[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 176 (Thursday, November 17, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2087-E2089]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF SHARING AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY WITH CHINA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 17, 2011

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share testimony that I gave 
earlier this month to the House Foreign Affairs Committee's 
subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations regarding the economic, 
security and moral consequences of sharing advanced technology with 
China.

   House Foreign Affairs Committee--``Efforts to Transfer America's 
Leading Edge Science to China''--Testimony of Congressman Frank R. Wolf 
                  (R-VA), Wednesday, November 2, 2010

       Thank you Chairman Rohrabacher for calling this important 
     hearing on China's espionage and the violation of the law by 
     the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy 
     (OSTP).
       I have been very troubled by this administration's apparent 
     eagerness to work with China on its space program and 
     willingness to share other sensitive technologies. I want to 
     be clear: the United States has no business cooperating with 
     the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to help develop its space 
     program. We should also be wary of any agreements that 
     involve the transfer of technology or sensitive information 
     to Chinese institutions or companies--many of which are 
     controlled by the government and the PLA.
       Space is the ultimate ``high ground'' that has provided the 
     U.S. with countless security and economic advantages over the 
     last 40 years. As the victor of the Cold War ``space race'' 
     with the Soviet Union, the U.S. has held an enormous 
     advantage in space technology, defense capabilities, and 
     advanced sciences--generating entirely new sectors of our 
     economy and creating thousands of private sector jobs.
       China has developed its own space program at a surprising 
     pace, having gone from launching their first manned 
     spacecraft to launching components for an advanced space 
     station in just ten years.
       But the Chinese space program is being led by the People's 
     Liberation Army (PLA)--and to state the obvious, the PLA is 
     not our friend as evidenced by their recent military posture 
     and aggressive espionage against U.S. agencies and firms.
       That is why I was troubled to learn from the press last 
     fall about NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden's imminent 
     departure for a weeklong visit to China to discuss areas of 
     cooperation between NASA and the PLA space program. I was 
     equally concerned to learn that Dr. John Holdren, head of the 
     White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), 
     had spent 21 days in China on 3 separate trips in one year--
     more than any other country. Very little information about 
     these cooperative agreements with China were being provided 
     to Congress and the American people.
       So, I included language in section 1340 of the Fiscal Year 
     2011 Continuing Resolution preventing NASA and OSTP from 
     using federal funds ``to develop, design, plan, promulgate, 
     implement or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or 
     contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or 
     coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-
     owned company.''
       The provision in the omnibus appropriations bill was agreed 
     to by Republican and Democrat conferees. It passed both 
     houses with bipartisan support and was signed into law by 
     President Obama in April. The provision was clear, 
     unambiguous and noncontroversial.
       However, less than one month after its enactment, I learned 
     that Dr. Holdren and OSTP had defied the provision. Even more 
     troubling is that he withheld information about his intention 
     to do so during his appearance before the House Commerce-
     Justice Science Appropriations Subcommittee when we 
     discussed, among other things, the implementation of section 
     1340, and Dr. Holdren's participation in the U.S.-China 
     Strategic and Economic Dialogue, from May 6-10.
       That is why I asked the Government Accountability Office 
     (GAO) to investigate this violation and issue an opinion. I 
     also asked GAO to determine whether the Office of Legal 
     Counsel opinion provided by the Justice Department to justify 
     this violation was legitimate.
       In its October 11 opinion, GAO found, ``The plain meaning 
