in order to 
comply with local laws? These are not victimless crimes. We must stand 
with the oppressed, not the oppressors.
  I believe that two of the most essential pillars that prop up 
totalitarian regimes are the secret police and propaganda. Yet for the 
sake of market share and profits, leading U.S. companies like Google, 
Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft have compromised both the integrity of their 
product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens. They have 
aided and abetted the Chinese regime to prop up both of these pillars, 
propagating the message of the dictatorship unabated and supporting the 
secret police in a myriad of ways, including surveillance and invasion 
of privacy, in order to effectuate the massive crackdown on its 
citizens.
  Through an approach that monitors, filters, and blocks content with 
the use of technology and human monitors, the Chinese people have 
little access to uncensored information about any political or human 
rights topic, unless of course, Big Brother wants them to see it. 
Google.cn, China's search engine, is guaranteed to take you to the 
virtual land of deceit, disinformation and the big lie. As such, the 
Chinese government utilizes the technology of U.S. IT companies 
combined with human censors--led by an estimated force of 30,000 cyber 
police--to control information in China. Websites that provide the 
Chinese people news about their country and the world, such as AP, UPI, 
Reuters, and AFP, as well as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, are 
regularly blocked in China. In addition, when a user enters a forbidden 
word, such as ``democracy,'' ``China torture'' or ``Falun Gong,'' the 
search results are blocked, or you are redirected to a misleading site, 
and the user's computer can be frozen for unspecified periods of time.
  Google censors what are euphemistically called ``politically 
sensitive'' terms, such as ``Tiananmen,'' ``democracy,'' ``China human 
rights,'' ``China torture'' and the like on its Chinese search site, 
Google.cn. A search for terms such as ``Tiananmen Square'' produces two 
very different results. The one from Google.cn shows a picture of a 
smiling couple, but the results from Google.com show scores of photos 
depicting the mayhem and brutality of the 1989 Tiananmen square 
massacre.
  Google claims that some information is better than nothing. But in 
this case, the limited information displayed amounts to disinformation. 
A half truth is not the truth--it is a lie. And a lie is worse than 
nothing. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that Google has 
seriously compromised its ``Don't Be Evil'' policy. It has become 
evil's accomplice.
  And that continues. Last summer Frank Wolf and I were in Beijing. 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. We 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.

  Standing for human rights has never been easy or without price, and 
companies are extremely reluctant to pay that price. That's why our 
government also has a major role to play in this critical area, and 
that a more comprehensive framework is needed to protect and promote 
human rights.
  This is why I have re-introduced The Global Online Freedom Act, H.R. 
2271. I believe it can be an important lever to help disseminate the 
truth--about Tiananmen and so many more things in the history of 
China--to the Chinese people by means of the Internet.
  I'd like to ask you to support this bill, which would prevent U.S. 
high-tech Internet companies from turning over to the Chinese police 
information that identifies individual Internet users who express 
political and religious ideas that the communists are trying to 
suppress. It would also require companies to disclose how the Chinese 
version of their search engines censors the Internet.
  In the last Congress, the bill passed the Foreign Affairs Committee 
and was ready for a floor vote, but influential lobbies prevented a 
vote on the bill.
  I also want to mention the exciting firewall-busting technology that 
a group of dedicated Chinese human rights activists are promoting. They 
have technology that enables users in China to bypass the Chinese 
government's so-called ``Golden Shield'' censorship effort and surf the 
Internet freely. With this technology, which has been demonstrated to 
me in my office, Chinese users can visit the same Internet you and I 
do, and there is nothing the Chinese government can do about it. I 
think we should all ask the State Department to financially support 
this technology--which could produce a human rights and rule of law 
revolution in China.
  Today provides us an important reminder that the fight the Tiananmen 
protestors took on 20 years ago is still going on, in the streets, the 
internet cafe's and here today. To the brave men and women who continue 
to fight for the rights of the Chinese people--we say, we stand with 
you, we remember you, and we will not abandon the fight for your 
freedoms.

                          ____________________