[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 14, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H3775-H3781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHINA IS ONE OF THE LARGEST THREATS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Van Drew). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for being
here, and I want to start tonight out.
We are going to spend an hour highlighting what many of us on Capitol
Hill view as one of the largest threats in the 21st century, and that
is a China that has grown wealthy in building their military might.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin), my
good friend.
Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
To start off tonight, I just want to recognize that today is the 1-
year anniversary of the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. I was
honored to be there in person last year for this very special moment.
Jerusalem should be recognized as the undivided, unquestionable capital
of the Jewish state.
This was a bold move by this President not just to fulfill promises
of Presidents past and to fulfill U.S. law; most importantly, it was
the right thing to do.
In addition to its religious importance, Jerusalem is also the
capital, the home, the location of the Israeli Knesset and offices and
residences of the Israeli Prime Minister and President.
Moving our Embassy set an important precedent for other nations to
follow as well.
I commend the President. I thank him for following through on his
support and commitment. I thought it was important tonight to highlight
that today is the 1-year anniversary of that important opening of the
Embassy in Jerusalem.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs.
Hartzler).
Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from
Florida for hosting this important Special Order today.
The United States is currently facing a very real and dangerous
threat from the People's Republic of China. The Chinese Government is
not just using a whole-of-government approach but, rather, a whole-of-
nation approach to achieve global influence.
Today, I would like to focus on two areas of concern: Chinese
military development, and its influence operations targeting U.S.
academia and research.
China is rapidly modernizing its military in order to improve its
anti-access/area denial radius, power force projection, and nuclear
capabilities, with the goal of complete military modernization by 2035.
Investments in nuclear and power projection capabilities have expanded
China's reach beyond the Pacific region and into other parts of the
globe, demonstrating its desire to conduct offensive operations.
Here are a few facts about China's military capabilities:
China has the largest navy in the region, with more than 300 ships.
To put this in perspective, the United States currently operates 289
ships.
China's first aircraft carrier will likely enter the fleet this year,
and its second aircraft carrier is already under construction, paving
the way for China to have a multicarrier force.
China operates the third largest aviation force in the world, with
more than 2,700 total aircraft.
Its first fifth-generation stealth fighter entered service in
February of last year.
China maintains a stockpile of nuclear weapons and continues to
modernize its arsenal.
China has claimed to successfully test its first hypersonic aircraft.
China is using the S-400 missile defense system, strengthening its
A2/AD radius.
These capabilities, coupled with territorial and maritime disputes in
the South and East China Seas, pose serious concerns for the region.
Not only do we have a commitment to our allies, such as Taiwan and
Japan, but the Pacific is the most heavily trafficked region for trade
and commerce. Aggressive maritime and military actions by China, such
as building man-made islands, not only threaten regional stability, but
also global stability.
China is also expanding its military operations beyond the Pacific.
In August of 2017, China opened its first overseas military base in
Djibouti and is actively seeking other overseas military basing
opportunities. According to a recently released Department of Defense
report on China's military activities, China has sought to expand its
[[Page H3776]]
military basing access in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the
Western Pacific. China's improving military capabilities, evolving
focus towards expanding its operational reach, and establishment of
overseas bases will increase China's ability to sustain operations
abroad and enhance deterrence.
In order to combat China's military modernization aggression, the
United States must continue to nurture our relationships with partner
nations and protect our technological and military edge here at home.
This brings me to the second area that I would like to discuss: China's
influence operations that target and steal sensitive U.S. information.
One of China's largest targets in the United States is our Nation's
academic institutions. According to the Department of Defense, almost a
quarter of foreign efforts to steal sensitive information happen
through academic institutions. China targets U.S. universities by
exploiting our student visa program in order to gain access and steal
sensitive, proprietary, and classified information. Many of these
universities are conducting research on behalf of the Departments of
Defense and Energy.
What is even more alarming is that, under Chinese law, citizens are
required to provide data, information, and technological support or
assistance to the Chinese Government upon request. This means that
China can intimidate and coerce its citizens to provide information.
This information is then funneled into China's military research and
development.
The Chinese Government is also using members of its military to
collaborate with researchers across the globe. The report entitled
``Picking Flowers, Making Honey: The Chinese Military's Collaboration
with Foreign Universities'' revealed that, over the past 10 years,
China's military, also known as the PLA, has sponsored more than 2,500
military scientists and engineers to study abroad in countries
worldwide.
An analysis of peer-reviewed articles coauthored by PLA researchers
found that they collaborate with researchers in the United States more
than any other nation. These individuals often mask their PLA and
Chinese Communist Party ties, allowing them to work at top universities
without the schools' knowledge of military affiliation.
In addition to stealing sensitive U.S. research, China has
established more than 100 Confucius Institutes across the United
States. These educational institutions are funded and run by the
Chinese Government and teach Chinese language, culture, and history to
American students. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before
Congress that China is actively using nontraditional methods, such as
Confucius Institutes, as outposts of Chinese overseas intelligence and
influence operations.
