Condemning the crackdown on democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in the People's Republic of China on the 15th anniversary of that tragic massacre.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the time.

I thank the gentleman from California and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), who is the cosponsor of this resolution commemorating the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen Square.

That day in June of 1989 is, of course, remembered for the tragedy, but it should also be remembered as one of the high points in the progress towards democracy in human rights in the People's Republic of China. Because prior to the troops crushing the demonstrators and their message, the message had already spread all over China, and looked at in a grander scale of time, there is no question what ultimately can and must happen here. The troops may have won the battle that day against the Chinese people, but they will not win the war so long as we remember, and we will never forget. So we are today commemorating this anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

At the same time, we are supporting the people of China in their struggle for human rights. These democracy demonstrations that began in Beijing in April of 1989 spread quickly to other major cities and provinces throughout China. They were an inspiration to the world.

As Communist regimes were falling in Russia and East Germany and Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, across Eurasia, the people of China were also seizing the moment to move to the next step in the development of their astounding civilization.

The statue of the Goddess of Democracy showed the world that China's glorious civilization and their extraordinary and wonderful culture for which we all owe a great debt of gratitude would advance still further in the 21st century so that the Chinese people would have a form of government worthy of that culture and that civilization. Finally, after centuries of feudalism, colonialism and foreign interference, the people of China would have genuine human rights, the freedom of association, the freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom to choose their own leaders.

When the Chinese Army injured or killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, some people insisted that this showed the true face of China, but, of course, it did not. The true face of China was shown in the statue of the Goddess of Democracy. The true face of China was shown in those demonstrations throughout the provinces and all the major cities in the country.

We want China to become a trustworthy member of the international community; and in some respects, certainly compared to cultural revolution and the reign of terror under Mao, things in China are much improved.

Yet contrary to the drumbeat sounded by some advocates of engagement, this resolution warns that China's willingness to engage in the world economy has not yet translated into evolution toward democracy nor even an improvement in the Chinese people's religious, human or worker rights.

I will never forget the audience I had with Jiang Zemin in the Great Hall of the People when I asked him, because they were then advertising the village elections that they were having as a step on the road to democracy, when might we have elections in China for a mayor or a city council. He said to me, not for at least 20 years. I still do not know to this day whether that is exactly what he said, because he might just as well have said not in my lifetime. It would have been literally a correct translation.

Here we are many years later, and there have been no steps towards that kind of authentic democracy. In fact, in Hong Kong, where that kind of democracy under the one-country, two-systems model is eminently possible and achievable and where the people of Hong Kong wish devoutly to achieve that result, Beijing has just insisted, in violation of their guarantee in 1997 of the high degree of autonomy to the people of Hong Kong, that there will not be universal suffrage and free elections for the chief executive or for a legislative council in 2007 and 2008.

With this resolution, Congress shows we remember and we will not forget. We insist that our country's China policy promote freedom, human rights and the rule of law, religious and political freedom, free expression, free trade and free markets.

Our long-standing friendship with China can only reach its full potential when the Chinese people enjoy these freedoms. These freedoms increasingly flourish along China's borders. Peace and security for the Chinese people and all their neighbors are essential preconditions for true political, social and economic progress.

Mr. Speaker, the PRC cannot seek a spirit of cooperation between our governments, as they claim to want during a recent visit by Vice President Cheney, and at the same time so horribly mistreat their own people. Americans, as friends of the people of China, are happy to hear words about the PRC's government's commitment to human rights. We are happy to see their proposal of new amendments to their constitution further guaranteeing these human rights, but unless these words are reflected in deeds, they are meaningless.

The reflections published in the Wall Street Journal today by Wang Dan, one of the leaders of the 1989 Chinese democracy movement, were poignant. He said, ``It is clear to me as never before that the Tiananmen massacre was an unavoidable step in the long path to a free China and that true political reform can never come from within the Communist Party.''

He lamented that ``Communist leaders, be they conservatives or reformists, are all wedded to retaining the current political system, complete with its problems such as corruption and lack of accountability. And far from easing its iron grip on all forms of political dissent, the new leadership now seems intent on extending it to Hong Kong.''

