[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 194 (Thursday, November 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7779-S7780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 China

  Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, 50 years ago this coming February, 
President Nixon made history as the first American President to visit 
the People's Republic of China. He thought that by inviting China to 
join what he called ``the family of nations,'' he could incentivize the 
Chinese Communist Party to liberalize at home and refrain from 
exporting its brand of communism abroad.
  That may sound naive because, as we look back on those 50 years, the 
changes President Nixon hoped for never came. But he held out hope for 
change because he had faith in the Chinese people. He was an incredible 
admirer of their culture and their remarkable history.
  And even though these past few decades have proven Nixon wrong about 
the CCP, he was right to have faith in the people of China. That is why 
we have to be specific when we talk about what the future holds for our 
two countries.
  The Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party are not the same 
thing. In fact, the opposite is true. We have seen countless examples 
of the Chinese people's bravery, from pro-democracy demonstrations in 
Hong Kong to 1989's protests in Tiananmen Square.
  They were born deserving the same universal rights that we enjoy in 
the United States: freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and so many 
more.
  They deserve to live in a country that recognizes those rights and 
understands that true power comes from the consent of the governed, not 
from the iron fist of the party oligarchy.
  Unfortunately, that iron fist is how the CCP has kept its grip on 
power for so many decades, and they have shown no signs of slowing down 
under President Xi Jinping.
  As we approach the 50th anniversary of President Nixon's 
groundbreaking trip, we need to reflect on what those 50 years have 
brought us.
  China has not become a democracy. Instead, the Communist Party is 
weaponizing new technologies to consolidate their rule. Through what 
President Biden's chief adviser for Asia, Kurt Campbell, has called 
digital authoritarianism, the CCP can now track the Chinese people's 
every movement with facial recognition. They have developed a social 
credit system that ranks the likability and trustworthiness of hundreds 
of millions of Chinese citizens. Using these and other technologies, 
the CCP is committing genocide against their own people.
  Since April 2017, the CCP has detained over 1 million leaders and 
other Muslims in specially built internment camps in Xinjiang province. 
These are Chinese citizens, and their own government is subjecting them 
to forced sterilization, sexual abuse, forced labor, physical and 
psychological torment, and political indoctrination.
  This is government-sponsored ethnic cleansing, and now China is 
starting to carry out this kind of state-sponsored racism and genocide 
outside Xingjiang.
  In the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the CCP is curtailing the 
use of the Mongolian language by shutting down Mongolian-language 
social media websites and prohibiting schools from teaching certain 
classes in Mongolian. The next steps could be similar to what we have 
seen in Xinjiang.
  Sadly, ethnic minorities are not the only people to find themselves 
on the wrong side of the CCP's many abuses of power. Under President 
Xi, China has broken its promises to the free people of Hong Kong. 
Under the pretense of protecting national security, new laws have led 
to the arrest of thousands of people for doing nothing more than 
exercising their God-given rights.
  Taken together, all these things paint a picture of a Chinese 
Government that is doubling down on its communist roots and doing 
whatever it takes to control its people.
  None of this should surprise us. This is the same government that 
forcibly sterilized its citizens as part of its one-child policy, and 
gunned down thousands of students who were peacefully protesting in 
Tiananmen Square.
  And now they are turning their attention abroad. They are growing 
more aggressive towards other countries by the day, in ways that comply 
with international norms and in ways that defy those norms.
  In 2013, President Xi formally launched his signature foreign policy 
effort: the Belt and Road Initiative.
  Through this program, China offers lucrative infrastructure 
investments and economic development deals to smaller and poorer 
nations. The ultimate goal is to create a global coalition that could 
challenge the longstanding network of alliances and partnerships that 
have been built by the United States. Since Belt and Road began, 139 
countries have joined, and on every continent China is using it to 
expand their power.
  But here is the catch: If developing countries that welcomed these 
investments want construction to continue on their new highway system 
or skyscraper, or if they want access to funding for future projects, 
they cannot speak out against China's actions. This is why leaders of 
Muslim-majority countries who have spoken out against these crimes in 
the past have suddenly fallen silent.
  Just look at Turkish President Erdogan, who said China's crimes 
against the Uighurs are ``a genocide, and there is no point in 
interpreting this otherwise.''
  He said that in 2009. Today, he won't even talk about it, and he has 
ordered the police to break up protests about these atrocities in 
Turkey.
  Pakistan's Prime Minister, usually a champion for Muslims around the 
world, has also fallen under Belt and Road's spell. In June, he refused 
to answer questions about Xinjiang in an interview with Axios's 
Jonathan Swan.
  China's other strategies for reshaping the rules-based international 
order are far less subtle. They are using the infrastructure they build 
to spy on foreign leaders or even take over disputed regions in 
neighboring countries.
  In Ethiopia, the CCP offered to build the new headquarters of the 
African Union. African Union workers soon discovered that the 
building's Huawei servers had been shipping their data to Shanghai 
every day for years and that the building was riddled with Chinese 
surveillance devices.
  This is a perfect example of China's strategy of military-civilian 
fusion, or the way the CCP forces so-called ``private'' corporations 
like Huawei to do their bidding.
  Another example hit much closer to home. In 2016, the Chinese company 
with CCP ties tried to buy a hotel in San Diego. Well, the hotel has a 
view of Naval Base San Diego, the home port of the U.S. Navy's Pacific 
Fleet. The deal was ultimately blocked, but the fact that such a 
transparent attempt to keep an eye on our forces almost went through is 
cause for serious concern.
  China is also building artificial islands in the disputed South China 
Sea. Many in this body will recall when, in 2015, President Xi stood 
next to President Obama and he lied, saying that China does not intend 
to militarize those islands. He broke his pledge within a year.
  Along with this geographic expansion, President Xi is investing in 
China's military. According to the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies, China now spends nearly three times as much on 
the People's Liberation Army as they did just 10 years ago. They now 
have the world's largest navy in terms of total number of ships, a 
title the U.S. held until 2 years ago.
  China's navy currently numbers about 355 ships and submarines. They 
have 2 aircraft carriers and at least 32 destroyers, 48 frigates, and 
65 attack submarines. This is not a navy designed to protect a 
coastline; this is a navy designed to project force on a global scale.
  Former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger called what 
China is doing the ``largest peacetime military buildup in the modern 
era, and maybe one of the largest in history.'' He said that in 
response to my questions at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing 
earlier in June.
  And what is this new, more powerful military's highest priority?
  The peaceful island of democracy, Taiwan. President Xi has been very 
clear about his desire to bring Taiwan

