[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 24 (Monday, February 6, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H687]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        WALL STREET-BEIJING AXIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, the Chinese Communist Party obviously 
believes that they can invade America's airspace deliberately, 
notoriously, and without serious consequences. They even believe--and 
this shows their hubris and their gall--that they can announce that 
they reserve the right to retaliate against America for shooting down 
their spy balloon.
  Do you know what, Madam Speaker?
  After 26 years in this House, I would say that the Chinese Communist 
Party is probably right. They did it. They hit us, and they can 
probably get away with it because the two parties will compete about 
who can scream the greatest invective toward Beijing, and then the two 
parties will attack each other saying: Well, what did President Trump 
do? And what did President Biden do?
  In the end, we will have nothing but bruised, partisan vocal cords.
  I have seen for 26 years the Beijing-Wall Street axis control our 
policy toward China.
  Now this is just a balloon, but it is on top of two enormous problems 
with China. One is the lopsided trade relationship where they prohibit 
us from exporting to them and impose higher tariffs on us than we 
impose on them.
  The second was the obfuscation and lack of cooperation of China when 
COVID arose on their territory.
  But we probably will not have meaningful retaliation for those great 
harms and the most recent one because Wall Street has been in control 
of this House since the day in the year 2000 when we granted most-
favored-nation status to Beijing and let them into the World Trade 
Organization. Before that, China was an annoyance and a slumbering 
giant. Since then, the Chinese Communist Party has done untold damage 
to our people, to their people, and, of course, to our economy and 
national security.
  There are two things Wall Street will not let us do and two things 
China would actually try to avoid, and that is dealing with Taiwan and 
trade.
  So I have three proposals. I will look forward to working with anyone 
on either side of the aisle to turn this into good legislation.
  First, Congress should provide that we automatically allow Taiwan to 
buy certain defense items and that we act expeditiously at the 
congressional level without waiting for the administration to allow the 
Seahawk helicopters and other necessary defense items to go to Taiwan.
  Second--and this arises from my years as chairman of the Investor 
Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets Subcommittee--we need 
to require all major corporations to disclose, as a risk factor to 
their investors, how they would be affected by an end of the U.S.-China 
economic relationship or major impediment to it.
  Investors deserve the information, and we need corporations to 
compete for capital by showing that they have made themselves more 
resilient. If our companies are more resilient, then our economy is 
more resilient.
  Third, we need to provide that we immediately end most-favored-nation 
status to China if they blockade or invade Taiwan. This has to be 
immediate, certain, and known in Beijing before they launch their 
invasion, and it is not immediate and it is certain unless we provide 
no executive branch waiver.
  Finally, a fourth proposal, and that is we need to provide an 
immediate 20 percent tariff on all Chinese goods if they retaliate 
against us for implementing any of those first three proposals. If they 
retaliate against that retaliation, then we have to be ready to 
go beyond that.

  We can act. We can act with regard to Taiwan, we can act with regard 
to trade, and we can act with regard to a country that has built the 
most lopsided trading relationship in the history of international 
trade and whose actions have turned the industrial Midwest into what we 
now refer to as the Rust Belt which has led to a decline in real wages 
for those without a college education for over 25 years leading to 
fentanyl and a host of other problems.
  So we can act.
  The question is: Can we overcome the Wall Street-Beijing axis?
  Can we deal with the partisanship here, or will this balloon just go 
over our heads and lead, once again, to partisan vituperation?

                          ____________________