[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 214 (Thursday, December 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7568-S7570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 China

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I have to tell you, when I am back 
home, I am struck by one of the things I am hearing in Tennessee, and 
it is this odd mix of optimism and also of concern.
  And Tennesseans are very concerned that we are not going to pass 
another round of COVID relief in time to help save their businesses and 
in time to help people who lost their job through no fault of their 
own. And, on the other hand, they are excited about the fact that we 
finally have vaccines that are going through the process, that are 
getting to communities, and there are vaccinations taking place. And I 
have thought, you know, this is really an interesting mix of emotions, 
especially with Christmas right around the corner.
  And Sunday, after I had visited with some folks, I thought, you know, 
this, I think, is where people are going to be for a while. Some are 
very optimistic. Some are incredibly worried. But there is one thing 
that is a constant--and I have really watched this grow over the last 
several months. It is the confusion and the anger that is directed at 
the Chinese Communist Party. And, quite frankly, this is something that 
I fully believe has reached a boiling point with Tennesseans and with 
the American public.
  Tennesseans were familiar with the tense relationship between China 
and the United States well before they found themselves in the middle 
of this pandemic. Here is a good example. At this point, most everyone 
is familiar with China's notorious disregard for intellectual property 
rights, but when I first started working on this issue in the House 
with songwriters back in Tennessee--and it was in the early 2000s--we 
felt like we were fighting that battle all alone. We had to fight with 
Chinese officials and eventually were able to establish some initial 
royalty rates payable to U.S. copyright owners whose sound recordings 
are broadcast in China. That was a solid win, but the fact that we had 
to fight so hard for something so simple really was frustrating, and 
people in Tennessee have not forgotten that frustration.
  Before this year, they were painfully familiar with the Chinese 
Government's abysmal human rights record. That initial footage of 
massive protests in Hong Kong had resurrected memories of Tiananmen 
Square and reminded everyone that the Chinese Government still uses 
political violence, speech suppression, and torture to silence dissent.
  The people I talked to had read about diplomatic tensions and trade 
deals, and they could sense that in spite of all those optimistic 
perspectives on the nightly news, our biggest rival in Asia had become 
our adversary.
  So they weren't at all shocked when news reports started rolling in 
that the Chinese Communist Party officials in Hebei Province and 
Beijing had done nothing--not one thing--to stop the spread of the 
novel coronavirus.
  Since then, Tennesseans and, indeed, most Americans have received a 
valuable education, courtesy of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist 
Party. We learned that the Chinese Government's failure to sound the 
alarm wasn't an anomaly. It was intentional. Neither was there strong-
arming of the World Health Organization or the incarceration and 
torture of doctors and journalists who defied gag orders to blast out 
warnings to anyone who would listen. They tried to tell us this was 
reaching a pandemic, and they were punished.
  And as they look around at the economic ruin in their communities, as 
small businesses are shuttered and independent music venues are boarded 
up for the long haul, all those puzzle pieces are falling into place, 
and, quite frankly, they are justifiably upset. I would venture to say 
many of them are absolutely furious with what the Chinese Government 
has done.
  By now, we understand this is what the Chinese Communist Party does 
as a government, as an all-powerful political organization, and as a 
group of rabid ideologues from whom acts of genocide flow as easily as 
the propaganda posted to their many official Twitter accounts. This is 
all a part of their quest for global dominance, and their success 
depends on gaining complete control over speech, thought, resources, 
and their relationships with other nations.
  This is the Chinese Communist Party's master plan.
  When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, there were a lot of optimistic 
pundits out there who thought that he would embrace transparency and 
liberal economic policies, but oh my goodness, have they ever been 
wrong. In fact, he styled himself in the image of Mao, creating a 
personality cult that equates attacks on Xi with challenges to the 
legitimacy of party rule. It is all about him.
  Anyone who has opened a history book knows this doesn't bode well for 
diplomatic efforts to rebalance power. This isn't my political opinion; 
this is the reality that diplomats, members of the defense community, 
and policy experts accept as a matter of fact. The Senate Armed 
Services Committee accepted this reality when we drafted the bipartisan 
2021 NDAA. This year's bill contains the most substantial action we 
have ever taken to counter Chinese aggression and great power 
competition. It establishes the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which 
will help the military enhance defense capabilities in the region and 
reaffirms our commitments to Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Japan, and other 
allies and partners geographically near China.
  We drafted numerous provisions to keep U.S. intellectual property, 
technology, and data out of Beijing's grasp by limiting funding for 
universities that host Confucius Institutes and restricting defense 
industrial base employees from working for Chinese-owned companies. Why 
did we do this? Because we have learned that not only is this part of 
China's propaganda, this is where they are embedding their spies.
  In 2021, we will take major steps to secure our supply chain and 
invest in American innovation to maintain our technological advantage. 
We paid particular attention to accelerating the development of 5G 
networks that are needed by our troops in the field and, to complement 
that expansion, enhancing our Nation's cyber security strategy.
  The Chinese Communist Party isn't just playing politics on Twitter; 
their tactics pose a very real threat to our Nation's security and that 
of our allies and our partners.
  I have spoken at length about how badly we need to unravel our 
relationship with China. I have examined problems related to our 
medical supply chains, security issues in the building blocks of 
popular technology, and sourcing for rare earth elements. Reclaiming 
these critical resources will take time and investment, but it can be 
done, and I will continue to fight for this as we move into the next 
Congress. But I want to consider just for a moment a few examples of 
this entanglement that hit particularly close to home and really give a 
sense of how much private companies and organizations compromise just 
to maintain access to the Chinese marketplace.
  Earlier this year, the PR professionals at the NBA worked some 
serious overtime after an investigative report published by ESPN showed 
that the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated coaches at the league's 
training facilities in Xinjiang were abusing players. That is correct--
abusing players. Initial reports of this abuse were ignored by NBA 
officials.
  Keep in mind that these training facilities existed in the same 
region as those concentration camps used to imprison the Uighur Muslims 
and others guilty of thought crimes against the

