[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE PRICE OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY WITH CHINA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 28, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-133
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
or
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
73-537 WASHINGTON : 2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
______
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey--
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California deceased 3/6/12 deg.
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
RON PAUL, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
JOE WILSON, South Carolina RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
CONNIE MACK, Florida ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID RIVERA, Florida CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New York
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RON PAUL, Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DAVID RIVERA, Florida
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Steven Mosher, president, Population Research Institute...... 4
Mr. Kai Chen, Chinese freedom activist........................... 13
Mr. Greg Autry, co-author, ``Death by China''.................... 19
Mr. Robert Daly, director, Maryland China Initiative, The
University of Maryland......................................... 37
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Steven Mosher: Prepared statement............................ 6
Mr. Kai Chen: Prepared statement................................. 15
Mr. Greg Autry: Prepared statement............................... 22
Mr. Robert Daly: Prepared statement.............................. 41
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 60
Hearing minutes.................................................. 61
THE PRICE OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY WITH CHINA
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Rohrabacher. This hearing of the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee is called to order.
I want to welcome all of you and Mr. Carnahan.
Of course, today our subject for this hearing is China's
public diplomacy policies. The two pillars of America's status
quo as an open society are freedom of the press and academic
freedom. Communist China, which does not believe in or allow
the practice of either type of this freedom, is exploiting the
opportunities offered by America, as we are consistent with
those values, to penetrate both private media and public
education to spread its own state propaganda.
When Americans debate and discuss issues of the day, the
assumption is that while many views may differ, citizens are
trying to find the best outcome or policy that will benefit
their country. No such assumption applies to the agents of
foreign powers who are advancing what serves the interests of
their own dictatorship, which is in competition with our
country.
Beijing is pouring billions of dollars into the country's
state-run media machine, which is churning out new TV networks,
radio stations, and newspapers aimed at foreign audiences.
China Daily is delivered on a weekly basis to nearly every
office on Capitol Hill and claims two-thirds of its readers are
opinion leaders in government or business. Nearly every
American home with a satellite dish or a cable TV has multiple
channels presented by the Chinese Communist Government.
They present a mixture of news and entertainment programs
just like a regular network, but there is no warning label
informing the audiences that what views are expressed or
embedded in the programs are those of a foreign power, let
alone a rival Communist dictatorship that considers us to be
the enemy.
Less obvious to the general public, but a major undertaking
by Beijing is the creation of over 70 Confucius Institutes and
classrooms at American universities and high schools. Confucius
Institutes provide money, textbooks, and teachers from China,
funded by the Communist regime in Beijing. The U.S. schools
provide facilities, matching funds, and legitimacy to the
Chinese propaganda effort. Under the guise of education, the
Confucius Institutes convey Beijing's version of cultural
values and history in forms that can be described as propaganda
and have been so described by Communist officials from China
themselves.
History is part of the cultural curriculum that includes
the assertion that Tibet and Taiwan are now, and always have
been, Chinese territories. Another subtle message is that
socialism with Chinese characteristics creates a harmonious
society which everyone should envy.
The headquarters of the Confucius Institutes is the Hanban
located in Beijing. The Hanban recently won a red song contest
held by the Ministry of Education on the theme, ``Following the
Communist Party Forever.'' Is this ideology compatible with
American values of academic freedom? Are American universities
selling not just classroom space, but their souls in order to
get grants and Chinese money into their institutions?
Here to answer these and other questions is a distinguished
panel. We are grateful for you being with us today.
Mr. Steven Mosher, president, Population Research
Institute, he is the author of a number of books, including the
path-breaking, ``Broken Earth,'' which exposed China's
notorious one-child policy, and ``Hegemon: China's Plan to
Dominate Asia and the World,'' in 2002. His most recent book,
``Climategate: The Crutape Letters,'' which came out in 2010,
is also one of his books. He has also written for the Wall
Street Journal, the New Republic, the Washington Post, National
Review, Catholic World Report, Human Life Review, First Things,
and numerous other publications.
Then we have Mr. Kai Chen, a Chinese freedom activist. His
book in 2007, and that is, ``One in a Billion: Journey Toward
Freedom,'' tells of the horrors of living under Communist rule
and of his escape from China during the Cultural Revolution. He
is now an American citizen and a graduate of UCLA in political
science. He played for China's national basketball team, and
his daughters played for their American college teams. That is
terrific.
And Mr. Greg Autry, co-author of Peter Navarro's, ``Death
by China: Confronting the Dragon--a Global Call to Action,''
which was published last year by Prentice Hall. He is working
on a Ph.D. at the University of California at Irvine, and he is
also a partner in Network Corporation and Wired-Images.com. He
is a southern California professional systems consultant. That
group is consulting. The group was founded in 1997.
Finally, we have Mr. Robert Daly, director of Maryland
China Initiative, from the University of Maryland. Prior to
taking up his current post in 2007, he was for 6 years American
director of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University
Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China. He
began work in the United States/China relations with the United
States Information Agency, in which he served from 1986 to
1991. He then taught Chinese at Cornell in 1991 to 1992. For
the next 9 years, he worked on television projects in China as
a host actor and writer, and also served as a commentator in
U.S./China relations.
I want to thank you all.
Mr. Carnahan, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Carnahan. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you for the
work that you do with this committee and subcommittee. I
appreciate the work that we do together. We don't always come
at it from the same direction, but we have been able to find
some great common ground to work together on this committee. I
appreciate your work and your friendship.
I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I am a very
strong supporter of public diplomacy as a key piece of our
smart power strategies on behalf of the United States. I am
encouraged by your commitment to exploring multiple aspects of
these policies, including how other countries conduct public
diplomacy in the U.S. and abroad.
Public diplomacy programs are a critical and indispensable
component of U.S. foreign policy. Many of these programs are
cost-effective ways to conduct public diplomacy. Establishing
American cultural centers around the world has been, and should
be, a continued part of that policy.
No doubt, the barriers presented by the Chinese Government
to establish these has presented a challenge. I would encourage
the administration to continue to advocate that the Chinese
Government provide us with the same access that they are
allowed with the establishment of their Confucius Centers.
However, I do not believe that limiting U.S. access will
lead to the Chinese Government allowing the establishment of
U.S.-Government-funded cultural centers, nor do I believe it is
in the best interest of a free and open society like ours to do
so.
When you look broadly at public diplomacy in China, there
are numerous ways that are currently being effective. I would
point to a few: The establishment over the past few years of
several American corners at several public and university
libraries. While these certainly are not U.S.-Government-run,
as in other parts of the world, they are, nonetheless, an
avenue to bring American culture and values to China.
Other universities, like in my home city of St. Louis,
Webster University offers a wide array of opportunities in
China from joint degree programs to exchanges. Bringing the
value of American education to China from schools like Webster
University will help our public diplomacy efforts.
And student exchanges continue to be one of the best ways
to advance our long-term interest. Young people and students
can be some of our best diplomats. Current estimates show that
10 times as many Chinese students study in the U.S. compared to
the number of American students studying in China. So, there is
much work to be done there. Efforts to increase American
students studying in China, such as the 100,000 Strong
Initiative, will help foster a greater understanding of
American culture, as well as those students bringing back
better knowledge of China.
We need to continue engagement with the Chinese Government
and the Chinese people in all possible ways. I look forward to
hearing about how we could continue these efforts, and I,
again, want to thank the witnesses upfront for being here
today.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Carnahan.
We will start with Steven Mosher. Might I suggest that, if
you could keep your initial statement down to 5 minutes, we
will, then, put the rest of your statement in the record. And
then, we will proceed with the questions and answers, once all
of you are done with your testimony.
