[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 180 (Tuesday, November 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6501-S6503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
China
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am here today to talk about an
important vote that I took 19 years ago, a vote about free trade from
China. Now, you might say it is a little out of character, coming down
to the floor and talking about free trade and China, because normally I
am down here talking about how China is investing in their military at
unprecedented rates or how they are passing us up in terms of our
military, which we saw in the last administration.
The reality is that when it comes to China--which is entirely
controlled by a tyrannical Communist party--you cannot separate their
trade behavior from their military like you can in a democratic
government. China asserts its power both economically and militarily to
the detriment of the free world.
So 19 years ago, I came down to the Senate floor and took a stand
against the tyrannical regime in China. The vote was on whether or not
to allow the Chinese Government normalized trade relationships with the
United States that would pave the way for China to join the World Trade
Organization.
At that time, it was not popular--it was not popular for any Member
of the Senate who stood in the way of free trade agreements, much less
a Republican. But as I saw it then, the vote did much more than open up
trade. It granted favors to an authoritarian regime, despite their
openly predatory actions, without demanding concessions in return. My
colleagues claimed that opening China to free trade would cause China
to change their behavior. Clearly, that did not happen, but I will get
to that in a minute.
Filled with the false hope and empty promises, the trade agreement
sailed through the Senate, 83 to 15, and was signed by then-President
Clinton. Now, I am the only one of those 15 ``no'' votes still serving
in the United States Senate. Today, 19 years later, we have seen the
reality of what I thought would happen. At the time, I said--and I am
quoting from my speech 19 years ago--``We cannot allow the pursuit of
dollars to blind us to certain realities about the ruling communist
regime in China, including''--keep in mind, I am going to read all
eight of these that I had mentioned 19 years ago--``repeated threats
against the United States and Taiwan''--still going on today; ``massive
military modernization and buildup''--still going on; ``proliferation
of dangerous weapons to rogue states. Theft of U.S. nuclear secrets''--
still going on; ``demonstrated strategy to exploit commercial
relationships to acquire advanced military technology,'' that is still
going on today; ``attempts to corrupt the U.S. political system.
Violation of international agreements. Brutal repression of
dissidents.'' We know that is happening.
I continued: ``To ignore these actions in the belief that they can be
separated from what we do in our trading relationship is dangerously
misguided. China's trade surpluses are helping to finance the regime's
military buildup and aggressive foreign policy, while strengthening its
hold on economic and political power.''
I do not take any pride in being right, because the outcome has been
devastating for the American workers. China has stolen our technology
and personnel secrets and taken millions of U.S. jobs over the past two
decades. The facts today show it.
Let's go through quickly a few of what we predicted two decades ago
and see where we are today. First, the threats against the United
States and Taiwan, that is pretty clear. Just look at China's reaction
to the recent routine arms sale to Taiwan of tanks and Stinger
missiles. Keep in mind, China has known since 1979 that we sell arms to
Taiwan to aid in their self-defense. Everyone knows that.
They threatened that they were prepared to go to war to defend their
``unity and territorial integrity''--over a routine arms sale. In the
past year alone, Beijing has frequently threatened to use force against
any who opposed the Communist Party's designs on Taiwan, so despite
free trade, China has not stopped their threatening behavior toward the
United States and Taiwan.
Secondly, massive military modernization and buildup. We know that is
still going on. It is obvious to everyone that China has not changed
their behavior on this because of free trade. It has emboldened them.
China has become more aggressive as our free trade system has
subsidized their economy.
Some key facts: Over the last decade, the Chinese Government has
grown their military spending--look at the chart when I read this--has
grown their
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military spending by 83 percent. That is over the last decade.
Meanwhile, during the last 5 years of the Obama administration, we
decreased our military spending by 25 percent. We decreased our
military spending while China had increased theirs by 83 percent.
That is why, today, China is able to build ships at a faster rate
than we are and is on pace to surpass the number of vessels by 2030.