[[Page S7569]]

Chinese Communist Party. So what was the NBA doing there in the first 
place? How could something like this actually happen? Here is the 
reason: Communist China plays host to an estimated $4 billion NBA 
market. They say that China is ``basketball obsessed,'' and NBA execs 
have used every avenue they can to take advantage of that $4 billion 
market. They jealously protect those relationships even if it means 
using skyrocketing sales numbers to explain away the blind eye they 
have turned to the CCP's crimes against humanity.
  They are not alone. This fall, Walt Disney released their live-action 
version of ``Mulan'' and caught some well-deserved hell after sharp-
eyed rights activists combed through the credits and discovered that 
filmmakers chose to shoot scenes for the movie--where? Xinjiang, 
knowing that they would have to cooperate--with whom? The Chinese 
Communist Party's propaganda flacks to get the kind of footage they 
wanted to play to their desired Chinese audience.
  Netflix also ran afoul of human rights activists when they inked an 
adaptation deal with an author who parrots Chinese Communist Party 
propaganda and made racist comments about the persecuted Uighur Muslims 
in Xinjiang.
  None--none of these scenarios involved high-stakes diplomatic 
negotiations. No one involved was on a mission to balance the 
geopolitical scales at all cost. They did, however, stand to net a tidy 
profit by maintaining friendly relations with the Chinese Communist 
Party. But did they ever stand up and defend the Uighur Muslim 
minority? No, they did not.
  When faced with such manipulation on a global scale, Tennesseans 
expect accountability. They want news reports and hearings and absolute 
condemnation. But that is not what they get. Instead, they get 
regurgitated propaganda transmitted directly from the CCP, peppered 
with media buzz words and distilled into sound bites.
  Our attempts to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for 
covering up the origins of the pandemic were met with baseless 
accusations of xenophobia and of racism. I have met similar resistance 
when speaking truth to power about the CCP's aggression in Tibet, 
Mongolia, the concentration camps in Xinjiang, and the arbitrary 
detention of the Hong Kong freedom fighters. Prominent members of the 
press, pundits, and even Members of Congress who have access to more 
than enough information to know better--all provide cover for the 
Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American lives and 
livelihoods. It is all there in black and white. They are failing an 
open-book test because they are refusing--refusing to admit that their 
coziness with China does not serve the American people or our allies 
well.
  This situation will not evaporate with the start of the new Congress. 
Vaccines and defense funding and new technology will solve some 
immediate problems, but they are not a strategy. Those are action 
items.
  We must all commit right now to an aggressive strategy that leads a 
whole-of-government approach to protecting American intellectual 
property, securing our critical supply chains, and bringing our 
manufacturing back home.
  We must assert our role as a leader on the global stage and stand 
between the Chinese Government and leadership roles in international 
organizations. How is it that China could have a seat on the Human 
Rights Council of the United Nations? Look at what they are doing to 
the Tibetans, to the Taiwanese, to the Hong Kong freedom fighters, and 
to the Uighur Muslims.
  We should continue to provide support for Hong Kong and for Taiwan, 
build a strong network of allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific, 
and we should increase our defense investment in the Indo-Pacific 
Command.
  I laid out more items in a white paper I released earlier this year. 
It is online at Blackburn.Senate.gov. It is time to pay attention to 
everything the CCP is doing.
  In today's New York Post, I have an op-ed that lays out how they are 
using Twitter to troll and intimidate the rest of the world into 
staying silent. Do you know what? They are, unfortunately, having some 
success with that. World leaders, powerful corporations, and 
celebrities are all scared into silence by online propaganda campaigns.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my op-ed be 
printed in the Record with these remarks
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Post, Dec. 16, 2020]

