[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11287]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2115
              IN COMMEMORATION OF TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Mr. Speaker, today the world commemorates and mourns 
the events that happened in Tiananmen Square 19 years ago today. It was 
then that over 2,000 people were massacred by the Communist regime for 
the crime of quoting Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the crime of 
creating a model of the Statue of Liberty, killed for the crime of 
wanting their God-given right to liberty.
  In these 19 years, many things have changed and, sadly, too many 
people have forgotten.
  But there are 130 people that cannot forget. There are 130 people 
that remain in the communist Chinese prisons for participating in the 
pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
  Today, many are told that the communist Chinese regime will one day 
change. We've heard this for 19 years. We have seen corporate leaders, 
we have seen elected officials, and regrettably we will soon see the 
President of the United States go over to Beijing for the Olympics and 
meet with the butchers that killed 2,000 people, and they continue to 
imprison 130 of their fellow human beings.
  The arguments that will be made in attending this propaganda fest 
will be that we have to show our respect to the Chinese people; that we 
have to show them that somehow the United States of America wants to 
usher in this communist, nuclear-armed dictatorship into the world 
stage. I find this logic reprehensible.
  The United States is a beacon of liberty and hope for all the world 
suppressed. When the leaders of the United States, be they in business 
or, more importantly, in the corridors of Congress or in the halls of 
the White House, attend these communist Olympics, the Chinese people 
that I am worried about, the Chinese people that I believe we will not 
be standing behind will be the people who are rotting in the jails for 
the crime of yearning to be free.
  The question then arises, what can we do as a Nation? Many believe 
the 21st century will be the century of the communist Chinese regime; 
that their economy will pass ours; that their rival model of governance 
will be adopted throughout the world of the corporate structure where 
one can make money when allowed by the tyrants and that all of your 
political rights simply do not exist but for the whim of the communist 
party.
  I believe the people who are writing the obituary of the West and of 
our free Republic are mistaken, and I believe that over time, the 
voices and the influence of the communist tyrants in Beijing will ring 
as hollow in the ears of our fellow human beings as once did the callow 
calls from the halls of the Polit Bureau that the Soviet Union was 
going to bury the United States.
  So as we go forward toward the Olympics, as we go forward from the 
19th commemoration of the butchering in Tiananmen Square of the killing 
of students my own age for wanting the same God-given rights that I and 
everyone in this country have, let's not forget the 130. Let's demand 
their release, for if we do not, we will betray not only their liberty, 
but our professed commitment to being a beacon of hope for all of the 
world; and we will have squandered the legacy given to us as the 
custodians of this last best hope of Earth.

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