[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.