[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8946]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 8946]]

                            VOTE NO ON PNTR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, we have just witnessed a very fine 
debate on PNTR, and I thought that I would expand for my 5 minutes' 
worth a little bit on the points that have been made today.
  I think it was vital that people not miss the point that the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) stressed when he gave his 
speech, and that was that many of the companies that we are talking 
about that have been opened up and that people are talking about doing 
business with in Communist China are companies that are owned by the 
People's Liberation Army.
  What a travesty it is that what we have got, and this is as I have 
repeated in that debate several times, the essence of what is being 
decided is whether or not major businessmen in the United States can 
invest in building manufacturing facilities in Communist China, while 
what they do when they build these manufacturing capabilities in China, 
these manufacturing centers, they have to go into business, they have 
to go into business with a Chinese partner. Who is that Chinese 
partner? More often than not, the Chinese partner is the People's 
Liberation Army.
  Thus we are providing the capital through the American taxpayer, 
subsidizing the loans that these businessmen get, guaranteeing the 
loans so that people will give them the loans they need to create these 
manufacturing jobs, manufacturing centers in Communist China. They go 
over there and set them up and who is their business partner? Who is 
splitting the profit with them? The People's Liberation Army.
  The People's Liberation Army that builds missiles with the technology 
that they steal from us and the technology that they get from us 
through this economic relationship they have with our businessmen, and 
they build these missiles. Who are those missiles aimed at? Today 
because of our policies toward Communist China, the Communist Chinese 
regime has the capability of killing tens of millions of Americans, and 
they did not have that capability 10 years ago.
  This is not the type of policy that we should make permanent. It has 
worked against the American people. Why should the American people 
subsidize a businessman for closing a company here and setting it up in 
China? We are told over and over again the debate is about selling 
American products overseas.
  Please listen to that debate when you hear that. It is not about 
selling American products. Almost none of our economic activity with 
Communist China is the selling of American products. What we are 
sending over there are manufacturing units. What we are selling to 
China is the ability to manufacture high technology goods.
  We heard it today in the home district of the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Crane). Motorola has set up a chip manufacturing company there. 
Why should the people in his district not be in those jobs, building 
those chips, in Illinois or in other places?
  By the way, just to let Members know, I was in Cambodia a few years 
ago, and they were having trouble with the millions of land mines that 
are sown throughout Cambodia. Somebody actually had changed the nature 
of the land mine, and our U.S. military team was finding they were up 
against a smart land mine that would blow up if the land mine could 
sense that someone was trying to defuse it.
  Our people finally got it open. They found a chip inside the land 
mine. The land mine, of course, was designed to blow the legs off 
children and women and terrorize that society in Cambodia. What was the 
little chip? The chip came from a Motorola factory that was built by 
the United States in Communist China, perhaps the one that was built 
there by the businessmen from the gentleman from Illinois' district.
  The fact is we should not be subsidizing businessmen to build 
factories even in democratic societies, much less subsidizing the 
building of factories and high technology transfers to the world's 
worst human rights abuser.
  Neville Chamberlain had that strategy with Adolf Hitler. We all 
remember in Munich where Neville Chamberlain, the British prime 
minister, gave away Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. We think that was the 
sellout. No, that sellout started years before when Chamberlain said, 
we will build up Hitler's economy and have so much investment there, he 
will never be able to commit aggression because it would have such a 
deleterious effect on the German economy.
  That was his strategy. That mirrors exactly what we are being told 
now of why we must, quote, engage the Communist Chinese. No one is 
talking about isolating Communist China. No one is talking about 
stopping trade. Our people would still be free to do that. But why 
should we subsidize the investment there? And why should we give up our 
rights here in Congress for an annual review of what our policy towards 
China does for the people of the United States?
  Making it permanent and giving up our review, is that going to be 
seen by the Communist Chinese as a commitment on our part to human 
rights and to protect our own interests? No, it is going to be looked 
at exactly the way they have been looking at our policy for 10 years. 
The Communist Chinese leadership thinks we are a bunch of saps, that we 
do not believe in freedom and liberty and justice, that it is just a 
matter of cliches. They see us as people who are weak.
  We must be strong to protect the interests of the people of the 
United States, to protect our national security. That means a vote 
against permanent normal trade relations with China.

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