[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 153 (Monday, September 23, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5624-S5626]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 China

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I don't know of any topic that is more 
important for our country than the relationship between the United 
States and China.
  I am a big fan of history. I love to read about history. I think one 
of the best ways to understand the future is to understand the past. It 
strikes me that, at some point in the future, someone will write a book 
about the 21st century, and I think that book will have mention of a 
number of the things that consumed our time in political debate. I 
believe the central issue globally that will define the 21st century is 
the relationship between the United States and China, in which 
direction it heads.
  Let me say at the outset that China is destined to be what it already 
is becoming: a rich, important, and powerful nation. That in and of 
itself should not be threatening. It is a reality. It is one that I 
think holds promise, to the extent that a rich and powerful China is a 
responsible stakeholder in the affairs of the world.
  I think there is another truth, and that is, what is developing today 
is an incredibly serious imbalance between the United States and China 
on trade and commerce, increasingly on diplomacy, and potentially--
eventually--militarily and geopolitical.
  So when I come today to speak about China, it is not simply in the 
context of our current trade tensions, which is a part of a much 
broader issue. The fact of the matter is that this is the way we should 
view it because this is the way the Communist Party of China views it. 
The truth is that they view our trade tensions as an inevitable blip in 
their long-term plan to supplant the

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United States of America as the world's dominant political, military, 
and economic power.
  Now, it is understandable why many Americans would feel uneasy at the 
prospect of being supplanted by China. First of all, they have seen so 
many of our industries that once thrived in our towns and cities 
weakened or leave altogether, and they have read about the grotesque 
violation of human rights and dignity of people and China's Communist 
Party's persecution of Christians, Muslims, and other religious 
minorities.
  The sad fact is that we have come to this realization far too late in 
this city. For many years, many of the policy elites across the 
political spectrum turned a blind eye to this growing threat. There was 
this notion that, once China became rich and prosperous, they would 
become like us. It is as if somehow economic prosperity, in the sense 
and in the way China is achieving it, automatically leads to supporting 
values such as the ones that we hold dear. But the fact is that we can 
no longer ignore the reality that this is not the direction that China 
is headed, and it has implications for our country and the world.
  Our country, our workers, and families can no longer afford elected 
officials in this city who turn a blind eye to the seriousness of this 
challenge. At this point, given all the information before us and the 
trends that have clearly emerged, ignorance on this matter is no longer 
an excuse, and, frankly, the Communist Party of China is no longer 
hiding its ambition about what this is all about.
  I am not asking you to believe my words on this. I just ask that you 
believe them, that you take their words seriously. That is why I come 
here to point to a speech last week by Huang Qifan, who is a former 
Central Committee member and recently retired as the vice chair of the 
National People's Congress Financial and Economic Affairs Committee. He 
showed us, by the way, what passes as modernization within the Chinese 
Communist Party.
  In the speech he gave, he didn't speak in the typical Communist 
jargon. He doesn't invoke abstract theories or laws of history or in 
any way hold back. He speaks with a frankness that we should actually 
be grateful for because it enlightens us and hopefully propels us to 
take action. To Huang, as he makes very clear, the trade war that is 
ongoing is a fight to the death, an inevitable outcome in a fight 
between two systems.
  Paraphrasing Mao Zedong, he urged Chinese businesspeople to shed 
their illusions and prepare for struggle. China is the rising power. 
The United States is the aging hegemon, and China's rise will be 
sustained.
  Huang declared, ``At this time, the socialist road with Chinese 
characteristics is obviously more competitive. . . . than the U.S. 
economic system.'' Such confident words are not just his; they emanate 
from the very top. Just after gaining power, their current President, 
apparently for life, Xi Jinping, told the party it is ``inevitable that 
the superiority of our socialist system will be increasingly 
apparent.''
  The United States, according to Huang in his speech, cannot make 
partners and cannot make space for others in the world. Rather, we are 
stuck. We are stuck in a situation in which China must fight the United 
States either economically or militarily to find its place in the 