That is why China is investing heavily in cyber capabilities, aviation,
artillery, and hypersonic weapons--hypersonic weapons, the most
sophisticated new weapons they have, the weapons that move at five
times the speed of sound. Actually, before the Obama administration, we
were ahead of both China and Russia. At the end of that administration,
we are behind them, and we are catching up now. Each capability, if not
superior to ours, has the potential to do us significant harm.
In 2018, I visited our allies in Southeast Asia, where I saw the
Chinese military buildup in the South China Sea for myself.
You remember the islands they created. This is not taking over
territory; it is creating territory because those islands weren't
there. They have islands in the South China Sea. The Chinese, at last
count, I believe, were at seven islands. When you go in and look at it,
you become convinced they are preparing for a world war III.
China, prior to that time--this is only 3 years ago--had always done
their military in their home territory. It has always been in China
until they went in Djibouti--that is the northern part of Africa--and
they started their own activity there. Now they are all the way down to
Tanzania, in that part of the world.
The Department of Defense official expects the Chinese to open more
bases, too, in the Middle East, in China, in Southeast Asia, and in the
Pacific. They are all strategically important locations.
When I talked to our allies in the Pacific, they are concerned, and
many are beginning to hedge their bets because they see what China is
doing. We are talking about the South China Sea. We are talking about
our own allies who have historically been our allies. All of a sudden,
they are starting to have second thoughts. They are seeing what China
is doing, but they don't see us doing anything. After 8 years of
President Obama's weak leadership, it is getting more difficult for us
to prove to them that we are actually interested in standing up to
China's aggression.
Third, the theft of U.S. secrets--we know about that. There is an old
saying: What China doesn't have, it steals. That is even more apparent
today than it was in 2000. China is still actively pursuing and
stealing some of our most valuable military secrets. Just last year,
China hacked a Navy contractor and stole massive amounts of classified
data. That practice isn't new, but it is still having serious impacts
on our ability to get ahead of China's militarily.
We are seeing an alarming rise in how China steals industrial
secrets. They do it out in the open--for example, by forcing any
American business that wants to operate in China to form a partnership
with a Chinese business. They have been doing that for a long period of
time, and we have been going along with it. Sadly, these partnerships
are nothing more than a way for the Chinese Communist Party to access
and steal proprietary ideas and technology.
They also do it in nefarious ways--through exploiting educational
relationships on college campuses or stealing biomedical research
during the peer-review process.
This is no small thing. One in five American companies has been a
victim of Chinese intellectual property theft. That matters because
nearly 80 percent of our economy is based on intangibles--the very
things the Chinese are stealing.
It is safe to say that this is another area where the regime in
Beijing has been emboldened by free trade at the expense of American
innovation and economic growth.
China hasn't changed its position on exploiting commercial
relationships either. For the past two decades, China has taken
advantage of countries--weaponizing their debt and working to control
ports, infrastructure, and other territory, posing a very real threat
to U.S. interests. There is no place where this is more apparent than
in Africa, where I keep hearing: ``America will tell you what you need;
China will build it for you.'' Of course, they don't follow through and
talk about how they use all Chinese resources to do this. They use
Chinese labor. But it is of no value to Africa.
I have been to Africa probably more than any other Member, as I have
been very active in that area and have seen some of the threats that
face us on that continent, and I have seen the Chinese debt trap hobble
more promising governments.
But it goes far beyond the developing world and extends right into
our own backyard. Just look at the recent issue with the NBA, where the
general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted a message in support of
the Hong Kong protesters. The backlash was swift. China stopped airing
Rockets games or streaming them online, and their online retailers
pulled merchandise from online stores.
We have also seen U.S. hotels, aviation companies--even the Gap--
being forced to edit and self-censor to remove any reference that even
tangentially refers to Taiwan, Tibet, or Hong Kong not being a part of
the People's Republic China, all to appease the Communist Party. The
jewelry company Tiffany was pressured to remove an advertisement of a
woman covering her eye because images of a protester in Hong Kong with
a wounded eye got international attention.