[[Page S7780]]

under the CCP's control. The only thing stopping him is 100 miles of 
ocean: the Taiwan Strait.
  But the CCP's ambitions won't end with Taiwan. India, Japan, South 
Korea, and many countries in the South China Sea are feeling the 
effects of China's aggression in ways no one expected even a decade 
ago. And to back up their global agenda, the CCP is hard at work 
expanding China's nuclear arsenal.
  As Admiral Richard, the commander of STRATCOM, wrote earlier this 
year:

       China's nuclear weapon stockpile is expected to double--if 
     not triple or quadruple--over the next decade.

  A new report out yesterday from the Pentagon paints a worse picture. 
It predicts that China could have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 
2030, roughly five times what they have now. As part of this expansion, 
China is building at least three new missile fields, each capable of 
holding over 100 ICBMs. And maybe most concerning, China recently 
tested an extremely sophisticated new weapons system that combines 
space capabilities with advanced hypersonics. This nuclear capable 
prototype could give China a unique edge over our own arsenal.
  Madam President, this needs to be a wake-up call for us. We must 
change our approach to China. We can't keep pretending that these 
problems don't exist.
  Thankfully, concern about China's rise is an area of bipartisan 
consensus here in Congress. But recognizing that there is a problem is 
not enough. We have to get our act together and we have to do something 
about it. There are many ways for us to push back against the CCP, but, 
by far, the most fundamental thing we can do to safeguard against 
China's rise is to invest in our military.
  The old adage ``peace through strength'' still applies today, but the 
Biden administration has proposed raising defense spending by only 1.6 
percent, and taking this year's inflation into account, that means we 
have a proposed cut. That defies basic logic. The world is not getting 
safer. Threats like China are not going away.
  When we met earlier this year to review the President's budget 
request and write our annual defense authorization bill, the Senate 
Armed Services Committee debated defense cuts.
  What was the result?
  A huge bipartisan majority--25 of the 26 members--voted to authorize 
an additional $25 billion in defense spending, which primarily 
supported the unfunded priorities of our commanders.
  This provides our military with the real budget growth necessary to 
keep pace with an adversary like China. It makes critical investments 
in readiness and in modernization, as well as in research and 
development programs that help America keep our technological edge.
  It also includes a number of specific investments that would 
strengthen our force posture in the Indo-Pacific theater.
  Most importantly, the bill authorizes an additional $230 million to 
begin improving missile defense capabilities on Guam. Guam is a key 
element of our regional presence, but it has been increasingly 
threatened by China's growing arsenal. INDOPACOM commanders have warned 
of this threat since 2019, and the situation has only grown direr since 
then.
  The resources authorized by this bill would begin to address this 
threat, and by improving our defensive capabilities in the region, we 
can keep conflict from beginning in the first place.
  Like many of my colleagues, I am at a loss to explain why the 
Democratic leader hasn't brought the NDAA to the floor. Even if we 
voted on it today, this would still be one of the latest NDAA votes in 
history.
  So as we celebrate Veterans Day next week and consider the sacrifice 
and service of America's bravest, we should all remember our 
responsibility as Members of Congress, to give our military men and 
women the resources they need to successfully complete the missions 
that they are given. We cannot afford to delay any longer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.