[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 104 (Thursday, June 4, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2701-S2702]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 CHINA

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on an entirely different matter, 
today marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 
Beijing.
  Because of China's censorship and disinformation, we still do not 
know how many brave Chinese people were killed by their own government 
on June 4, 1989. Conservative estimates say hundreds. Others say 
thousands--a burst of violence against peaceful democracy protesters, 
weeks of arrests, roundups, and executions, and then total silence.
  Never since have the Chinese people been able to freely and openly 
remember the atrocity. Never outside the oasis of Hong Kong has a 
single formal gathering on Chinese soil been permitted to commemorate 
the victims. Now even that oasis of freedom is at risk. We learned this 
week that, under new pressure from Beijing, Hong Kong is refusing to 
permit the annual candlelight vigil for the first time ever. This year, 
the Chinese Communist Party wants no candles lit even in Hong Kong--
just more darkness.
  It was 31 years ago that brave Chinese flooded that public square and 
others across their nation in the fervent hope that economic 
liberalization would also lead to a less authoritarian, more open 
society. What they got were bodies littering the ground.
  A shocked world sanctioned the PRC, but as time passed, the world 
relaxed somewhat and returned to a strategy of welcoming China into our 
global public square, bringing the PRC into international institutions 
in the hope that an included China would actually play by the rules. 
Time and again, those

[[Page S2702]]

hopes have been dashed. The last few months have been their own tidy 
case study in what kind of global actor the so-called People's Republic 
has chosen to be.
  Their response to the coronavirus pandemic that started in their own 
country was to silence their own doctors, imprison their own people, 
shut down important research, and lie to the rest of the world while 
hoarding supplies for themselves. The CCP's selfishness and failures 
fueled a worldwide catastrophe, and, ever since, they have tried to use 
that catastrophe as a smokescreen for other aggression.
  While they thought the rest of the world was distracted, China has 
cracked down on Hong Kong; conducted provocative military exercises 
near Taiwan; expanded its bullying into the South China Sea; pressured 
the Philippines; and literally initiated physical fighting with India 
in the Himalayas.
  Oh, and according to press reports, China has also found the time to 
mount online disinformation campaigns to hurt America and divide us 
among ourselves. Bad actors linked to Beijing have reportedly flooded 
Twitter to exploit the death of George Floyd and increase hostility 
among Americans. Even in official channels, CCP leaders mock America 
and imply our society is no better than their tyranny.
  Now, as an aside, some Democrats here in Washington seem to have 
swallowed the Chinese propaganda and set out to amplify it themselves, 
including from right here on the Senate floor.
  Yesterday, right here in the Senate Chamber, the Democratic leader 
explicitly compared America men and women in uniform to the Chinese 
murderers who committed the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Leader 
Schumer said that, when he saw images of American men and women in 
uniform standing near the recently defaced Lincoln Memorial and 
protecting the right to peaceful protest, ``You cannot help but think 
of Tiananmen Square.'' That is what he said.
  I am sure Beijing was thrilled with this shameful comparison. A 
propaganda victory for Communist China, gift-wrapped with the 
compliments of the Democratic Party, delivered just in time for this 
bloody anniversary.
  Imagine being so consumed by partisanship that you deliberately link 
the brave American men and women who stop violence, protect peaceful 
protests, defend citizens' constitutional liberties, and defend against 
violent riots to the Chinese butchers who gunned down crowds of 
peaceful dissenters who were begging for the same rights our military 
defends.
  In America, the police help peaceful marchers march. Over there, they 
gun them down. If anyone is having trouble distinguishing these things, 
the problem is not with our Nation--it is with them.
  Now, these recent examples of Chinese hostility are just symptoms of 
a fundamental problem that has come into focus. Decades ago, the United 
States and the rest of the world made a calculated bet that welcoming 
China into the fold would cause it to mend its ways.
  It was 20 years ago that President Clinton argued for admitting China 
into the WTO because ``economic innovation and political empowerment . 
. . will inevitably go hand in hand.'' Many smart people made that 
wager--in both parties--but we should never have used words like 
``inevitable.''
  President Clinton also said: ``China has been trying to crack down on 
the internet. . . . Good luck!'' Back in the year 2000, the transcript 
says, that was greeted with laughter. Well, no one is laughing now.

  China's leaders have pounced on every inch of economic space the 
world has afforded them--and then some. They have cheated on trade and 
have stolen foreign technology. They have executed on long-term plans 
to dominate key global industries. They have weaponized foreign aid to 
bring developing countries under their thrall. So the Chinese economy 
has leapt forward. The Chinese people enjoy greater prosperity, which 
they sorely need after decades of Communist mismanagement, but all of 
this money and innovation have not brought the people any more freedom. 
They have given CCP elites better high-tech tools with which to oppress 
their own people and more leverage with which to undermine the 
international system.
  Rather than importing liberty into China, this economic integration 
seems to have been rather more successful at exporting its 
authoritarian preferences to the rest of us. Right here in the United 
States, we have seen Hollywood make a gross habit of self-censoring 
films to avoid offending the Chinese Communist Party. We have seen the 
NBA prioritize its profits in China and throw an employee under the bus 
who spoke out for Hong Kong. The same elites, institutions, and 
businesses that feel totally free to critique our own society--and 
rightly so--increasingly walk on eggshells around President Xi and his 
cronies.
  And free speech is hardly the only front where China poses an 
international threat. A recent major report from an interagency task 
force found that China's deliberate economic aggression and targeting 
of our industrial base is a significant national security vulnerability 
for the United States, and many other nations are awakening to that 
same reality.
  Back in March, a CCP-controlled newspaper threatened to cut off 
pharmaceutical exports to the United States and ``plunge'' Americans 
``into the mighty sea of coronavirus'' if we did not play more nicely 
with Beijing. One month later, Chinese officials threatened a boycott 
of Australia because our Australian friends wanted to investigate the 
origins of the pandemic.
  Earlier this year, the Director of the FBI explained that China's 
criminal conspiracies against the United States and our companies make 
the CCP the ``greatest long-term threat'' to America's information 
security, intellectual property, and, by extension, our ``economic 
vitality.'' Once again, our allies and partners are being victimized by 
the very same tactics.
  One outside report found that the ``United States is losing between 
$400 billion and $600 billion per year in intellectual property theft 
as a matter of provable losses, and that figure does not account for 
second-order losses such as jobs and infrastructure.'' Let's put that 
in perspective. Congress has been working hard on the huge, historic 
Paycheck Protection Program. It has pushed out a half a trillion 
dollars for American workers. Well, by this estimate, China reaches 
into our country and steals the equivalent of that entire program every 
single year.
  China does not play by the rules, not in Hong Kong, not in the WHO, 
not in the WTO, not in international trade. Year after year, on issue 
over issue, it has chosen the path of aggression. So there will be 
consequences.
  Just this week, the U.K. is reportedly continuing to back away from 
plans to work with Huawei, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is 
impressively preparing to offer visas so that Hongkongers who want to 
know their freedoms and liberties are secure can take refuge in the 
United Kingdom instead. In Japan, Prime Minister Abe is taking major 
steps to strengthen Japan and check China's economic aggression. It is 
a good thing, too, because defending American security, American 
interests, American prosperity, and the international system cannot be 
a go-it-alone operation.
  There will be steps the United States will take on our own, but just 
as the entire free world stands united today to remember Tiananmen 
Square, so we will need to stand together to prevent the world's public 
square from heading toward a similar domination by China. We will need 
to keep our friends and partners close. China can try to repress its 
own people, but the United States of America will never fall silent. We 
will never go dark. We will keep the candles lit. We will protect our 
people and their bright future.

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