IV
104TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. RES. 461
Regarding United States concerns with human rights abuse, nuclear and
chemical weapons proliferation, illegal weapons trading, military intimida-
tion of Taiwan, and trade violations by the People’s Republic of China
and the People’s Liberation Army, and directing the committees of juris-
diction to commence hearings and report appropriate legislation.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 25, 1996
Mr. COX (for himself and Mr. SOLOMON) submitted the following resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Rules
RESOLUTION
Regarding United States concerns with human rights abuse,
nuclear and chemical weapons proliferation, illegal weap-
ons trading, military intimidation of Taiwan, and trade
violations by the People’s Republic of China and the
People’s Liberation Army, and directing the committees
of jurisdiction to commence hearings and report appro-
priate legislation.
Whereas the People’s Republic of China has long enjoyed
most favored nation trading status with the United
States notwithstanding significant policy and security is-
sues in our bilateral relationship;
Whereas, despite the positive influence that United States
trade with the People’s Republic of China has had in en-
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couraging the abandonment of state control over all as-
pects of the economy by the Communist government, se-
rious human rights, trade, security, and weapons pro-
liferation issues have remained and often worsened dur-
ing the period of this trade policy;
Whereas this experience has made clear that of itself, the ex-
tension of most favored nation trading status (and the
potential of its annual non-renewal) has been inadequate
to address the many policy and security issues that char-
acterize our bilateral relationship;
Whereas these policy and security issues include, with regard
to the economic activities of the People’s Liberation
Army—
(1) according to the Defense Intelligence Agency,
the People’s Liberation Army of Communist China is in
fact engaged, through controlled enterprises, in govern-
ment-controlled and subsidized trade overseas;
(2) the General Staff Department of the People’s
Liberation Army owns and operates Polytechnologies,
which is the weapons trading arm of the People’s Libera-
tion Army. Polytechnologies has a representative office in
the United States;
(3) the General Logistics Department of the Peo-
ple’s Liberation Army owns and operates a large inter-
national conglomerate known as Xinxing Corporation,
which has a representative office in the United States;
(4) the People’s Armed Police, which is partially
controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, is responsible
for the occupation and suppression of dissent in Tibet
and the execution of prisoners throughout China, pro-
vides guards for the forced labor camp system in Com-
munist China, and owns and operates China Jingan
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Equipment Import and Export, which has a representa-
tive office in the United States;
(5) the export of products by these entities allows
the People’s Liberation Army to earn hard currency di-
rectly, which in turn can be and is used to modernize its
forces without being reflected in official reports of mili-
tary spending;
(6) consumers in the United States are ordinarily
unaware that revenues from the products they are pur-
chasing from or through such entities contribute to the
financial benefit of the People’s Liberation Army;
(7) trade with the People’s Liberation Army effec-
tively is a subsidy of military operations of the People’s
Republic of China that is inconsistent with our national
security; and
(8) free trade in world markets is based on the as-
sumption that the import and export of goods and serv-
ices are conducted by independent enterprises responding
to profit incentives and market forces, and commercial
activities by the People’s Liberation Army are fundamen-
tally inconsistent with these precepts;
Whereas, with regard to Communist Chinese military activity
and weapons proliferation—
(1) it has been reported that United States intel-
ligence has estimated that Communist Chinese military
industries have become a leading supplier of illicit precur-
sor chemicals for use in Iran’s chemical weapons pro-
gram;
(2) in contravention of Communist China’s commit-
ment to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT), the China National Nuclear Corpora-
tion, a Communist Chinese military industry, sold mate-
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rials critical to the production of enriched uranium to a
non-NPT signatory, Pakistan;
(3) China National Precision Instrument Import-Ex-
port Company, a Communist Chinese military industry,
sold nuclear-capable missiles to Pakistan;
(4) China Great Wall Industry Corporation, a Com-
munist Chinese military industry, sold nuclear-capable
missiles to Pakistan;