Mr. Speaker, I have only highlighted two issues of concern. There are
many other concerns that I hope my colleagues will discuss today.
In order to address the challenges posed by China, we need a whole-
of-nation approach. This is not just a military concern. We need our
universities and constituents to be aware that China is active in all
corners of the globe, including the United States.
Mr. Speaker, I thank these gentlemen for bringing us here today to
shed light on this very important topic on the challenges we face from
China.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Missouri for her
comments. Those are very well pointed-out facts that the American
people, if they knew this was going on, would stop buying ``made in
China.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), my
good friend.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and my colleague from
Florida for leading this Special Order this evening because I am not
quite sure that we talk enough about China here on the floor of the
House.
If you look at any time horizon, short-term or long-term, China is
the most serious challenge to our Nation's interests. There are other
challenges, to be sure, but let's take a look at what China is about.
Geographically, it is similar in size to the United States.
It is economically enormous, with more than $12 trillion GDP, which
is second only to ours on an annual basis. And on this point, it is
important to remember that they hold $1.1 trillion worth of U.S. debt.
They are militarily mighty. The PLA, People's Liberation Army, is the
largest force on Earth, with more than 2 million personnel.
Gigantically populous, with more than 1.4 billion people, it dwarfs
the size of our own Nation's 325 million people.
{time} 1945
Is it possible that those numbers indicate a stronger China than is
actually the case? Perhaps. After all, hundreds of millions of Chinese
citizens who don't live in the nation's most prosperous cities are
still living in poverty and probably will continue to do so for some
time to come.
It is also true that China's military today, while large in number,
does not have the advanced capabilities of our own military. But these
shortcomings are almost certainly temporary, and we should assume that
China will continue to close these gaps relative to our own Nation's
power.
So what should we do? I want to highlight four areas of concern, vis-
a-vis China.
First of all, the South China Sea. Perhaps most, importantly, we need
to push back on any Chinese efforts to turn the South China Sea into a
Chinese lake. They have been doing this for decades now.
China is rapidly modernizing its naval capabilities and builds man-
made artificial islands near the Spratly archipelago.
Well over $5 trillion worth of commerce passes through the South
China Sea each year.
We must continue to unequivocally assert U.S. rights to fly, sail,
and otherwise operate in these international waters, and we also must
make sure that our allies do, as well.
Taiwan, we must continue to reject China's efforts to bully Taiwan
into accepting a ``one-China'' policy.
Taiwan has been a great friend to the United States for the past 40
years that the Taiwan Relations Act has been in effect, and it is a key
strategic partner.
It is uniquely positioned to buffer China's eastward expansion into
the Pacific.
We need to continue to strengthen our critical relationship with
Taiwan.
Huawei and other Chinese technology companies jeopardize the security
of our Nation's telecommunications network. I strongly support the
Trump administration's efforts to prevent Huawei from participating in
U.S. 5G modernization efforts, and I hope that Secretary of State
Pompeo will be able to convince our Western European allies to do
likewise.
Finally, I will talk about trade. This subject is very much in the
news today.
I am cautiously optimistic that the Trump administration's carrot-
and-stick approach to trade negotiations will bear fruit, even if the
tariffs are painful in the short term.
At the very least, I appreciate the fact that we finally have a
President who is willing to confront the Chinese about decades' worth
of bad behavior.
China has been a notorious currency manipulator ever since it began
to modernize its economy in the late seventies. It also shamelessly
rips off our Nation's intellectual property. We simply can't engage in
mutually prosperous trade with China if that nation refuses to play by
the rules.
My last remarks on trade are important because they highlight an
important point that I hope does not get lost in this discussion: Our
Nation can and should aim for a mutually beneficial relationship with
China. In fact, our two nations can continue to grow rich together.
Just because China will be our geopolitical rivals in the coming
years and decades does not mean that they will necessarily become our
enemies. But having said that, we must not be under any illusions about
China's great power ambition, and we must not give an inch when China
challenges our own Nation's prosperity or our interests.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage our Members in this body and I encourage the
administration to continue to do all we can to push back on China's
unfair trade practices and attempt to turn the South China Sea into a
lake controlled by China, thereby manipulating trillions of dollars
worth of trade.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Arizona, who pointed
[[Page H3777]]
out some great things. We are going to talk about the South China Sea,
or the East Sea, and what China has done.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).
Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for
hosting this Special Order tonight on China.
I was watching the news today like most other folks are, and part of
the news says that the tariffs are the problem and the President is the
problem. That is what they are literally saying in the United States of
America today.
Ladies and gentlemen, the tariffs aren't the problem and the
President isn't the problem. China is the problem. They have been the
problem for a long time, but nobody in the United States has been
willing to confront it.
