China

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, last week, President Biden went to the United Nations and he announced his capitulation to the Chinese Communist Party. The message was clear from what he did--and did not-- say.

In Joe Biden's 30-minute-long monologue on the state of the world, he never once even said the name of the world's greatest threat to peace, stability, and democracy: China. He never said it once. He refused to even say the word ``China.'' Nor did he mention Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or practically any of the victims of Chinese communist aggression.

Now, President Biden did mention the ``targeting and oppression'' of minorities in Xinjiang Province in China's northwest, yet he left mysteriously vague who was responsible for all that targeting and oppression. He blithely lumped Xinjiang with other abuses around the world as if it was just one area of deep concern among many.

But the concentration camps in Xinjiang are not just another problem. They are proof of the most systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign occurring in the world today, perpetrated by one of the most advanced and powerful regimes on Earth, personally approved by the Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping. Leaked documents make it clear that Chairman Xi is responsible for this campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Let me explain how brutal it is. The Chinese Communist Party are sterilizing women in Xinjiang Province so they cannot procreate and create more of their ethnic minority. If they can't do that, then they are being brutally raped by Han Chinese men. That is what is happening in Xinjiang Province, in addition to the internment of millions of religious and ethnic minorities. It is not just your run-of-the-mill targeting and oppression.

President Biden also referred to China implicitly--because he didn't say the word--on another occasion in his speech when he said that the United States is ``not seeking a new Cold War.''

Of course, we are not seeking a war of any kind, cold or hot. That is the last thing that the United States would ever want. But, still, that is an astonishing assertion, because whether we seek it or not, China has been waging a Cold War on America and our workers and our factories and our militaries and our way of life for decades. The only question is whether we will win or lose. Under President Biden, we are losing.

A strong leader--a competent leader--would seek to win this Cold War thrust upon the United States in the manner of those who went before us facing enemies like Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Soviet Russia. Instead, in the manner of appeasers the world over, President Biden hopes to make peace with China by indulging its aggression and refusing to even say his name.

Now, if you think this is restoring some norm of longstanding providence, that you don't go to the United Nations General Assembly and speak the name of your adversaries who are committing acts of naked aggression and crimes against humanity, I would point out that Barack Obama repeatedly--repeatedly--called out Russia by name in 2014 for its invasion of Ukraine, and let's just say that President Obama was not exactly a Cold warrior.

Now as a result, Chairman Xi is issuing imperious orders, and the Biden administration is rushing to fill them like a short-order cook at a diner on Saturday morning. Early in his administration, President Biden lifted restrictions on Confucius Institutes, which are little more than spy outposts on our universities. He gutted Trump-era rules protecting our electrical grid from Chinese influence, and he shut down a State Department investigation into the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus.

Then, in July, China's Foreign Minister handed two lists of new demands to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, stating that the United States must stop so-called wrongdoings in order to get back in Beijing's good graces.

Similarly, when the so-called climate czar, John Kerry, asked for China's help, the Communist Party responded that it would consider polluting a little less if the United States would shut up about China's campaign of genocide and other human rights abuses.

Now any self-respecting administration that believes in American strength, pride, and honor would have told Chairman Xi that he is in no position to be making such demands. Instead, this administration is going down the page, ticking off boxes like an obedient underling.

When a reporter asked John Kerry if the administration would press China on its horrific human rights abuses, Kerry responded that, ``life is always full of tough choices.''

Pathetic.

Around the same time, Biden's Commerce Secretary called for ``robust commercial engagement'' and to ``mitigate any potential tensions'' between United States and China. She even promised to bring delegations of U.S. business leaders to China to pad the Communist bottom line even further.

She calls to mind what is attributed to Lenin: that capitalists will sell Communists the rope they will use to hang us all.

Pathetic.

Over the weekend, in his most recent act of pathetic weakness, the Biden Department of Justice surrendered Huawei's criminal CFO and princess, Meng Wanzhou, without punishing her for evading U.S. sanctions. She received a hero's welcome when her plane touched down in China. And moments after her release, China released two innocent Canadians it had taken hostage to secure Meng's release. So Beijing's hostage-taking worked exactly as planned. Pathetic.

All of this self-inflicted humiliation was avoidable. The fact is that China is in no position to deliver ultimatums to us. It is America that ought to be making demands to China.

Here's a few things that would actually pave a path to true reconciliation:

First and foremost, we ought to demand that China finally admit what almost everyone knows is certainly true: that the coronavirus pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan. Xi Jinping should then give a groveling televised apology to the world, agree to end all gain-of-function research using deadly pathogens, and pay damages to his victims around the world who have died or suffered because of his regime's incompetence and malevolence.

Second, we ought to demand that China rebid the 2022 Winter Olympics until the Chinese regime ends its ethnic cleansing, slave labor, mass murder, mass sterilization, and systematic rape of ethnic and religious minorities. It is too morally tainted to host such a prestigious event.

Third, we ought to demand that China end its spree of intellectual property theft. Today, China is responsible for up to 80 percent--80 percent--of intellectual property theft committed against the United States, and is the subject of nearly half of all FBI counterintelligence cases for economic espionage. This theft has to stop.

Fourth, we should demand that China renounce its imperial ambitions. It must agree to stop the Belt and Road Initiative, disclaim its ambition of conquering Taiwan, abide by its treaty obligations regarding Hong Kong, and end its sinister and provocative military buildup.

If these conditions are met, China will be on the path of making amends for its many crimes. It is up to America to hold China accountable for these crimes. After all, we are the global leader, not China. We don't require China's forgiveness or favor. Our conscience is clean.

Our Nation is great. We are the Nation that threw off the shackles of an empire, settled a continent, saved the world, and then saved it again and again. The United States has been the greatest enemy of tyranny the world over. We do not cower before tyrants. We look them in the eye and call them by their true name and tell them what they really are: evil.

President Biden ought to remember that the next time he speaks to the world on behalf of the American people.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source