[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 117 (Thursday, June 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3513-S3514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SA 2067. Mr. GARDNER submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by him to the bill S. 4049, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2021 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal
[[Page S3514]]
year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
At the end of subtitle E of title XII, add the following:
SEC. 1262. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON CROSS-BORDER VIOLENCE IN THE
GALWAN VALLEY AND THE GROWING TERRITORIAL
CLAIMS OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.
(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Since a truce in 1962 ended skirmishes between India
and the People's Republic of China, the countries have been
divided by a 2,100-mile-long Line of Actual Control.
(2) In the decades since the truce, military standoffs
between India and the People's Republic of China have flared;
however, the standoffs have rarely claimed the lives of
soldiers.
(3) In the months leading up to June, 15, 2020, along the
Line of Actual Control, the People's Republic of China--
(A) reportedly amassed 5,000 soldiers; and
(B) is believed to have crossed into [previously disputed
territory considered to be settled as part of India under the
1962 truce].
(4) On June 6, 2020, the People's Republic of China and
India reached an agreement to deescalate and disengage along
the Line of Actual Control.
(5) On June 15, 2020, at least 20 Indian soldiers and an
unconfirmed number of Chinese soldiers were killed in
skirmishes following a weeks-long standoff in Eastern Ladakh,
which is the de facto border between India and the People's
Republic of China.
(6) Following the deadly violence, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi of India stated, ``[w]henever there have been
differences of opinion, we have always tried to ensure that
those differences never turned into a dispute''.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) India and the People's Republic of China should work
toward deescalating the situation along the Line of Actual
Control; and
(2) the expansion and aggression of the People's Republic
of China in and around disputed territories, such as the Line
of Actual Control, the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands,
is of significant concern.
______