It is striking, with all of the progress that we have seen in other areas, that the current Communist Party leaders in China have repudiated nothing that happened 15 years ago. As Wang Dan points out, that is because they understand ``that reevaluating the official description of the 1989 movement as counterrevolutionary would shake the foundations of the Communists' grip on power.''

Is it not a terrible irony that the current leaders of the People's Republic of China have their power because of the system that was enforced through these brutal means in 1989.

One of the demonstrators, one of the organizers of what happened in Tiananmen Square, a student at the time, is now Dr. Yang Jianli. He and his wife and his two children have lived here in America for many years because he suffered under the punishment, as so many Chinese freedom fighters, democracy activists do of exile. It is a horrible form of punishment. You can never go back to your own country again. So he was banished and lived here in America.

He decided that he wanted to go back to China; and when he set foot in the country, he was arrested. He has been in jail, held incommunicado, held without access to legal counsel or any of the legal rights guaranteed him even under PRC law, for the last 2 years. His children have not seen their father. His wife, Christina Fu, is well known to many of us here because she has helped us enact resolutions that this Congress has passed in a show of support for the basic human rights that any human being, and certainly this American resident, is entitled to. His crime, of course, was supporting freedom and democracy. It has been nearly a year since the House of Representatives enacted House Resolution 199 by a unanimous vote of 412 to nothing.

This legislation condemned and deplored the detention of Dr. Yang Jianli

and the lack of due process afforded him. It called on the Government of the People's Republic of China to release him immediately and unconditionally. The Bush administration has made the release of Dr. Yang one of its most important priorities, and the Vice President raised this at his recent summit. Yet the PRC has continued to violate its own law and to act without regard to international condemnation.

In 2003, the United Nations, through its Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which I should point out is a group that includes Algeria, France, Paraguay, Hungary, and even Iran, a very diverse group, concluded that in this case continuing to hold Dr. Yang is a violation of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The U.N. working group clearly and specifically declared that Yang Jianli's detention was illegal.

It is not just that he is being detained; it is that he is being abused. He is being virtually deprived of his human rights even as a prisoner. Not only was he arbitrarily placed for lengthy periods in solitary confinement; he was handcuffed for so long that his wrists bled. He was denied access even to books, newspapers, not to mention a lawyer.

Releasing Dr. Yang would be a small, but important, gesture that the Communist Government had learned something since Tiananmen Square. No such gesture, Mr. Speaker, has come.

As we remember Tiananmen Square, we must remember that there are many, many cases like Dr. Yang's. In fact, there are many, many cases of those who were murdered, tortured, and who are still in prison today. We must remind the dictators of the world yet again that individual freedom of expression is no mere internal affair of a government. It is a human right shared by all peoples and recognized by all civilized nations.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the passage by this House of this important resolution marking this sad anniversary, but this joyful anniversary that eventually will see freedom in China.

Article 19 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly guarantees the freedom to ``receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.''

According to Amnesty International, a growing number of Chinese people are being detained or sentenced for peacefully expressing their views or downloading information on the Internet. The detained include students, political dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners, workers, writers, lawyers, teachers, civil servants, former police officers, engineers, and businessmen.

Signing online petitions, calling for reform and an end to corruption, planning to set up a pro-democracy party, publishing ``rumours about SARS,'' communicating with groups abroad, opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong and calling for a review of the 1989 crackdown on the democracy protests are all examples of activities considered by the PRC's dictatorial regime to be ``subversive'' or a danger to ``state security.'' Such charges almost always result in prison sentences.

China is also renowned for aggressive censorship of the Internet. Web sites of human rights organizations, and numerous international news sites are regularly blocked by government-controlled routers.

There is a role for the United States to play in this fight for free expression. We can promote the exchange of ideas and disseminate accurate information. Our efforts to do so behind the Iron Curtain were instrumental in empowering citizens living under Soviet Communist rule. It is now time to focus our efforts on a different Communist regime and a new technology.

