National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019--Conference Report

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I am now halfway through my eighth year in the U.S. Senate, and in my time here, I have never once spoken against, voted against, or opposed in any way any of the National Defense Authorization Acts that have come before the Senate. The reason being, despite whatever flaws one might find on most occasions in any piece of legislation, the defense of our country is a fundamental obligation of our Federal Government. It comes before everything else.

State governments run schools and build roads and do all sorts of activities at the State level. Communities do all sorts of things at the local level, but nothing is more important than the defense of our country in terms of a Federal obligation. So I never have opposed a National Defense Authorization Act, and I supported every single one of them, despite the fact that it didn't have everything I wanted and everything I liked, until today.

There is a lot of good in this legislation, and it makes it difficult to be an opponent of it. For Florida, it authorizes over $200 million for military construction in the State--the littoral combat ship facilities at Naval Station Mayport, air traffic control towers at Whiting Field, F-35 facilities that are important at Eglin Air Force Base, KC-135 flight simulators at MacDill Air Force Base.

It authorizes the Secretary of the Air Force to build a cyber space facility at Eglin. It authorizes the conveyance of land for the Air Force Enlisted Village, which is a nonprofit corporation consisting of approximately 80 acres next to Eglin for independent living and apartments.

It authorizes the continued development of the B-21 Bomber--work that is being done in Melbourne, FL. It fully supports the Joint Gulf Range Complex, a true treasure for our country, and it is the largest military range in the continental United States.

As for the country, it also has all sorts of other very important things: an over 2.6-percent military pay raise. It increases the Active-Duty workforce by 15,600 personnel, bringing the total to over 1.3 million. It tries to address the pilot shortage. It authorizes $10.7 billion to buy 77 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, $193 million in research and development funding for new software and improvements to be incorporated in future years in that program.

It authorizes new missile defense, including $175 million intended to integrate the THAAD and Patriot Systems batteries in South Korea. It authorizes $23.7 billion for Navy shipbuilding, an increase of close to $2 billion over what the President requested. To go on and on, it does many important things in rebuilding our military strength in this country, but it failed on one important front, and that is what I believe to be a very significant and serious threat to the national security and the future of this country--one that we are only beginning to wake up to. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the United States is engaged in a geopolitical competition with a near-peer adversary.

Since 1991, there has been no other nation on Earth that can project power anywhere close to what the United States could do--until now.

Unlike our country, China is a nation with an ancient history, one that leaves them with a longstanding sense of victimhood but also one that leads them to believe they have a preordained destiny to, once again, be the most powerful nation on Earth. This is what they mean when they constantly use the phrase ``historical determinants.'' In summary, what they are saying is, they are predestined to be the world's most powerful country, and, therefore, they believe they are predestined to surpass the United States geopolitically, economically, and militarily.

This is not a new ambition, by the way. For two decades, they have followed a strategy called hiding their power and biding their time, but all of that changed last year.

In October, at their party congress, their President for life Xi laid out a vision for China and did it in clear, nationalistic terms. He said:

Backed by the invincible force of 1.3 billion people, we have an infinitely vast stage of our era, a historical heritage of unmatched depth, and incomparable resolve . . . we have arrived at a new era, where China is now in a leading position in terms of economic and technological strength, defense capabilities, and composite national strength . . . and with a military which can fight and win.

I will state that you see evidence of this belief in their impressive and massive military buildup and quantum leaps in technological advances. You see how they are working to destroy the current world order that was built by America and our allies and now seek to replace it with one they build and one that will be led by them.

That is how they offer loans--not just to get their companies more business but to give them leverage and footholds in countries, and they do so with no questions asked about democracy or human rights. That is what the Asian Infrastructure Bank is all about. That is the Belt and Road Initiative.

You also see what they are doing to overtake us economically. Their state-led economy runs large trade deficits with everyone while at the same time prohibiting market access to China. You see it in the widespread force technology transfers and the cyber theft, and it is working--5G, for example, will dominate most of the industries of the future, and they are on course to be the world standard on 5G.