Mr. Mosher, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. STEVEN MOSHER, PRESIDENT, POPULATION RESEARCH
INSTITUTE
Mr. Mosher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this important hearing.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am going to ask you to put that
microphone very close to your mouth. You know, actually, I have
got what they call surfer's ear. When you go surfing and you go
into the cold water, it actually hurts your hearing sometimes.
And so, the more you can speak into that microphone, the better
they can hear you, but also the better I can hear you. So, that
would be very helpful.
Mr. Mosher. Well, I was born and raised in California. So,
I understand exactly from personal experience what you are
talking about.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Go for it.
Mr. Mosher. My testimony today is entitled, ``Confucius
Institutes: Trojan Horses with Chinese Characteristics,'' which
I think gives you an insight into my view of this particular
initiative on the part of the United Front Work Department of
the Chinese Communist Party.
Now Confucius Institutes are described as nonprofit, public
institutions aligned with the government of the PRC whose
purpose is to promote Chinese language and culture. But there
are literally now thousands of academics around the world who
have voiced concern that these seemingly-benign purposes leave
out a number of other purposes; namely, sanitizing China's
image abroad, enhancing its power globally, and creating a new
generation of China watchers who are well-disposed toward the
Communist dictatorship.
Now these are not like Germany's Goethe-Institut. The
Confucius Institutes are not independent from the government,
nor do they occupy their own premises. Instead, they are
embedded within established universities and colleges around
the world and are directed by an organization which is known as
the Office of Chinese Language Council International, but this
answers, in turn, in academic matters to the Ministry of
Education and in practical matters to the United Front Work
Department of the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, the
chairman of the Confucius Institute is none other than Liu
Yandong, who served as the head of the United Front Work
Department from 2002 to 2007.
Now what is the United Front Work Department? The purpose
of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist
Party is subversion, co-option, and control. During the
Communist revolution, it subverted and co-opted a number of
other political parties, such as the Chinese Socialist Party,
into serving the interests of the Chinese Community Party.
After the establishment of the PRC, it continued to control
these parties, which were allowed to exist on sufferance,
albeit as hollow shells, creating the illusion of ``democracy
in China.''
That it has de facto control over the Confucius Institutes
suggests more strongly than anything else that one of the chief
purposes of these institutes are, namely, to subvert, co-opt,
and ultimately control western academic discourse on matters
pertaining to China.
Now I am particularly troubled by this aspect of the
Confucius Institute initiative because of my own experience. As
you mentioned during your introduction, I have some personal
experience in how the Chinese Party-State deals with its
overseas academic critics because, following my expose of human
rights abuses in the one-child policy in the early eighties,
the PRC, acting then through the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, put tremendous pressure on Stanford University, my
university, to deny me the Ph.D. Beijing went so far as to
threaten to abrogate its scholarly exchange program with the
United States unless I was, in its words, ``severely punished''
for speaking out. In other words, I know from personal
experience how ruthless the Party can be when it comes to
pursuing its own interests and how sycophantic, not to say
craven, some academic administers can be, again, from personal
experience.
Now I am going to go right to the end here and say this:
Given that the Chinese Party-State does not share our
democratic institutions, nor our commitment to open markets,
nor our understanding of human rights, its purposes in setting
up these Confucius Institutes are diametrically opposed to our
national principles. Should we really be allowing a cruel,
tyrannical, and repressive regime to educate our young people?
And there is a final point. I have long believed that
reciprocity should govern our relations with China. There can
be no reciprocity in the matter of Confucius Institutes.
Imagine the reaction of the United Front Work Department of the
Chinese Communist Party if a U.S.-Government-funded and
controlled American institute were proposed to be embedded at,
say, Beijing University to teach American language and culture.
How many seconds do you think it would take the Chinese Party-
State to say no? How many seconds do you think it would take
the Chinese Party-State to say no to our having government-
funded radio shows or television shows in China? Where there is
no reciprocity, we should revisit the relationship and demand
that it either be allowed or that we fundamentally change our
view of how China should be allowed to operate in this country.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mosher follows:]
----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. Did you get it? Did you get your Ph.D.
from Stanford?
Mr. Mosher. Actually, I didn't. Stanford investigated my
research from 1981 to 1986. At the end of the day, the then-
president of Stanford University, Donald Kennedy, wrote me a
67-page letter, which the day before he sent it to me he gave
to the New York Times. I got it only after the reporters
started calling.
The letter said, basically, after rehearsing all of the
charges made by the Chinese Party-State against me, President
Kennedy said, ``I do not know whether the charges made against
you by the People's Republic of China are true or not, but
there has been a gradual erosion of trust between you and the
University which makes it impossible for you to get your
Ph.D.''
Mr. Rohrabacher. Oh, my.
Mr. Mosher. So, at the end of the day, he refused to grant
me the Ph.D. on the ground that he didn't trust me. Well, after
5 years, I didn't trust him much, either.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Well, we will ask more
questions about that later. That just shows you what happens.
You know, when you are young, your parents always say, ``Don't
hang around with these lowlifes, or if you are hanging around
with some criminals, it is less likely that you are going to
turn them into saints than it is that they are going to hurt
your value system.'' That sounds like what is happening here.
But we have with us a heroic athlete who would like to tell
us also a firsthand experience of living under this Communist
dictatorship and some insights of what he thinks are motives
and what is going on, what we are facing now.
Mr. Chen?
STATEMENT OF MR. KAI CHEN, CHINESE FREEDOM ACTIVIST
Mr. Chen. Thank you very much, Chairman Rohrabacher. I
truly appreciate your tireless effort in facing down evil. So,
I thank you here personally.
For me, the distinction that I am a Chinese freedom
activist is a misnomer. But I am more American than most
Americans. In many ways, I was born an American already. I was
only born in the wrong place. So, please don't treat me as a
Chinese. I am an American citizen. And I am here more
interested in safeguarding this country, safeguarding American
freedom and the American security, than changing China. So, I
want to make that clear about it.
Secondly, I want to dispel some misconceptions in the
American public that China is just a normal nation-state. China
is not a nation-state by any standard. China is a party
dynasty. Once we have this distinction, we can formulate and
implement effective China policies. Otherwise, everything you
formulate around normal nation-state will fail because it does
not behave as a normal nation-state.
Thirdly, there is a saying that China now is capitalistic,
has capitalism in there. But China does not have a shred of
capitalism because every inch of land in China belongs to the
government. Not a single inch of land in China belongs to any
individual. That distinction will dispel China has capitalism
because there is no private property rights. Government can
take anything away from you and in any moment.
So, thirdly, there is a misconception that, since Nixon
opened the door, only the freedom can influence China and we
are safe from despotism and tyranny. But, actually, it is a
two-way street. Nowadays I am disturbed and alarmed to find
that the U.S. is more or less changed by China than China being
changed by the U.S. I will give you a few examples later.
So, communism was down when the Berlin Wall was collapsed,
but communism was not out. It is enjoying a comeback, and
through another form, a mutated form, mainly by the Chinese
form of government. So, I want that to be clear.
A few things disturb me and alarm me. In America, there is
a deterioration of political culture in this country, from a
culture of freedom gradually toward a culture of moral
confusion.
When I went to Alhambra City Hall in 2007, I saw a
portrait, supposedly by an artist, painted George Washington on
one side and Chairman Mao on the other side, and they were put
together. I protested it. Eventually, they have taken it down,
but it becomes a big controversy. But you can see the extent of
penetration of American political culture in that.