     of section 1340 is clear. OSTP may not use its appropriations 
     to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any 
     way with China or any Chinese-owned companies.''
       Further, GAO found that, ``OSTP's participation in the 
     Innovation Dialogue and S&ED contravened the appropriations 
     restriction,'' and added that, ``OSTP does not deny that it 
     engaged in activities prohibited by section 1340.''
       The GAO finding also rebuts a September 19 memorandum 
     prepared by the Justice Department's OLC on the 
     constitutionality of the provision. GAO stated, ``In our 
     view, legislation that was passed by Congress and signed by 
     the President, thereby satisfying the Constitution's 
     bicameralism and presentment requirements, is entitled to a 
     heavy presumption in favor of constitutionality.'' GAO 
     continued, ``Determining the constitutionality of legislation 
     is a province of the courts,''--not, I would add, the White 
     House counsel's office or the Department of Justice.
       Finally, the GAO finding clearly notes, ``As a consequence 
     of using its appropriations in violation of section 1340, 
     OSTP violated the Antideficiency Act. . . By using its fiscal 
     year 2011 appropriation in a manner specifically prohibited, 
     OSTP violated the Antideficiency Act. Accordingly, OSTP 
     should report the violation as required by the act.''
       I also wrote Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to 
     hold Dr. Holdren to full account for his violation of the 
     Anti-Deficiency Act by ensuring that he complies with all 
     reporting requirements and other provisions of that law.
       I take the GAO findings very seriously. Following the law 
     is not voluntary for Administration officials. That is why 
     Dr. Holdren should commit today to full compliance with 
     section 1340 and publicly acknowledge his error in 
     participating in the bilateral conference with the Chinese 
     government.
       Now I'd like to take a few minutes to put the 
     administration's posture toward China in the broader context 
     of the Chinese government's grave human rights abuses, 
     espionage efforts and detrimental economic policies.
       In June 1989 peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators gathered 
     in Tiananmen Square. They were met with a brutal crackdown. 
     As events unfolded, the world was captivated with the now 
     famous image of the ``Tank Man'' . . . a lone student 
     protestor who stood his ground in the face of an advancing 
     Chinese tank. To this day his fate is unknown.
       During my first trip to China in 1991, with Congressman 
     Chris Smith, we visited Beijing Prison Number One where 
     authorities informed us that approximately 40 Tiananmen 
     Square protestors were behind bars. We left with a pair of 
     socks, made by the prisoners, for export to the West.
       Tellingly, the image of the ``Tank Man'', while famous 
     around the globe, is virtually unknown within China thanks to 
     the Great Firewall which censors so-called ``offensive'' 
     speech. It is estimated that China employs between 30,000 and 
     50,000 special Internet police.
       Shockingly, the country has a thriving business of 
     harvesting and selling for transplant kidneys, corneas and 
     other human organs from executed prisoners. An August 27, 
     2009 Los Angeles Times article reported, ``In a rare 
     acknowledgment of a practice that has until recently been 
     shrouded in secrecy, the state-run newspaper said 65% of 
     organ donors were executed prisoners . . .'' The image here, 
     from a 1994 BBC story, is of PLA officers preparing to 
     execute prisoners--China leads the world in executions. Later 
     footage from the same story captures an unmarked van driving 
     toward the prison to harvest the organs from the executed 
     prisoners and transport them to a local hospital.
       Like many repressive regimes throughout history, the 
     Chinese government maintains a brutal system of labor camps. 
     The State Department's annual human rights report found that, 
     ``Forced labor remained a serious problem . . .''
       Famed Chinese dissident Harry Wu spent nearly 20 years in 
     Chinese gulags. In Congressional testimony earlier this year, 
     Wu said, ``When I finally came to the U.S. in 1985, although 
     I was already 48 years old, that was the first time in my 
     life that I felt truly free.'' He concluded by urging 
     ``President Obama and the U.S. Congress to be bold and take a 
     firm stand against China's human rights abuses.''