The ability of people around the world to freely access news and information via the Internet may be the greatest threat to tyranny and the most powerful weapon possessed by free people that we have seen in our lifetimes. Indeed, Internet access is rapidly expanding in China. According to official statistics, the number of Internet users had risen to 79.5 million by December 2003 from 59.1 million users in December 2002--an increase of 34.5 percent.

But, just as Communist governments during the Cold War sought to keep uncensored news from their people by jamming Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, the government of China today retains strict control over the information Chinese citizens can access on the Internet. During the past few years, Beijing has passed sweeping regulations that prohibit unauthorized news and commentary on Internet sites, and officials arrest and imprison those who violate these laws. Authorities in China routinely block websites they believe a danger to their hold on power, including those of dissident groups and foreign news organizations, like the Washington Post, the New York Times, the BBC, and the Voice of America.

Dictatorial regimes like China have been aggressively blocking access to the Internet with technologies such as firewalls, filters, and so- called black boxes. In addition, these oppressive governments monitor Internet, email, and message boards for key words. They also develop lists of users who visit particular sites, and when they believe that a web user or publisher is a threat to their power, they don't hesitate to act on this information.

According to Human Rights Watch, Chinese web publisher Huang Qi, after enduring a 3-year detention, was finally sentenced last summer to 5 years in prison for the crime of subversion. What was he publishing? The online equivalent of our milk carton notices about missing persons. He had dared to create a website at which people could share information about missing friends and family members and he actually helped rescue several young girls who had been abducted and sold into marriage. Because his site also featured criticism of several state-run agencies, he now spends his days in prison.

The U.S. private sector is developing a number of technologies to combat Internet blocking. Unfortunately, the U.S. government has contributed few resources to assist these efforts and to put the new technologies to use.

That is why I joined Congressman Tom Lantos, Senator Jon Kyl, and Senator Ron Wyden in authoring H.R. 48, the Global Internet Freedom Act, which would create a new Office of Global Internet Freedom within the International Broadcasting Bureau. The Office would develop and implement a global strategy to combat state-sponsored and state- directed Internet jamming and persecution of those who use the Internet. The Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which passed the House on July 16, 2003 but has been stymied by the other body, authorizes $8 million per year for the Office of Global Internet Freedom.

With the Global Internet Freedom Act, within the larger State Department bill, Congress can authorize $8 million annually to the proposed Office of Global Internet Freedom so that the U.S. can devote more resources to ensuring worldwide access to information and give those who strive for true freedom the tools they need to outwit the thought police.

The Chinese people certainly still need these tools, because the thought police in Beijing have obviously not learned from the SARS tragedy. While some might have hoped that this deadly lesson would lead to greater openness on the part of the regime--and perhaps some restraint in its ongoing campaign to block the free exchange of information via the Internet and other media--recent events suggest that the tyrants of Beijing are moving in the other direction.

Despite the early release of several high-profile Tibetan dissidents, suppression of political dissent and restrictions on religious freedom continue throughout Tibet and neighboring areas of the PRC. According to the Tibet Information Network, those early releases were quickly off-set by further arrests of Tibetan dissidents in other Chinese provinces. For instance, a popular singer was detained in March 204 because of the political content of his songs, and in February, a young monk was arrested at his monastery for possessing a photograph of the Dalai Lama.

Meanwhile, in northwest China, the international war against terrorism is used to justify harsh repression in Xinjiang, home to China's mainly Muslim Uighur community. Several mosques have been closed, use of the Uighur language has been restricted and certain Uighur books and journals have been banned. The crackdown against suspected ``separatists, terrorists and religious extremists'' intensified following the start of a renewed security crack-down in October 2003. Arrests continue and hundreds of dissidents remain in prison.

Members of unofficial spiritual or religious groups, including some Qi Gong groups and unregistered Christian groups, continue to be arbitrarily detained, tortured and ill-treated. Detained Falun Gong practitioners, including large numbers of women, are at risk of torture, including sexual abuse, particularly if they refuse to renounce their beliefs.

It is fitting that, as we debate this resolution, the Victims of Communism Memorial is nearing construction on Capitol Hill. The Memorial, which will commemorate this struggle by paying tribute to more than 100 million victims of Communist atrocities around the world, will prominently feature a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue created by pro-freedom activists in Tiananmen Square, in addition to an eternal flame to the victims of Communism and bronze panels with quotes from heroes of the Cold War.