Also, if I stroll on the street in Los Angeles, there is
Mao's Diner, Mao's Kitchen in there. Inside is all cultural
revolutionary posters with Americans dining down there, and the
poster says, ``Down with American imperialism'' on top. It is
ironic.
Another thing is, when I went to the Nixon Library, there
is a Mao statue sitting in the exhibit called ``The War of
Leaders,'' and sitting among the likes of Winston Churchill and
Charles de Gaulle, which I say, if Mao leads the world, he
leads in murdering people. So, how can you reconcile that kind
of image?
I engaged in, before the Beijing Olympics in 2007, an
Olympic Freedom Run over the four continents. I just want to
tell people that, when you go to the Beijing Olympics, don't
forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. But, then, a U.S.
President went to the opening ceremony and saying nothing.
And now, when Liu Xiaobo was jailed, and being awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize, and a U.S. President invites this jailer
into the White House and gave a state banquet, that was very
disturbing.
I don't have time. I just want to conclude my statement
with these two images. One is this, what I picked up in 1989 on
Tiananmen Square that says, ``Support the hunger strike. Demand
equal dialogs.'' What I want to tell you, this is the
aspiration of the Chinese people.
But, then, I am going to show you another image. This is
the reality of China. When the U.S., now facing the Chinese
economy, and they see this bill of currency everywhere, there
is an image of Mao's portrait on every bill of Chinese
currency. But, then, we are talking about only devaluation,
devaluation or manipulation of the currency in economic terms.
But I want you to see the moral terms in this.
Once we accept this currency as normal currency, once we
accept China as a normal state, then we accept the fact that
killing people, murdering people, and persecuting people to
acquire power is acceptable. Once we see that, we cease to be
the United States of America and with the principles of freedom
upon which this country is established.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chen follows:]
----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much for that very
inspiring testimony. You're right, it is your commitment to
American ideals that makes you an American. All I can say is,
after hearing your testimony, that certainly I know that you
are far more American than so many others that I have to deal
with quite often. So, thank you for that very inspiring
testimony.
And we need to say this at this time: I don't have any
complaints against the Chinese people. None of the comments
that we hear today should ever be misreported or misinterpreted
as attacks on the Chinese people. In fact, our greatest ally in
the struggle for a better world and increasing freedom and
peace in this world, our greatest ally in that struggle are the
people of China because they are the ones that are on the front
lines of this struggle.
We need to make sure we repeat that over and over again
because they will be told that our comments about their
oppressors and the dictatorship that rules them with an iron
fist, that that in some way is disparaging against them. That
is an absolute falsehood, but they will use that to try to cut
off communication. So, let us reaffirm that right at this
point.
And Mr. Greg Autry, who is a terrific filmmaker. He has
produced a film that I would recommend, written a book and
produced a film that I would recommend that not only all of you
see, but you might, if you have various people that you would
like to inform about the relationship that we have had with
China and what that has done to us by us compromising, and us
actually not compromising--there has been no compromise; just
give away--we have a great documentation as to how this has had
a negative impact on the cause of peace, but also on the cause
of prosperity here in the United States.
Greg, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. GREG AUTRY, CO-AUTHOR, ``DEATH BY CHINA''
Mr. Autry. Thank you very much, Chairman Rohrabacher. I
greatly appreciate your work on this effort for many years.
I am the co-author of the book, ``Death by China.'' I am
testifying on my own behalf, and my views are not the views of
the University of California, where I have been a lecturer and
I am completing a Ph.D. in economics and public policy.
In the two decades since Henry Kissinger convinced America
to overlook the massacre at Tiananmen Square, we have been
mired in a one-sided trade war camouflaged under Chinese
propaganda with an aid of an American fifth column of media
pundits, CEOs, and academics who cheer on the rise of state
capitalism.
They push us to open our markets and our media to a non-
reciprocating China with promises of a flat world, but the only
thing getting flattened is America's productivity capacity and
American values. Our President publicly repeats Chinese
propaganda phrases like ``peaceful rise'' while he
simultaneously allocates billions of taxpayer dollars to
counter China's increasingly aggressive military posture. He
legitimizes China's non-democratic system by inviting the new
anointed dictator to the White House. Why?
The answer to these questions is the reality distortion
field, a phrase that was coined by the associates of the late
Steve Jobs to describe that man's uncanny ability to induce
compliance and agreement in those around him, even when they
knew Mr. Jobs' statements were untrue and even when they were
fully aware that they were being manipulated and exploited.
Whenever we say ``People's Republic,'' we enter the Chinese
global reality distortion field, and phrases like ``peaceful
rise'' and ``harmonious society'' lose their frightening
Orwellian flavor.
Central Chinese Television Chief Hu Zhanfan chastised news
workers who fancied themselves as journalists rather than
accepting their proper role as Party propaganda workers. Mr. Hu
went on to call strengthening education in Marxist journalism a
matter of urgency.
This ideological thinking does not stop at China's borders.
Why should it? America's ever-hopeful policy of engagement
drives a very soft official stance on issues of Chinese
domestic and global behavior. Media, academia, and business
take their cues from a timid administration and a diffident
State Department. Our Government's public behavior implies that
Communist China is a normal nation to be treated the same as
Canada or India. This tacit endorsement allows the Chinese
State propaganda machine to run wild and free in America and
use our most powerful institutions to project the Communist
Party's reality distortion field.
American schools and universities are particularly filled
with Chinese apologists who convey the CCP's thought work. NYU
adjunct Ann Lee writes, ``China is still being perceived as
undemocratic and anti-liberal by the West, but this problem can
be easily corrected with more astute public relations
training.'' She doesn't intend to correct the problem of anti-
liberal or undemocratic, merely the western perception.
Professor Lee presents China's version of re-educating
American youth with their Confucius Institutes when she writes,
``The strategy of bringing students from other parts of the
world to China is similar to the strategy Caesar used when he
conquered Gaul. He turned Gauls into Romans who could be
trusted to run Gaul for the Roman Empire.''
What would our reaction be to our other dictator friends
from Saudi Arabia establishing Muhammad Institutes in our
schools? If this would not be acceptable, then I ask us, why we
wish to infuse our students with an infectious ideology from a
communist power that is hostile to American values?
There are far more Chinese students in the U.S.
universities than any other nationality, particularly at the
graduate level and increasingly in the critical science,
engineering, and business departments. The China Daily
explicitly advises Chinese students to apply to the UC campuses
because budget cuts there compel us to admit more non-
residents.
The presumption that democratic America and totalitarian
China enjoy some special relationship is all too common. My
university has a newly-endowed U.S.-China Institute for
Business and Law. The dean of the law school remarks on the Web
site, ``We are at a unique moment in the history of our two
countries in which it is especially important to build bridges
between them in business and law. And in each country, the
legal system provides a unique framework within which business
can flourish.''
This last sentence establishes an obscene moral equivalency
and represents an astounding level of naivety. The ubiquitous
China Daily newspaper is the strongest outward manifestation of
Communist influence in the U.S. I find it all over campus and
on every corner here in DC. Americans have no idea this is a
publication of a hostile foreign government.
A China Daily editorial recently suggested punishing
America and ``building a direct link between U.S. bond
purchases and U.S. domestic politics.'' Outrageously, China
Daily inserts a monthly print and daily online supplement into
the Washington Post entitled, ``China Watch.'' Featuring the
large, bold, black masthead of the Washington Post and hidden
below the title ``China Watch'' on the other side is a teeny
disclaimer, ``A paid supplement to the Washington Post.'' Paid
by who?
