U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

65–773 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

MARKUP OF H. CON. RES. 322 AND S. CON.

RES. 81

MARKUP

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

Tuesday, June 27, 2000

Serial No. 106–125

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international relations

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

PETER T. KING, New York

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

JOHN MCHUGH, New York

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL GILLMOR, Ohio

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

MICHAEL P. ENNIS, Subcommittee Staff Director

DR. ROBERT KING, Democratic Professional Staff Member

MATT REYNOLDS, Counsel

ALICIA A. O’DONNELL, Staff Associate

(III)

C O N T E N T S

APPENDIX

Page

Bills:

H. Con. Res. 322 ...................................................................................................... 10

Amendment in the nature of a Substitute to H. Con. Res. 322 ........................... 12

S. Con. Res. 81 ......................................................................................................... 14

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MARKUP OF H. CON. RES. 322 AND S. CON.

RES. 81

Tuesday, June 27, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC,

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:10 p.m. In Room

2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Bereuter (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. BEREUTER. The Subcommittee will come to order.

We meet in open session to consider two measures, H. Con. Res.

322, relating to Vietnam; and S. Con. Res. 81, relating to the People’s Republic of China’s arrest of Rabiya Kadeer.

We will call up first H. Con. Res. 322. This expresses the sense

of the Congress regarding the sacrifices of individuals who served

in the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam, which the clerk will

read.

The CLERK. H. Con. Res. 322, expressing the sense of Congress

regarding Vietnamese Americans and others who seek to improve

social and political conditions in Vietnam.

Whereas on April 30, 1975, Saigon, Vietnam, fell to Communist

forces and the current——

Mr. BEREUTER. Without objection, further reading of the resolution will be dispensed with, printed in the record in full and open

for amendment.

[The information referred appears in the appendix.]

Mr. BEREUTER. The resolution was introduced on May 11th by

the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis, cosponsored by this and

other Members to recognize the Vietnamese who fought bravely

side by side with U.S. forces in Vietnam and to applaud all those

whose efforts focused international attention on human rights violations in Vietnam.

Every year on June 19th, the Vietnamese American community

traditionally commemorates those who gave their lives in the

struggle to preserve the freedom of the former Republic of Vietnam.

During the war, the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam suffered enormous casualties, including over 250,000 killed and more

than 750,000 wounded. They continued to suffer after the fighting

ended when many were imprisoned and forced to undergo so-called

re-education. They continue their efforts even now, playing an important role in raising international awareness of human rights

violations in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

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Earlier this year, thie International Relations Committee passed

and the House approved Mr. Rohrabacher’s H. Con. Res. 295 on

human rights and political oppression in Vietnam. While I support

Mr. Davis’ resolution, there is some inevitable duplication in the

two initiatives. The Chairman will be offering an amendment in

the nature of a substitute, agreed to by Mr. Davis, which eliminates the duplication with Mr. Rohrabacher’s resolution and focuses this resolution on commemorating the service and sacrifices

of the former members of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam. This Member hopes that all of his colleagues will support this

laudable resolution in its substitute form.

I now turn to the Subcommittee’s distinguished Ranking Member, the gentleman from California, Mr. Lantos, for any comments

that he might wish to make. Mr. Lantos.

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Chairman, I associate myself with your remarks, and I support your position.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

Are there other members who wish to be heard?

Mr. Rohrabacher.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, as original Co-sponsor, I

strongly support this resolution by Mr. Davis of Virginia; and I congratulate the gentleman as well as you, Mr. Chairman, for this

amendment.

I would like to say my able assistant, Al Santoli, who fought in

the Vietnam War and won three Purple Hearts, and I spent several

months in Vietnam in 1967 on various political operations.

The fact is, those of us who were in Vietnam during the war and

witnessed the situation with the Vietnamese and the post-war refugee camps after the war crowded with Vietnamese boat people,

many of whom arrived with nothing, nothing from their homeland,

and we have continued to watch the ongoing development with the

Vietnamese community, and let me say that it has been inspiring

for us to see this transition from the war to being homeless refugees to now being people of great accomplishment here in the

United States of America.

I am especially impressed with the young generation, some of

whom were born in refugee camps, others who were born here, all

of whom are excelling in their studies, and yet they have not, this

younger generation of Vietnamese Americans, forgotten the cause

of freedom in their homeland.

The resolution recognizes the sacrifices of the Vietnamese Americans who fought in the armed forces of the Republic of South Vietnam, and it also recognizes the abysmal failure of the Communist

tyrants who have suppressed the Vietnamese people for the last 25

years. This is a profound bit of evidence for anyone who has any

doubts about the true nature of communism and also underscores

that the Vietnam War, as President Ronald Reagan described it,

was a noble cause.