Wang Dan said, ``The 1989 student movement played an invaluable role in pointing out the path to democracy in China. Without it, we would still be clinging to the myth that a small

group of enlightened Communist officials could rescue China from totalitarian rule. Instead we have learned from our mistakes that year, and realized that China's democratization must be a bottom-up process, driven by forces outside the Communist system.''

Today, on a bipartisan basis, Congress stands united in support of freedom for the people of China. Fifteen years ago, Tiananmen Square marked not only a tragedy, but a decisive turning point in the fight for freedom. People's Liberation Army troops won the battle against the Chinese people that day, but they will surely lose the war to imprison the human spirit--because we will never forget. The day will soon come when all of the Chinese people will have the right to speak and debate freely. The hope symbolized by the Goddess of Democracy will ultimately triumph.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 655) condemning the crackdown on democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in the People's Republic of China on the 15th anniversary of that tragic massacre.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments and for her leadership on this, and the prime sponsor of this resolution, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox). The Cox-Pelosi resolution before us is extremely important and very timely.

Mr. Speaker, in December of 1996 here in Washington, at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, General Chi Haotian, the Defense Minister of the People's Republic of China, the general who was the operational commander of the soldiers who slaughtered pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square in June of 1989, said, ``Not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.'' According to General Chi, the Chinese Army did nothing more violent than, and I quote him, ``pushing of people.''

General Chi not only met with Mr. Clinton in the White House but was accorded full military honors, including a 19-gun salute and visits to military bases. Rather than getting the red carpet, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully submit that General Chi should have been held to account for his crimes against humanity.

Mr. Speaker, to counter the big lie that he proffered right here in Washington, D.C., I quickly put together and chaired a hearing of eyewitnesses to Tiananmen Square, to the massacre, including several Chinese, a former editor of the People's Daily, and Time Magazine's Beijing bureau chief. We also invited General Chi or anyone else to testify before our committee from the government of China. They were no shows, although we left a chair for them.

One of our witnesses, a man by the name of Xuecan Wu, the former editor of the People's Daily, was singled out by Li Peng for punishment and got 4 years in prison for trying to tell the truth to his readers in Beijing. Mr. Wu called General Chi's lie about no one being killed ``shameless'' and told my subcommittee that he personally saw at least, and I quote him here, ``at least 30 carts carrying dead and wounded people.''

Eyewitness Jian-Ki Yang, Vice President of the Alliance for a Democratic China, testified, and I quote, ``I saw trucks of soldiers who got out and started firing automatic weapons at the people. Each time they fired the weapons, three or four people were hit, and each time the crowd went down to the ground. We were there for about an hour and a half. I saw 13 people killed. We saw four tanks coming from the square, and they were going very fast at a very high speed. The two tanks in front were chasing students.''

Imagine that, Mr. Speaker, tanks chasing students.

He went on to say, ``They ran over the students. Everyone was screaming. We counted 11 bodies.''

Mr. Speaker, Time Magazine's David Aikman, another eyewitness said, and I quote, ``Children were killed holding hands with their mothers. A 9-year-old boy was shot seven or eight times in the back, and his parents placed the corpse on a truck and drove through the streets of northwest Beijing on Sunday morning. `This is what the government has done,' the distraught mother kept telling crowds of passersby through a makeshift speaker system.''

Mr. Aikman went on to say in his testimony that ``officials at the Chinese Red Cross reported 2,600 people dead, but then they too were ordered to keep silent and to deny that they had ever given out such figures.''

Today, Mr. Speaker, 15 years after Tiananmen Square, after a brutal massacre, the Chinese government perpetuates General Chi's Orwellian fabrication that no one died. It is now clear that thousands died and approximately 7,000 were wounded. Fifteen years after Tiananmen Square, some 2,000 people remain incarcerated for peacefully advocating human rights. To be jailed by the Chinese, as we all know, means torture, humiliation, and severe deprivations.

