Climate Change
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, the Communist Party of China is committing a genocide against the Uighur people. Let me say that again. The Communist Party of China is committing a genocide against the Uighur people.
Under General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi, 1 million Uighurs have been placed in concentration camps simply because of their religion. The Xi regime is reportedly performing forced abortions and forced sterilization of Uighur women.
The Communist Party of China is harvesting organs from Uighurs and members of the Falun Gong. The Communist Party assigns male Han Chinese to regularly sleep in the same beds as the wives of Uighur men detained in the camps.
In addition to these disgusting human rights abuses, the Communist Party of China is stripping away the freedom and autonomy that the people of Hong Kong were guaranteed. They are threatening Taiwan, building up their military to compete with us, arresting and detaining foreign journalists, and punishing anyone who disagrees with them.
General Secretary Xi has established a surveillance system in Beijing that tracks every movement you make online and in person. The actions of Xi and the Chinese Communist Party fly in the face of the fundamental values that unite freedom-loving countries around the world--values that the Olympic Games are meant to foster and promote. Yet, in just 2 years, Communist China is slated to host the 2022 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee's Charter states: ``The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.''
The host city contract the IOC adopted in 2017 requires that hosts protect and respect human rights. Unfortunately, but not by accident, the contract does not take effect until after the 2022 Beijing games. Think about that. It was 56 years ago that the International Olympic Committee took a historic step and stood up to the Government of South Africa and its racist apartheid system and banned the country from participation in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. South Africa was also excluded for the 1968 Mexico City games, and in 1970, the IOC indefinitely expelled South Africa from Olympic competition.
Germany and Japan were banned from participating in the 1948 Olympic Games for their roles in World War II. Afghanistan was banned in 2000 because of the Taliban's discrimination against women, and South Korea was pressured by the IOC to enact democratic reforms before it hosted the 1988 games.
Should Communist China, which places no value on human life or freedom, be allowed to host the 2022 games? Absolutely not. Doing so will threaten the safety of athletes and attendees and financially reward the dictatorship responsible for its genocide against its Muslim population.
My colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Markey, and I introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee to rebid the 2022 games to a country that recognizes and respects human rights. This isn't about a boycott. I am absolutely opposed to a boycott, and it is not about politics. This is a fight about human rights, which transcends politics.
Moving the Olympic Games out of Communist China doesn't hurt athletes. It keeps them safe from Communist China's oppression. Last year, the world watched while Communist China pressured the NBA to sensor themselves over one tweet supporting Hong Kong citizens who were fighting for their freedom. We saw the NBA cower to Communist China's wishes. They even prohibited athletes who were in China at the time from speaking with reporters.
If Communist China has the ability to sensor the NBA, an American organization, from speaking anything about anything that may offend General Secretary Xi, what will they do to athletes around the world? Will this regime start censoring or restricting participating athletes? What about the press? Will their broadcasts be censored to appease General Secretary Xi?
We have to open our eyes to this threat, and we have to stand against the genocide of the Uighurs and the political oppression of Hongkongers. We also have to consider the safety of athletes and spectators from all over the world. For the hundreds of millions who will watch the games, we must again lead by example and refuse to give Communist China a platform to whitewash its crimes.
I stand with the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong, the historically persecuted people of Tibet, the peaceful community of Chinese Muslims, including Uighurs, Falun Gong, and the journalists and political dissidents in China. Res. 526. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, first, as you would expect, I am disappointed in two ways.
No. 1, I am disappointed that we couldn't get a resolution done that dealt with what is going on in China.
I would love the process to work perfectly so that everybody would do things in proper order, but the resolution is pretty simple. We know all the bad things that are happening in China, and we need to stand up. We have a chance now, not in 6 months, not in--I don't know what time it would take to go through the Foreign Relations Committee, but we ought to be standing up now to say that the IOC needs to move the Olympics. So I am very disappointed that my colleague is not willing to just go along with a simple resolution to do that.
No. 2, what my colleague knows is that the bill he is proposing would never get done. I have colleagues who want to reform and fix the TPS program. I worked with my colleagues--all 53 Republican colleagues--and they said that as long as we do a commonsense reform of the TPS program, we would go ahead and do TPS for Venezuelans. So that is a bill we could do today.
We could have done it a couple of times, but my colleague on the other side of the aisle--another--blocked it. It doesn't make any sense to me why we are not getting this done. We can both talk about all of the problems and issues the Venezuelans are dealing with. It is very disappointing to me.
I don't know what the reason is. I have been trying to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ask: What is the problem? And nobody will say: This is exactly what it is, and this is what you need to change to get it done. I don't know how we get things done here if people are not willing to sit down and talk to each other to figure out how to get it done.
I have also proposed other things that my colleague has blocked, like trying to make sure that Maduro couldn't--there were no revenues that could get to the Maduro regime, and that was blocked.
This just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know what the issue is. I don't know if it is because it was proposed by Republicans rather than Democrats, but we have to figure out how to stand up together against human rights violations around the world.
It should be simple to say that the International Olympic Committee should not be hosting the Olympic Games in 2022. It is pretty simple. It is disgusting what Xi is doing.
It should be pretty simple to say: If we want to get TPS taken care of, whether it is for Venezuelans or whether it is for El Salvadorans or anybody else, we need to have a commonsense reform of the TPS system. That is why I proposed this resolution, and all 53 Republican Senators agreed with me.
I hope my colleague will commit to work with me to try to help the Venezuelans and also help others by fixing this TPS program. I hope he will work hard either to get a resolution that he agrees with me on or work through the Foreign Relations Committee to do something. But we have to do everything we can to stop the genocide of the Uighurs in Communist China and also do everything we can to help the Venezuelans who are here and need TPS.
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from New Jersey.
No. 1, I still have not heard what the issue is with a resolution that sounds like 99 other Senators are OK with, with regard to holding General Secretary Xi accountable. I haven't heard my colleague say what the concern is with it.
It seems to me that we have the opportunity right now, between the two of us, if we need to make a change, maybe we can make a change. But I would like to get something done today.
No. 2, as we know, the TPS program is a temporary program. It is not operated as a temporary program, and it has to be reformed.
I agree with my colleague from New Jersey. I would like the President to say that the Venezuelans would get TPS right now, but I think the White House's position is that we have to fix the program because the program doesn't work. It is not a temporary program.
That is why my fix--because what a lot of Senators keep saying--they want to say that we have to take back power we have given to the President. My resolution does that.
The President can still do TPS, but after he does, if he wants to extend it, it has to come back to Congress, and we need to make a decision. It is pretty common sense. If we did that right now, we could get TPS for Venezuelans.
The Senator from New Jersey has blocked my bill. It is a bill with Senator Rubio to hold Maduro accountable by prohibiting Federal agencies from doing business with anyone who supports the oppressive Maduro regime. I don't understand why he would do that. He has blocked a bill that is going to prevent money from going there.
We have to stand up, whether it is against the Castro regime or Maduro. We have to support democracy and freedom in Latin America.
I hope my colleague will stop blocking that bill also.
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida.
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