[[Page E2088]]

       But boldness is hardly the order of the day when it comes 
     to U.S. policy. The same could be said of some U.S. 
     companies.
       In 2006, Congressman Chris Smith and the late Congressman 
     Tom Lantos, himself a Holocaust survivor, convened a hearing 
     in which they publicly challenged the Internet giant Yahoo! 
     to look beyond the bottom line, and consider the moral 
     implications of their complicity in imprisoning Chinese 
     dissidents.
       New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof authored a piece 
     after the hearing writing, ``Suppose that Anne Frank had 
     maintained an e-mail account while in hiding in 1944, and 
     that the Nazis had asked Yahoo for cooperation in tracking 
     her down. It seems, based on Yahoo's behavior in China, 
     that it might have complied.''
       Yahoo isn't the only U.S. company to come under fire for 
     pursuing business interests at the expense of human rights. A 
     May 22 New York Times article, reported that Cisco, 
     ``customized its technology to help China track members of 
     the Falun Gong spiritual movement . . .'' There are multiple 
     suits pending against Cisco.
       These allegations reflect a worrying trend. American 
     companies ought to represent American values. Instead, it 
     seems that time and again major U.S. corporations are 
     embracing Chinese government policies that are completely at 
     odds with what America represents.
       China, in turn, exports its repressive technologies to 
     likeminded governments. An October 27, Wall Street Journal 
     piece reported that the Chinese telecom giant Huawei ``now 
     dominates Iran's government-controlled mobile-phone industry 
     . . . , it plays a role in enabling Iran's state security 
     network.''
       It seems that not only is the U.S. failing to change China, 
     but rather, China is changing us.
       Is it any surprise considering what China is spending on 
     high-powered lobbying firms in this town?
       According to a January 9 Washington Post story, in recent 
     years China has, ``tripled the amount it spends on lobbying 
     firms . . .'' But well-heeled lobbyists can't explain away 
     China's abysmal human rights record.
       Thousands of political and religious prisoners languish in 
     prison.
       According to the Cardinal Kung Foundation, currently every 
     one of the approximately 25 underground bishops of the 
     Catholic Church is either in jail, under house arrest, under 
     strict surveillance, or in hiding.
       Protestant house church pastors are routinely intimidated 
     and imprisoned. The recently released annual report of the 
     Congressional-Executive Commission on China found the 
     government placed 500 members of the Shouwang Church under 
     ``soft detention'' between the fall of 2010 and the fall of 
     2011.
       David Aikman, former Beijing bureau chief for TIME 
     magazine, authored a piece noting: ``The crackdown on 
     Christians is part of a rising tide of repression against 
     dissent that's often accompanied by interrogations and 
     torture.''
       Since March, 10 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have set 
     themselves aflame in desperation at the abuses suffered by 
     their people. One such nun is pictured here. Recently 
     cameramen smuggled out video footage, still frame shot here, 
     of Chinese police in full riot gear carrying automatic rifles 
     and iron bars outside of the monastery where several of the 
     self-immolations occurred.
       Rebiya Kadeer--a fearless advocate for the Uyghur Muslims 
     in China--spent two years in solitary confinement before 
     being exiled to the U.S. in 2005. Following her release, two 
     of her sons were unjustly arrested and subsequently sentenced 
     to lengthy prison terms. Chinese authorities continue to use 
     Rebiya's children and grandchildren as pawns in an effort to 
     silence her.
       We have seen that the Chinese government is unmoved and in 
     fact emboldened in its ongoing repression while at the same 
     time experiencing explosive economic growth.
       We have seen our own short-sightedness in making the 
     protection of basic liberties and the advancement of rule of 
     law secondary to unfettered market access and normal trade 
     relations.
       These flawed policies have strengthened the oppressors and 
     enabled China to advance economically at our expense. Every 
     Member here represents constituents whose very livelihood has 
     been negatively affected by China's blatant economic 
     espionage and predatory, protectionist and illegal practices.
       Meanwhile, U.S. companies are increasingly sending American 
     jobs to China. General Electric's health-care unit recently 
     announced it was moving the headquarters of 115-year-old X-
     ray business to Beijing. Ironically, the head of President 
     Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is GE Chairman 
     Jeffrey Immelt.
       According to a March 24 New York Times article, GE paid 
     zero taxes in the U.S. in 2010. Meanwhile, the Congressional 
     Research Service found that the Chinese State Tax 
     Administration and China Tax magazine jointly released a 
     number of lists of the top taxpayers in 2007 and GE featured 
     prominently. The Beijing subsidiary of GE was number 32 on 
     the top 100 taxpaying firms in the commercial services 
     sector. It is noteworthy that GE, which pays no federal taxes 
     in its home country, is honored for being a significant 
     source of tax revenue to China.
       Our engagement with China has not only empowered the 
     government, failed to change their political system and 
     undermined our economic security it has fueled China's 
     military apparatus. Again, the president's ``jobs czar,'' 
     Jeffrey Immelt, is at the center of these concerns.
       An October 28 Defense News piece reported that, ``U.S. 
     aerospace companies may unknowingly be helping China's 
     military, according to a rough draft of the annual report on 
     China's military modernization by the U.S.-China Economic and 
     Security Review Commission, to be released in November.'' 
     Specifically the article pointed to, ``last January's 