Mr. Speaker, in the early 1990s, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and I visited Beijing Prison Number 1, a bleak gulag where 40 Tiananmen Square prisoners were being unjustly detained. We saw firsthand the price paid by brave and tenacious individuals for peacefully petitioning their government for freedom. And it was not pretty. They looked like the walking skeletons of Auschwitz.

Mr. Speaker, we do not know how many of those are still languishing in prison. Some, perhaps all of them, are still there; but of the 20,000 originally arrested and detained, like I said, approximately 2,000 continue in the gulags and in the Laogai of China.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that, despite the hopes and expectation of some that robust trade with China would usher in at least a modicum of respect for human rights and fundamental liberties, the simple fact of the matter is that the dictatorship in China oppresses, tortures and mistreats millions of its own citizens. Moreover, China is the land of the one-child-per-couple policy, a barbaric policy that makes brothers and sisters illegal. Forced abortion, force sterilization and ruinous fines are routinely deployed to ensure compliance with this Draconian and utterly cruel family planning policy.

Mr. Speaker, according to the U.S. Department of State, the government's human rights record remains poor. They start off with that in this year's report. And the government continues, the State Department goes on to say, to commit numerous and serious abuses. The Country Reports of Human Rights Practices also went on to say that there was backsliding. It was already bad and now it is even getting worse, and the word backsliding was used. And abuses including killing, torture, mistreatment of prisoners and forced confessions are among those that have gotten worse.

Finally, let me say in April the Chinese government openly gloated over the defeat once again of a U.S.-sponsored resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission. I would say parenthetically, given the makeup of the Commission, the outcome came as no surprise. Rogue nations proliferate and are all over that Commission. They make a beeline for that Commission to mitigate human rights adherence and enforcement and bringing rogue nations to confront these abuses.

In one stunningly absurd statement, Chinese Ambassador Sha Zukang said the U.S. proposal and the resolution was done out of, and this is his words, ``disappointment and jealousy.''

I would just like to say to the Chinese government and to Ambassador Sha Zukang, we proposed it because we care and we are in solidarity with the oppressed and we want to hold the oppressor to account. Disappointment and jealousy? I do not think so. This is all about trying to help those who are under the cruel boot of the Chinese dictatorship.

Mr. Speaker, I participated in the meetings in Geneva, and I confronted the Chinese leadership in an open forum. I have to say they were amazingly inept, and they were unprofessional. All they could do during the course of the debate was to deny, to deny, and to deny and to question our motives. And then, when things were not going well for them, they abruptly ended the meeting.

Mr. Speaker, someday the good and honorable people of China will live in freedom; and I believe the martyrs of Tiananmen who have suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of a government and were jailed and were wounded and murdered will be even more revered and honored for their sacrifice than they are today. This resolution honors those courageous champions of freedom and democracy. I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security. He is the prime sponsor of this resolution, and we appreciate his leadership on this issue and on human rights in China.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for yielding me this time.

I want to thank, first of all, the sponsor of the resolution, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), for a very eloquent statement, and my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for his very eloquent statement and for a long-standing commitment to human rights in China, as well as everywhere else in the world where those rights are abridged.

I just want to make a couple of points very briefly. I would hope that every Member, and I am sure they will by the time this is voted upon with a recorded vote, probably tomorrow, to read, those who have not read the full text. And I commend the maker of this resolution, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), for being so comprehensive not just in the whereases but in the operative clauses.

He mentioned, I think a moment ago, about the Tiananmen mothers. They sent videos to Geneva to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. And because they presented a video to those who were there supposedly gathering information about human rights abuses anywhere and everywhere in the world where there is abuse, for that these Tiananmen mothers were not only arrested, and were subsequently, we understand, let go, but they now are being watched.

These are the mothers who have lost loved ones, sons or daughters, in Tiananmen Square and the days that followed. And the burden they carry having lost their loved ones is only exacerbated by the cruelty of the mothers now being harassed by the dictatorship in Beijing.

The resolution also calls for the release of Dr. Yang Jianli, another veteran of the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, who has been illegally detained in China for over 2 years, so that he may be reunited with his wife and two children in the United States. It is time to let Dr. Yang go, and I hope that the Chinese get that message very, very quickly from what I hope will be a very bipartisan support for this resolution.