By 2020, China Mobile will be the only company in the world that can build a standalone 5G network. Huawei was the first company to gain approval to sell 5G stations in the European Union. They are moving hard to dominate pharma research and genome editing and all sorts of other leading industries for tomorrow. What is outrageous is how much of these advances are built, not just on ingenuity and hard work but on the theft of intellectual property from American companies, oftentimes through research funded by American taxpayers. They do it through cyber espionage. They do it through the forced transfer of technology, where they tell companies who do business in China, not only do you have to partner with a Chinese company, you have to give them the secrets to their trade. See how they are now buying up companies, buying off researchers in American universities and their research.

Now, this is what they are moving toward--to become the most powerful country in the world. Why is that an issue, despite the fact that we seek to not be in second place to anyone? Because you can see what kind of country they will be and what kind of world we will have if they become the world's most dominant power.

You see it, for example, in the conquest of the South China Sea through the military harassment of Southeast Asian nations. You see how they cut tourism to South Korea as leverage over our missile defense deployments; how they restricted exports of rare-earth minerals to Japan as leverage over the East China Sea disputes. We saw Filipino agricultural products rot on the docks during the South China Sea fights because they wouldn't let it come in.

You see the threats to our businesses to deny them access to Chinese markets even further if they dare speak in support of President Trump's 301 investigations of Chinese unfair practices.

You see it in a U.S. citizen living in the United States of America-- not in China, not anywhere outside our borders--a U.S. citizen living in the United States of America was fired by Marriott Hotel because of a social media post that China complained about. That happened.

You see it most recently by American and United Airlines being forced to change how they describe Taiwan on their website or they would not be allowed to continue to fly to China.

The tactics they use over and over again are not sweeping changes; it is typically slow but incremental yet more assertive demands, but over time these demands end up establishing a new normal. It is very much like the example of the frog in a boiling pot of water. If you throw the frog in the boiling pot of water, it jumps out right away, but if you put it in cold water and slowly boil it, it will boil to death and not even know it is boiling. That is what China is doing to the United States and to the world.

There are only two things that China responds to when you confront them. The first is a committed and sustained escalation across the entire relationship between us and them, and the other is invoking the help of our foreign partners. That is why I strongly believe the U.S. should have worked with the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and Japan to confront China, not to start a trade war with them as well. I am happy to see that progress is being made on negotiations with Mexico, and there has been a pause in the challenges of Europe. Perhaps now is an opportunity to be able to do that second part of invoking the help of our foreign partners and confronting these cheating and stealing and unfair practices.

What about a committed and sustained escalation across the entire relationship? I would say to you that, by and large, that has been what this administration has done, and it is having an impact. Just this morning, the New York Times reports about rare rebukes to President Xi's leadership inside of China because these disputes are beginning to have an impact on their economy.

There is one glaring exception, and that is an ill-conceived deal to grant amnesty to a telephone and telecommunications Chinese company called ZTE. To have a committed and sustained escalation across the entire relationship means we can't make threats and back down, and we can't carve out one part of the relationship for a special accommodation. Sadly, that is what happened here.

ZTE is a telecommunications company that was caught--not once but twice--in helping North Korea and Iran to evade U.S. sanctions. As a result, the Commerce Department imposed a penalty on them that basically was an equivalent of a business death penalty. It said that you can no longer buy American microchips. Without that, you can't function and the company was brought to its knees. I would argue that sanctions should have been imposed on them even if they didn't help evade sanctions because of the threat they pose to this country.

If we allow these companies to embed themselves in the telecommunications infrastructure of the United States, it is a severe and significant national security threat to this country and one that grows every single year moving forward. Yet, inexplicably, at some point, for some reason, a deal was struck that allowed ZTE to survive. So the argument was, well, we are going to put a really big fine on ZTE, and we are going to put people on their board to make sure they are no longer violating sanctions. I will state that if this were only about sanctions relief, that penalty would be sufficient for me and should be sufficient for all. If it were Samsung, Nokia or Ericsson or some other company that had done this, I would say maybe it went too far.

