[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 242 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
105th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 242
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the President should not go to
China until certain aspects of United States policy toward China in the
areas of national security, trade, and human rights have been clarified
and outstanding questions surrounding the export of United States
satellite and missile technology have been answered.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
June 4 (legislative day, June 2), 1998
Mr. Ashcroft (for himself and Mr. Hutchinson) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the President should not go to
China until certain aspects of United States policy toward China in the
areas of national security, trade, and human rights have been clarified
and outstanding questions surrounding the export of United States
satellite and missile technology have been answered.
Whereas the President has pledged that the United States ``must remain a
champion'' of the liberties of the Chinese people;
Whereas two of the most notable Chinese dissidents, Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng,
effectively have been exiled from their country;
Whereas thousands of other individuals remain imprisoned in China and Tibet for
peacefully expressing their beliefs and exercising their inalienable
rights, including freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom
of conscience;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China routinely,
systematically, and massively continues to commit widespread human
rights abuses in Tibet, including instances of death in detention,
torture, arbitrary arrest, imprisonment for the peaceful expression of
religious and political views, and intensified controls on the freedom
of speech and the press, particularly for ethnic Tibetans;
Whereas China has taken extraordinary steps to avoid the condemnation of the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights;
Whereas the President has failed to press China aggressively to protect the
civil liberties of the Chinese people and failed even to sponsor a
resolution at the meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights condemning China's human rights violations, which include forced
abortion, summary execution, arbitrary imprisonment, and persecution of
religious minorities;
Whereas since November 1994, the President has declared annually a national
emergency regarding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
stated that such proliferation poses ``an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the
United States'';
Whereas, in a June 1997 report on proliferation activity, the Central
Intelligence Agency identified China as ``the most significant supplier
of weapons of mass destruction-related goods and technology'', including
missile, nuclear, and chemical weapons technology to rogue states such
as Iran;
Whereas United States satellite cooperation with China has benefited China's
intercontinental ballistic missile program--missiles with nuclear
warheads pointed at the United States, and the Department of Justice is
investigating possible missile technology transfers to China resulting
from United States-Chinese satellite cooperation;
Whereas the President's decision to waive restrictions on the export to China of
missile technology similar to that under investigation by the Department
of Justice, and the President's efforts to lift the requirements for
launch waivers altogether, undermine the present Justice Department
investigation and threatens United States national security;
Whereas the Department of Justice is investigating possible campaign
contributions from the People's Liberation Army to the Democratic
National Committee through contributions from an executive at China
Aerospace International Holdings, an affiliate of China Aerospace
Corporation, the firm which oversees China's missile development and
space programs;
Whereas China made written commitments to the United States during the October
1997 summit to terminate nuclear cooperation with Iran and was later
reported to be violating that pledge by attempting to provide Iran with
hundreds of tons of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, a material for use in
Iran's nuclear weapons complex to enrich uranium to weapons grade;
Whereas the President, in allowing nuclear cooperation to proceed with China,
certified that ``the People's Republic of China has provided clear and
unequivocal assurances to the United States that it is not assisting and
will not assist any nonnuclear-weapon state, either directly or
indirectly, in acquiring nuclear explosive devices or the material and
components for such devices'';
Whereas the credibility of this certification is undermined by China's
continuing proliferation activity, including efforts to assist Iran's
nuclear weapons program;
Whereas since the United States normalized trade relations with China in 1979,
China has risen from the 57th to 4th largest supplier of United States
imports;
Whereas China's trade and investment practices have resulted in a 1997 trade
deficit of $49,700,000,000, an imbalance more than 2.5 times larger than
the United States trade deficit with all European countries, and
accounting for one-fourth of the United States trade deficit with the
entire world;
Whereas in the Executive branch's 1997 National Trade Estimate on Foreign Trade