     How China Uses Internet Trolls to Help Cover Up Its Atrocities

                         (By Marsha Blackburn)

       The greatest benefit to Big Tech's otherwise dubious 
     influence over our lives is that it's impossible for the 
     world's human-rights violators to hide their crimes. 
     Information that years ago would have been filtered by 
     official, sanitized sources now flows from anyone with the 
     guts to tweet about it.
       But social media's power to disseminate ideas means the 
     tyrants themselves are better equipped than ever to 
     obfuscate, lie and troll their way out of crises--
     capitalizing on the moral confusion and greed of the modern 
     West.
       Last December, freedom fighters a world away were busy 
     tweeting about the Chinese Communist Party's aggression in 
     Hong Kong. Much to the chagrin of party bosses in Beijing, 
     guerrilla coverage of mass protests spread rapidly, prompting 
     digital activists worldwide to condemn the CCP's latest 
     horror show.
       Civil-society groups seized the moment to spotlight the 
     CCP's colonialism in Tibet and Inner Mongolia, the regime's 
     cruelty--toward Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and the horrifying 
     plight of Falun Gong practitioners. Shock turned into 
     revulsion that manifested in demands for change. It was a 
     shining moment of international unity that vowed an end to 
     totalitarianism in Asia.
       Today, hundreds of dissenters, including Hong Kong 
     activists Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai, sit in jail for the sin 
     of criticizing their government. Tibetan language, culture 
     and religion are so repressed that more than 150 Tibetans 
     have self-immolated since 2009. Communist officials terrorize 
     Uighurs under the guise of cultural re-education, locking 
     dissenters in concentration camps and perpetrating mass 
     violence on a scale that has prompted many lawmakers like me 
     to support legislation labeling the violence in Xinjiang a 
     genocide.
       Yet fashionable concern soon gave way to a parade of 
     appalling statements from world leaders, multinational 
     corporations and celebrities desperate to preserve their 
     interests in China's economy. Beijing breathed a sigh of 
     relief and ramped up its own disinformation campaign--about 
     the origins of COVID-19 and the Hong Kong crisis--by taking a 
     page from the freedom fighters' playbook.
       Between March and September, the CCP violated its own ban 
     against Twitter and amassed nearly 1.5 million followers 
     stretched across dozens of official accounts. Using a mix of 
     typical viral content, weird propaganda and COVID-19 
     misinformation to attract attention, diplomats and other 
     political leaders used their mainstream clout to lob insults 
     at Western leaders and dismiss the global outcry over 
     Beijing's atrocities as the product of ``racism.''
       Beijing's propaganda doesn't generally pass even a minimal 
     smell test, of course. Its play at ``wolf-warrior 
     diplomacy,'' named after a patriotic film franchise, is a 
     trollish p.r. campaign that relies on sheer numbers and 
     whataboutism to intimidate critics.
       The Chinese diplomats have even learned to tap into the 
     rhetoric of wokeness. And sadly, it's working. China's ``wolf 
     warriors'' can sink their teeth into the impressionable, the 
     contrarian and, terrifyingly, the complicit among Western 
     influencers and audiences.
       The CCP is counting on our fear of retaliation, not to 
     mention the undying tendency of our own elites to first blame 
     America and the West, to mislead us.
       We have no excuse for ignoring reality, however. If you 
     need proof, it's sitting in your hand. Google phrases like 
     ``Uighur forced sterilization'' and ``Mongol ethnic 
     assimilation,'' then brace yourself.
       Millions of victims of Xi Jinping's ``China Dream''--a 
     nightmarish blend of ideological conformity and behavior 
     controls--regularly risk their lives speaking truth to power. 
     Meanwhile, in the safe confines of the West, powerhouse 
     personalities and companies agonize over the financial risks 
     of criticizing Beijing.
       In 50 or 100 years, when historians ask how such things 
     could have happened, I hope someone invokes the cowardice 
     inherent in that cost-benefit analysis as the answer to their 
     question.

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If they can do that with a hashtag--all of that 
suppression, all of that intimidation--then think about what they will 
do in the real world.
  If we stand down, the Chinese Government is going to keep pushing to 
stand up. They will fill a power vacuum because their determination is 
to be the leader, the global dominator. They want the 21st century to 
be the China century. It is their strategy. It is what they do. So now 
is the time to act. I would encourage my colleagues to remember this as 
we begin a new Congress.

[[Page S7570]]

  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.