For many years, China has pursued industrial policies and unfair
trade practices that include dumping, discriminatory nontariff
barriers, forced technology transfer, overcapacity, and industrial
subsidies, all this to champion Chinese firms and make it literally
impossible for American firms to compete. People say: Well, all these
jobs went to China. All these jobs went overseas.
How do you think that happened? It happened because China is not a
reasonable actor. They are not playing fair. They have not been playing
fair, and they have been taking advantage of the United States and
other countries for a very, very long time. Finally, there is a
President who is willing to confront them.
Let's talk about China as the world's largest principal IP infringer,
and their government actually encourages the theft of intellectual
property.
People talk about the value of these tariffs. Nobody likes the
tariffs in the United States. We don't want to have to do this, but we
have limited options.
They said the cost of the tariffs. Well, how about the cost,
annually, of IP theft, anywhere from $225 billion to $600 billion,
including counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade
secrets. That is every year, regardless of any tariff in the United
States. That is just what the Chinese steal, sanctioned by the Chinese
Government.
Our IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million U.S. jobs.
Are we going to wait until all those head to China as well? For every
high-tech job in the United States, five jobs are created indirectly in
a local economy.
Actually, China accounts for 87 percent of counterfeit goods seized
coming into the United States. It starts making you wonder why we allow
any of their goods to come into the United States.
China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into the United States'
computer networks to gain access to valuable research and business
information so Chinese companies can just literally copy products and
processes. What are some examples? Well, just things like a vacuum
cleaner to solar panel technology.
Does anybody wonder why we buy so many solar panels from China? They
stole them from us, and then they are selling them back to us. Who is
the fool here?
And how about the blueprints to the Boeing C-17? Anybody deployed
around the world lately in military uniform? It is good to know that
China has the plans.
Hackers from China with ties to the government have been accused of
breaking into gas companies, steel companies, and chemical companies. A
Chinese Government company was indicted for stealing the secret
chemical makeup of the color white from DuPont.
China developed its J-20 fighter plane, a plane similar to Lockheed-
Martin's F-22 Raptor, shortly after a Chinese national was indicted for
stealing technical data from Lockheed-Martin, including plans for the
Raptor.
In 2010, Google went public in announcing that it had been hacked by
the Chinese Government; and in December of 2018, two Chinese nationals
were charged with hacking more than 45 companies in coordination with
China's state security service.
These are just a few of the cases.
Just a couple of months ago, in The Wall Street Journal, it was
reported that 27 universities located across the United States were
targeted by Chinese hackers due to their involvement in research of
military-use maritime technology. You heard some of the speakers just
recently talk about China's newfound military and naval prowess.
Let's go into some of the CFIUS reports, the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States. CFIUS ordered a Chinese health data
analytics firm backed by Tencent to sell its majority stake in
PatientsLikeMe, which helps connect people suffering from the same
illness.
Why would China hack that, you wonder? Well, if you can think about
any data that you have--your very, very personal data, including
sicknesses that you might have--China actually wants that kind of
stuff, and they don't have good intentions for it.
CFIUS blocked the $1.2 billion purchase of MoneyGram, a money
transfer firm, by Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate, on national
security grounds.
In 2017, American officials warned that DJI, a leading drone maker,
was probably sending data on critical infrastructure back to China's
Government. The U.S. Army barred DJI drones from its bases. But if you
don't know you have a DJI drone and you are operating on a military
base, you can probably be self-assured that China is collecting the
information and you are actually helping them.
How about this? In 2018, American Government agencies were banned
from using cameras made by Hikvision, the world's biggest manufacturer
of closed-circuit TV kits. We actually had to ban them, and the
government was buying them. They are spying on us in our own government
buildings because we are buying their cameras, and we know it is
happening.
It is incredible, ladies and gentlemen. China is the problem. It is
not the President and it is not the tariff. It is what China does.
Then there is the race to 5G, which America must win. China is on
pace to be the global leader in 5G technology. That is just how it is.
They actually beat Ericsson, and now a spy state--a spy state--is on
track to be the leader in 5G technology.
We simply must work with our allies to stop the introduction of
Huawei equipment--that is who is making it--into foreign networks. It
threatens the integrity of personal data, government secrets, military
operations, and democratic principles.
When the United States military operates around the world, we use the
backbone architecture oftentimes to communicate. If that backbone
communications architecture has been made by Huawei, we might as well
just be telling China exactly what we are doing. Our tactic, technique,
procedures are all given up immediately to China.
Social media, medical services, gaming, location services, payment,
and banking information, every single thing that happens over the
internet, if it is happening over a Huawei 5G network, they are knowing
about it.
The Pentagon, just last month, warned of ``near persistent data
transfer back to China.'' Near persistent, so just continuous data
transfer. And they use this information to coerce and punish not only
their own citizens, but people in countries around the world.
