[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 124 (Tuesday, July 30, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5574-S5576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           National Security

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Vladimir Putin and Xi often call for 
what they call a multipolar world. By ``multipolar world,'' these 
Presidents of Russia and China mean to criticize the post-Cold War 
situation with the United States as the preeminent superpower.
  Even some American commentators and politicians seem to agree with 
Putin and Xi.
  In some corners of American foreign policy thought, there is an 
implicit acceptance of the premise that large, powerful countries are 
entitled to a certain sphere of influence and where they can, at the 
same time, dominate their neighbors against the will of the people who 
live in those countries.
  The Soviet Union previously had an ideology of exporting communist 
revolution to other countries. The Soviet Union sought to dominate much 
of the Eurasian continent and to export its economic and political 
system to countries around the globe, either by cunning or by force.
  When the Berlin Wall fell and the then-Soviet Union collapsed, many 
previously captive nations became free to chart their own course. As a 
result, many of them chose free market democracy.
  Those countries also naturally chose to develop good relationships 
with the United States and what we call the West--countries of the 
West.
  Putin clearly sees this as a humiliation. And he famously called the 
collapse of the Soviet empire as ``the greatest geopolitical disaster 
of the 20th century.''
  By contrast to the Soviet Union, the United States is what we might 
call a reluctant superpower--I think sometimes too reluctant.
  We never set out to have the most powerful military. The instinct of 
the American people was to stay out of World War I and World War II. We 
then learned that our failure to nip aggression in the bud and do it 
early comes at a tremendous cost.

  Still, our instinctual reluctance to get involved in foreign wars is 
to our credit. I am not saying that we have never deviated from our 
general nature or made mistakes. But I believe that imperialism is 
contrary to the American character.
  During the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher had this to say--and bear with 
me because it is a fairly long quote. Margaret Thatcher said this:

       It is fashionable for some commentators to speak of the two 
     super powers--United

[[Page S5575]]

     States and the Soviet Union--as though they were somehow of 
     equal worth and equal significance. Mr. Speaker, that is a 
     travesty of the truth! The Soviet Union has never concealed 
     its real aim. In the words of Mr. Brezhnev, ``the total 
     triumph of all Socialism all over the world is inevitable--
     for this triumph we shall struggle with no lack of effort.'' 
     Indeed, there has been no lack of effort.
       Contrast this with the record of the West. We do not aim at 
     domination, at hegemony, in any part of the world. Even 
     against those who oppose and who would destroy our ideas, we 
     plot no aggression. Of course, we are ready to fight the 
     battle of ideas with all the vigour at our command, but we do 
     not try to impose our system on others. We do not believe 
     that force should be the final arbiter in human affairs. We 
     threaten no-one.

  I will further quote her in just a minute.
  Now, listen to this point that Thatcher makes, because I think Putin 
still thinks like a Soviet.
  I continue quoting Thatcher:

       In talking to the Soviet Union, we find great difficulty in 
     getting this message across. They judge us by their 
     ambitions. They cannot conceive of a powerful nation not 
     using its power for expansion or subversion, and yet they 
     should remember that when, after the last War, the United 
     States had a monopoly of nuclear weapons, she never once 
     exploited her superiority. No country ever used such great 
     power more responsibly or with such restraint.

  Where she says ``no country ever used such great power more 
responsibly and with such restraint,'' she was referring to and 
complimenting the United States.
  Putin and Xi talk about the United States as some sort of hegemony, 
pushing our values on others. The fact is, whatever they think, 
America's principles and systems of government have spread across the 
world primarily through example, not by force.
  To understand the American view, let's look back on a speech made by 
John Quincy Adams on the Fourth of July, 1821. There are a lot of 
lessons that you can draw from a speech 200 years ago.
  A small excerpt of this speech is often quoted in arguing for more 
isolationist foreign policy. I will get to that point later.
  First, I want to mention about the broader point of Adams's speech, 
which was to celebrate the Declaration of Independence as an 
articulation of America's founding principles.
  John Quincy Adams goes on at length extolling the American founding 
based on natural rights, rejecting monarchy, as we all know.

