Madam Speaker, I rise to express my ongoing concern about China. I strongly believe that America must be a country that stands up for basic decency and human rights. America must speak out on behalf…
Madam Speaker, I rise to express my ongoing concern about China. I strongly believe that America must be a country that stands up for basic decency and human rights. America must speak out on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves--men and women who are being persecuted for their religious or political beliefs. Our foreign policy must be a policy that helps promote human rights and freedom, and not a policy that sides with dictators who oppress their own citizens.
Every person on earth has certain inalienable rights. In a 1987 Constitution Day speech, Ronald Reagan noted that the U.S. Constitution has been described ``as a kind of covenant. It is a covenant we've made not only with ourselves but with all of mankind.'' Reagan continued that ``It's a human covenant; yes, and beyond that, a covenant with the Supreme Being to whom our Founding Fathers did constantly appeal for assistance.'' America has a profound responsibility to keep this covenant and to stand up for freedom in the world's darkest corners.
China is a perfect example of a place where these rights are not being protected. The China of today is worse than the China of yesterday, or of last year, or of the last decade. China is not progressing. It is regressing. It is more violent, more repressive, and more resistant to democratic values than ever before.
China is actively engaged in espionage against the United States. I recently had the opportunity to read the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's 2007 Classified Report to the Congress, and found the report's conclusions to be very alarming. The unclassified version of this report is available at www.usce eov. I strongly urge you to read it, as it gives a clear picture of the threat that China poses to our national security.
The report addresses Chinese activities in the areas of espionage, cyber warfare, and arms proliferation. The FBI has described Chinese espionage as a ``substantial threat'' and the Bureau of Customs and Border Patrol has reported publicly that Chinese espionage is now the leading threat to U.S. technology. It has also been widely reported that many cyber attacks against the U.S. government are suspected of originating in China. Furthermore, China continues to transfer weapons and technology to nations of concern and non-state actors, putting men and women in American uniform abroad in grave danger.
You may have also seen the April 3 Washington Post article titled, ``Chinese Spy `Slept' in U.S. for Two Decades,'' which details the spying activities of Chi Mak. Mak lived quietly with his family in a Los Angeles suburb for two decades while he built his career around secretly copying sensitive plans for Navy weapons, submarines and ships and couriering them to the Chinese government. U.S. intelligence and Justice Department officials believe the Mak case ``represents only a small facet of a [Chinese] intelligence-gathering operation that has long been in place and is growing in size and sophistication.'' I have enclosed a copy of this article for your review.
China also poses a deadly threat to its own citizens. Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur for torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, has found that Chinese officials specifically target house church groups. Falun Gong adherents, Tibetans, and Uyghur prisoners and abuse them.
The Cardinal Kung Foundation reports that in 2007, 35 Roman Catholic bishops were in jail, under house arrest, or harassed and put under surveillance. The Chinese government has refused to acknowledge the Vatican as the supreme authority for Chinese Catholics in many matters of faith. More information on the Chinese government's persecution of the Catholic Church can be found at www.cardinalkungfoundation.org. In 2007, the Chinese government arrested 693 Christians that we know of. The China Aid Association reports that in 2007 the known cases in which Christian house churches were persecuted by the government covered 18 provinces and one municipality directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Government and there were 60 cases of persecution, up 30.4% from that of 2006. You can read more about China's persecution of Christians at http://chinaaid.org. Muslims and Buddhists face persecution by the Chinese government as well. Renowned human rights advocate and Uyghur Muslim Rebiya Kadeer has watched from exile as the Chinese government arrests and beats her family members in her homeland. In late 2006, western mountain climbers captured on videotape a horrifying scene: Chinese police shooting from their North Face tents at a group of Tibetan refugees crossing Nangpa Pass. A 17-year old Buddhist nun was killed and several others were wounded. Additional information on the persecution of Muslims, Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and other minorities can be found in the State Department's annual human rights report at http:// www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100518.htm.
According to the State Department's 2007 human rights report, China has 20 ankang institutions (high-security psychiatric hospitals for the criminally insane) directly administered by the Ministry of Public Security. People that are committed to these institutions have no mechanism for objecting to public security officials' determinations of mental illness.