And again, the 2017 intelligence law in China requires any
organization or citizen to support, assist, and cooperate with the
security services of China's communist government.
Now, let's be clear here. We are not talking about the Chinese
people, but we are talking about the Communist Party in China. We are
talking about their leadership, and we are talking about their
government. That is who we are talking about there.
Again, the Chinese dominance in 5G threatens future U.S. military
operations. We will not be able to operate. We will have to set up our
own network everywhere we go where Huawei is responsible for 5G
networking. These are just national security risks that happen in
Europe and across Africa.
You need to know, as well, that Huawei's equipment does not
interoperate with any other vendor. So if you are using Huawei
equipment, even if it is 4G, it doesn't interoperate with anything, so
you are forced to buy Huawei for 5G if you want to advance.
Other people have talked about China's global influence--unrestricted
warfare--in every single paradigm.
Ladies and gentlemen, the tariffs are not the problem. Unfortunately,
China has been in an economic war with us for about four decades.
[[Page H3778]]
The President is not the problem. China and this malign behavior to
us and democracies around the globe are the problem.
I am glad we are finally talking about it. I hope that the rest of
our colleagues here in the House of Representatives will join us in
researching and becoming aware and informed about China's activities
and then supporting policies that deal with China's malign activities
in our universities, technology transfer, and--you name it.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania, who
is a brigadier general, and he has been on the front lines, for those
remarks.
General Leave
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on
my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue on the rise of China
and why it is important.
I think we have heard some great ideas today and some great dialogue,
but this is something the American people need to pay attention to.
This is something that our legislators need to pay attention to. This
is something that we hear over and over again.
I have had the pleasure of being in Congress for 7 years, chairing
the Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation Subcommittee in the last
Congress, and I am the lead Republican in this Congress. The
information we hear over and over again doesn't get better. In fact,
what we find out is a more aggressive China that has raised all
pretenses of the past, and I will talk about that.
Before I go into this too much, I want to start with this: China has
an amazing history that spans thousands of years. Its culture has
stayed, for the most part, intact until the 19th century.
{time} 2000
At one point, China and most of Eurasia was under the control of
Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire for over 100 years before the
Khan dynasty lost to the prevailing emperors in the 19th century. I
bring this up to counter China's nine dashed historical lines that they
are making claim in the South China Sea and now their claim that they
are now making near Arctic territory.
Later on in this dialogue, I want to talk about that because China
predicates everything by saying: ``Well, we historically have sailed in
the South China Sea; therefore, it is ours.'' Now China is saying they
are near the Arctic, so being near that, they want to claim that as
theirs when international law says it is not so.
In fact, the Philippines took China to court over the South China
Seas, and I will have some maps here that we will discuss later.
China went from a major economic power in the 18th century to a
nation addicted to opium and taken over by European colonial powers and
Japanese imperialism. During the 19th century, China's ruling class
allowed their country to be taken over by European colonial powers
while over 90 percent of their male population became addicted to
opium.
And I want to highlight that because we are going to talk about the
fentanyl and the opium that are coming into this country and what
country they are coming from.
The cultural heritage and social fabric of China decayed, and China
entered into a peasant state isolated from the world, for the most
part, during the next 70 years. This truly was a century of shame.
The PLA, the People's Liberation Army, emerged in the twenties, in
fact, in 1927. They will have a 100-year anniversary highlighting that
in 2027.
Mao Zedong was a favored member of the PLA. He later became the
Chairman of the Communist Party of China. He promised communism would
be the savior of China, but, unfortunately, for the 70 to 80 million
people who died under Mao's policy, for them, it was a disaster.
Mao did set a 100-year plan, though, for China to regain their
stature lost. Maoism became a belief for many, which seems bizarre,
knowing that history records millions of people's deaths were credited
to his policies.
Then, a foreign policy by President Nixon and then-Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger invited China into the modern 20th century. Many today
look back and realize that this was a massive misstep in foreign
policy. The hope was that China would become a responsible partner in
the modern world, but, unfortunately, China thrived at the expense of
the United States and many other nations with heavily lopsided, one-way
favored trade deals that favored China but nobody else. In the process,
China became very strong and very wealthy.
Maoism gave way to the era of Deng Xiaoping, who realized at the time
China could not compete with the U.S. or Japan in intellectual capacity
or in manufacturing, but he had the foresight to corner the market in
rare earth minerals. Deng Xiaoping's saying was: Bide your time and
hide your strength. Today, China has virtually cornered the rare earth
market that Deng Xiaoping spoke of in the 1980s.
In fact, the F-35s today, our highest tech fighters, the highest tech
in the world, have been copied by China via intellectual theft. And the
rare earth metals, the weight of an F-35 is approximately 10 percent.
This is approximately 4,000 pounds.
