[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 17401]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE HELPING TO EXTEND CHINESE INFLUENCE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 29, 2010

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues the use of U.S. taxpayer financed foreign aid to expand 
Chinese influence around the world.
  It recently came to my attention that the Millennium Challenge 
Corporation (MCC) has awarded Chinese state-owned enterprises millions 
of dollars in contracts to build roads, construct schools, and erect 
airports in countries with MCC compacts. On June 30, Reuters reported 
that ``China's Sinohydro Corporations signed a contract with Mali to 
build a new airport for the capital, Bamako, a $71.6 million project'' 
financed by the MCC. This is not an isolated incident.
  China's Sinohydro Corporation was also awarded a contract for 
construction work in Tanzania. Furthermore, according to news reports, 
on September 9 and 10 the MCC signed contacts with a Chinese state-
owned construction company to renovate and expand 13 schools in 
Namibia. Thousands of dollars have been awarded to Chinese state-owned 
enterprises in Ghana for infrastructure construction. The list goes on.
  According to the Treasury Department, China now holds $846.7 billion 
in U.S. debt making China our largest banker. At a time of economic 
hardship at home, the United States should not be giving U.S. taxpayer 
dollars to China through foreign assistance.
  Furthermore, the U.S. should not be subsidizing countries with 
abysmal human rights records. The State Department's 2009 Human Rights 
Report states that the Chinese ``government's human rights record 
remained poor and worsened in some areas'' during the reporting period. 
The report goes on to cite violations including the severe cultural and 
religious repression of ethnic minorities, the detention and harassment 
of human rights activists, extrajudicial killings and the use of forced 
labor.
  China perpetrates gross human rights abuses outside of its borders as 
well. In 2008, the international non-governmental organization, Human 
Rights First, found that China sold over $55 million worth of small 
arms to the genocidal regime of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. According to 
the U.S. Campaign for Burma, China is one of the largest arms suppliers 
to the brutal Burmese military regime which has been implicated in 
gross human rights violations including murder, rape and the use of 
child soldiers.
  Today, I sent a letter to the inspector general of the Millennium 
Challenge Corporation asking that he open an investigation into the 
extent to which Chinese state-owned enterprises have been involved in 
receiving grant awards through the MCC and determine if such actions 
are in violation of the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003. I look 
forward to the inspector general's report and will continue to monitor 
this issue closely.

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