The problem is, those two measures will do nothing to contain the threat that ZTE poses to the United States and our national security. A fine--when they are backed by the Chinese Government, a multibillion- dollar fine is nothing. You can put all the businesspeople you want on their board. It is not the businesspeople we should be concerned about, it is the technical people in these companies, the ones who can get ZTE routers embedded in American telecommunications, create backdoor access to our universities so they can steal our research, get into our communications systems so they can intercept our communications in military affairs and economic affairs. They can conduct cyber espionage, commercial espionage, and, potentially, denial of our command and control of our military one day if left unaddressed.

Think about embedding these Trojan horses inside of our telecommunications systems and networks in America. Any company that poses that threat should not be allowed to operate, much less remain in business, and ZTE is one such company.

Even if ZTE tells the Chinese Government we don't want to do this, they will have no choice or they will cease to exist or their leaders will be in jail, and somebody new will replace them who will do it. This is why this is so critical and why in the bill, as passed by the Senate, we reimposed these penalties, and it was taken out in conference.

The threat posed by China and by telecommunications companies are so severe and so significant that it regrettably brings me to the point where I cannot support a bill I have always supported in my time here.

We need to wake up to the threat that China poses to this country because we are running out of time to do so.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RUBIO. I yield time to the Senator from Maryland.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I will be brief in closing. I note that the manager of this needs to get through some things to get to our vote.

There are three quick points I want to make. The first thing is that the Chinese have learned how to work our system and how to play us. They know, for example, that they can just go to American companies, go to Washington, go to the White House, go to Congress, and tell them how bad this is for you, and you will get them to change their minds or they just hire lobbyists, as the Senator from Maryland outlined.

One company involved here was Qualcomm. They are the largest seller of chips to ZTE. They were involved in saying: Don't do this. Obviously, they were a customer, they didn't want to lose this customer. Qualcomm had a deal pending in China to purchase a Dutch company. I believe the understanding was if you allow ZTE to survive, not only do you get to keep this company as a customer, but you will probably help yourself get that deal in China with the Dutch company purchase.

Guess what. On the day after it was announced that the conference committee had dropped this provision, Qualcomm announced it was dropping its pursuit of that deal in China because they couldn't make headway. The Chinese Government doesn't play. They got ZTE to stay alive, and they still blocked the deal.

The second point is this issue: They are a cell phone maker, but the hand-held devices they make are the least problematic part of this. They make servers and cameras, and these are embedded in our telecommunications network. That is the way we communicate with each other on commercial secrets or, potentially, military secrets. If it is unclassified or sensitive information, all of it is potentially vulnerable to a company. They don't even need spies anymore. We brought them into our network and continue to do so, not to mention the role they play in networks around the world, which brings me to the last point.

ZTE is a big danger. They are small compared to Huawei, which is a company even bigger than ZTE that poses an even greater systemic risk. If we can't even take on ZTE because they lobby and because of American companies coming here, how are we ever going to take on Huawei or any other dangers they pose to us?

It is time we open our eyes. We are engaged in a geopolitical competition, not with some poor agrarian country trying to catch up but with a global superpower that is quickly nipping at our heels and doing so unfairly, with the intent of replacing us in the world as its most powerful country militarily, economically, geopolitically, and technologically.

The history of America is short in comparison to the great empires of history and the great countries of history. Some 240-odd years in the scope of history is but a blink of an eye. History is full of examples of nations that became complacent and lost their standing and their way of life.

I am not claiming that ZTE alone will be that, but it is a part of a broader problem; that is, we have yet to realize what a significant threat China poses to this country in every realm and every sphere. Until we do, we are going to continue to be in danger of surrendering and forfeiting our way of life and our place in the world. If we do that, the world will be worse off for it. We will have no one to blame but ourselves for failing to act.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source