Now, get this. Ninety percent of these metals come directly from
China. The other 10 percent come from countries that get these metals
from China. So Deng Xiaoping fulfilled a promise he made.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr.
Fortenberry).
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I
thank the gentleman for conducting this Special Order. I appreciate the
gentleman inviting me to come down here.
Just a few observations, if you will.
As I have watched the speeches tonight, there has been a litany of
concerns about China's aggression, China's positioning, China's covert
activities, China's willingness to engage in intellectual theft,
China's pervasive influence all around the world.
I have been to China once. I found it to be highly engaging. I found
the people that we were with to be very welcoming and warm. I am very
grateful and try to be attentive to China's long-suffering and rich
cultural history. And as China tells us, there is room enough in the
Pacific for two superpowers, and I want to return to that point.
When I looked out of the window of the place where I was staying in
Beijing, it looked as though fog had set in. But it wasn't fog; it was
pollution. The air was so thick, you could hardly see maybe 20 feet. If
you live in Beijing, it takes 5 years off your life because of the
pollution.
In fact, I had one Chinese person whisper to me: ``What is the point
of all this economic development if it kills you?'' And I really wanted
to tell him: ``Please, don't say that too loudly.''
The point is that China has engaged in a series of unfair subsidies
that create an unlevel playing field for trade. China's very system, a
capitalistic-communist hybrid system is very different than ours. They
are state players that receive direct subsidies that we don't have. The
indirect cost of not having environmental regulation is a form of
subsidy to industry. Low labor standards, the exploitation of persons,
is another, and on and on.
So we can walk through the financial balance sheet as to who has what
tariff and who doesn't, and who subsidized this and who doesn't, but,
fundamentally, there are things in that equation that we, perhaps,
haven't counted.
Another reality here is China has as their reason for being, it seems
now, an economic nationalism. Now, we do, too, in America. Economics is
important to us, but it stands alongside a spectrum of values of
personal liberty, the exercise of opportunity, and the ability to
engage in communal activity, free associations. We don't even think
about these things.
These are very, very different propositions in China. One places
himself at the service of the larger idea of the state. The person is
subservient to the larger idea of the state.
Mr. YOHO. Exactly.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. And the person can operate within a certain band of
liberties.
I saw it. People can move around. People can visit things.
[[Page H3779]]
But it is a certain band of liberties that, if you violate that, step
beyond it, you contradict the nature of the system and could pay a very
heavy price.
We see this in human rights violations, the lack of certain freedoms
that we enjoy that we think are consistent with human dignity. And this
is how it manifests itself.
I know you, Mr. Yoho, are very attentive to the issue of development,
sustainable economic development, particularly for the world's poor, to
conserve our resources, to use the best of the market systems for
empowerment of space, for the flourishing of the individual. That then
creates the opportunity for just governance and a healthy nationalism,
and that is our ideal.
So, before the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, recently, Secretary
Pompeo appeared, and I asked him a question. I said: Mr. Secretary, how
much does China give in foreign assistance?
He had one of those moments where he didn't exactly know how to
answer. I wasn't asking a question in order for him to give an answer,
because we all know the answer: It is pretty minimal.
Mr. YOHO. It is.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. The United States gives away about $25 billion a
year, and that is in non-security assistance alone: trying to help the
poor, to feed the poor, trying to create a space for food security,
sustainable agriculture, conservation, medical care for the sickest
around the world.
We do this because it is our impulse, our humanitarian impulse. We
just don't sit around while other people die. We also do it because it
facilitates relationships, economical and cultural. And, finally, when
you have the factors that lead to stable societies, it is in our own
security interest and the security of the world. So, for these reasons,
we do these things.
So I asked the Secretary: How much does China give? It might be a
sprinkling here or there. I don't exactly know the number. But for a
country with this size of an economy, with this amount of power, with
this amount of growth, with this amount of pervasive activity all
around the world, particularly in the developing nations, there comes a
set of responsibilities along with that.
I think that is really part of the attention here, underlying this
current trade dispute. What are we both vying for?
I agree with the Chinese that there should be room enough for two
superpowers in the Pacific, but you have got to come to some alignment
about what it means to be in a fair, reciprocal relationship.
We have to do a better job of respecting the space of other people's
history and tradition in the way they want to organize themselves
around governance while, at the same time, upholding this fundamental
principle of human dignity, without which things just collapse into
transactional relations that can come and go, or worse, when they are
gone, lead to potential conflict.
We need a healthy relationship with China. We have gone through a
litany of complaints about China tonight, but there are a couple other
complaints I want to have, and it is looking inward at ourselves.
I think it is time for American businesses to do business in America.
Mr. YOHO. All right. You are singing a great song that I have shared
with the AmChams, I have shared with other countries, and it is our
philosophy of ABC. When you go to manufacture, it is anywhere but
China.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. There is a small manufacturing facility in my
district. They make a fairly generic, standardized product. I was a
little surprised that they didn't have a relationship with the Chinese,
and they said: ``Oh, no. That R&D is rip-off and duplicate.''