We live in a democracy, and we don't dictate to private businesses
what they should or should not do. This is not the case in China. Yet,
if we continue down the road of self-censorship, the party's demands
will escalate, and it will be harder and harder to exercise freedom of
expression.
Fourth, lastly, brutal repression of dissidents--that was true 19
years ago, and it is true today. More than anything, I would like to
say this was an area where free trade had forced the Chinese Communist
Party to change its behavior. That is what we were all told would
happen, but it didn't happen. We know it is not true.
We all know about the atrocities that are going on in Xinjiang
Province, where the government is forcing a Muslim minority into
concentration camps, although they call them reeducation centers. We
all know what is going on in Hong Kong, where Beijing is repressing a
democratic demonstration with brutal tactics. I remember being in Hong
Kong at the time China reasserted what they call their leadership,
their ownership, to Hong Kong. It has been on and off all these years.
Right now, that effort--disagreement is still taking place.
Outside of the areas that, despite China's best efforts, have
attracted international attention, we still know about the atrocities
the Chinese Communist Party quietly inflicts on journalists and
Christian minorities in house churches and in communities across China
every day.
I have just painted a very bleak picture of U.S.-China relations and
how unrestricted trade didn't force the ruling party in Beijing to
change its behavior, but the good news is, help is finally on the way.
After the trade deal was enacted--I am talking about President Trump's
trade deal--I kept speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party,
calling attention to their human rights abuses, their military buildup,
their manipulative trade tactics, and their economic bullying. I pushed
every President until now to stand up to the economic powerhouse before
it was too late and they outmatched us. I tried that with Republicans
and Democrats alike, and it didn't work.
Now we have the first President since 2000 to take China seriously.
President Trump is clear-eyed about the regime in Beijing. He knows
that our trade relations have been unfair and imbalanced, and he
understands that we need real and permanent fixes in order to have any
long-term stability. This is something that has been going on for a
long period of time, and he is now changing this. He is getting
criticized, obviously.
I have to say this: It hurts our farmers in the State of Oklahoma.
However, I would say that they are very understanding that someone is
finally willing to take on China.
[[Page S6503]]
He has effectively applied tariffs, both to punish the Chinese
Government for its manipulative trade practices and also to support
critical industries in the United States.
The result: China's economy has slowed to its lowest point since
1992--and that is if you believe their official numbers. These are
their numbers. It has slowed down their economy. That has not happened
before.
The economic pressure brought them to the table, ready to make a real
deal--one that is fair and accountable. So far, we have gotten phase
1--a preliminary first deal--and the outcome is good for farmers in
Oklahoma and across the country. For the first time, China has agreed
to purchase $40 billion to $50 billion worth of American agricultural
goods. That would be the highest level since 2012. That is a good
start.
The fight against China's economic manipulation and influence is not
over. It can't just be limited to shrinking the trade deficit through
greater purchases of American goods. Future parts of any agreement need
to be sure to address the concerns that Presidents of both parties
neglected for decades, including theft of intellectual property and
industrial secrets, forced technology transfer, reciprocal access to
markets, and subsidies to China's state-owned enterprises.
All of this needs to be placed into the proper context of the
Communist Party's ambitions on the world stage: to rewrite the rules of
the international system, to make the world safe for authorities to
suppress democracy and abuse human rights, and to achieve global
military superiority by midcentury.
President Trump's stand against China on trade has provoked a lot of
discussion about our competition with China. We have to remember that
this is not a competition against China but a competition for
influence--the kind of influence that decides what kind of world our
kids and grandkids are going to live in. Next week, my wife and I will
be celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary. We have 20 kids and
grandkids. They are the ones who will be living in that world I just
described.
In this competition, we can't afford to be naive. The Chinese
Communist Party has a very different version of the world it would like
to create, so even as we keep talking about the tariffs, we have to
remember that our values are still America's most precious commodity.
It is our values--free people and truly free markets--that must guide
us in the competition ahead.
Every part of this speech I gave on the Senate floor 19 years ago has
become a reality, and President Trump knows this. Maybe we better
listen to him.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I am going to yield the floor.
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