Excerpts: Rep. Wolf Says China Won't Let U.S. Monitor Rights
(Backed failed bid to deny China annual NTR status)Lawmakers shouldn't fool themselves into thinking that they will be able to effect improvement in China's human rights record by greater trade or congressional monitoring, as suggested by supporters of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status (PNTR) for China, according to Representative Frank Wolf (Republican of Virginia).
Speaking in a debate July 18 on a resolution that would have denied the President the authority to waive provisions of the Trade Act of 1974 to provide China with Normal Trade Relations status for another year, Wolf said the Chinese "will never sign or participate" in monitoring their human rights situation.
"Since PNTR has passed," Wolf said, "there is even more evidence about China's gross human rights violations, religious persecution, and information regarding the national security threat that China poses to the U.S."
The United States, he said is at a crossroads in its relationship with China. "Wishful thinking and ignoring all of the evidence about China's human rights violations, religious persecution, and national security threat do not change the reality of the regime in China," he said.
Wolf is a member of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and serves on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).
Following are excerpts from Rep. Wolf's remarks from the Congressional Record:
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Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, there will be no real human rights monitoring in China. The Russians were signatories of the Helsinki Final Accords and Helsinki worked. The Chinese will never sign or participate in the monitoring.
If every Member would go back and search your files, how many letters have you all sent to China on behalf of the Catholic bishops, the 14 Catholic bishops that are in jail? How many of you have sent a letter since we have passed PNTR?
I do not know why we are having a debate, but we are having it, and I think the gentlewoman from California made the case, your side won. But now have you done anything about the human rights concerns raised? Have you done anything about the fact that the Dalai Lama cannot return to Tibet and Tibet is still being plundered? Search your files. Have you done anything with regard to Tibet? Or have you done anything, as the gentlewoman talked about, to help house church leaders who have been arrested since we passed PNTR? Have you done anything with regard to them? Do you think Boeing has done anything with regard to the Catholic priests? Do you think Boeing, the head of Boeing, has done anything with regard to the evangelical house church leaders that have been arrested? Do you think Boeing has done anything with regard to the Catholic priest who went to jail for publishing the Bible? You all probably know that Boeing has not done anything.
Secondly, I think we are in the same mood as we were during the 1930s with regard to Winston Churchill and Nazi Germany. I think when I watch what is taking place in the other body, Senator Thompson is trying to do something and Members are urging him not to do anything because he may upset this.
In closing, your side won. I wish their commission works. But in the meantime, not only those of us who have been against PNTR but those of you who have been for PNTR have an obligation, have a burden that every time you get a Dear Colleague letter from a Member asking that something be done to help a Catholic priest in China, you sign the letter. When there is something to be done with regard to a Catholic bishop, you sign the letter. When there is something to do with regard to Tibet and the Dalai Lama, you sign the letter. When there is something to be done to stop the persecution of the Moslems in the northwest portion of the country, you sign the letter. When we raise concerns with regard to nuclear proliferation in China, you sign the letter. If we can come together with regard to these issues of human rights and religious persecution, perhaps we can make some changes.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution disapproving the extension of normal trade relations with China for another year.
Just two months ago we were on this floor debating the issue of granting permanent normal trade relations with China. At that time I and many of our colleagues provided evidence which showed that China has done nothing to deserve permanent access to U.S. markets. The evidence was strong in the areas of national security and human rights showing that the Chinese government is a brutal regime which poses a serious national security threat to the United States and which continues to commit human rights abuses and persecutes its own people for their religious beliefs.
In the past two months since the PNTR debate, the fears which many expressed about China's behavior have become reality and have been reported on by some of the major newspapers and leading news sources on China. . .
China has exported weapons of mass destruction and missiles in violation of treaty commitments. The director of the CIA has said that China remains a `key supplier' of these weapons to Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. Other reports indicate China has passed on similar weapons and technology to Libya and Syria. If one of these countries is involved in a conflict, it is very possible that our men and women in uniform could be called into harm's way. These weapons of mass destruction could then be targeted against American troops.
I am concerned about the alliance that seems to be forming between China and Russia against the U.S. China is purchasing as many weapons from Russia as it can. I am concerned with recent reports in the Taiwan press that Russia will dispatch its Pacific Fleet to check the route of the U.S. Seventh Fleet if the U.S. makes any movement toward Taiwan during a China-Taiwan conflict. . .
In closing, since PNTR has passed, there is even more evidence about China's gross human rights violations, religious persecution, and information regarding the national security threat that China poses to the U.S.
As I said in my statement for the record during the PNTR debate, the U.S. is at a crossroads in its relationship with China. Wishful thinking and ignoring all of the evidence about China's human rights violations, religious persecution, and national security threat do not change the reality of the regime in China.
We need to learn what history teaches us about leadership. Leadership is not about seeing what we wish to see. Leadership is not about closing our eyes to the threats before us. Leadership is about clearly, lucidly, and forcefully addressing facts and truth and taking appropriate action.
The American way of life, our freedom can only be preserved by vigilance. Vigilance requires us to look at the situation in China today and conclude that the Chinese regime should not have received permanent trade relations with the U.S. until the questions of national security were adequately addressed and until there was a significant improvement in China's human rights record.
The same applies to this debate on extending approval of normal trade relations with China. Giving China PNTR was the wrong thing to do and for the same reasons, which are buttressed by even more evidence today, the U.S. should disapprove extension of China normal trade relations.
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