The Chinese government often houses dissidents in these institutions, beating them, giving them medicine against their will, forcibly subjecting them to electric shock treatment and denying them food and the use of toilet facilities. According to the State Department's human rights report, political activists, underground religious believers, members of the banned China Democratic Party (CDP), and Falun Gong practitioners are among the people incarcerated in these facilities.
China maintains an extensive system of gulags--slave labor camps, also known as the ``laogai''--as large as that which existed in the former Soviet Union. These camps are used for brainwashing and ``reeducation through labor,'' and are often the site of barbaric procedures of organ harvesting, torture, and execution. During a trip to China in March 1991, I visited Beijing Prison No. I and witnessed forced labor first-hand. In late 2005, I introduced H. Con. Res. 294, a resolution condemning the Laogai prison camps, which passed in the House by a vote of 413-1.
China has a long history of attempts to liquidate Tibet's culture and presence in China, including in the recent crackdown in which scores of Tibetans were killed and hundreds more arrested for participating in the protests. My outrage at what China is doing in Tibet led me to visit Tibet in 1997. I have continued since then to speak out on behalf of the persecuted and suffering in Tibet and about the human rights abuses that I have witnessed first-hand there.
I was disappointed in the State Department's decision in March to remove China from its list of the world's 10 worst human rights violators, especially given State's own admission of China's poor human rights record in its annual human rights report. I also remain deeply troubled by the President's decision to attend the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It is time to send China a message that the United States is serious when we tell the Chinese government that it needs to end the human rights and religious freedom abuses in its own country.
China poses a threat to freedom in other countries as well. China, which is a major business partner of Sudan, should be using its influence with the Sudanese government to bring an end to the genocide in the Darfur region. Instead, Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Khartoum early in 2007 did not produce progress on this point, but rather a commitment by the Chinese to build Sudanese President Bashir a new palace. China's role in extracting oil from Sudan, selling weapons to the Sudanese government and maintaining close business relations with this genocidal regime are clearly more important to the Chinese government than saving human lives.
China also cuts corners with its exports, making products that pose significant danger to consumers around the world. Recent Chinese exports to our country--and to many others--have included tainted pet food that has killed our pets, dried apples in cancer-causing chemicals, scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria, children's toys containing lead-based paint, and prunes tinted with chemical dyes, prompting U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors to travel across the world to investigate two suspect Chinese factories, only to find the factories had been cleaned out and all equipment dismantled.
Chinese products also poison children in Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Australia, with toothpaste containing an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in some antifreeze. This toothpaste was marketed under the brand name ``Mr. Cool.''
Several years ago, during the debate over granting China permanent normal trade relations status, proponents argued that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization in China, and that the U.S. and other industrialized nations could influence China through economic activity to better respect the rights of its citizens to fundamental human rights.
I strongly opposed Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status for China, and today we have seen why the protection of basic liberties should not come second to economic growth. China is more violent, repressive, and resistant to democratic values than it was before we opened our ports to freely accept Chinese products.
And despite all of these abhorrent acts. China was still awarded the honor of hosting the 2008 Olympics. The Olympic Games: an event designed to lift up ``the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles,'' according to its own charter. Does China's behavior sound like a ``good example'' to the rest of the world? Or that it is reflecting ``fundamental ethical principles'' that all nations should aspire to?
It is because of these actions I have described that I do not support the president or other senior U.S. officials attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The political prisoners in China and Chinese dissidents around the world will be deeply demoralized by what the Chinese government will surely portray as symbolic support for its regime if senior American officials attend the games. I have proposed language for inclusion in the 2008 emergency supplemental appropriations bill that would prohibit U.S. federal employees from attending the Olympics on the taxpayer's dime.
Some assert that human rights will come to China once stability has been attained. They say that protection of human rights is secondary to attaining economic power and wealth. We must reject that notion. China poses a threat not only to its own citizens, but to the entire world. The United States government must be vigilant about protecting the values of human rights, religious freedom and democracy that we hold dear.