Mr. YOHO. That is exactly right.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. ``That is why we won't deal with them.''
That is a sad reality, because we ought to be able to deal, using a
fair set of rules, with people who may be doing something better than
we are and we do something better than they do, and we can benefit in
reciprocal fashion.
But it has gotten so disordered because we shifted manufacturing
there, and a lot of big businesses around this country make a lot of
money off of poor environmental standards and poor labor standards
imposed on other people.
Mr. YOHO. Exactly.
Can I get you to yield?
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Sure.
Mr. YOHO. You are leading into where I was going.
In 1990, President Clinton recommended China's entry into the WTO on
a developing nation status. Yet today, they are the second largest
economy in the world--second to the U.S.--and they are still a
developing nation status. Yet they have a blue-water navy.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. So ask ourselves why. What are the incentives around
here to change this?
Mr. YOHO. And they have a Moon program.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, why do we allow this to continue?
Mr. YOHO. Why do we allow it?
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, could it be that there are a lot of big-time
transactions going on in our system itself that benefit a few big
multinationals that have taken their manufacturing and planted it over
there? They make the stuff, and we buy the stuff.
And this is the third point I want to make to you, which is, again, a
little bit of self-reflection on our own role in this.
They make the stuff; we buy the stuff. We run up debt; they have the
cash; they buy the debt.
So here we find ourselves in this very dysfunctional marriage of
having shifted vast amounts of productive resources there because,
supposedly, we can't make this more efficiently--supposedly. Really?
Mr. YOHO. Right. I don't buy into that either, and I am glad you
brought that up.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. So we run up the debt, and they hold the debt.
And what is debt? Well, none of us around here really wants to face
it--on our side of the aisle either, Republicans. It is a form of
taxation.
Mr. YOHO. It is.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. It is just hidden from everyone. And the
manifestation of it is a wealth shift of our country's assets into the
hands of other people.
So we are talking about the military buildup. We are talking about
the exploitation of resources, particularly in Africa, with no
consideration of the environmental impact and no attacking of the
subsequent problem of structural poverty that existed in a lot of
places.
{time} 2015
It is just taking things out and leaving not much behind, and that is
not fair to the world's poor. The problem, again, is one of self-
reflection that we have to have both in terms of the responsibility
that America's business has because we have provided the infrastructure
and the systems, through very large public subsidies, so they can
thrive. It is incumbent upon them to take responsibility. Maybe it is
time for American businesses to do business in America.
Secondly, is this issue of debt. Now, if this tension prolongs and
the reality that China has a stick, and they start to refuse or dump
treasuries, what is that going to do? Interest rates will go up.
Mr. YOHO. That is right.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, that is an impact on us, but it is one
we are going to have to live with because we have done it to ourselves.
There are a couple of lessons here: fair trade, mutual respect, smart
trade, both people benefit.
Secondly, America's businesses will not get this public subsidy from
us any longer through unfair trade practices that we allow.
The third lesson is: an honest confrontation about what debt really
is. It is a hidden form of taxes, shifting the wealth assets of this
country elsewhere into places like China, which we are complaining
about are not using those assets in a way that we would like to see in
a productive manner.
There is lots of blame to go around here, but I want to thank the
gentleman for the opportunity to at least start to unpack this in an
honest way.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman coming out.
I see this as a series of Special Orders on China, because the
American people need to know this. When they go to a
[[Page H3780]]
shelf and buy something that is cheap, and they look at that and it
says, ``made in China,'' they are feeding this trade imbalance. So they
are partly responsible for that.
As the gentleman well pointed out, if I fast forward to Xi Jinping,
to the current era right now, the estimate is that there is a $300-
plus-billion--I heard it was $400 billion--trade imbalance, I can't
blame China for that. I blame our leaders since President Nixon.
For the last 40 or 50 years, somebody has dropped the ball or taken
their eye off the ball. If you allow a trade imbalance of $400-billion-
plus, and then add to that the theft of intellectual properties that we
have heard up to $600 billion--I am sure you saw the DHS as they
brought in products made by our manufacturers that went to China that
are now coming from China, and it looks identical, yet, it is made by
China. So it is robbing that profit and the jobs from American
manufacturers that should go here, and it has to stop.
I commend the Trump administration for standing up to that. I think
the gentleman brought this out.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, the reckoning is here.
Mr. YOHO. The reckoning is here.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. It has been hidden, but the consequences have been
real. It is now on the surface. The day of reckoning is here.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, it is, and I hope the gentleman participates
in these. Because that day of reckoning is here, and if we don't do it
today, it is only going to get worse. So this is something that we have
to come together as Americans. It is not President Trump out there. It
is not some of the businesses that are bold enough to stand with him.
