[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 169 (Tuesday, September 28, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6733-S6734]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
China
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, last week, President Biden went to the
United Nations and he announced his capitulation to the Chinese
Communist Party. The message was clear from what he did--and did not--
say.
In Joe Biden's 30-minute-long monologue on the state of the world, he
never once even said the name of the world's greatest threat to peace,
stability, and democracy: China. He never said it once. He refused to
even say the word ``China.'' Nor did he mention Tibet, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, or practically any of the victims of Chinese communist
aggression.
Now, President Biden did mention the ``targeting and oppression'' of
minorities in Xinjiang Province in China's northwest, yet he left
mysteriously vague who was responsible for all that targeting and
oppression. He blithely lumped Xinjiang with other abuses around the
world as if it was just one area of deep concern among many.
But the concentration camps in Xinjiang are not just another problem.
They are proof of the most systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing
campaign occurring in the world today, perpetrated by one of the most
advanced and powerful regimes on Earth, personally approved by the
Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping. Leaked documents make it clear
that Chairman Xi is responsible for this campaign of genocide and
ethnic cleansing.
Let me explain how brutal it is. The Chinese Communist Party are
sterilizing women in Xinjiang Province so they cannot procreate and
create more of their ethnic minority. If they can't do that, then they
are being brutally raped by Han Chinese men. That is what is happening
in Xinjiang Province, in addition to the internment of millions of
religious and ethnic minorities. It is not just your run-of-the-mill
targeting and oppression.
President Biden also referred to China implicitly--because he didn't
say the word--on another occasion in his speech when he said that the
United States is ``not seeking a new Cold War.''
Of course, we are not seeking a war of any kind, cold or hot. That is
the last thing that the United States would ever want. But, still, that
is an astonishing assertion, because whether we seek it or not, China
has been waging a Cold War on America and our workers and our factories
and our militaries and our way of life for decades. The only question
is whether we will win or lose. Under President Biden, we are losing.
A strong leader--a competent leader--would seek to win this Cold War
thrust upon the United States in the manner of those who went before us
facing enemies like Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Soviet Russia.
Instead, in the manner of appeasers the world over, President Biden
hopes to make peace with China by indulging its aggression and refusing
to even say his name.
Now, if you think this is restoring some norm of longstanding
providence, that you don't go to the United Nations General Assembly
and speak the name of your adversaries who are committing acts of naked
aggression and crimes against humanity, I would point out that Barack
Obama repeatedly--repeatedly--called out Russia by name in 2014 for its
invasion of Ukraine, and let's just say that President Obama was not
exactly a Cold warrior.
Now as a result, Chairman Xi is issuing imperious orders, and the
Biden administration is rushing to fill them like a short-order cook at
a diner on Saturday morning. Early in his administration, President
Biden lifted restrictions on Confucius Institutes, which are little
more than spy outposts on our universities. He gutted Trump-era rules
protecting our electrical grid from Chinese influence, and he shut down
a State Department investigation into the origins of the Wuhan
coronavirus.
Then, in July, China's Foreign Minister handed two lists of new
demands to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, stating that the
United States must stop so-called wrongdoings in order to get back in
Beijing's good graces.
Similarly, when the so-called climate czar, John Kerry, asked for
China's help, the Communist Party responded that it would consider
polluting a little less if the United States would shut up about
China's campaign of genocide and other human rights abuses.
Now any self-respecting administration that believes in American
strength, pride, and honor would have told Chairman Xi that he is in no
position to be making such demands. Instead, this administration is
going down the page, ticking off boxes like an obedient underling.
When a reporter asked John Kerry if the administration would press
China on its horrific human rights abuses, Kerry responded that, ``life
is always full of tough choices.''
Pathetic.
Around the same time, Biden's Commerce Secretary called for ``robust
commercial engagement'' and to ``mitigate any potential tensions''
between United States and China. She even promised to bring delegations
of U.S. business leaders to China to pad the Communist bottom line even
further.
She calls to mind what is attributed to Lenin: that capitalists will
sell Communists the rope they will use to hang us all.
Pathetic.
Over the weekend, in his most recent act of pathetic weakness, the
Biden Department of Justice surrendered Huawei's criminal CFO and
princess, Meng Wanzhou, without punishing her for evading U.S.
sanctions. She received a hero's welcome when her plane
[[Page S6734]]
touched down in China. And moments after her release, China released
two innocent Canadians it had taken hostage to secure Meng's release.
So Beijing's hostage-taking worked exactly as planned. Pathetic.
All of this self-inflicted humiliation was avoidable. The fact is
that China is in no position to deliver ultimatums to us. It is America
that ought to be making demands to China.
Here's a few things that would actually pave a path to true
reconciliation:
First and foremost, we ought to demand that China finally admit what
almost everyone knows is certainly true: that the coronavirus pandemic
started in a lab in Wuhan. Xi Jinping should then give a groveling
televised apology to the world, agree to end all gain-of-function
research using deadly pathogens, and pay damages to his victims around
the world who have died or suffered because of his regime's
incompetence and malevolence.
Second, we ought to demand that China rebid the 2022 Winter Olympics
until the Chinese regime ends its ethnic cleansing, slave labor, mass
murder, mass sterilization, and systematic rape of ethnic and religious
minorities. It is too morally tainted to host such a prestigious event.
Third, we ought to demand that China end its spree of intellectual
property theft. Today, China is responsible for up to 80 percent--80
percent--of intellectual property theft committed against the United
States, and is the subject of nearly half of all FBI
counterintelligence cases for economic espionage. This theft has to
stop.
Fourth, we should demand that China renounce its imperial ambitions.
It must agree to stop the Belt and Road Initiative, disclaim its
ambition of conquering Taiwan, abide by its treaty obligations
regarding Hong Kong, and end its sinister and provocative military
buildup.
If these conditions are met, China will be on the path of making
amends for its many crimes. It is up to America to hold China
accountable for these crimes. After all, we are the global leader, not
China. We don't require China's forgiveness or favor. Our conscience is
clean.
Our Nation is great. We are the Nation that threw off the shackles of
an empire, settled a continent, saved the world, and then saved it
again and again. The United States has been the greatest enemy of
tyranny the world over. We do not cower before tyrants. We look them in
the eye and call them by their true name and tell them what they really
are: evil.
President Biden ought to remember that the next time he speaks to the
world on behalf of the American people.
I yield the floor.