Recognizing the 17th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 794) recognizing the 17th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe that every one of us remembers the events that occurred in Tiananmen Square on June 3 and June 4, 1989. We may be hazy on the dates, but the images are as fresh today as they were then. We all remember the Chinese version of the Statue of Liberty being erected by thousands of peaceful, well-behaved demonstrators, mostly students.

We remember peaceful protests in Beijing and throughout China calling for the establishment of a dialogue with the government and party leaders on democratic reforms, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and respect for workers' rights and the elimination of corruption by government officials.

All over the Communist world, from Berlin to Beijing, there was a tremendous outpouring of hope that year, hope that freedom and democracy would soon triumph. Exhausted, obsolete, and morally bankrupt Communist regimes were turning on the people in the last desperate effort to retain their control and the enormous privileges such control gave them and to the party elites.

Later that year, the Berlin Wall, symbol of the physical, mental, and moral prisons that held over a billion people in chains, fell. We all remember the incredible joy felt throughout the world when this happened.

Also burned for all time in our memory is the image of the lone protestor on Tiananmen Square who held up the tanks sent to crush the demonstrators. Yet we also remember that the police grabbed that heroic figure and swept him away, like so many others, to an unknown fate. Those tanks, under orders of the Communist government of China, then crushed under their treads the movement for democracy in China. The Communist government killed, tortured and imprisoned thousands for daring to question its illegal monopoly on power. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are still imprisoned and persecuted for exercising the rights guaranteed to them by their Constitution and the rules of all civilized societies. While millions in Europe now enjoy freedom, that right is still denied to Chinese people.

Right after Tiananmen Square, Mr. Speaker, Frank Wolf and I went to Beijing and visited Beijing Prison No. 1, a prison where some 40 Tiananmen Square prisoners were being held. They were like modern-day Nazi concentration camps, and these victims with their heads shaved were asking peacefully that the government allow some basic liberties that we all take for granted in the U.S. and in many other nations of the world. They were hunted down, tortured and jailed.

China declared war not only on the protestors but on history itself. The Communist government undertakes active measures to deny its citizens the truth even today about what happened

in Tiananmen Square. In December of 1996, Mr. Speaker, 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 1989, said, ``Not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.'' According to General Chi, the Chinese Army did nothing more violent than the ``pushing of people.''

To counter that big lie, I quickly put together and chaired a hearing of eyewitnesses to Tiananmen who definitively refuted General Chi's brazen lies, but then again, what did he care? General Chi got the red carpet treatment at the Clinton White House and full military honors. I believe he should have been charged with crimes against humanity.

Most Chinese today, Mr. Speaker, unfortunately have no accurate knowledge of what happened in Tiananmen Square. China blocks even today uncensored Internet sites and Web logs and places misleading information on Internet sites available in China, often with the collusion and cooperation of U.S. Internet companies such as Yahoo and Google. As part and parcel of its Tiananmen Square cover-up, the Communist government sentenced journalist Shi Tao to 10 years in prison, using information provided by Yahoo, for using his Yahoo e-mail account to send foreigners a copy of a Chinese Government memo warning of possible trouble during the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

We all know that torture does not stop with those who demand political freedoms. It is appropriate on this occasion to remember and seek freedom for all prisoners of conscience, all believers, democrats, and human rights activists who will one day triumph in China, but who now suffer grievously. There is ongoing aggressive repression of those who want to practice their faith as they see fit.

Matter of fact, it has gotten worse in the last few years. Falun Gong practitioners, for example, are routinely rounded up and beaten and abused, and hundreds have been tortured to death while held in captivity. Catholics loyal to the Pope and members of the Protestant house church movements are harassed, tortured and imprisoned. The Communist government of China subjects Buddhist Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs to cultural and physical genocide.

China also makes brothers and sisters illegal. China's coercive one- child-per-couple policy not only subjects millions of women to forced abortions and sterilizations; it has encouraged a massive increase in sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. The result is up to 100 million missing girls or women and one of the worst human trafficking problems now in the world. Matter of fact, it has been said by one China demographer that by the year 2020 as many as 40 million men will be looking for wives in China and will not be able to find them as a direct result of the one-child-per-couple policy.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Mao Hengfeng, a long-time activist to end this evil policy, was rearrested just a few days ago as part of a new crackdown on pro-democracy protests related to the Tiananmen Square anniversary. The Chinese Communists know, even if many Westerners still do not understand it, that democracy and the right to life are intrinsically connected. I held a hearing a year and a half ago on Mrs. Mao, and I continue to admire her incredible courage. Today, I pray for her and her family and will work again for her early release.