I could go on, but I see that my time is running out. I
have four things I would suggest to the committee.
One, that U.S. publications must be required to clearly
reveal when they place content provided by a foreign government
or agent of a foreign government.
Two, hostile foreign governments that censor U.S. media----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Would you please repeat that first one
again?
Mr. Autry. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And slowly.
Mr. Autry. U.S. publications must be required to clearly
reveal when they place content that is provided by a foreign
governments or an agent of a foreign government.
Hostile foreign governments that censor the U.S. media in
their domestic markets should not be granted First Amendment
rights in America. CCTV and China Daily should have no more
access than Fox News or the New York Times do in the Chinese
market.
Three, U.S. public schools and universities should be
prohibited from accepting funding or curriculum from foreign
governments or agents of foreign governments, particularly
those hostile to America's fundamental principles.
Four, direct the FTC to require country-of-origin
information regulations that are credible and punish attempts
to conceal foreign products, including permanent visible
labeling and registering country-of-origin information per EPC
code, so that online vendors can also be required to display
this info and mobile apps can display this info.
I make that point because one of the most important things
about China's reality distortion field is that America's
corporations are complicit in supporting it because they know
the American consumer is afraid of Chinese products. So, one of
the most unique pieces of China's distortion field is the
hiding of the made-in-China label. And I would like to discuss
that further.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Autry follows:]
----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. Your time is up. But I think what we could
do is perhaps during the question-and-answer period go through
some of your specific suggestions, which are basically trying
to alert people when they are confronted with an official
propaganda arm of a dictatorship, of a foreign dictatorship.
Now I know that Mr. Daly probably has some opinions that
are a little bit different than what we have heard. And so, we
are going to give you a little bit more time to state your
case. We are very happy you are with us, Mr. Daly.
Thank you, Mr. Carnahan, for helping arrange that.
Go right ahead.
STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT DALY, DIRECTOR, MARYLAND CHINA
INITIATIVE, THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Mr. Daly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me here
today.
And I want to thank you, too, for the 70th anniversary
birthday you threw for the Voice of America China Branch a few
months ago. I had the honor of attending that. I am a weekly
talking head on current events in U.S./China relations in
Chinese at VOA. The work that you have done on behalf of the
Voice and the Branch is very much appreciated.
I also want to thank the ranking member for giving me an
opportunity to speak to you today on issues that I have worked
on now for over 25 years, beginning with formal training in
public diplomacy by the United States Information Agency. That
was the launch of my career, and it was a very fortuitous
launch for me.
As you say, I do have different views from those that have
been expressed thus far, but not entirely. I take these
questions very seriously, and most of the cautions that have
been raised about how we deal with China, its public diplomacy
initiatives, about reciprocity, these are all well-placed.
There are, however, some things that I think need to be said to
balance some of what has been mentioned so far.
Confucius Institutes and the overall characterization of
them as being run out of the Chinese Government through the
Ministry of Education and, yes, Chinese leaders have said very
explicitly this is part of their propaganda effort, that is all
true. Confucius Institutes, or sometimes I will call them CIs,
the individual institutes are run by American directors who are
hired by the host university. Most American directors that I
have spoken with and met with manage their Confucius Institutes
with a very high degree, bordering on total, of autonomy and in
accordance with the needs and standards of the American host
institutions.
Most of the cultural programs of the Confucius Institutes,
moreover, are apolitical by design. As public diplomacy
officers on the Chinese side, they are actually quite shrewd.
Chinese culture is not presented as, they don't have programs
on the glories of the Communist Party. They don't have, for
example, programs on reevaluation of China's position in the
South China Sea on human rights.
They tend to deal in culture as decoration, culture as
celebration, culture as friendship ritual. If we are going to
criticize their programs, one of the things we can throw at
them is that they are often, actually, can be sort of dull and
uninteresting in those ways.
If you are picturing, based on the testimony of my three
colleagues, a series of programs that are trying to sell people
on communism, I would caution that that really isn't what the
Hanban is dealing with. There have been some cases of heavy-
handedness, to be sure, at some of the Confucius Institutes,
and we could talk about those.
Again, I think that caution about the Confucius Institutes
is reasonable. Of course, we should not take every
pronouncement which the Chinese side makes on Confucius
Institutes at face value. Of course, our universities should
remain self-critical regarding their motives for establishing
Confucius Institutes, and they must, as my colleagues today
have said, remain alert to the possible implications of having
Chinese-Government-funded offices on campus.
But in advocating vigilance, which I am, I am not claiming
that Confucius Institutes are dangerous. Because no matter how
well-founded our initial skepticism may be, Confucius
Institutes in America now also have a record, and I think that
it is on that record that they need to be judged.
I would invite any of you to come on up to Paint Branch
Elementary School in Prince George's County, to go out to Jenks
School System or any of the 10 others in rural Oklahoma that
have K-through-12 Chinese language programs, in part, through
the facilitation of the Confucius Institutes as well as
Americans, and actually get into the classrooms and see for
yourselves what is going on.
I would argue that the record of the Confucius Institutes
to date, with some heavy-handedness in a few cases that I would
probably agree with my colleagues here are also egregious, has
been a pretty good record.
Confucius Institutes are primarily concerned with providing
Mandarin training to American professionals and K-through-12
students. And I want to emphasize, given some of what has been
said today about embedded messages and long-term goals of the
Chinese side, American students who study Chinese throughout
primary and secondary school are likely to take Chinese in
college. They are likely to live in China and to gain an
understanding of China's people and its cultures, and to bring
that knowledge and an ability to communicate with Chinese
counterparts into their careers. Americans who begin Chinese
studies in adulthood are likely to develop a nuanced
understanding of the challenges in U.S./China relations and to
help us meet those challenges.
In other words, Chinese language training, which the
Confucius Institutes help to provide, is profoundly in the
American interest. Would I rather that we were paying for it in
our interest? Well, yes, I would, but that is not what is
happening right now. We have some institutes and some
initiatives, but the Confucius Institutes are supporting those.
There is, furthermore, nothing about gaining fluency in
Mandarin that inclines a student to support the Chinese
Communist Party or its policies. I had the privilege, as you
mentioned, of working with about 250 of our top young Mandarin
speakers when I was the American director of the Johns Hopkins
University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American
Studies. I have worked with them closely. I have lived with
them for 6 years. I have stayed in touch with them as they have
gone on to careers in, among other things, human rights. One of
them is running for Congress.
They are Americans who have lived and worked in China. They
are as aware of China's failings as any of us. And I would
argue, in fact, that America's Mandarin speakers are among our
most effective and constructive critics of China. They often
see more clearly, because they have the deepest experience and
knowledge of China, what China, with all of its talent, with
its worth ethic, with its great ancient cultural traditions,
and its ambition, could be if its people were free.
Don't we want to have Americans in every profession, in
every field of endeavor, to have that ability? Don't we want
them to be able to make some of the arguments that have been
made today to Chinese in Chinese? Wouldn't that be a good way
to go about our public diplomacy?
So, studying China's languages, its history, and its
culture doesn't dull our insights as Americans; it deepens
them. I feel very strongly about it.
This is why Americans who see China only as a congenial
partner and those who see it only as a threat, and those in
between, should all be able to agree on the necessity of
Chinese language training in America.
Do the CIs raise any kinds of questions? Yes, they do. I
think there are two kinds of questions, one that you have
raised, I think correctly, about balance and reciprocity. Our
Bureau of Public Diplomacy does stand ready to open up more
cultural centers, more American libraries staffed by Americans
with American cultural programming in China. They are not
allowed to do that. Such centers would be welcomed by the
Chinese people. So, I do want to associate myself with all of
the remarks on reciprocity.