It also calls upon nations participating in the 2008 Olympics to use the opportunities created by the games to urge China to fully comply with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. I would remind my colleagues that when the Chinese wanted the Olympics 2000, they let out some very prominent dissidents, including Wei Jingsheng. I happened to be in Beijing on a human rights trip when he was let out. I met with him. When they did not get the Olympics, they went back and rearrested him and put him back into the Laogai and into the gulag in China. A very cynical approach.

This time they got the Olympics, and they did nothing whatsoever to deserve them. So, hopefully, the venue of the 2008 Olympics will be used by those who care about human dignity and human rights to raise these issues very substantively.

There is also the issue of asking for the establishment of a June 4 investigation committee. There has been an absolutely absurd whitewash of what happened the day of June 4 and the days that subsequently followed as a result of the Tiananmen Square massacre and all of the killings that occurred afterwards. The Chinese Government has made part of their three noes, or nonmentionables, the idea you cannot even mention Tiananmen Square; and if you do, you will suffer their brutality.

This is a very, very important resolution. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for his graciousness in yielding this additional time to me. We have no further speakers, and I yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted we have reached this point. I know that the point of going to conference and appointing conferees, I know that the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) would, as I, have liked to have had this bill on the House floor last fall; and I think we could have. We could well have had this bill enacted by now, and we could well have been on our way to creating 475,000 new jobs and $80 billion in total economic activity if the committee had been allowed to work its will, as we did in committee. However, other forces intervened; and this is legislative process.

We are where we are now, thank heavens; and we will be able to move ahead and I hope to reach the outcome that we all desire of getting a robust investment in transportation through conference, through the House and the other body and to the President for signature.

I pledge, as I have done from the outset of this process and demonstrated, that we will bend every constructive effort toward that purpose on our side, working in concert with the chair and the majority.

I look forward to a good conference. We have a very good contingent on our side as on the Republican side, and I know that we are all committed together, constructively working to achieve the purpose of a major investment in transportation over the next 6 years.

The motion that I offer instructs the conferees to insist on the innovative Safe Routes to School Program included in the House-passed bill. Innovation but one that has been widely tested, is enormously popular and powerfully supported in more than 26 States across the country since the two pilot projects were undertaken in Marin County, California, and in Arlington, Massachusetts. In Marin County, basically a bicycling to school project and in Arlington, Massachusetts, principally pedestrian activity.

In Safe Routes to School, California, the nine participating elementary schools in the Marin County region that joined in this pilot program went from 2 percent of children walking and bicycling to school to 54 percent today.

This is an enormous vote of support for a healthy life-style, and it is this quality-of-life issue that is a driving force as we move ahead with this transportation bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds to extol the labors of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

He has been a constant, solid, secure, wise, counselor as we worked our way through the various provisions of this legislation in the internal negotiations in committee and through the mark-up; and I look forward to his continued participation as a seasoned hand in the House- Senate Conference on Transportation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The inspiration for this initiative in this legislation was a report by the Centers For Disease Control of the U.S. Public Health Service, the Department of Health and Human Services some 4 years ago. I participated in this conference and listened to the presentation that over 300,000 Americans a year die of obesity and its complications, the second-leading cause of death in America. Yet 25 percent of America's 15-and-under school children are clinically obese; 36 percent of all Americans are obese or are seriously clinically overweight. We are facing a health epidemic that 75 percent of children 15 and under do not walk, do not bicycle to school or associated activities; they are driven. That is a class in our society that is mobility challenged.

I heard these numbers and others that I will not repeat here that just show an emerging health crisis with huge implications for obesity, for cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and other related illnesses.

The Centers For Disease Control raised the flag. I thought we ought to have a response. I gathered together a group of active-living organizations, those bicycling and pedestrian and other outdoor activities, cited those figures and said I have got an idea to deal with this: we will call it Safe Routes to School, to engage an entire generation of Americans in a healthier lifestyle that will follow them throughout their life. That is a wave throughout society that is starting with elementary school age children. They will carry this all through their young life into adulthood and pass it on to their children.