This resolution, written by Mr. Davis and a member of his staff,

Ms. Uyen Dihn—she herself exemplifies the hard work and commitment to education and the hard work and commitment to education of the first generation of Vietnamese Americans. This offers

a tribute to the achievement of new Americans; and her example

and, of course, the example of others should give encouragement to

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people everywhere who struggle for freedom and long for human

dignity. Those people fighting that fight need only to remember the

brave Americans and South Vietnamese soldiers who fought and

died to try to preserve freedom in South Vietnam so many years

ago and the success of the Vietnamese Americans who live under

freedom today in the United States.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.

Any further discussion or statements?

Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. The gentleman from Florida.

Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman, I have no additional statement. I

support the measure as well as your amendment in the nature of

a substitute. I would merely ask that my name be included as a

co-sponsor, if the time is appropriate at this time.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you. We will ask Mr. Davis for that to be

done.

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. I would say, responding to the gentleman from

California, he is certainly right to call attention to the accomplishments of the Vietnamese Americans today.

My own personal experience with the Vietnamese American community in part was based upon that of my wife who was teaching

in the Arlington, Virginia, public school system. The students of Vietnamese American families here succeeded rapidly in school. The

families took jobs no one else wanted and started family businesses. Their children did remarkably well in grade and high

school and beyond, and they were saving at two times the rate of

other Americans.

In my own district we now have 2,000 or so Vietnamese Americans living in Lincoln, and many of them or their family members

served in the army of the Republic of Vietnam. As I held a town

hall meeting specifically for them recently with interpreters, I

found that their only questions and concerns were how to learn

English more rapidly and how to be more adequately employed in

our society. It is a remarkable success story of these refugees and

immigrants.

The amendment is open for discussion. The clerk will read the

amendment offered by the Chair.

The CLERK. Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H. Con.

Res. 322 offered by Mr. Bereuter.

Strike the preamble and insert the following:

Mr. BEREUTER. Without objection, the amendment is considered

as read and printed in the record and open for amendment.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. BEREUTER. This Member worked with Mr. Davis and was

vigilant that this amendment avoided duplication of the substance

of H. Con. Res. 295 authored by Mr. Rohrabacher and which the

House passed. Again this amendment is, to focus instead on commemorating the sacrifices and services of the former members of

the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam.

Are there questions or comments or discussion on the amendment?

If not, all those in favor of the amendment will say aye. All those

opposed, say no.

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The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it.

Are there further amendments?

If no amendments or no further discussion, the question occurs

in agreeing to the resolution as amended. As many as are in favor

will say aye. All those opposed, no.

The ayes appear to have it, and the resolution is agreed to.

Without objection, the staff is authorized to make technical,

grammatical and conforming changes to the text just agreed to.

The second and remaining order of business is consideration of

S. Con. Res. 81, expressing the sense of the Congress that the Government of the People’s Republic of China should immediately release Rabiya Kadeer, her secretary, and her son and permit them

to move to the United States if they so desire. The clerk will read.

The CLERK. S. Con. Res. 81 expressing the sense of Congress

that the Government of the People’s Republic of China should immediately release Rabiya Kadeer, her secretary, and her son, and

permit them to move to the United States if they so desire.

Mr. BEREUTER. Without objection, further reading of the resolution will be dispensed of, printed in the record in full and open for

amendment.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. BEREUTER. S. Con. Res. 81 was introduced by the senior senator from Delaware, Senator William Roth, and approved by the

Senate on May 2, 2000, and referred to the House Committee on

International Relations on May 3rd.

The resolution expresses the sense of Congress that the People’s

Republic of China (PRC) should immediately release Rabiya

Kadeer, her secretary and her son and permit them to move to the

United States if they so desire.

Rabiya Kadeer is a prominent ethnic Uigher from China. Her

husband, who works for Radio Free Asia, and she have five children, three sisters and a brother living in the United States. She

was arrested in the city of Urumqi as she was attempting to meet

a group of congressional staff staying there as part of an official

visit to China organized under the auspices of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Program of the U.S. Information

Agency.

On March 10th, Rabiya Kadeer was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the crimes of ‘‘illegally giving state information across the

border.’’ Her son was sent to a labor camp for 2 years last November for ‘‘supporting Uigher separatism,’’ and her secretary was recently sentenced to 3 years in a labor camp.

In Rabiya’s case, the so-called state information appears to have

consisted essentially of a collection of publicly available Chinese

newspaper articles, speeches, and a list of prisoners. This case appears to constitute a clear violation of the international covenant

on civil and political rights. This resolution makes clear the strong

sense of the Congress that Ms. Kadeer should be immediately released and allowed to join her family in the United States.

This Member urges the Subcommittee to support the resolution

offered by the senior senator from Delaware. I will tell my colleagues that a similar resolution was introduced in the House by

Mr. Nethercutt of Washington. However, Mr. Nethercutt agreed

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that a joint resolution approved by both bodies is preferable to each

body considering a separate resolution.

I turn to the Subcommittee’s Ranking Minority Member, the distinguished Member from California, for any comments that he

might have.

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Chairman, needless to say, I strongly support

the resolution, but I want us to understand clearly as we pass this

resolution that this tragic case is one of tens of thousands of the

most sickening, outrageous, vicious expressions of human rights

abuses on the part of the Communist dictatorship in Beijing.