The second question which has been raised broadly is
whether our universities' collaboration with the Chinese
Government and various agencies of the Chinese Government, not
only on Confucius Institutes, but on many other programs as
well, presents a threat to academic freedom. Again, I think
that it is a legitimate question, but I would want to point out
that American universities have ample experience in dealing
with donors of various kinds, including nations, including
corporations, and including individuals, who want to shape
higher education through their giving.
So, Hanban doesn't present challenges that are new in kind.
It is a familiar set of challenges to American universities,
which are also honed to most of our leading China scholars who,
as has been mentioned, are skeptical and they take a role in
shaping their university's response.
Just in closing and in trying to summarize this vast
question of public diplomacy very briefly, I think that we need
to be a little bit more confident about the institutions of our
civil society that are founded on freedom and their ability to
engage with China across the board actively here and there to,
yes, gradually, slowly, at a pace that doesn't satisfy any of
us, but still inexorably does change the state of play on the
ground in China.
I think we can be a little bit more confident that
Americans who have a free press and many sources of news will
see CCTV, Xinhua, and the China Daily for the most part for
what they are. I think we have a pretty good nose for it.
I actually think your idea of having a very clear
designation, ``This is provided by a foreign government,'' that
seems to me well worth considering.
But I think we can go into this very confidently. There may
be one restaurant in LA that has this Maoist theme. There are
Hard Rock Cafes all over China with pictures of Bob Dylan in
them and young Chinese there until two o'clock in the morning.
There are Starbucks and McDonalds and KFCs and American
universities, corporations, images, popular music.
We have a public diplomacy deficit with China, but we have
an enormous soft power surplus that I think we can be very
proud of and confident in. We don't have to go into a defensive
crouch over these issues, although I would agree that we should
be paying attention to these questions of reciprocity.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Daly follows:]
----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, and we did give you a
few extra minutes to make sure that we were able to balance off
the opinions there.
I will start off the questions with a challenge. Mr. Mosher
didn't get his Ph.D. We have got the Chinese Government
channeling money into our educational institutions. And the
first thing you know, you have got a guy who does a study on
the one-child China policy and all of its horrendous
implications, the murderous implications, and he is denied by
the faculty of one of our major universities an academic credit
in order to placate these vicious monsters who are actually
initiating the murder of every unborn child that is the second
child of a woman in China.
Now wouldn't you say, if they are going to be able to
pollute the decisionmaking process of the top faculty at a
major university, doesn't that make you fearful of the
incredible influence they could have on everybody else who
perhaps are not as educated?
Mr. Daly. Well, I would have to hear Stanford University's
side of it. I have only heard one characterization of these
events. I believe they happened quite a while ago, long before
the advent of Confucius Institutes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Mr. Daly. You could correct me if I am wrong. So, I
wouldn't want to conflate that with the Confucius Institutes.
They may be related, but they are separate issues.
I do think that the broad question stands. I would
encourage you to meet with actually academic leaders--we don't
have academic leaders on this panel today--to talk to them
about this question of, does the fact that universities, not
only now teach about China and conduct research about China,
but understand themselves as having interests vis-a-vis China
that are not necessarily academic interests per se, does that
have implications for the universities? I applaud the question.
I am not sure this is the right panel to address it to. I think
it would be a good idea to bring in a number of American
university faculty.
But I would also point out that it is not only American
universities that now have China interests, and in some sense
it is China policies, which, therefore, yes, could be subject
to certain kinds of suasion. Local governments, county
governments, city governments, corporations--China and America
now are interlinked at all levels. China is very much present
at the United States, and there are interests even in public
school systems.
So, it is not simply the university side----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, our question is not the university
side.
Mr. Daly [continuing]. But our NGOs. We all have to address
this issue.
Mr. Rohrabacher. What I was asking, and the reason I asked
that, because, demonstrably, as the universities should be, if
nothing, more immune to this type of negative influence.
Let me just note I participated in a hearing, in a
congressional hearing, at Stanford University. It was a
hearing, and I brought up the issue of graduate students from
mainland China receiving training in technology projects that
are vital to our national security, meaning people don't have
to steal some file if they put the file in the head of their
Ph.D.'s, and the Ph.D. goes back to China and develops their
weapons system that is now capable of obliterating American
lives.
The president of Stanford University couldn't understand
that. ``No, no, we are an educational institution. We are not
here for national security purposes.''
Mr. Daly. Right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Something is wrong with that. I think that
the Chinese money has helped grease this misperception. And I
mean Chinese money, I mean tyranny money, money from tyrants
and gangsters who control a large portion of humankind has
created this monstrous misperception of even the heads of our
major universities that they don't have to worry about that.
Mr. Daly. Right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Mosher, we have been using you as an
example there. Maybe you will have a comment all the way down
the line, but we will start with you, and then we will go to
Mr. Carnahan.
Mr. Mosher. Well, the last witness made an eloquent defense
of learning about Chinese culture and learning the Chinese
language, with which I heartily agree, having learned about
Chinese culture and language at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong many years ago, and being in the position now of
encouraging others to do the same thing. Because China, despite
the shortcomings of its current political system, is an
important international player.
Our point here is no one is saying that we should avoid
learning those things, only that a party-run organization
probably should not be funding setting the curriculum
parameters and providing teachers for American students to
learn these things. Because in the process of developing that
curriculum and providing those teachers, they are certainly
putting certain things out of bounds.
I run a nonprofit organization. I am very aware of the
kinds of pressure that funding organizations, be they
individuals or foundations or governments, can put on you. I
guarantee you that the directors of the Confucius Institutes
are very clear about who is filling their rice bowl and are
very careful not to raise subjects that would irritate those
who have the power to break that same rice bowl.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chen?
Mr. Chen. I have been actively involved in the protest in
southern California in a school district called Hacienda La
Puente Unified School District, which the Chinese Consulate and
Hanban targeted to implement their Confucius classrooms. I
examined the materials that they provided. We successfully
protested and denied the funding of that program by the Chinese
Government.
But the school authorities accepted the material, which I
examined and in which I found many, many instances that can be
termed ``poisonous,'' to say the least. But just to say that
what you don't say in the classroom is often more important
than what you taught in the classroom.
For example, there is a picture of Tiananmen Square,
Tiananmen Gate, in that material. When you show this material
to the students, are you going to mention who is the one, the
image, that is on the Tiananmen Gate? Who is hanging there?
What did they do? Are you going to mention that in the school
in your classroom programs? Are you going to mention the
Tiananmen Square massacre when you see that image? No, you are
not going to mention that and you avoid that subject. By
avoiding that subject, you are brainwashing American students,
thinking this is a normal program, thinking this is a normal
country.
The Chinese map, when I reviewed this program's material,
the first thing they see, the students will see, what China
looks like. So, they see a Chinese map hanging there. It says,
``People's Republic of China.'' When you accept that title, you
are already being poisoned. That is one thing.
Another thing is the border including Taiwan and the South
China Sea and everywhere that the Chinese authorities claim,
and are you going to explain to the students that those are
legitimate claims?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let's make sure that we understand exactly
what you are referring to. Chinese maps are different than
perhaps the maps that we might get here in the United States.
The maps that China would present as part of their educational
institution without perhaps alerting people would have the
South China Sea as part of China's sovereign area, as well as
perhaps those areas in India and elsewhere that are being
claimed. Also, just even when we take a look at some of the
other claims, for example, of Tibet and Taiwan, of course,
wouldn't be mentioned at all, and those things.
