Hong Kong

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on a final matter, in the last few days, the reports and images coming out of Hong Kong have become even more disturbing. The police crackdown on Hongkongers who are standing up for their freedom and their region's autonomy has intensified.

University campuses now literally look like war zones, with government forces laying siege to groups of students and other protesters. Many observers feel the situation may be verging on something truly terrible. In the midst of this crackdown, just today, Hong Kong's High Court ruled against the executive and actually in favor of the protesters' rights--yet another signal it is the government that is acting beyond the bounds of its authorities.

This latest escalation against Hongkongers comes as Beijing faces international fallout from leaked documents that delineate the government's chilling, systematic campaign against ethnic minorities in another supposedly autonomous region, Xinjiang--hundreds of pages of internal documents from the Chinese Communist Party government. It is a handbook for this Orwellian campaign to effectively erase a religious and ethnic minority in a region that, again, is supposed to be legally distinct from the rest of China. This effort is being conducted using ``organs of dictatorship'' and ``absolutely no mercy.''

The protesters are not the problem. It is Beijing and the Hong Kong leadership that must deescalate. The Communist Party must know it will hurt them catastrophically if it turns Hong Kong into some 21st century version of Tiananmen Square. The United States would not forget it, and neither would China's other trading partners all across the world.

So what can the United States do?

In September, I worked to add language to the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill to modify the reporting requirements of the 1992 Hong Kong Policy Act, which, by the way, was my bill back in 1992. My additions would work to expose the current tools the Chinese Communist government is using to subvert the autonomy of Hong Kong and to allow the U.S. Government to pay for the legal support for Hong Kong's democracy activists.

One important step to help Hong Kong is for the House and Senate Democrats to finally get to ``yes'' on the appropriations process.

Last week, I had a productive meeting with the senior Senator from Florida on the subject of revising and extending the Hong Kong Policy Act through new legislation. As I indicated, I authored the original bill back in 1992 and have been keenly interested in Hong Kong's status for decades. So I appreciate the leadership Senator Rubio and others have shown and hope we can find a way to move this important bill. Yet, while I support additional legislation, the United States does not need to wait for new laws to act further. There are already significant tools at the administration's disposal, and I strongly encourage them to use them.

I have been encouraged to hear clear statements on China from key members of President Trump's team in recent months. I would encourage this President, who has seen Chinese behavior for what it is with a clarity that others have lacked, not to shy away from speaking out on Hong Kong himself. The world should hear from him directly that the United States stands with these brave men and women.

This administration has rightly understood what prior administrations have entirely missed. The old consensus was that economic modernization in China would automatically import our values of freedom and human dignity into their society. Now, every day reminds us that this simply has not happened. Instead, Beijing is using modern technology it has obtained through integration with the West to further its political and social control over its own population and expand China's reach beyond its shores.

So, rather than focusing solely on trade, I encourage the administration to make Hong Kong's autonomy a key topic within our bilateral diplomacy. The administration should also take advantage of the tools Congress has already provided in Global Magnitsky to target the individuals who are responsible for egregious human rights abuses. In Xinjiang and Hong Kong, the world is seeing the true face of the Communist Party of China.

The United States has a role to play in standing up for the universal principles of human rights, and I am confident we will fulfill it. Yet our allies and partners must also ask themselves whether they are prepared to live in a world that is being increasingly shaped by those who show absolutely no mercy to religious and ethnic minorities and who confront peaceful protest with violence.

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