Two other prisoners, Madam Speaker, especially Dr. Yang Jianli and Dr. Wang Bingzhang, deserve special recognition as well today. They are both American permanent residents. Their families are U.S. citizens, and they have for many years peacefully worked for freedom and democracy in the People's Republic of China. In a country with thousands of prisoners, their cases are particularly egregious examples of China's human rights violations. This bill calls for their immediate release, as well as the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience.

Madam Speaker, we cannot forget these people. Had the hopes of the Tiananmen Square been realized, we would not need to pass such a resolution as we do today. The more than 25 hearings that I have held on this subject would not have been needed and many resolutions, including two more that will follow this one to make a record three resolutions on China's egregious human rights abuse being considered on the House floor today.

Alas, all of this is necessary until China agrees to observe the fundamental human rights that belong to all people and are recognized as such under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We must not collaborate with the Chinese Communists to erase history. We must honor the memory of those who protested and did so so valiantly.

This amendment in the nature of a substitute that we offer today has been updated to more tightly focus on the denial of fundamental human rights in China symbolized by the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance our time.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution now under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I urge support of the resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution. May I express my deep respect for my friend and colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) for his indefatigable fight for human rights in China.

I hope, Madam Speaker, you will have occasion to visit my office, because in the reception room you will find a large poster of a young unarmed Chinese student facing down a row of Chinese tanks on Tiananmen Square. This poster and this image is the indelible record of what happened at Tiananmen Square 17 years ago.

That day, 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, like the one who is depicted in my poster, to the students and to the workers gathered in Tiananmen Square and address their concerns about party corruption and the lack of democracy, or whether they would seek to quash the movement with violent and vicious 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 choice. 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.

The Chinese leadership hoped that the world would soon forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. Our job in Congress is to ensure that we never forget those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square that day or the pro-democracy cause for which they fought.

While the list of ongoing human rights violations in China is long, today I would like to focus on the Chinese Government control of the Internet.

Despite its enormous power and wealth, China's ruling elite remains absolutely petrified that the free flow of information will undermine its political legitimacy, particularly among China's younger generation. The rulers in Beijing reason that if an average Chinese person can find out the truth about the Tiananmen massacre or the repression of the Falun Gong with a few key strokes on the computer, it is only a matter of time before the Chinese public will demand fundamental change in China.

So rather than face the bitter truth, China has placed severe restrictions on the Internet and enlisted America's high-tech companies as their Internet police.

In America's open and democratic system, based on our constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression, these high-tech firms have thrived and their founders have amassed enormous wealth, running into the billions, great influence and prestige.

But instead of using their power and creativity to bring greater openness and democracy to China, they have yielded to Beijing's outrageous demands simply for the sake of profits. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo should be developing new technologies to bypass government sensors and barriers to the Internet; but instead, they agreed to guard the gates themselves.

Let me start with Yahoo. As we meet today, a Chinese citizen who had the

courage to speak his mind on the Internet is in prison because Yahoo chose to share his name and address with the Chinese Government. It is bad enough that Beijing is so petrified of dissent that it throws dissidents behind bars for years on end and blacklists their families; but it is simply beyond comprehension, Madam Speaker, that an American company would play an active role in the Chinese suppression apparatus.

Yahoo insists that it has no choice but to follow national laws and cites its adherence to modern German laws that prohibit neo-Nazi propaganda. This argument literally sickens me. Germany is a mature democracy, and its freely elected leaders have determined that they wish to prohibit the most severe forms of hate-mongering.

China has a rubber-stamp parliament; and the Chinese Government places severe, far-reaching restrictions on freedom of speech and religious liberty. For an American firm such as Yahoo to comply willingly with laws that send someone to jail for simply expressing his views is unconscionable.

Google and Microsoft similarly argue that they must comply with Chinese laws that prohibit on-line discussions and searching of certain ``sensitive'' subjects. So they have elected to become surrogate government censors, removing content and blocking information that offends the political sensitivities of the ruling elite in Beijing.

They apparently have no moral problems with censoring the Tibetans and Falun Gong, both persecuted minorities in China. Do these companies have any standards at all? If Iran demands that Google block all information related to Jews except anti-Semitic propaganda, will it comply? What about a Sudanese request to censor information on the ongoing genocide in Darfur?

Madam Speaker, several pieces of legislation have been introduced to stop American complicity with China's crackdown on the Internet. We must move forward with these bills expeditiously not only because it is good policy but because it would honor the memory of those who died in Tiananmen Square 17 years ago today, Madam Speaker, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to explain how I would have voted on several votes during the weeks of June 5th and June 12th during the second session of the 109th Congress. I was not able to be in Washington to cast these votes, as I remained in my district to attend my son's high school graduation.