So, you have some very good points. I don't think that is
in conflict with what Mr. Daly is saying, but let us put it
this way: It could be.
Mr. Daly. It could be. My experience in the classrooms--and
I am sort of bothered by the same thing. When I see these maps,
I am aware that there is some legitimacy to these criticisms,
but I think that it is overblown and that brainwashing is going
way beyond the pale.
The People's Republic of China is also the name that the
United Nations, the United States Government, and the House of
Representatives uses to refer to China. Are they drinking
poison every time they say that? No, they are using the name
that they use that people can understand.
Mr. Rohrabacher. We don't all, but we don't include a big
picture of Mao Zedong on the front page of a document to them.
Mr. Daly. Well, I haven't seen it. Again, I think that it
is a good idea to get beyond characterizations of the Confucius
Institutes based on our suspicions and based on several
anecdotes. A survey might be very much in order. I don't think
that they are not concerns, but what we have heard primarily is
surveys about what may lie behind them and a few anecdotes.
When I have been in these classrooms with children, they
are not looking at the nine-dash line, if it is there on the
map. They are learning that ``Da Hai'' is ``ocean'' and trying
to remember it and trying to learn how to write the character.
And then, later, when they go to high school and university
and they take political science, they learn about these issues.
It is not a Manchurian Candidate kind of situation where these
old maps will be rising up to find them sympathizers. I
actually don't believe that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I guess if there was a regime that still
had big pictures of Adolph Hitler around, I guess there would
be a lot of people who would be naturally suspicious that
perhaps the values being taught by the money that was put out
by the regime that still had the pictures of Adolph Hitler
prominently displayed and quotes from Chairman Hitler, that
there would probably be legitimate concern there that maybe
there were some other bad messages going in there.
Mr. Chen, you wanted to make one more point?
Mr. Chen. One more point.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chen. The very use of the Confucius name, the Confucius
classroom, is problematic to American values. I think it is
fundamentally Confucianism is against American values.
For example, Confucianism is not a philosophy. It is a
political ideology. It is a behavior code by which people
behave according to their birth, gender, social positions,
trade, governmental positions, by birth. That is diametrically
against American ideals that we are all created equal.
So, by simply using Confucius as a title creates a value
conflict between the United States and this program. I have to
stress that point.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So, you see that Confucianism itself as--
obviously, the Chinese see it as something. The Chinese
Government is not doing--let's put it this way: The motive of
the Chinese Government in trying to put these Confucian centers
all over the United States, I have to assume that they are not
just doing it because they are benevolent and love us and like
us, but maybe they have some other purpose in mind. But maybe I
am just too suspicious.
Mr. Autry?
Mr. Autry. I wanted to concur with my fellow witness that
learning Mandarin is certainly an admirable goal. I have my own
son in high school in the Yorba Linda Placentia School District
learning Mandarin. I struggle with it myself. That is obviously
not the issue. And getting us to argue about that is, rather, a
complete red herring.
Of course, the Confucius Institute material is bland and
boring, as he points out, because the Chinese Government has
learned a lot since the Cultural Revolution. They are going to
be very, very subtle and very, very patient with their
propaganda.
And the first goal of the propaganda is to normalize the
appearance of a brutal totalitarian state with aggressive
military goals aimed at America's allies and America's people.
The first step in this is, indeed, getting people in the United
States Government to utter the lie ``People's Republic.'' And I
would challenge the witness to tell me that ``People's
Republic'' is not a lie, along with the rest of the
constitution of the People's Republic of China which guarantees
things like freedom of religion, freedom of expression.
We should never have anything in our public education
system financed by a foreign government who is fundamentally
hostile to the values that America represents and is building a
military aimed at the people of the United States and doing
what it does to its own people.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Okay. You just stated a proposition,
and my last question will be for Mr. Daly. Then, I am going to
let Mr. Carnahan have as much time as I have had here.
What about that proposition? Should we permit a government
that obviously is even an anti-democratic government, whether
we call it China or whether we call it Nazis, or whoever they
are, should we permit them to finance educational forays into
the American educational system and have them presented as
something that is an equal philosophy to be considered by our
children?
Mr. Daly. I am all for the truth-in-labeling components of
what has been suggested, but I think that the costs of limiting
our own freedom and openness to speak, as other countries are
not open and free, I think that those costs are far too high,
and that we can let them in in the spirit of reciprocity, and
we should remain true to our values. We should fight hard for
reciprocity.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But you do believe in reciprocity?
Mr. Daly. There is the question of how we fight for that,
which we haven't touched on much today.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Daly. And we can let them in, confident--I think the
issues that have been raised, many of them I agree with. I
think that I am just more confident that our openness, our
values, our institutions, the vibrancy of our culture, the
multitude of voices that people will hear, are going to
overcome the nuance of the fourth graders----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay, but your answer, then, is it is okay
as long as that government is agreeing to a reciprocity for us
to put ours in their society? Is that your answer?
Mr. Daly. And even when there are problems with reciprocity
as there are, we can have the confidence to not threaten our
own openness just because other countries are not themselves
open, yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay, but if they don't, if they are not,
if there is no reciprocity, you would not make that a stumbling
point? If they are not going to permit our people to have or
something financed by our Government or by people here to
present our position there in their schools, you would not say
that--demanding reciprocity, you wouldn't demand that then?
Mr. Daly. Well, where we sit today, I would have probably
fought for it a little bit harder upfront at the get-go. But
given where they are now, no. Again, I think that we can be
very confident in our institutions and our ability to discern
propaganda, and in the meantime be very glad that more
Americans are learning Chinese. It is in our interest.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay, but the answer to my question is no?
Is that correct?
Mr. Daly. I would not close down the Confucius Institutes,
even if they did not open up American cultural centers, but I
would fight for the opening.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So, why would we ever expect them to
open cultural centers of the United States then? So, we
wouldn't. But that is okay. I mean, we are confident that our
system is open and our people understand these things.
Mr. Carnahan, you can have as much time as I had. Go right
ahead.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have appreciated this exchange really covering a broad
range of issues and answers here.
I wanted to get back on the exchange programs that we spoke
about earlier. Over the last decade, there has been strong
bipartisan support in Congress that building these person-to-
person relationships has been a critical contribution to our
national security.
I wanted to really ask each of the witnesses, what type of
exchange programs are we seeing in China now? What kind of
results we are seeing from them? And, of course, the numbers
are very uneven. They send more students here than any other
country. Yet, I think the U.S. I see here is listed, I think,
fifth in terms of U.S. students. China is the fifth destination
in terms of numbers. Finally, what can we do to encourage more
Americans to study in China, to help get us back to closer
equilibrium here?
Why don't we start with Mr. Chen?
Mr. Chen. Yes, thank you.
I think, as far as I know, if you are selected by the
Chinese Government to teach English in China, there are some
rules you cannot break. You cannot mention Tiananmen Square.
You cannot mention Falun Gong. You cannot mention the Great
Leap Forward. You cannot mention the Great Famine. You cannot
mention Cultural Revolution.
Then, what is the purpose of teaching if you set up all
these tabu areas when you teach English in China? Once you
touch those areas, you are expelled from their country. You are
denied a visa next time, the next round.
This is how they control academia in America. That means,
if you publish a paper in the U.S. that is critical of the
Chinese Government, next round they will not issue you a visa.
They will blacklist you.