       America, with the same voice which spoke herself into 
     existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the 
     inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful 
     foundations of government.

  At the time, revolutions had broken out in Europe and Latin America, 
threatening monarchies and empires of that day.
  Adams--meaning John Quincy Adams--castigates empires that seek to 
nominate people by force.
  He then ends the speech with a call for the spirit of liberty--that 
spirit of liberty that is talked about in the Declaration--and he asks 
that to descend upon Britain and all monarchies.
  In fact, the diplomat in attendance from the Russian Empire was 
appalled at the statement that John Quincy Adams was making.
  He reported to St. Petersburg that the speech was ``an appeal to the 
nations of Europe to rise against their governments.''
  This was provocative stuff for monarchists.
  In the excerpt of the speech that is most often quoted, Adams makes a 
digression to clarify that he is not suggesting the United States 
intervene directly to support every anti-monarchy revolution.
  Adams explains that the United States has respected the independence 
of other nations and has not intervened even when ``conflict has been 
for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that 
visits the heart.''
  In this case, he is referring to the anti-colonial revolutions taking 
place at that time in Latin America or Greece.
  The most famous quote from that speech comes in the following passage 
about the role of the United States. So quoting from John Quincy Adams 
again:

       Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been 
     or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions 
     and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of 
     monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom 
     and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator 
     only of her own.

  People have argued how Adams' words apply to specific foreign policy 
debates today, but what is beyond question is that John Quincy Adams 
said Americans ought to at least root for freedom and independence. It 
is in our American DNA to take the side of the underdog, fighting for 
liberty against an empire.
  As Margaret Thatcher explained, dictatorships and democracies aren't 
morally equal.
  However they feel about the prudence of any particular foreign policy 
decision, Americans should reject the Putin-Xi vision of a multipolar 
war.
  Let's look at some examples and consider the alternative values of 
the multipolar war Putin and Xi are offering to 8 billion people.
  On Sunday, September 11, 2022, Grace Evangelical Church in Melitopol, 
Ukraine, was full of worshipers. Worship leaders with guitars stood in 
front of a giant, colorful screen displaying the lyrics of a praise 
song. It looked like any evangelical church here in the United States. 
As the congregation was singing praises to Jesus, armed Russian 
soldiers in camouflage barged in and stopped the service. I encourage 
every American to watch that video, and it is on video. The soldiers 
took the names of all the worshipers and detained the minister.
  In the same Ukrainian city, the largest church was the Melitopol 
Christian Church, and that happens to be a charismatic Protestant 
church. Russian soldiers broke into the church with sledgehammers. They 
arrested the pastors in the middle of the night, waking one pastor's 9-
year-old son with a gun in his face. The large cross in the front of 
the church was removed--the building confiscated by the Russian 
occupiers not for religious reasons but for secular use.
  Before the Russian invasion, there were more Protestant churches in 
that city than orthodox churches. Now, as you see how the Russians 
invade, there are no Protestant churches in that community. Evangelical 
churches are considered undesirable by Russians for being too Western, 
even being accused of being too American.
  Religious freedom, as we know, is a core natural right. In fact, it 
is the first right mentioned in our own Bill of Rights. The degree to 
which a country respects this right of religious freedom is a good 
barometer of the degree to which it respects individual rights in 
general. You cannot call yourself a free country if you suppress the 
freedom of religion.
  Both Russia and China are among a handful of countries designated by 
the State Department as being what we call Countries of Particular 
Concern because of their severe violations of religious freedom.
  China has been holding up to 2 million Uighurs and other Muslims in 
detention camps. The State Department has now officially labeled what 
China is doing to the Uighurs and other Muslims in detention camps as a 
``genocide.'' They have been beaten with batons while being strapped to 
chairs; interrogated while water is being poured in their faces; placed 
in prolonged solitary confinement, constantly surveilled; deprived of 
sleep and food; forbidden from speaking their own language or 
practicing their own religion; and forced to sing patriotic songs that 
only Xi would approve of.
  The Chinese Communist Party says that these camps are for vocational 
education to fight ``extremism.'' Here are some examples of what the 
Chinese Communist Party calls extremism: having too many children, 
being an unsafe person, being born in certain years, wearing a veil or 
having a beard.
  My staff met with a former internee from one of these camps--
obviously, because that person was able to get free. She described 
widespread torture and rape. Since this started to result in children, 
the Chinese Communist Party has subjected Uighur women to forced birth 
control and sterilization. Uighurs in other countries, including in the 
United States, have been subjected to harassment and intimidation, 
including threats against family members for speaking out about the 
genocide of their people.
  The Chinese Communist Party sees a threat from any belief system that 
provides an alternative to the Chinese Communist Party's ideology. So 
it has

