Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Madam President, today is the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when thousands of peaceful students asking for their freedom were gunned down by Chinese Communist tanks and troops. Because of Beijing's relentless censorship and control over information, we never learned the true death toll of that dark day, but it is certain that thousands of peaceful protesters were murdered in the streets.

Beijing's savagery was exposed during that massacre, reminding the West that this was the same, unreconstructed Communist Party that killed millions--tens of millions--of its own people without batting an eye in Mao's Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. A tiger never changes its stripes.

Now the Chinese Communist Party is threatening another atrocity in Hong Kong, a city whose traditions and freedoms it once promised to respect--but that it, secretly and increasingly openly, loathes as a gleaming repudiation of Chinese Communism.

Last year, an extradition bill that could have allowed Hong Kong residents to be ``disappeared'' to mainland China sparked mass protests. Hong Kong residents flooded the streets to display their disapproval and protect their freedoms.

These are not anarchists trying to tear down the law--as the Chinese Communist Party's shrill organs falsely claim--but they were free citizens fighting to preserve the rule of law they love so much, against a Communist power that knows no law above itself. They are fighting for the very same freedoms we enjoy in the United States: the freedom of religion, speech, and assembly; private property; the rule of law.

The Hong Kong protesters won the battle over the extradition bill, but the war for Hongkongers' freedom isn't over. While the world has been distracted by the coronavirus pandemic and other upheavals, the Chinese Communist Party has seized the opportunity to finally enact what it euphemistically calls a national security law but what is, in reality, an attempt to extinguish Hong Kong freedom--a law that will allow Beijing's agents to take broad action against Hong Kong residents, including those who protested against the extradition bill last year.

Seven million residents of Hong Kong now face the very real possibility of losing their freedom and possibly their lives. Political dissidents risk being jailed arbitrarily--or worse. Hundreds of thousands of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and other religious minorities risk being driven underground like their brethren on the Chinese mainland--or perhaps put in a gulag of concentration camps like the Uighurs in China's Xinjiang Province.

The free world cannot stand by while the Chinese Communist Party sets fire to the venerable laws and freedoms of Hong Kong. Already the administration is moving to revoke Hong Kong's special trade status, which has allowed Chinese Communist Mandarins to get rich off a free economic system while denying those very freedoms for more than 1 billion of their subjects on the mainland.

And our great ally, the United Kingdom, has announced it will extend visas to 3 million Hongkongers--many of whom took part in last year's pro-democracy protests so that they can escape the Chinese Communist Party. I highly commend Prime Minister Boris Johnson for striking this bold blow for freedom, but the United States can also do more.

Today, I call upon the administration to prioritize the admission of persecuted Hongkongers to the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. In coordination with our allies, this action could save these brave Hongkongers from a horrific fate under authoritarian Communist rule.

While this refugee program has been abused in recent years, it has always served the noble purpose of allowing those who are truly oppressed by their governments to immigrate safely to the free world. Now it can be used again in this worthy cause to help noble Hongkongers flee the grasp of the Chinese Communist Party before it is too late.

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