world.
  Throughout his speech, by the way, he points to various events in the 
U.S. and the Western world that is evidence of the claims that he 
makes. He points to the financial crisis, to the ballooning deficits, 
and to what he terms political instability. In very clear language, he 
says that these are problems that ``capitalism can't avoid''--that is 
his quote--but the Chinese system can through central guidance. ``This 
is our institutional advantage,'' he argues.
  Embedded in his speech, there are two themes. The first is a 
confidence in the inevitability of China's rise and its conflict with 
the United States. Closely related to it is a second theme, and that is 
an appeal to the rest of the world to follow in the Chinese 
authoritarian model, or, as they call it, socialism with Chinese 
characteristics. In their telling, it is clearly a superior model to 
ours.
  The time has come for America and our allies, who value freedom and 
liberty and free enterprise, democracy, human rights, and the dignity 
of all people--the time has come for us to eagerly confront this 
assertion. Unfortunately, there are too many in the Western world and 
in the free world that refuse to see the challenges, indeed, the threat 
that is posed by the Communist Party and China's vision of the world in 
the future.
  Rather than discuss the technical threat posed by an entity like 
Huawei, I want to articulate the threat in China's Communist Party's 
words, the threat in their own words, as Qifan said last week: ``Our 
currency will become the world currency.''
  Understand the implications of this stated goal. China's aim is to 
use economic power to displace the United States of America and the 
role it has played in the world since the end of the Second World War. 
China's message to the world is that its industries, its workers, and 
its politics will be more productive than ours. The Chinese Communist 
Party says to foreign countries, to investors, and to businesses that 
the long-term play to keep their economies growing is by partnering 
with them, not partnering with us.
  Some may say, What is the big deal about that? Let's just take care 
of our own problems. Here is the big deal. Here is what it would mean 
for Americans in real terms. If the world heads in the direction they 
advocate, it would mean lower wages for you, it would mean homes and 
mortgages that are unaffordable, and it would mean a world where what 
you can say and do abroad but also at home is increasingly dictated by 
the Chinese Communist Party and its benefactors in the United States 
and elsewhere.
  If you don't believe me, just realize that already major motion 
pictures produced in Hollywood are censored--censored, even as they are 
played in the United States because those movies will not have access 
to Chinese movie theaters. We have already seen multiple American 
companies have to apologize, take content off the internet, and change 
T-shirts that they sell at stores because they offend the Communist 
Party of China and are going to be cut off from selling to that market. 
It is already happening. It will happen at a much more accelerated 
pace.
  By the way, we have also seen news outlets in some places have to cut 
back and censor what they say. We have had a television program in a 
major American network take out content from a program for fear of 
being censored in the vast Chinese market. Beyond that, the new 
companies, the new technologies, the improved standards of living, 
which the United States has always relied on to prove the superiority 
of our way of life, will also no longer exist.
  Indeed, some of these predictions are already happening. The economic 
growth, the prosperity, and the stability that marks Americans' shared 
memory of the last century appear to be increasingly absent from this 
one. Simply put, the Chinese Communist Party believes that the 20th 
century, which was termed the American Century, was an anomaly, and 
they believe that they alone have mastered the scientific laws of 
history, so democracy must stand aside and give way.
  We should clearly understand that the Communist Party of China's 
mission, a mission they term ``national rejuvenation'' of Chinese power 
and China's prominent place on the world stage, means supplanting our 
values and our way of life. As Xi Jinping explained 2 years ago, this 
goal is the original aspiration and mission of the party.
  What is our model? Well, it is incumbent upon us as Americans and as 
leaders and our democratic allies around the world to make the case 
that our model is the superior. It is incumbent upon us to make the 
case on behalf of our model just as aggressively as an authoritarian 
China is making their case for socialism with Chinese characteristics. 
Our leadership must also be one that respects human dignity, that 
defends our interests and religious liberty, democracy and human 
rights, and the rule of law, which means consistently sticking up for 
nations committed to these same ideals and standing with people who are 
fighting for these and being crushed by totalitarianism anywhere in the 
world.
  By the way, in the 20th century and the 21st century, American 
leadership