We, the American people, need to stand behind him, and I think the
gentleman brought this up that this is not a fight with the Chinese
people. It is the system that is running unfair trade balances.
Mr. Speaker, what I would like to bring up, going back to my notes
here is, we are in the era of Xi Jinping. I don't think our
disagreement is with the Chinese people, but it is with the policies of
Xi Jinping and the Chinese or the Communist Party of China.
The 2017 Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in October
of 2017. During that time, Xi Jinping kind of came out and was very
bold in his statements. He said: The era of China has arrived. No
longer will they be made to swallow their interests around the world.
It is time for China to take the world's stage.
The gentleman brought this up. There is plenty of room on the world's
stage if you want to be fair and balanced, and you want to play like
everybody else, but you have to honor international law. You have to
honor the rule of law, honoring contracts, honoring the beliefs that we
have to be a respected trading partner.
We penned an editorial that talked about Xi Jinping is leading--along
with the Communist Party which is 90 million members--is leading China
into a second century of shame, and it is because they are losing face.
They are losing honor that the Chinese culture, over millennials, built
up. They were respected. But they are getting ready to enter into the
second century of shame, and I would like for Mr. Fortenberry to
continue.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, to elaborate on a concept that I talked
about earlier is this idea of human dignity, and where does culture,
ideals, learning, and the pursuit of truth come from?
It comes from this sacred space, if you will. And when that is
subsumed to the larger interest of the state where you are compelled to
act only within certain parameters, where you have to submit yourself
to this bigger idea of economic nationalism, it can't define itself
because it doesn't know where it is going, so it just churns and
churns. It has to be more and more and more with environmental effects,
effects on culture, and effects on relationships around the world.
One final point before I leave you. The head of the United States
Agency for International Development, Mark Green, a former Member of
Congress, former Ambassador to Tanzania, had this to say before us
recently: China, they are predatory lenders.
Mr. YOHO. Yeah.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. They are acting, again, with their superpower status
around the world, basically convicting leaders in tougher places around
the world that are desperate for the right types of build-out and
infrastructure to attack structural poverty and to help stop the types
of injustice that are there when people simply do not have a system
that allows them to reach their full potentiality.
They are being forced to mortgage off various assets they have,
rather than being in a robust partnership and alignment with a
superpower who is interested in perhaps the right type of development,
sustainability and conservation, and to build out a just governance.
So countries are having to mortgage off ports and other pieces of
infrastructure in order to get Chinese money. Again, there is a
resource movement out of these places into the Chinese hands in order
to feed, just continue to feed this economic nationalism which has no
broader purpose.
Mr. YOHO. Right.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. And that is the issue. So China, maybe they will see
this. Our charge here is to try to do some self-reflection ourselves
about the nature of our system and what we have done.
But also, with the hand of friendship extended, say to the Chinese: A
transactional relationship is not an architecture for the 21st century,
for the thriving of civilization as the world gets smaller and smaller
and more and more integrated.
This predatory lending in the world's toughest places is a disastrous
policy and completely inconsistent and contradictory to what a leader
in the world, because of superpower status and economic power status,
ought to be pursuing.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his time.
The gentleman brought up a good point about China. If you read about
the Chinese Communist Party, the role of the individual is to serve the
party. There is no higher entity in China other than Xi Jinping.
Whereas in our government, we are so blessed in this country because we
have a government that empowers their people. China suppresses their
people, and that is why I want to talk about this.
This comes from a 2012 House Intelligence Committee report where they
deemed Huawei and ZTE to be a U.S. national security threat. I have got
the results of that right here. So we want to talk about that.
Huawei and ZTE, from 2012 until today, they have been a national
security threat, but they have been able to do business in this
country. This is something we need to bring to an end.
Other speakers brought up how universities were falling prey to
China. We had our own university in Florida that Huawei came in and
offered to set up a cybersecurity program, and they were going to fund
it. And we said: No way. And so we got them to stop that.
If you just go to the headlines and you can hear how China is ramping
up in intellectual property theft. They are paid to do this. This is
something they want to go after, and they are doing it.
They rail against the United States on GMOs, yet, they go to Iowa and
steal corn seeds so that they can grow GMO and be in competition with
us.
The trade war with China and the problems with intellectual property
rights, this is something that goes on every day. And as we buy cheap
products made in China, this is benefiting them, not us. You can see
the headlines here.
What I want to do is move on to Hong Kong with Xi Jinping. Back when
Great Britain gave Hong Kong back to China in 1997, under the rulers of
China at that time, there was a 50-year agreement that Hong Kong would
be an autonomous, self-ruled nation. Twenty-two years into the program,
China has put their heavy foot down. China has disrupted the autonomous
rule of Hong Kong to the point where Xi Jinping had the nerve to say
this on the world stage; as far as he was concerned, that agreement was
null and void.