On rollcall vote No. 223, on agreeing to the King of Iowa amendment, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 224, on agreeing to the Kingston amendment, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 225, on the motion to Table the Appeal of the Ruling of the Chair, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 226, on passage of H.R. 5441, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for FY 2007, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 227, on Ordering the Previous Question, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 228, on agreeing to H. Res. 842, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 229, on passage of H.R. 5521, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 230, on motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to S. 193, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 231, on motion to Recommit with Instructions H.R. 5254, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 232, on passage of H.R. 5254, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 233, on motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H.R. 5449, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 234, on motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to S. 2803, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 235, on consideration of H. Res. 850, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 236, on agreeing to the Obey amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 237, on agreeing to H. Res. 850, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 238, on agreeing to the Smith of Texas amendment, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 239, on agreeing to the Markey amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 240, on motion to Recommit with Instructions, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 241, on passage of H.R. 5252, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 242, on agreeing to the McGovern No. 7 amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 243, on agreeing to the McGovern No. 8 amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 244, on agreeing to the Weiner amendment, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 245, on agreeing to the King of Iowa amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 246, on agreeing to the Kucinich amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 247, on agreeing to the Sanders amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 248, on agreeing to the Hefley of Colorado amendment, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 249, on agreeing to the Blumenauer of Oregon amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 250, on passage of H.R. 5522, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall vote No. 251, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H. Res. 794, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 252, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H. Res. 804, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 253, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H. Res. 608, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 254, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H. Con. Res. 338, I would have voted ``yes.''

On rollcall vote No. 255, on ordering the previous question on H. Res. 857, I would have voted ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, it has been 17 years since the Chinese government unleashed the People's Liberation Army on its own defenseless people in Tiananmen Square. Today, the House of Representatives pays tribute to the brave souls who stood up for freedom, only to be met with a hail of bullets and a new era of repression.

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

We remember how Chinese students, workers, and citizens marched in peace; how they raised a Goddess of Democracy in the image of our own Statue of Liberty; how they quoted our own Founding Fathers.

Seventeen years later, almost every independent organization monitoring human rights believes the situation in China has not significantly improved.

In fact, we know the Chinese government is becoming even more sophisticated, using new technology to monitor and apprehend those who criticize the regime or worship freely. Web service providers are required to censor information. Sadly, they are complying instead of using their leverage to push for change.

Religious believers continue to be a target of the Chinese government, subjected to harassment and detention for only practicing their faith.

Chinese authorities require Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader and imprison individuals for simply owning pictures of the Dalai Lama.

Bush Administration officials say they hope China will become a ``responsible stakeholder'' in world affairs. We should avoid wishful thinking about the intentions of the Chinese government.

In addition to the deplorable human rights conditions, the Chinese government is providing military technology to countries that threaten international security including Iran and North Korea, threatening Taiwan with a military attack, and violating its trade agreements.

Certainly we need to engage China, but it should be sustainable engagement that enables us to sustain our values, sustain our economic growth, and sustain our national security.

Today, we once again call on Beijing to release the thousands of prisoners whose only crime is to demand their basic human rights.

We call on the Chinese government to open up the Laogai prison system to the International Red Cross so the world can see what really is going on.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 794, recognizing the 17th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square.

I would like to thank Chairman Henry Hyde, Ranking Member Tom Lantos and Congressman Chris Smith of the House International Relations Committee, as well as the International Relations Committee staff, for their work on this bill.

House Resolution 794 rightfully commends all persons who are peacefully advocating for democracy and human rights in China. The resolution condemns the ongoing human rights abuses by the government of the People's Republic of China, and calls on that government to cease the inhumane treatment of pro-democracy activists, prisoners of conscience, minorities, and religious groups.

The resolution includes language regarding Dr. Wang Bingzhang, a family member of constituents from the great city of La Puente, CA. In June of 2002, Dr. Wang was abducted in Vietnam by Chinese authorities and held in solitary confinement in China for six months, during which time the Chinese government denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. In December of the same year, the Chinese government reversed itself and acknowledged he had been in their custody. Dr. Wang was then issued a life sentence after a closed, half-day trial.

Dr. Wang has been refused a fair trial, and the Chinese government has refused to release any evidence to substantiate Dr. Wang's alleged crimes. Dr. Wang is currently being held in Shaoguan prison in Guangdong Province, where he is on a hunger strike. Prison authorities continue to deny Dr. Wang access to Western medicine which he needs for his serious health issues.

I thank the Members of the International Relations Committee who supported this bipartisan resolution. I look forward to the committee's continued work to end the deplorable, appalling and unjust treatment of dissidents by Chinese authorities.

My staff and I will continue to work on this critical issue, and I look forward to Dr. Wang's release and return to his family.