     announcement by General Electric and the Aviation Industry 
     Corporation of China (AVIC) that they would launch a joint 
     venture for integrated avionics'' and cited the Commission's 
     soon to be released report which indicated that China, ``has 
     a robust, largely military space program..'' with all but 13 
     of its roughly 70 satellites in orbit controlled by the 
     military.
       A May 17 article in Wired.com reported that Chinese troops 
     have begun using a first-person-shooter video game, 
     ``Glorious Mission,'' backed by the PLA, which stimulates 
     basic training in which the enemy is apparently the U.S. 
     military.
       An April 11, Aviation Week article reported, ``The PLA has 
     made great strides toward implementing a strategy . . . to 
     deter or defeat U.S. forces in the Western Pacific.''
       The 2010 annual Pentagon report cited earlier, found `` . . 
     . In the case of key national security technologies, 
     controlled equipment, and other materials not readily 
     obtainable through commercial means or academia, the PRC 
     resorts to more focused efforts, including the use of its 
     intelligence services and other-than legal means, in 
     violation of U.S. laws and export controls.''
       Let's be perfectly clear about how China is advancing 
     militarily: they are utilizing ``other than legal means.''
       The report also highlighted China's cyber-espionage 
     efforts. The U.S. intelligence community notes that China's 
     attempts to penetrate U.S. agencies are the most aggressive 
     of all foreign intelligence organizations. According to a 
     2008 FBI statement, Chinese intelligence services ``pose a 
     significant threat both to the national security and to the 
     compromise of U.S. critical national assets.''
       Their espionage isn't limited to government agencies. In an 
     October 4 Washington Post article, Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman 
     of the House Intelligence Committee, remarked, ``When you 
     talk to these companies behind closed doors . . . they 
     describe attacks that originate in China, and have a level of 
     sophistication and are clearly supported by a level of 
     resources that can only be a nation-state entity.''
       These breaches in our national security infrastructure are 
     rampant and pose a very real threat. A May 14 Reuters story 
     indicated that, ``North Korea and Iran appear to have been 
     regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in 
     violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. 
     report . . . The report said the illicit technology transfers 
     had `trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.' 
     That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on 
     condition of anonymity.''
       China is also a major arms supplier and source of economic 
     strength to the regime in Khartoum. According to Human Rights 
     First, during the years of the worst violence in Darfur ``. . 
     . China sold over $55 million worth of small arms to 
     Khartoum.'' I was part of the first Congressional delegation 
     to Darfur. I heard the stories of rape, killing and 
     displacement. America provided humanitarian supplies to the 
     victims, while China provided arms to the perpetrators.
       Meanwhile, Beijing rolled out the red carpet this year for 
     Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, an internationally 
     indicted war criminal. Bashir's crimes are not just a thing 
     of the past. The current assault by northern Sudanese forces 
     in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states has displaced 
     thousands. There are credible news reports of targeted ethnic 
     killings and satellite images of what appear to be mass 
     graves.
       Speaking of red carpet, President Obama, the 2009 Nobel 
     Peace Prize winner, welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao with 
     a State Dinner in January at the same time that 2010 Nobel 
     Peace Prize winner, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, languished 
     behind bars. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama was initially denied a 
     meeting with President Obama and then in February 2010 was 
     made to leave the White House through the back door to avoid 
     press.
       In closing, there will come a day when the Chinese 
     communist government will fall--repressive, totalitarian 
     regimes always do. And when that day comes, books will be 
     written about who helped sustain this government in their 
     final days. Will U.S. companies feature in that narrative? 
     Will the U.S. government?
       In 2001, a book was published titled, ``IBM and the 
     Holocaust.'' A New York Times book review describes how IBM 
     had ``global control of a technology that was enormously 
     helpful, indeed indispensable, to the Nazi machinery of war 
     and annihilation.'' The Times review quotes the author of the 
     book as saying that many companies did what IBM did. They 
     ``refused to walk away from the extraordinary profits 
     obtainable from trading with a pariah state . . .''
       Arguably that assessment rings true today. Only the pariah 
     state has changed.
       Those in positions of leadership, be they in the private 
     sector or in government, do our country a disservice when 
     they gloss over or ignore the actions of the Chinese 
     government. They put us squarely on the wrong side of 
     history.
       The Chinese government brutally represses its own people. 
     It persecutes people of faith. It censors the Internet. It 
     maintains labor camps.

[[Page E2089]]

       The Chinese government actively engages in cyber-espionage. 
     It steals state secrets. It aligns itself with countries 
     directly at odds with U.S. interests. It supports genocidal 
     governments and buttresses rogue regimes.
       There's a legal term, ``willful blindness,'' that aptly 
     described our dealings to date with China. Faced with these 
     painful truths, blindness is no longer an option.
       In the words of British abolitionist, William Wilberforce, 
     ``Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other 
     way, but you can never again say that you did not know.''

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