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brought peace. After the carnage of the first half of the last century, 
the United States has led the world to avoid open great power conflict, 
and it meant historically little bloodshed and deep international 
stability compared to previous eras.
  The international system that America helped craft and lead comes 
with a promise of multilateral security, and that is why we must remain 
wholly committed to protecting our allies. We spared no cost to help 
them rebuild to defend themselves and to protect the dignity of their 
citizens. The Chinese Communist Party, on the other hand, cannot 
conceive of a world that is not driven by status and hierarchy. They 
are not partners, and they view no one as partners. They view them as 
vassal states. So this progress, even to someone like Huang Qifan, is a 
hidden plot to suppress others.
  Such cynicism, by the way, reveals more about the Chinese Communist 
Party than it does about us or the failure of American efforts to offer 
a helping hand to China in exchange for modernization. To the Chinese 
Communist Party, power serves no purpose but to strengthen the party's 
rule and to spread its influence around the world.
  And for them, those who deviate from the party's expectations deserve 
to be sent to forced labor camps where they toil on the party's behalf 
and where mass surveillance is a necessary safeguard against deviants 
whose only crime is to want a private civic life.
  As part of making the case for our model, we must continue to make 
the case as to why China is an untrustworthy partner in any endeavor, 
whether it is a nation-state project, in an industrial capacity, or 
financial integration. They have a neocolonial project, the Belt and 
Road Initiative, which follows a very consistent playbook: Approach 
nations with promises of lucrative state projects, exploit corruption, 
bleed those nations dry, and then hijack their domestic infrastructure. 
In Sri Lanka, what it meant was the de facto takeover of wide swathes 
of their political system after a project sputtered and Beijing seized 
the port.
  Beijing is ultimately an untrustworthy partner in international 
commitments. We have seen this repeatedly in the Asia-Pacific where 
they have flagrantly violated international agreements and obligations 
in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We see it right off the coast of Vietnam and 
the Philippines, where Beijing is literally building artificial islands 
to substantiate ludicrous territorial claims.
  Chinese leaders have long claimed to never seek hegemony, and yet the 
bullying of their neighbors, they justify it, and they justify it on 
the grounds that China deserves respect because of its power and 
position. Doing business in China is not just like here or anywhere 
else. It is not business between two private companies. It means doing 
business with companies backed by, sponsored by, and protected by the 
Chinese Communist Party.
  Their economy is purposely opaque, and Chinese companies, many of 
which are state-owned or state-directed, are tools used by the Chinese 
Communist Party to further their mercantilist goals.
  The telecommunications company that we have heard of so often, 
Huawei, is just one example. Nations that have naively partnered with 
Huawei on 5G have exposed vital technological infrastructure to 
Beijing's surveillance state, a partnership that Beijing has shown it 
will readily exploit.
  The bottom line is that China, no matter what, will continue to play 
a prominent role in the future of our world; and frankly, we should 
welcome a growing, thriving China, but one that plays by the rules.
  Today's China, governed by the Chinese Communist Party, is not 
playing by any rules. It is a predatory state in nature, and it 
actively seeks to supplant not just the United States but a world order 
committed to democracy, human rights, and the dignity of all.
  Since their induction into the World Trade Organization in 2001, 
China has shown itself to be anything but a responsible global partner. 
This is a dangerous recipe for conflict, and that is what China's 
leaders are preparing for. Xi put the party on notice in 2013, saying 
that China ``must diligently prepare for a long period of cooperation 
and of conflict'' with capitalist democracies.
  If anything, the intervening years have strengthened this conviction. 
Huang told business leaders that Americans ``want your life.'' He calls 
it an illusion that ``some small amount of money'' would resolve the 
trade war.
  ``We do not want to fight but are not afraid to fight,'' Huang 
concluded, once again quoting Mao.
  China clearly sees this moment--these decades, really--as their 
opportunity to supplant America from its global leadership role. 
Conflict, armed or otherwise, is an inevitable byproduct of that 
progression.
  America, as Huang noted, has been the ``world's leader for decades,'' 
and we have used that power to build an international system that 
prioritizes fundamental human rights, open democratic governance, and 
liberal economies, all the things that the Communist Party of China 
believes represents weakness.
  So we must be absolutely clear as to what that means. If China 
becomes the world's dominant economic power, they will become the 
world's dominant military power; they will become the world's dominant 
financial power; and they will become the world's dominant cultural 
power. Given their critique--and I would say disdain--of our system, we 
can expect that a future such as that will look much different than the 
reality we live in now.
  If China supplants America in the West, the world that our children 
will inherit will be nothing like the one we grew up in and know. 
Instead of exploiting China's brand of authoritarianism country by 
country, as they do now, China will be positioned to reorient the 
entire globe, the application of the party's governance at home applied 
on a global scale to the way countries interact with one another.
  Let me close with the prophetic words of a Chinese dissident, Wei 
Jingsheng. In his testimony before Congress in the year 2000, against 
and in opposition to China's ascension to the WTO, he said:

       If the United States will not fight the world's largest 
     tyranny politically, then inevitably it will have to fight it 
     economically, and eventually, militarily. Therefore, the only 
     way to preserve peace and freedom begins by comprehending 
     democracy's greatest enemy, and countering it effectively.

  Blissful ignorance is no longer an option. We cannot overlook the 
obvious signs in favor of near-term economic gains. The world has 
reached a crossroads, one in which our inability to act will usher in a 
Chinese century, and that will have disastrous consequences.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.