Barriers, China's trade regime was identified as ``political'',
``severely restricted'', ``prohibitive'', ``unpredictable'',
``preferential'', ``de facto'', ``unpublished'', ``vague'',
``inaccessible'', ``inconsistent'', and ``noncompetitive'';
Whereas facing Congress's near withdrawal of most-favored nation (MFN) status in
1991 and President Bush's threat of sanctions, China, in order to keep
MFN status and have the United States support its accession to the World
Trade Organization (WTO), agreed that it would allow the United States
automobile sector to compete freely in the Chinese market and that, by
December 31, 1997, it would eliminate significant trade barriers to
United States agricultural exports;
Whereas China's trade liberalization commitments in 1991 have not been honored,
yet the Executive branch is moving forward in negotiations for China to
accede to the WTO;
Whereas concessions made by China in negotiations to accede to the WTO have been
piecemeal, inconsistent, and deficient, and thus limit the economic
opportunity of United States businesses and workers;
Whereas Taiwan serves as an example of democratic governance to China and the
authoritarian Chinese communist party;
Whereas the People's Republic of China carried out missile exercises in 1995 and
1996 intended to intimidate the people of Taiwan, continues a military
buildup directed at the island, refuses to renounce the use of force
against Taiwan, and consistently seeks to isolate Taipei from membership
in international organizations and general relations with other
countries;
Whereas the Chinese communist party has undermined the institutions of
democratic government in Hong Kong by abolishing Hong Kong's elected
legislature, designing a framework for legislative elections that
severely limits representative democracy, and passing retroactive
legislation exempting Chinese entities from a host of Hong Kong's laws;
and
Whereas the Democratic Party of Hong Kong won every seat elected by direct
ballot in Hong Kong, garnering over 60 percent of the popular vote, yet
President Clinton has declined to meet individually with the leadership
of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That, in the interest of improving United States-China
relations, it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) a healthy and stable relationship with China is in the
national interests of the United States;
(2) the Chinese people should be allowed to freely exercise
their unalienable rights, including the rights to freedom of
speech, of religion, and of association;
(3) efforts by the Chinese government to restrict those
liberties pose a threat to a stable China and a positive long-
term relationship with the United States;
(4) the President should submit a report to Congress as
soon as possible after the proposed summit in China concerning
his progress in securing the release of persons remaining
imprisoned in China and Tibet and other significant steps to
improve human rights;
(5) China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
technology poses an unusual threat to the national security of
the United States;
(6) the President has failed to confront China's
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology,
proliferation that is directly responsible for contributing to
an escalating nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan;
(7) the trustworthiness of the Chinese government is
undermined when nonproliferation and trade commitments of
Chinese officials are repeatedly broken;
(8) the President, in addition to applauding narrow trade
concessions from China, should ensure that the highest levels
of diplomacy are used to open the entire Chinese market to
United States trade and investment;
(9) China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
should be conditioned on China's compliance with past market
access commitments and further steps to open China's market to
United States investment and trade in goods and services;
(10) the United States should not jeopardize cooperation
with and assistance to the democratic government of Taiwan to
appease the Chinese government but instead should maintain
unambiguously its legal commitments to help maintain Taiwan's
capacity for self-defense while calling upon the Chinese
government to renounce the use of force against the people of
Taiwan;
(11) the preservation of democratic government and rule of
law in Hong Kong is an obligation of the Chinese government and
failure to honor that obligation will have a negative effect on
United States policy toward China;
(12) China is resisting the spread of democracy in Asia,
which is occurring from South Korea to Indonesia, and the
failure of President Clinton to meet with the leaders of the
Democratic Party of Hong Kong undermines his statement to
President Jiang that China's repressive government is ``on the
wrong side of history''; and
(13) the President should not go to China to attend a
summit with President Jiang until--
(A) the President has provided a full disclosure to
Congress concerning the transfer of United States
satellite and missile technology to China; and
(B) United States policy toward China in general
has been formulated more effectively to protect United
States national security, economic, and human rights
interests.
Sec. 2. The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit a copy of this
resolution to the President.
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