[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 201 (Thursday, December 20, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1705]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CHINA IS CHEATING ITS WAY TO THE TOP

                                 ______
                                 

                              HON. TED POE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 20, 2018

  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Communist China is a growing threat to 
the United States and global peace. Its values and interests do not 
match our own. This is evident by recent reports of a atheist China 
imprisoning thousands of Muslim Uighurs in reeducation camps and the 
ongoing persecution of Tibetans and Chinese Christians. China's 
interests completely conflict with our democratic principles and the 
international order that has kept the peace since the end of the Second 
World War. China is cheating, stealing, and bullying its way towards 
great power status. It is our duty to stand up to Beijing's bad 
behavior.
  Two decades ago, America, as the leader of the free world and the 
largest economy on Earth, gave the People's Republic of China a chance 
to prove itself as member of the global economy. We believed they were 
making free market reforms and potentially ending their communist 
system which had kept millions in poverty. By granting Beijing 
permanent normal trade relations, many in Congress hope that opening 
the global market to China would encourage further liberalization 
within the repressive state. But instead of the world changing China, 
China has been working to change the world to get ahead. While it did 
embrace some elements of capitalism, it bent the rules using state-
owned enterprises and corruption to cheat. It made investments in 
innovative American companies so it could steal technology. It forced 
American companies wanting to do business in China to surrender certain 
rights, including intellectual property. And Beijing instituted a 
widespread cyber theft campaign to steal trade secrets and cutting-edge 
research. Beijing made the decision to cheat the international system 
it was invited into so that it could gain strategic dominance.
  Until now, China's deception worked. It even tried to export its 
unfair business practices through the Belt and Road Initiative. But 
this too proved to be a giant debt trap that Beijing sold to developing 
nations. Countries like Sri Lanka and Malaysia have ended their 
participation in China's ambitious plan because they realized that all 
of the projects the People's Republic was building in their countries 
benefited only China. Even the workers employed to construct Belt and 
Road infrastructure in these countries were Chinese rather than local 
workers. Instead they were left with were roads to nowhere and crushing 
debt to China. Fortunately, the world is waking up to Beijing's modern 
colonialism.
  But China's ambition to pull ahead at others expense did not end 
there. Within all of Beijing's economic malpractice, it has aimed to 
seize technology and strategic positioning that would also give it a 
military edge over the United States. By stealing American technology, 
China has been able field advance weapon systems before our own forces. 
Meanwhile through Belt and Road, China acquired ports and airports 
around the globe that can be used as military bases that then enable 
them to control strategic chokepoints and resources without firing a 
shot. We have most evidently seen this in illegal island building in 
the South China Sea. Combined with its rapid military build-up, which 
will give China a fleet that outnumbers the U.S. Navy by 2020, we are 
quickly losing our military supremacy to China. The ramifications of 
such a dramatic shift in power from the U.S. to China will be 
devastating to our way of life.
  Against an authoritarian China that can overmatch our own forces, 
American will be severally limited in how it protects its interests 
abroad and respond to Chinese aggression. Principles such as freedom of 
the seas and free flow of trade will be in jeopardy, having a direct 
impact on the daily lives of Americans. We must also remember that 
throughout history such major shifts in geopolitical power rarely came 
peacefully. In humanity's enduring battle between tyranny and 
democracy, America has played a decisive role in creating world where 
freedom preserved over evil. That world is now again in danger.
  And that's just the way it is.

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