Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the single most dangerous geopolitical threat that America faces now and through the next century--China.
We are in the midst of a pandemic that has infected over 5 million people and has claimed the lives of over 300,000 people worldwide. In the United States alone, the pandemic has infected over 1.5 million people and has claimed over 93,000 lives.
The coronavirus pandemic has shattered the lives of husbands and wives, daughters, sons, granddaughters, grandsons, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews who have lost loved ones to COVID-19.
It has also shattered the lives of those who have lost their jobs, their livelihoods, because of this disease.
Thirty-eight million Americans are now out of work. The unemployment rate is at the highest it has ever been since the Great Depression, and entire industries are on the brink of collapse. Just 4 months ago, when the economy was booming, that was unthinkable.
Where did this pandemic start? In China. Whether it began at the Huanan wet market, a barbaric breeding ground for disease, where snakes and turtles and puppies and kittens and bats and other wildlife and farm animals are killed and sold, or whether it began due to substandard safety protocols at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where research into coronavirus was being conducted and specifically coronavirus from bats, we don't yet know.
Here is what we do know: Not only did the coronavirus outbreak start in China, the Chinese Communist Government did everything it could to cover up the severity of the outbreak, from lying about the origin of the virus to how it is transmitted, to destroying evidence, to silencing the brave whistleblower doctors and scientists and journalists and activists who tried to warn the world and prevent a global pandemic.
It has been reported recently that between January 1 and April 4, the Chinese Government charged 484 people with crimes because of comments they made about the coronavirus pandemic.
In Wuhan, eight doctors who sounded the alarm about coronavirus in December were accused of spreading lies, arrested, and forced to sign documents claiming that they had made false statements that ``disturbed the public order.''
In reality, they were telling the truth. They were warning us.
One of those doctors, Dr. Ai Fen, has been missing since late March. Another, Dr. Li Wenliang, has since died from the coronavirus. Dr. Li Wenliang's wife was pregnant with the couple's second child when he died.
And it is not just Chinese doctors who are paying the price for telling the truth; journalists and activists who courageously spoke up are disappearing too.
Xu Zhangrun, a Chinese law professor who spoke out about the Chinese Government's handling of the coronavirus outbreak and criticized Chinese President Xi, has been missing since February.
Chen Qiushi, a Chinese lawyer and journalist who went to Wuhan to report on what was happening there, has been missing since February 6. Fang Bin, a Wuhan businessman and journalist who reported on the number of bodies piling up outside a Wuhan hospital has been missing since February 9. Li Zehua, a journalist who quit his job as a broadcaster for the Chinese Communist Party's TV station so he could report on what was happening in Wuhan, went missing for 28 days and then was allowed to reappear in public only after he praised the government's policy. Ren Zhiqiang, a real estate tycoon, who had been publicly critical of President Xi's handling of the coronavirus crisis, has been missing since March 12. And Xu Zhiyong, a civil rights lawyer and a legal scholar who criticized President Xi on social media for his handling of the coronavirus crisis, has been on house arrest since February 13.
If the Chinese Government had acted responsibly and sought the advice of public health professionals instead of silencing them, there is a very real possibility the coronavirus could have been contained as a regional outbreak. Instead, we are now dealing with a deadly global pandemic.
These brave men and women are just the latest targets of the Chinese Communist Government's relentless attacks on truth-tellers, on freedom fighters, and on religious and ethnic minorities. The Chinese Government is a 1984-style dystopian state, and it has tracked and imprisoned millions of Uyghurs and other religious minorities. The Chinese Government is constantly tracking the movements of millions of people using cutting-edge biotechnology and artificial intelligence, and it has put 1 million Uyghurs, right now, into concentration camps.
In 2017, I led a bipartisan resolution in this body condemning the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of religious minorities, particularly Buddhist Tibetans. Last year, I introduced legislation and urged the Trump administration to blacklist Chinese companies that are aiding the Chinese Government in its persecution of the Uyghurs. The administration implemented the recommendations in my legislation, and as a result those companies are now banned from acquiring American goods. That is a step in the right direction.