Mr. Carnahan. I understand and appreciate what you are
describing, but my question had to do with exchange programs in
terms of what is working and what can we do to help increase
the number of American students that are studying in China and
learning Chinese.
Mr. Chen. Well, for me, fundamentally, the downfall of the
Communist Party is the final solution. I don't know how to
answer that question.
Mr. Carnahan. Okay. We will move on to Mr. Autry.
Mr. Autry. Okay. Thank you for your question.
You note that over the last decade that these exchanges
have been an important part of our ``national security'' and I
think our economic interaction with China. I would point out
that, in my opinion, and the opinion of a number of people who
I think are very educated on this subject, our economic and
national security standings are much, much weaker than they
were 10 years ago.
And a great deal of the reason behind that is due to the
actions of the Chinese Communist Party in gutting America's
manufacturing base and our military supply chain, in keeping us
off-balance in places like Korea and the Taiwan Straits on
purpose.
That said, what can we do about getting more American
students to China? Well, first of all, our students are
flooded, our schools are flooded with Chinese students. Many of
them, frankly, are really good students. I teach them. I would
point out that I have been on the faculty at the Merage School
of Business at UC-Irvine as a lecturer in business strategy,
and as a Ph.D. student, I am teaching, assist, and interact
routinely with faculty who are interested in this question.
Often, 25 percent or more of the students in a classroom
can be from mainland China. This isn't the way that it used to
be. We used to have a diverse international classroom 10 years
ago. If I was in an MBA class, we would have students from
Japan and Taiwan, Germany, Argentina. Now it is the cohort of
Chinese students and a few others. It is actually, I think, not
to the benefit of the school.
Secondly, why should American students want to go to China?
Their universities are not at all respected, frankly, in the
academic community because they are not open to outside
thought. They are corrupt. When you go to a Chinese
university--I spoke about a year ago at Chengdu
Electromechanical College. I asked somebody what was this
graffiti I saw, because you don't see too much graffiti in
China because the police are pretty tough. But there would be
these phone numbers sprayed all over campus, just a phone
number.
I was told this is the phone number for the counterfeiters
of academic records, and you can call and get fake test
results. You can get whole fake college degrees if you call
these phone numbers.
Well, why don't the police get rid of them? Because the
counterfeiters work with the police. So, it is not a problem.
I have spoken to Chinese students in America who admit that
academic fraud is the norm in Chinese universities. So, no, I
don't see any reason why we would want to encourage more
American students to go to a university system that is both
subpar and politically manipulative.
Mr. Carnahan. Okay. Mr. Daly?
Mr. Daly. Well, a number of issues. One, I would agree that
Chinese universities, there are a number of problems. They are
in a state of crisis. But most Americans who go there don't
actually go there to earn academic degrees. They go there to
have an experience in China and to improve their Chinese.
And furthermore, they have access to a number of programs,
including American programs in China that have been there for
years. Often, those American-run programs or American-
affiliated programs are the most rigorous. They are more
rigorous than the Chinese universities.
The IUP program, Inter-University Program, run out of
Berkeley, the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Princeton and Beijing,
Cornell's FALCON Chinese, these are proliferating fairly
quickly.
I strongly support the 100,000-strong initiative that you
have mentioned, which is at the State Department. I think that
anything that the House could do to support that in the forms
of scholarship support for more Americans to go, that would be
helpful.
I feel that the single strongest need that we have is not
so much study abroad--I think that can come later--as foreign
language study, including Chinese study, K through 12 in the
public schools. My own view, off-topic, is Spanish I think
would be an obvious No. 1; I think Chinese would be No. 2.
It is in the individual interest of students to study
Chinese. It is in their community interest to have these
programs. And again, it is profoundly in the national interest
to have a large group of men and women in all of the
professions who speak Chinese fluently, who know China and how
to function there, and still represent their profession.
So, I would actually put public school language programs
ahead of study abroad. If we can get more students studying
Chinese young, the study abroad will take care of itself. The
demand will be there.
One of the problems we have now is most of our students
start studying Chinese in the university, and that is a little
too late to get true professional fluency. After they graduate,
they are getting their graduate degrees; they are getting
professional training, and Chinese becomes something that they
used to do. It is not deep enough in. So, I see the issue as
being one of Chinese in the public schools starting in the
first grade.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Next, I wanted to look at the issues of censorship, and we
have certainly seen the power of the internet and social media
across the Middle East and North Africa. We have a pretty clear
understanding of how effective and severe the censorship is
within China. Given that fact and those challenges, what are
some of the best ways to really ramp-up our public diplomacy
efforts there?
We will start again with Mr. Chen.
Mr. Chen. Thank you very much.
I have to mention President Ronald Reagan. He taught us a
lot of things in dealing with such a regime. Well, first, you
have to define the nature of the regime. Like Mr. Reagan said,
an ``evil empire,'' and ``this Wall needs to be torn down,''
and ``These people need to be free.''
Every time Ronald Reagan went to the Soviet Union he
demanded, first, to meet the dissidents. But today we don't see
that. Every major U.S. politician, including Presidents, when
they went to China, they don't want to see, they don't want to
talk over the regime to the Chinese people. They don't want to
talk to the dissidents. They ignore Liu Xiaobo, who is still
languishing in Chinese jail, while inviting those jailers to
the U.S. through a banquet.
And this is China must be changed with the outside message
from the United States, like Ronald Reagan did tirelessly.
Every time he stepped on the podium during the 1980s he talks
about the principles of freedom, talks about America, talks
about human dignity. That culminated through the 1980s into the
Tiananmen Square protest.
But if we fail in that way, we either kowtow to the Chinese
or appease the Chinese, we are only prolonging our agony.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Mr. Autry?
Mr. Autry. Yes, your question on the internet, I have been
a victim of the Chinese internet a number of times. One event
that comes to my mind was, 1 year ago December, I was traveling
from Shanghai to Shenzhen, and I was going to meet an
underground Christian minister, a victim of Tiananmen Square
who had done some jail time afterwards and a human rights
advocate that was coming in from Guangzhou to meet me at the
Shenzhen Airport.
My flight was delayed for 15 minutes for ``ground control
requests.'' And when I got to the airport, my party wasn't
there. I called them on their cell phones and texted them, and
their cell phones were apparently disconnected, not just
unanswered, but disconnected.
I waited in the airport for quite some time at the
McDonald's, our local American cultural institution. I, then,
e-mailed them and said I was going to go to my hotel and I
would be up until 10 o'clock, and if they wanted to get
together, to get back to me.
So, I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning. I had an
e-mail, and apparently my friends had been arrested by the
police and then driven around until about 11 o'clock. They kept
them away just long enough so that they couldn't meet with me,
which was interesting to know that my e-mails or perhaps my
text messages were being intercepted by the Chinese Government.
I sent an e-mail then and said, ``Let's meet at the
Shenzhen train station across from my hotel this morning.''
Within \1/2\ hour, I got an e-mail back that said, ``The police
just called me telling me not to meet the American writer at
the train station.''
So, this is the level of what is going on in the Chinese
internet, not to mention the fact I can't post on Facebook
there without using a VPN and going to an internet cafe and
bribing somebody to get a fake national ID card.
What I think we should do is prevent access to the U.S.
market by Chinese firms, the same way that they cobble our
firms, like making it impossible for Google to work well in
China, making it impossible to get to Facebook at all.
We should also prevent Chinese internet firms from having
access to U.S. capital markets. The absurdity that Renren,
China's competitor to Facebook, gets millions of dollars from
American investors in order to develop in a nurtured and
protected environment to compete with Facebook that is not
allowed in China galls me.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Mr. Daly?