With that, I persuaded the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to commit $50,000 in grants to the Marin County schools and another similar grant to honor Arlington County schools in Boston, and the project was under way. It has been an enormous success, widely imitated throughout the country, widely supported. This is a lifestyle change.

We get an opportunity to do something like this once in a career in the Congress. I greatly appreciate the support of the chairman of the full committee; the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri); the kind words of the gentleman from Ohio; my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski); and my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) has given us strong, vigorous, unflagging, unfailing leadership in moving this legislation from the time we conceived the bill to the time we introduced the bill to the time we moved it through committee. It was his persistence, his insistence and vision of investing in America, creating jobs, moving America forward, restoring our economic vitality, meeting congestion head-on, investing in the future of America at the base of our economy, to stimulate the whole economy. We will need that continued visionary, strong, forceful leadership as we go into conference with the differences that are considerable between the two versions of this legislation.

It is my hope that TEA-LU will prevail in policy and that we may move closer to the other body's version in investment and that at another date, after we get this enacted, we will come back and do the real bill at the $375 billion level that we all know is needed to move America forward.

I yield to the gentleman from Alaska.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has had a positive, upbeat attitude from the outset; and that is what it is going to take to get us through the coming weeks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the

gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me first pay tribute to my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who has been such an indefatigable fighter for human rights across the globe and particularly with respect to China and Tibet.

Let me also recognize the enormous contributions to this fight of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, my friend and neighbor and colleague, representing San Francisco, and our distinguished colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox).

Listening to my friend from New Jersey, I am reminded of a picture I have in my office as one enters, and that picture, one of the most precious photos of all times, shows a lone young Chinese man standing up to a line of tanks, defying totalitarian tyranny with courage and devotion to the principles that our Constitution was built on.

Mr. Speaker, 15 years ago today, China's senior leaders huddled behind the walls of their compound near the Forbidden City. They had a critically important decision to make, whether to reach out to the students and workers gathered in Tiananmen Square and address their concerns about party corruption and lack of democracy or seek to squash the movement with force, if necessary.

Sadly for the cause of freedom and justice and for the lives of thousands of young Chinese citizens, the leadership of China made the wrong decision. Instead of entering into a meaningful dialogue with those gathered in the Square, they launched a brutal crackdown on the democracy movement, killing thousands and imprisoning many more.

China's leaders hoped that the world would forget the tragedy of Tiananmen Square, but fortunately for the cause of truth the victims of Tiananmen had mothers, mothers who have kept alive the memory of their slain children and demanded an apology from their government.

For the past 10 years, Mr. Speaker, the Tiananmen Mothers Campaign has worked to document the brutal 1989 crackdown by collecting the names of real victims and recording their individual stories. In the face of enormous pressure from the Chinese Government, the Tiananmen Mothers have respectfully requested a government investigation into the massacre and a formal apology for this gross violation of human rights. For their bravery alone, these women deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, which I earnestly urge the Nobel Committee to award them.

The Chinese Government has responded by putting the Tiananmen Mothers under house arrest and prohibited them from marking the June 4 anniversary in an appropriate manner. Once again, the government has made a shortsighted decision, repression, not dialogue.

I am proud, Mr. Speaker, that the Congress of the United States stands today united with the victims of the Tiananmen massacre and with the families of the victims who will one day be feted as heroes in a free and democratic China. I wish that Europe would stand with the Tiananmen victims as well.

Instead, the European Union is running headlong towards lifting the arms embargo it imposed on China, along with the United States, after the Tiananmen killings. In their desperate quest to earn some euros from the arms trade, France and Germany are pressuring the rest of the European Union to open the floodgates of weapons sales to China.

Mr. Speaker, the weapons that the Europeans will sell to the Chinese will be used to intimidate those who wish to speak out for freedom and to kill those who refuse to be intimidated. These weapons may also be used against American forces some day if we are ever called on to defend Taiwan against an unprovoked attack by the mainland.

