[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 218 (Friday, December 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9282-S9283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Purdue University

  Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, according to ProPublica reporting, a Purdue 
student from China, Zhihao Kong, who goes by the nickname ``Moody,'' 
wrote a letter condemning the Chinese Communist Party for killing 
dissidents in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
  We all know the famous image of the man who stood courageously, not 
in front of one tank--most of the images that ran in U.S. newspapers 
were of one guy standing in front of a tank. And if you just look at 
that image, you can assume that the tank commander is some nutjob who 
decided he was going to torment this kid. But if you actually look at 
the image, as you can through U.S. photo archives, and you pan back 
out, that first tank is one tank in a long, long, long, long line of 
tanks coming that this man stands courageously in front of. It is not 
one nutjob tank commander looking at this guy in Tiananmen Square; it 
is an autocratic government that is scared to death of the courage of 
free people. And that man stood there courageously as the Chinese 
Communist Party was murdering students in Tiananmen Square.
  The Purdue graduate student, Moody, decided to write an open letter 
about that reminding students in America and around the world of what 
happened in Tiananmen Square.
  Well, guess what happened next. After Moody published his essay, 
China's secret police decided to go visit his family and intimidate 
them so that they might put pressure on him, asking him, commanding 
him, coercing him, twisting the arms of his parents and loved ones, to 
stop talking about the truth, about what happened in Tiananmen Square 
in June of 1989.
  When Mr. Kong refused to back down, other Chinese students at 
Purdue--not Chinese students in Beijing, Chinese graduate students at 
Purdue--decided that it was their obligation to harass Mr. Kong. They 
pursued him around campus, and they threatened to report him to the 
Chinese Embassy. Think about that for a second.
  What do we think about Embassies as for? Two hundred countries around 
the face of the Earth, and when you are traveling and you have a lost 
passport or you suffer some, you know, petty crime or you have a family 
member who has a medical emergency back home, you call up your Embassy 
for help because you think these are people who love you. You are in a 
foreign place and you don't maybe speak the language and the Embassy is 
there to help you navigate a world where you might not know the 
language, the laws, or the customs.
  What happened in the United States--a freedom-loving place--is that 
these Chinese students, Chinese nationals here in school at Purdue, 
decided that they thought it might be their job to contact the Chinese 
Embassy to tattle on Mr. Kong because the man had the courage to tell 
the truth. He had spoken online. He had written online. He had been 
involved in dissident events.
  So what happened then, besides his parents being harassed by the 
Chinese secret police and besides graduate students following him 
around campus to intimidate him and threaten to report him to the 
Embassy, WeChat decided that they needed to block and suspend his 
account to cut off his communications with the outside world.
  A few days before he was scheduled to speak at a Zoom commemoration 
of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the secret police went to visit his 
parents again, reminding them that they needed to make sure he put an 
end to his activism--read ``truth-telling.''
  It is convenient for Americans to look the other way and stay silent 
in the face of this. We have seen many American professional sports 
leagues; we have seen Hollywood companies lusting after Chinese middle-
class markets; we have seen the Marriott hotel chain agreeing to 
intimidate their own employees so that their employees didn't 
acknowledge what has happened in Hong Kong and the threats currently 
against Taiwan; we have seen this censorship using economic statecraft 
from Beijing to intimidate Americans and American companies and 
American institutions to do their bidding to suppress people who might 
tell the truth.
  It is convenient to stay silent. Many of our institutions have 
pathetically agreed with Beijing that they would self-censor at 
Beijing's and Chairman Xi's bidding.
  Well, guess who didn't do that. Purdue University decided they were 
not going to do that.
  So there is a lot of bad stuff happening in the world because of the 
expansionistic desires of the CCP, and we have a lot of Americans and 
American institutions who are willing to be complicit in the CCP's 
desired expansionism, but Purdue didn't. So we should pause today, just 
for a minute, and celebrate that good news. We should celebrate that 
courage.
  Mitch Daniels, former Governor of Indiana, current President of 
Purdue, decided that this was not OK, and it was important to tell the 
truth about this fact, what had happened, and that this wasn't OK.
  I would like to read into the Congressional Record today President 
Daniels' letter to the Purdue campus 36 hours ago because we need a 
hell of a lot more truth-telling like this in American life. Here is 
Mitch Daniels and the Purdue leadership on behalf of not just Purdue 
but American values:

       Dear Purdue students, staff and faculty,
       Purdue [has] learned from a national news account last week 
     that one of our students, after speaking out on behalf of 
     freedom and others martyred for advocating for [freedom], was 
     harassed and threatened by other students from his own home 
     country [in this country]. Worse still, [this student's] 
     family back home, in this case [the home being] China, was 
     visited and threatened by agents of that nation's secret 
     police.
       We regret that we were unaware at the time of these events 
     and [we] had to learn of them from national sources. That 
     reflects the atmosphere of intimidation that we have 
     discovered [surrounding] this specific sort of speech.
       Any such intimidation is unacceptable and [it is] unwelcome 
     on our campus. Purdue has punished less personal, direct and 
     threatening conduct. Anyone taking exception to the speech in 
     question had their own right to express their disagreement, 
     but not to engage in the actions of harassment which occurred 
     here. If those students who issued the threats can be 
     identified, they will be subject to appropriate disciplinary 
     action. Likewise, any student found to have reported another 
     student to any foreign entity for exercising their freedom of 
     speech or belief will be subject to significant [action].
       International students are nothing new at Purdue 
     University, which welcomed its first Asian admittees over a 
     century ago. We are proud that several hundred international 
     students, nearly 200 of them [from China], enrolled [at 
     Purdue] again this fall.
       But joining the Purdue community requires acceptance of 
     [our] rules and values, and no value is more central to our 
     institution or to higher education generally than the freedom 
     of inquiry and expression. Those seeking to deny those 
     rights to others, let alone to collude with foreign 
     governments in repressing them, will need to pursue their 
     education elsewhere.
       Sincerely,
       Mitch

  Chairman Xi is a coward, and he sends his goons to intimidate people 
for telling the truth. That is who Chairman Xi is. He doesn't believe 
in the dignity of people. He doesn't believe that they are image-
bearers of God. He doesn't believe they have the rights of free speech, 
religion, press, assembly, and protest. He believes that you must 
intimidate college students for telling the truth. If they are saying 
something to a small group of people 6,000 miles away, Chairman Xi is 
intimidated, and he is scared.
  That student told the truth. We should celebrate that student. Mitch 
Daniels and Purdue University stood up to that kind of intimidation. We 
should celebrate that because that is what American courage looks like, 
and we need a whole hell of a lot more of it.

[[Page S9283]]

We need a lot more people to look like the Women's Tennis Association, 
not to look like the NBA.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.