I want to bring that up because if we talk about if that agreement is
null and void with Hong Kong, if we go back to the agreement of Taiwan
under Nixon and Kissinger when they said that Taiwan is recognized as
one country, two systems, and autonomous rule, if China and Xi Jinping
can discount that agreement with Great Britain, does that give us the
right to discount one country, two systems?
[[Page H3781]]
Is it time to recognize Taiwan as an independent country, a thriving
democracy, our eleventh largest trading partner?
I want to bring up the South China Sea.
Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida has 9 minutes
remaining.
Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I will try to tighten this up.
Mr. Speaker, China, in the South China Sea, has started claiming
property that is not theirs. It goes off to nine historical lines that
come from antiquity, from 300 or 400 years ago. And they said: Well, we
used to sail here, so this is our property.
So they started building these islands, and they went off the coast
of the Philippines, and the Philippines took them to the Court of
Arbitration in The Hague, and China lost the lawsuit. China ignored the
ruling of The Hague, an international norm that we are all supposed to
follow. They ignored it, and here you have the Spratly Islands that
were little atolls sticking shallowly out of the water at low tide.
China has gone in there, and it is probably the biggest environmental
insult to this world, where they have dredged up over 4,000 acres of
land and they have built these land masses. I refuse to use the word
``island'' because that gives credibility to China.
What they have done is built--illegally, against the environment,
against the ruling of international law--land masses in the East China
Sea.
President Xi Jinping had the gumption to come here to the United
States during President Obama's era in 2015, he went to the Rose Garden
and claimed: We will never militarize these islands.
Yet, today, there are runways on there that can accommodate military
planes. Our satellites show that there are military barracks, offensive
and defensive weapons, and radar systems. I think it is pretty well
militarized. They are doing that again and again and again. There are
four islands they have done now.
Their goal is to go to the next chain of islands which is closer to
our mainland. This is something the world has to stand up to. If not,
they are going to keep continuing to march forward.
This is a photo of when they started, and this is more of the
dredging. We don't have the one that shows them completed, but you can
find it on the internet.
Now we are at the China of today. China has perfected 5G technology.
China today has over 800 million CCTV cameras, closed-circuit
television cameras, and they have put a system in place where they
monitor their systems.
{time} 2030
Today in China there are over 24 million citizens being monitored,
and they get issued by the Communist Party a good citizen score. But,
Mr. Speaker, you don't know what your score is. So when you show up to
travel, if your score is not high enough, then you get denied travel.
If you go to borrow money or use your banking system, you are denied
your banking system. Your kids can't go to the colleges you want them
to go to because you are denied because you are a bad citizen. They
have extended this and offered this to Russia; they have extended this
and offered it to Maduro in Venezuela; and Iran wants this technology.
What better way for a despotic or authoritarian or Communist regime
to control their citizens than the CC technology?
China uses technology to suppress their citizens to fall in line so
that they serve the Communist Party. Our government empowers our people
to reach their full potential.
I will close with this last thing, Mr. Speaker. China has interned
over 2 million Muslim Chinese ethnic people, the Uyghurs, in what they
call reeducation camps.
I want to show you this poster here, Mr. Speaker. This is a
reeducation camp. That means they just go there because they want to
learn new skills. This is what China is doing with the Uyghurs, the
Muslim population. Not only that but they have armed crematoriums that
are in place in these camps.
I've got to ask you, Mr. Speaker, when you have got a place that
looks look a prison, I don't believe it is there for education. We went
through World War II and the Holocaust. This Nation and all other
nations said: ``Never again.''
Mr. Speaker, it is happening right now in China. We need to pivot
away from China buying stuff, and we need to encourage our
manufacturers to go anywhere but China.
I don't want a conflict with China. Nobody does. But if we stand up
collectively together and we encourage manufacturers to go, then we can
get China's attention via their pocketbook and we can change the course
of the history of this world.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your patience, and I yield back the balance
of my time.
Mr. HICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, the threat to religious liberty and
religious toleration in the People's Republic of China is of grave
concern. Over the past several years there has been an ever increasing
intolerance of religious minorities.
Article 36 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China
guarantees the freedom of religious belief. Yet the rights and safety
of religious minorities in the country are very much in question.
China is the home to nearly 90 million Christians, and the country is
anticipated to be home to the most Christians in the world by 2030.
Yet, over the last several years, the percentage of persecution cases
have risen year over year. Furthermore, the government has increasingly
required churches to be state approved, churches have been razed and
worshippers subjected to detainment, physical interrogation, and
thought reform conditioning.
In the west, in Xinjiang Province, the United Nations has reported
the government to be holding roughly one million Uygurs without charge.
Those who have escaped have testified to being repeatedly told that God
did not exist and that they would only be fed after acknowledging the
greatness of communism.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage this Congress and our President to take
appropriate actions to promote religious freedom of religious
minorities in the People's Republic of China.
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