Mr. Speaker, the member states of the European Union appear to have lost their moral compass; and they have forgotten that developed, democratic nations must make policy decisions which benefit human rights and international security but may harm mercantile interests back at home. It is my hope that this June 4th the European Union remembers those who were sacrificed in and around Tiananmen

Square 15 years ago and will refuse to yield to Chinese pressure.

With passage of our resolution, we will tell those who continue to battle for truth, justice and freedom in China that we have not forgotten their cause. I strongly support the passage of this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield such time as he may consume to my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This Congress always does its best work when it stands united. On this issue, my colleagues, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), and I stand shoulder to shoulder in striking a blow for freedom for the Chinese people.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for yielding me time and for his exceptional service and leadership as chair of the Human Rights Caucus of the House. I also want to acknowledge the great work and leadership of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). He has been a champion for human rights, and it has been my privilege to work with him over the years to promote international human rights. I thank him for his accommodation this evening.

Mr. Speaker, the forward march of freedom has often been advanced by brave souls who defied the powers of their day to demand the liberties and human rights to which all people everywhere are entitled.

This week the world pays tribute to the brave souls of Tiananmen Square who 15 years ago stood up for freedom, only to be met with a hail of bullet and a new era of repression.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), as well as the distinguished chairman, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), and our ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) in sponsoring this resolution that remembers and reaffirms.

We remember the courage of the heroes of Tiananmen, and we reaffirm our Nation's commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy of which they dreamed. In doing so, this resolution keeps alive the spirit of Tiananmen Square. The spirit of Tiananmen lives in the hearts of all freedom-loving people.

We remember how millions of ordinary students, workers and citizens marched in peace. How they raised the Goddess of Democracy and the image of our own Statue of Liberty. How they quoted our own Founding Fathers. We remember with sadness and outrage how the so-called People's Liberation Army was unleashed on its own defenseless people, slaughtering thousands and searing into our consciences forever one of the most enduring images of the 25th century, the picture of a lone man before a tank, bringing a line of tanks to a grinding halt.

Fifteen springs later, the spirit of Tiananmen lives on in the prison cells across China. Today, we once again call on Beijing to release the thousands of Tiananmen activists held to this day and all the prisoners of conscience whose only crime was to demand their basic human rights. The spirit of Tiananmen lives on in the exiles who fled their beloved homeland and who today carry on the struggle. In San Francisco, which I have the privilege of sharing representation with the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), we are proud that many of these talented young people have enriched our community. But even as we observe their celebrations to our Nation, we work for a day when they may return if they so choose to their own nation, a free and democratic China.

For too long the United States has pursued a policy of trickle-down liberty. First, economic freedom and then they said political freedom will follow. The 15 years since Tiananmen have exposed this policy as the illusion that it is. For a billion Chinese, freedom remains a dream deferred. After all these years, journalists, activists, academics, workers and religious believers are still persecuted and, Mr. Speaker, tortured. As this 15th anniversary nears, Beijing is still harassing and arresting dissidents and families of the Tiananmen victims. Meanwhile, Chinese elites are enriched by global trade. And despite more than a decade of concessions from Washington, our trade deficit with China has grown from $2 billion a year to over $2 billion a week, to a dangerous $124 billion a year.

The highest tribute we could pay on this anniversary would be to use our political and economic influence to advance the reforms advocated 15 years ago.

Finally, the spirit of Tiananmen lives on in the hearts of the Chinese people, especially those in Hong Kong who have tasted freedom. In taking to the streets to demand democracy, the brave people of Hong Kong have been a stirring example to the world. On this anniversary, U.S. resolve in facing Beijing would send a clear message to democratic reformers throughout Asia. Democracy in Asia is as crucial there as it is in the rest of the world.

So it is that the spirit of Tiananmen endures and inspires. Tanks and troops may crush a protest, but they can never extinguish the flame of freedom that burns in every human heart.

Mr. Speaker, on this day with this resolution we say to the people of China, including the people of Hong Kong and freedom-loving people everywhere, your cause is our cause. We will never forget. We will never forget. And in doing so we reaffirm our commitment to a common dream: the day when the world's most populous nation can at last be called the world's largest democracy.