[[Page S5576]]

co-opted religious institutions that it can control while suppressing 
independent religious groups. This includes Tibetan Buddhists. Chinese 
officials have demolished a number of Tibetan monastery buildings and 
placed atheist Communist Party officials in important administrative 
positions.
  Tibetan Buddhists are very peaceful so they pose no threat to the 
government except in their moral authority and their credibility in 
undercutting the government's legitimacy in that region. In Tibet, 
there have been reports of forced disappearances, arrests, torture, 
physical abuse, and prolonged detentions without trial of monks, nuns, 
and other individuals due to their religious practices.
  Authorities arrest individuals for possessing photographs of or 
writings by the Dalai Lama.
  Also, practitioners of Falun Gong, which traces its roots to the 
traditional Chinese religion, have been labeled ``members of a cult.''
  Freedom House independently verified 933 cases of Falun Gong 
adherents sentenced to prison terms of up to 12 years in just a 3\1/2\-
year period, often just for exercising their rights to freedom of 
expression in addition to freedom of religion. Thousands more are 
believed to be held at various prisons and extralegal detention 
centers. There are reports of cases of torture, disappearance, 
brainwashing, rape, and death of Falun Gong practitioners by the 
Chinese Communist Party.
  When a person dies while imprisoned, their families are told that 
their loved ones committed suicide or died of a disease, but the bodies 
are cremated before evidence can be gathered.
  In recent years, there have been credible reports of Falun Gong 
practitioners and other political prisoners having been victims of 
forced organ harvesting.

  Christianity also has had a deep historical and cultural impact on 
modern China, but in the mid-20th century, the Communist Party 
suppressed the religion. The growth of Protestantism in China in recent 
decades has led to the emergence of what we call house churches. These 
are independent and not part of one of the state-sanctioned, Chinese 
Communist Party-controlled churches.
  The Chinese Communist Party has clamped down on Christian activities 
outside of registered venues, banned unauthorized evangelization 
online, and intensified its crackdown on unauthorized Protestant 
meeting points and underground Catholic churches. Christians seeking to 
practice their faith free of government control have to fear their 
identities being discovered and facing punishment or imprisonment.
  By contrast, Taiwan has complete religious freedom. Note that the new 
Taiwanese President, Mr. Lai, is part of a vibrant Protestant minority. 
I met him a few years ago when he was Vice President-elect, and he came 
to Washington for the National Prayer Breakfast.
  Aside from geopolitics, it is only natural that Americans would 
sympathize with Taiwan over communist China because of religious 
freedom in Taiwan versus no religious freedom in communist China.
  To repeat the words of John Quincy Adams, ``Wherever the standard of 
freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her 
heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.''
  So I have laid out for my colleagues the multipolar world that Xi and 
Putin want versus the freedom that is declared in our Declaration of 
Independence and practiced here, and by practicing it here, we hope we 
are an example for other countries that prefer democracy and religious 
freedom.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant executive clerk called the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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