Mr. Daly. Yes, the original question was about censorship,
including of the internet. I think here that we have to keep
calling it as we see it. It is not a subtle problem. We do need
to keep raising reciprocity, as this committee does, and we
have to keep on pointing out that the Chinese press is not free
and advocating for it, for example, to let the Broadcasting
Board of Governors broadcast to China and its Web sites be
unjammed and unblocked. I think that that is something that
Congress has led in quite effectively.
I think we could perhaps also ask some of our commercial
networks why, when they have Spanish language channels and
Arabic and other languages, why do they not even venture for a
Chinese language station. It would be an interesting thing to
push for and to try.
I would agree with Kai Chen that a lot of American leaders
of various kinds who go to China have perhaps become too
accustomed to the Chinese way of doing things, and that they do
not raise issues of censorship, reciprocity, press freedom,
human rights, as often as they used to. I think that that has
been a discernible trend over the past 10 years. I would agree
with that.
At the same time, we have to ask, if you wish to make a
human rights representation--and I hope we continue to do so--
how is that made most effectively so that you have the highest
chance of actually freeing dissidents or changing policies and
plans in China? We have to make our representations not only so
that our domestic audiences can hear them and we can broadcast
what we want to broadcast. The question is, how can we be most
effective?
How can we make representations that we know are offensive
to the Chinese, which we don't mind being offensive to the
Chinese in many cases, while we also do have to work with them
on a number of problems that are in the mutual interest? Part
of the answer to that, as America, and I think part of our
strength we can be confident about, is that we speak to China
with a multiplicity of voices.
So that some elements of the government tend to be a little
bit more hard-line and speak about human rights. Some others
have to be more cooperative and work day-in and day-out with
Chinese counterparts on issues of public health, pollution, in
some cases international crime, trade, a whole number of
issues. Those people simply can't be in the business of
offending China, even if their principles are sound, if they
are, in fact, going to work with China in the way that we need
to.
And so, we need to have Americans who take different
approaches to China, who speak to China with different voices,
and, yes, who get into Chinese institutions, agencies, and even
work closely with the Chinese Government to solve international
problems and to model American best practices. We need people
who pound the table about human rights and gradualists who work
slowly through civil society organs and who work with public
diplomacy. And the people who take the gradualist approach of
working with China, they I think in the long-term would have
the same goals as everybody here, but they deserve to pursue
their work without being called sellouts or apologists or
worse.
Mr. Carnahan. Okay. Thank you very much.
I am going to yield back my time to the chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. The Chair intends to have a
very short closing statement on my part and, then, Mr.
Carnahan. Or maybe I will let you go first. And then, what I
will do is have a very short closing statement.
But I also would like to give our witnesses each 1 minute
to summarize their thoughts. So, you may proceed, Mr. Chen, and
we will just give everybody 1 minute. And then, we will have
very short statements to close up the hearing.
Mr. Chen. Thank you very much.
I just notice that we are focusing on what to do to China,
but ignoring what China did to us. When I was with the school
district, the protest, I noticed the method of infiltration is
through the corruption of U.S. officials, through our human
weaknesses. They invite your officials to go to China and give
you red-carpet banquets, tour, women, everything. Then you come
back and are pushing the program for them. So, we should be
concerned more about what they do to us now, instead of what we
can do to them.
Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Mr. Chen.
Mr. Autry?
Mr. Autry. Mr. Daly I think made the comment that Congress
has led quite effectively on this. You know, gee, I wish I
could believe that.
But we have been treading water here for 22 years with
China on issues of censorship, human rights, the rest of the
thing, trying to be nice and take the gradualist approach. And
all we are doing is getting run over. It is time to do
something.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you.
Mr. Daly?
Mr. Daly. I would say that we have already done a great
deal. We have done most of it as a catalyst through our soft
power by engaging with China and letting a range of American
institutions be involved with China. I think that has already
had a transformative, albeit an insufficient, effect on China.
I went there first in 1987. Today, while many of the
problems with freedom and censorship persist, it is, in fact, a
far better, more humane country in which most Chinese citizens
in their daily lives enjoy a far greater range of freedoms, of
course, as long as they don't have great political aspirations
or advocate that the Chinese Communist Party loses its monopoly
on power. They lead richer lives. They are physically
healthier. They have access to a great deal of information,
despite censorship, and a lot of that is because of work that
we have done in the United States. I think we can be very proud
of it.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Feel free to take an extra 30 seconds. I
mean, you have actually been on the short end of some of the
arguments. Do you have anything else you would like to say?
Mr. Daly. No. I feel I have already had the better of all
the arguments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.]
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Good. Good come back.
Excellent.
Go right ahead.
Mr. Carnahan. Yes, I was going to make that point, too, Mr.
Daly.
But I did really want to thank all of the witnesses here
today and thank the chairman.
To Mr. Daly's point about the U.S. Government speaking with
different voices, we have certainly heard some different voices
here today. But I think that is a really healthy thing. This I
think is a really healthy conversation for our country. I think
it is informative and I think will help shape how we deal with
some of these complex issues going forward.
China, no question, is complicated. I think that is one
thing we can all agree on. But we need to really look at what
works, what hasn't worked, and how we can really move forward
in a smart way.
And again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you being an
instigator on this conversation.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Always the instigator. [Laughter.]
So, for my own closing statements, actually, this quote
came to mind with Mr. Chen's original statement here, in
reaction to my opening statement. And that is, there was an
Irishman about 100 years ago who had a foreword to a book that
I read. It said that every person in the United States has two
flags, the flag of the United States of America and the flag of
his or her ancestral home. But he added this: Every person in
the world who loves freedom and liberty has two flags, the flag
in the nation in which they live and the flag of the United
States of America.
I think that our identification with the cause of freedom
is something that our Founding Fathers wanted and that is
something that gives America the strength, its ultimate
strength and power in this world.
Mr. Chen, you also said something that was very profound.
You talked about having people, a confusion of what freedom is
and a confusion of culture versus the culture of freedom. And
wearing a Mao button, I mean, that was a cultural thing, but
that really did confuse basic values. You know, what did that
mean? Kids used to wear Che buttons and they also have these
Che T-shirts.
The communist movement over the world, over its history,
has been one of the bloodiest movements in the history of
humankind. The Chinese people are still being oppressed by
those who adhere to that social structure, that concept.
I do not believe that we would have the same academic
discussion if we were talking in the 1930s and the Nazi regime
was offering to set up Nietzsche Institutes in our major
universities. And I don't believe that we would have people who
would be moving forward and talking about, ``Well, this would
help us understand the German culture and the richness of the
German language.''
The folks that still control China are still loyal to the
philosophy that slaughtered so many millions and today is the
world's worst human rights abuser on this planet. Today Falun
Gong practitioners, as we speak, there's probably some people
in the Falun Gong religion who are being thrown into prison,
who will be murdered, and whose organs will be taken from them
and sold to Westerners, whose values, as Mr. Chen pointed out,
are confused.
When we lose sight of our basic values and that we value
freedom above all these others, that will be the road that will
take us down to the destruction of the United States of
America.
So, today let us stand firm and let us again celebrate, as
Mr. Carnahan noted, that we can all disagree and respect each
other.
So, thank you all today. This hearing has been, I think,
very worthwhile. We have got some areas where people will be
able to discuss this in China and overseas and here at home as
well with the local press.
So, I now say that this hearing is--we are not suspending
it; what is the word I am looking for?--adjourned.
Thank you very much. God bless.
[Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
\\ts\