Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the death of democracy, and I am here today to talk about how we can stand with those who are fighting to preserve it.

In the United States, the death of democracy might seem like a distant and unfamiliar thing. We study examples in the history books. We read of nations and peoples who are forced, through no choice of their own, to surrender their basic liberties. We remind ourselves of the need always to stay vigilant, to stay aware, but we are seeing today the death of democracy unfold in realtime, right before our eyes, in the city of Hong Kong.

A diverse and global city, rich in culture and arts and commerce and people, Hong Kong is an outpost of liberty. For decades, under a special set of laws and protections, it has stood as a haven of liberty--a beacon, a light--but I fear that light is fast dimming, nearly overcome by darkness and by tyranny.

This body, along with all free peoples, has a special responsibility to take a stand for the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong. We must take a stand to ensure that the light of Hong Kong does not go out forever. We must take a stand to ensure that this outpost of liberty lives on. We must take a stand so that the flame of freedom is not extinguished forever by the Chinese Communist Party.

On May 28, Beijing announced that it would adopt legislation that will essentially jettison the basic law under which Hong Kong has been governed for decades. It is legislation that will trample upon Beijing's own treaty commitments in the 1984 Sino-British Treaty, legislation--they call it legislation, but, of course, what it really is is just fiat, fiat by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing--that will strip Hong Kong of its basic liberties, strip Hongkongers of the right to freedom of speech, strip Hongkongers of the right to peacefully assemble, strip Hongkongers of their rights to redress in fair and open courts with some process of law.

Beijing wants to deny the people of Hong Kong all of these things because liberty is a threat to the authoritarian Communist regime in Beijing. Oh, it fears that more than anything else. It fears the people. It fears the will of the people, and it fears the liberty of the people. It is trying to destroy the last outpost of liberty in its nation--the great city of Hong Kong.

Now, we were promised that it would not come to this. We were told, when China joined the World Trade Organization, when China was given permanent normal trade relations, when China was ushered into this so- called community of nations, that it would liberalize China and that it would make the Chinese Communist Party more moderate. Well, I think we know how that has turned out.

After decades now of stealing our jobs, decades of ripping us off in trade, decades of impoverishing our own workers here in this country while stealing our intellectual property, decades of building its military on the backs of our middle class and our working people, now Beijing wants to dominate its region, snuff out Hong Kong, and then turn to the rest of the world.

We have to send a clear message that we will not stand idly by. We will not allow Beijing to erase the history of its misdeeds. We will not allow it to erase the history of Tiananmen. We will not allow it to erase the history of the concentration camps it is running at this very moment, and we will not stand by while it destroys the liberties and the rights of the people of Hong Kong.

It is time now for this body to stand and send a clear message that will call the other free nations to stand in support of the values we hold dear, in support of all that this country stands for, in support of the liberty of the people of Hong Kong.

I yield to my colleague Senator Blackburn of Tennessee.

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Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for her tremendous work on this issue. I thank her for her leadership and for her strong stance in favor of the people of Hong Kong and their basic liberties, guaranteed to them by the international treaty commitments that Beijing has ascribed to, that Beijing has signed up for, and that it now seeks to violate with impunity.

Let's be clear about what Beijing wants. It says that Hong Kong is its plaything to do with as it chooses. That is not the case. Beijing has undertaken internationally binding commitments, agreements, by which it has agreed to protect and honor the basic liberties of the people of Hong Kong, and it is those commitments that it is seeking to violate today with impunity. It is those commitments Beijing is seeking to wriggle out of just as it has, time and again, violated its agreements with this country, just as it has, time and again, cheated on its obligations to Americans.

That is another reason I am calling on the Senate today to pass a resolution that makes it our position that China has gone too far. We must go on record and tell the world that this new national security law--this fiat that has been issued by Beijing--is a violation of what Beijing has committed to. It is a violation of the fundamental liberties of the people of Hong Kong, and nothing less than freedom is at stake.

My resolution also calls on this administration to use every diplomatic means available to stay Beijing's hand. The President has already begun the process of downgrading Hong Kong's special trade status. We must build on that effort now by rallying nations--the free nations of the world--to pressure China to back down from their attempt to strip away the basic liberties of the people of Hong Kong because, in the end, Hong Kong's struggle is the struggle of all free people.

Do you know what I said when I had the chance to visit the city, see the protests, and be out on the streets myself last fall? That sometimes the fate of one city defines the struggle of a generation. In the 1960s, that city was Berlin. Today, that city is Hong Kong, and it is time for this body to take a stand.
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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, as if in legislative session, I now ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 596. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. HAWLEY. I do.

Is there objection to the request as modified?

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