We have known that China's surveillance state and censorship practices are a great threat to human rights, but what the pandemic has shown us is that China's surveillance state and censorship is also a great threat to our national security and to public health. Had those doctors, journalists, and activists who were trying to tell the truth--desperately trying to warn the world--had they been allowed to speak, the coronavirus outbreak might have been stopped in its tracks. We may not have had to deal with this devastating pandemic that has claimed the lives and the livelihoods of men and women all over the world.
That is why, today, I am introducing legislation to sanction Chinese officials who helped censor political speech or suppress the dissemination of medical information by citizens of China. This legislation would impose visa bans and asset blocks on those who punish or censor Chinese citizens for reporting accurate information about a disease or a pathogen and hopefully will help prevent something like this from ever happening again in China.
We need to be vigilant and to act where we can to thwart the Chinese Government's attempts to twist the truth, to censor, and to silence within China, but we also need to be vigilant about the Chinese Government's attempts to censor and silence elsewhere, including in our own Nation.
In the United States, the Chinese Government attempts to spread propaganda by two ways: by leveraging their enormous market access to coerce Americans into self-censorship, especially to Hollywood and sports teams that stand to make billions of dollars in China, and by simply purchasing access to our cultural and educational centers. With both levers, Chinese officials have one objective: to shape what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think.
China has the world's second largest film market, second only the United States, and it does around $8 billion in box office revenues per year. The Chinese film market is comprised of Chinese films, but they also make sure to allow a few dozen American films into their market every year. The number is deliberately kept low, and in exchange for access, American film companies submit their films to China's censors who often force them to change those films. American companies have learned this fact, and they will often change the films even in advance of submitting.
As a result, they control not just what audiences see in China but also what Americans see. The Chinese Government's censorship office seeks to edit anything to do with Tibet, with Taiwan, with Tiananmen Square, with human rights, with democracy, with religion, or with any criticism of communism, particularly the Chinese Communist Party. Recently, the Chinese Government has succeeded in forcing changes to movies such as ``Top Gun,'' the sequel; such as ``Doctor Strange''; such as ``Skyfall''; such as the remake of ``Red Dawn.'' ``Pixels,'' ``Looper,'' ``Bohemian Rhapsody'' all were movies that were changed.
In ``Bohemian Rhapsody,'' the Chinese Communist Party edited out references to the fact that Freddy Mercury was gay. In ``Doctor Strange,'' they changed the Ancient One's character from Tibetan, as portrayed in the comic book, to Celtic. And in the ``Top Gun'' sequel that is set to come out later this year, the Taiwanese and Japanese flag on the back of Maverick's jacket were removed to appease the Chinese Communist Party.
Think about that for a second. What message does it send that ``Maverick,'' an American icon, is apparently afraid of Chinese Communists. That is ridiculous.
That is why, today, I am introducing the SCRIPT Act, which would cut off Hollywood studios from the assistance they receive from the U.S. Government if those films censor their films for screening in China. It is common practice for major Hollywood films to contract with the Pentagon to use jets and tanks and to film on bases and aircraft carriers.
The SCRIPT Act should be a wake-up call for Hollywood. Studios would be forced to choose between the assistance from the Federal Government or the money they want from China.
The second way the Chinese Government attempts to spread propaganda is by purchasing access to our cultural and educational centers. The Chinese Government spends billions of dollars to shape what the next generation of Americans know and think about China. They have a pervasive presence in our K-12 education and in our colleges and universities, especially through Confucius Institutes and by directly financing departments and centers.
In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, I authored bipartisan legislation prohibiting the Department of Defense from funding universities when the money could go to Confucius Institutes. As a result, over a dozen Confucius Institutes have closed.
We need to stand up and deal directly with the threat China poses. China bears direct responsibility and direct culpability for the over 300,000 people who have died worldwide and for the trillions in economic livelihoods that have been destroyed.
Today, I introduce three pieces of legislation to directly address Chinese censorship and their responsibility for this pandemic, and we, as a body, as a bipartisan body, need to stand and stand strong protecting U.S. national security, protecting the lives of Americans, and ensuring accountability; that the Chinese Communist Party has accountability for their censorship, their hiding of the facts of this pandemic, and the lives that have been lost as a result of their coverup. ______
By Mr. THUNE (for himself and Ms. Hassan):
S. 3794. A bill to expedite transportation project delivery, facilitate infrastructure improvement, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
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