Not long ago, as the Co-chairman of the Congressional Human

Rights Caucus, I chaired a hearing on the most recent abuses of

human rights aimed at Falun Gong practitioners; and a few days

after our hearing an elderly Falun Gong practitioner, a lady, was

killed by the Chinese.

We are conducting a profoundly schizophrenic policy with respect

to China. From time to time, we express naive hopes and expectations concerning the vast export opportunities which are present

for American businesses, and then the next day we pass resolutions

expressing our anguish and pain over these outrages.

I have difficulty reconciling in my own mind this simultaneous

dual approach to China. I find it difficult to see how we can at the

same time maintain a business-as-usual approach to this awful

Communistic dictatorship while knowing about these episodes and

incidents which are innumerable.

I am delighted that this has been singled out, and I am eager

that all of us vote for it so we have this on the record. But this

is not even the tip of the iceberg. This is the tip of the tip of the

tip of the iceberg. We are talking about vast numbers of people—

Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, other ethnic minorities—people

who have expressed the slightest degree of opposition to this truly

sickening regime, and yet business as usual is being conducted.

So I strongly support the resolution without the slightest illusion

that it will make any impact in those quarters of many of our multinational corporations where, in fact, significant assistance could

be given to those of us who have been in the vineyards of the

human rights struggle. There is a sort of awkward indifference and

embarrassment on the part of much of American corporate leadership with respect to this whole issue. This is analogous to people

going to church on Sunday and cheating and robbing and murdering the rest of the 6 days of the week. That is an unseemly phenomenon. This is an unseemly phenomenon.

My vote for this is obviously given without any reservation but

with a tremendous degree of cynicism because I do not believe that

these occasional gestures of passing a resolution deals with the underlying issue. This is a profoundly evil, corrupt, ruthless, totalitarian regime.

Yesterday, we dealt with their attempt to buy a spy tower on the

Pentagon. We have seen the singularly benign and nonthreatening

group of men and women who belong to the Falun Gong persecuted

with a degree of ruthlessness. His holiness, the Dali Lama, is still

being treated like a criminal; and the pattern of human rights violations, as the State Department’s own annual report clearly indicates, is getting worse, more oppressive, more widespread and more

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appalling. And it is no wonder that the Chinese leadership ignores

and ridicules and sloughs off all of our efforts along these lines.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

Are there other Members who wish to be heard?

Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. The gentleman from Florida.

Mr. HASTINGS. I would like to associate myself with your and Mr.

Lantos’ remarks, and I support it. But in the first full paragraph

of the first page Ms. Kadeer’s husband is referred to as Sidik

Rouzi—and I stand to be corrected with reference to the pronunciation—and then on the second full paragraph, citing a newspaper,

his name is referred to in the newspaper article as Sidik Haji. I

have no quarrel with it. I just am curious. Is the husband Sidik

Rouzi or Haji? Or does it matter? Or is he both?

Mr. BEREUTER. I don’t know the answer to that. You raise an interesting question. We will get to the bottom of it, and if necessary

I will ask for changes, if necessary. We will be in contact with the

Senate to see if the original sponsor of the resolution has an answer to your inquiry.

[Ms. Kadeer’s husband is named Sidik Rouzi. ‘‘Haji’’ is an honorific title.]

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. Let me just say, in response to Mr. Lantos, I

hope the gentleman understands that I have nothing but great respect and admiration for the work that he does on the Human

Rights Caucus as a Co-Chairman. We have recently had a substantial discussion about relations in light of the discussions and vote

on Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR); and there is disagreement as to how in fact we can have impact, even marginal impact on the People’s Republic of China and their conduct with respect to their own citizens.

My own judgment is that the current procedure we have used in

the past is almost insignificant in having any impact and that we

need to act in our national interest and try over a period of time

to have a more positive impact on that society. I certainly believe

we need to put more resources into rule of law programs, and,

hopefully, we will begin to have a bipartisan consensus on doing

that within the Appropriations Subcommittees involved.

This is the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg, as the gentleman referred to it, but I do know that from working with American Citizen John Kamm, who keeps close contact and aggressively

pursues information about high-profile prisoners in China, I am

convinced that we have had an impact on reducing prisoners’ sentences and getting them out of prison in many cases. But it is a

very painful process. This situation shouldn’t exist, and we can

agree to that.

If there is no further discussion, the resolution is open for

amendment. Are there amendments?

Hearing none, the question occurs on agreeing to the resolution,

S. Con. Res. 81. As many as are in favor will say aye. All those

opposed will say no.

The ayes have it, and the resolution is agreed to.

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Especially in response to Mr. Hastings, without objection, the

staff is authorized to make technical, grammatical and conforming

changes to the text just agreed to.

I thank my colleagues for participating in the markup and preparing these two resolutions for consideration by the Full Committee on Thursday. Thank you, gentlemen.

The Subcommittee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:31 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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A P P E N D I X

JUNE 27, 2000

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