Government publishing office



Yüklə 72,52 Kb.
Pdf görüntüsü
səhifə4/25
tarix14.12.2017
ölçüsü72,52 Kb.
#15950
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   25

5
As an interloper to this subcommittee, I want to commend the 
chair and congratulate the chair and Ranking Member Bass of the 
passage of AGOA today on the House floor. 
When it comes to the greatest human rights deprivation by 
China, it is probably the enormous trade deficit they run with the 
United States. We are now engaged in this strategic and economic 
dialogue. All the bigwigs from China are here. The entire State De-
partment is dedicated to them. Hundreds of pages of pronounce-
ments are being generated. I can’t find one that actually mentions 
that we have a $343 billion trade deficit with China. 
And I would point out that, while there are dozens and dozens 
of meetings, none of them are with Members of Congress, except 
for the administration has created this Potemkin village situation 
where Members of Congress are invited to participate only if they 
do not speak to anyone from China. God forbid the Chinese find 
out that there are people in the United States, unlike, perhaps, the 
administration, who care about that I mentioned the $343 billion 
trade deficit. 
Now, as to the matter at hand, we have to focus on what effect 
these educational relationships have with free speech in the United 
States and free speech in China. One other issue that is mentioned 
is, are we just cheapening the brand, independent of human rights 
and politics? Are we sending people over—are the Chinese learning 
mathematics the same way they would learn at the home campus 
here? 
That, I think, is a little outside of government’s purview. You 
know, there are Buicks being sold in China, and if GM wants to 
make a Yugo and put a Buick nameplate on it and sell it to the 
Chinese, that is their business, and it will hurt their business. The 
universities have a lot tied up in the value of their name, and I 
think that will at least assure that good mathematics is taught by 
those good universities that establish branches in China. 
But the question is, what is the effect of this relationship on free 
speech there and free speech here? As to free speech there, I think 
that American campuses in China are doing a better job of hon-
oring American values of free speech than any other campus in 
China. So our presence there does raise the standard, to some de-
gree. 
Even better, from a free-speech standpoint, is when Chinese stu-
dents come here. I guarantee that every Chinese student that 
comes here will have a chance, often, to see the cooking pots of the 
Communist Party of China smashed. It will be a good experience 
for them. 
But, as to those who are taught there, we would want to have 
the highest standard of free speech, the highest standard of polit-
ical inquiry and tough Socratic questions. My guess is that we will 
not be able to reach American standards. 
I am also concerned about the effect this all has on free speech 
here. For example, AMC—I believe it is the second-largest owner 
of movie screens in the United States—is now Chinese-owned. Is 
Richard Gere going to be in a movie about Tibet that is made in 
the future by some studio that feels that being on movie screens 
in the United States is not relevant to the success of the movie? 
I don’t know. But we do know that such a movie will not be on Chi-
VerDate 0ct 09 2002 
14:25 Sep 29, 2015
Jkt 000000
PO 00000
Frm 00009
Fmt 6633
Sfmt 6633
F:\WORK\_AGH\062515\95248
SHIRL


6
nese screens and may have difficulty being on Chinese-owned 
screens here in the United States. 
More attuned to academia, I have seen Turkey try to buy chairs 
of genocide denial by endowing chairs of history, and I would be 
concerned about China endowing chairs at our university. 
They have a program worldwide of teaching Confucianism. I 
think China should be very proud of Confucian philosophy and 
what it has added to the world. The world could learn more about 
Confucianism. But I have fear that, if it is up to the Chinese Gov-
ernment, the version that you will learn will involve not breaking 
the cooking pots of the Chinese Communist Party. 
We do have to worry about the influence of money. Universities 
are not exempt from this, and there is a ton of money. We already 
see the enormous political power China gets from our corporations. 
The easiest way to make money is to make something for pennies 
in China and sell it for dollars in the United States. A lot of people 
are in that business, and they are a powerful force here in Wash-
ington and in the general political circles. And, of course, the 
money that our universities make on the Chinese enterprise, 
whether it be campuses there or students coming here, may very 
well affect what is taught, what stances are taken, who does the 
teaching. 
So, in conclusion, I think that having our campuses there helps 
free speech in China—though it doesn’t help it as much as if we 
were able to obtain the levels of purity and free discourse that I 
would like to see—but we can do better. And a hearing like this 
will push people like you to move in the right direction. 
I yield back. 
Mr. S
MITH
. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
Chairman Rohrabacher? 
Mr. R
OHRABACHER
. Well, first and foremost, I would like to 
thank our witnesses for coming today, and I would like to thank 
the chairman. 
Chairman Smith has been a stalwart example of what I think 
Americanism is supposed to be all about. We are supposed to stand 
for other things rather than simply corporate profit and making 
money. I am not against making money, and I am for lower taxes, 
but that is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind, just a 
place where selfish people could come and make a load of money 
and not care about any other values. 
No, instead, it is very clear that our Founding Fathers believed 
that there are certain rights that are granted by God to people ev-
erywhere, every individual has rights that are granted by God, and 
that as Americans we should lead the way and hold out basic val-
ues so that the world—we don’t have to go to war with everybody, 
but at the very least we should be an example to the world and 
an inspiration to people of China and everywhere that would like 
to have their freedom, as well. 
I think the moment of truth, Mr. Chairman, came—and it was 
very sad; we were defining ourselves—in 1989 when the Chinese 
military poured into Tiananmen Square and slaughtered the de-
mocracy movement. 
Let me just note that when I was working with Ronald Reagan 
in the White House for 7 years we prided ourselves that we 
VerDate 0ct 09 2002 
14:25 Sep 29, 2015
Jkt 000000
PO 00000
Frm 00010
Fmt 6633
Sfmt 6633
F:\WORK\_AGH\062515\95248
SHIRL


Yüklə 72,52 Kb.

Dostları ilə paylaş:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   25




Verilənlər bazası müəlliflik hüququ ilə müdafiə olunur ©www.genderi.org 2024
rəhbərliyinə müraciət

    Ana səhifə