(5) Poly Group, a People’s Liberation Army owned
company, sold $1,200,000,000 worth of arms to the mili-
tary rulers of Myanmar (Burma);
(6) In contravention of the United Nations embargo,
China North Industries Corporation (Norinco), a Com-
munist Chinese military industry, sold chemicals critical
to the manufacture of nuclear weapons to Iraq;
(7) Poly Group and Norinco, Communist Chinese
military industries, attempted to sell 2,000 AK 47 rifles,
20,000 AK 47 bipods, 4,000 30 round ammunition mag-
azines, and 2 machinegun silencers, and offered for sale
300,000 silenced machineguns and ‘‘Red Parakeet’’ mis-
siles (stingers), RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), 60mm
mortars, and handgrenades to United States law enforce-
ment authorities conducting a so-called ‘‘sting’’ oper-
ation;
(8) according to the May 21, 1996, United States
Customs Service affidavit against the Communist Chinese
representatives of Norinco and Poly Group, at paragraph
96, one of the Communist Chinese representatives
bragged that a ‘‘Red Parakeet’’ missile—which he was
offering for sale in the United States—‘‘could take out
a 747’’;
(9) these and other enterprises owned by the Peo-
ple’s Liberation Army and the Communist Chinese mili-
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tary industries regularly export a variety of products to
the United States, including clothing, toys, shoes, hand
tools, fish, minerals, and chemicals;
(10) the People’s Liberation Army implemented an
unprovoked, dangerous, and aggressive campaign to in-
timidate Taiwan in July of 1995, and again before Tai-
wan’s first direct presidential election in March of 1996,
with military maneuvers, live-fire exercises, and missile
tests in close proximity to that island democracy; and
(11) the People’s Liberation Army seized territory
claimed by the Philippines and threatened the United
States Navy’s right of free passage in the South China
Sea;
Whereas, with respect to human rights—
(1) according to the United States Department of
State’s Country Reports on Human Rights for 1995, the
Government of Communist China ‘‘continued to commit
widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, in
violation of internationally accepted norms, stemming
both from the authorities’ intolerance of dissent and the
inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic freedoms. Abuses
included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention,
forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners
* * * The Government continued severe restrictions on
freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, reli-
gion, privacy, movement, and worker rights’’;
(2) in April 1996, the Communist Chinese Govern-
ment launched a major anticrime campaign called ‘‘Strike
Hard’’ carried out nationwide by the Public Security Bu-
reau (PSB), and in Tibet and Xinjiang (East Turkestan)
also by the People’s Armed Police, which has included
large scale arbitrary arrests, detentions with minimal
legal protection, and swift executions;
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(3) the current anticrime campaign has targeted po-
litical, religious and labor activists in addition to common
criminals in Tibet, Xinjiang, and in the whole of Com-
munist China;
(4) the Communist Government has ordered a crack-
down on unofficial religious believers by the Religious Af-
fairs Bureau and the Public Security Ministry, requiring
all local congregations to register with the Religious Af-
fairs Bureau or risk the legal dismantling of the con-
gregation and official harassment, fines and arrest;
(5) according to Asia Watch, the Communist Chi-
nese authorities in Tibet have launched a repressive cam-
paign against religious practice and the Public Security
Bureau and PLA have been involved in violent suppres-
sion of dissent in Tibet and Xinjiang, resulting in the
death or imprisonment of over one thousand Tibetans
and Uighurs this year;
(6) the Ministry of Public Security has imposed new
regulations to strengthen controls over Internet use, the
State Council must approve ‘‘interactive’’ networks, and
the official Communist Chinese news agency (Xinhua)
has been put in charge of supervising all foreign wire
services selling economic information to Communist
China, censoring their reports for ‘‘false economic news
and attacks on Communist China’’;
(7) Wei Jingsheng, the leading Chinese pro-democ-
racy activist, was sentenced on December 13, 1995, to a
second 14-year prison term, after a sham trial in which
he was denied access to counsel of his choice and given
access to the actual charges against less than two days
before trial;
(8) on November 21, 1995, the Government of the
People’s Republic of China announced the arrest of Wei
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Jingsheng and its intention to try him for ‘‘attempt[ing]
to overthrow the government’’;
(9) the government had previously imprisoned Wei
from 1979 until 1993 on a charge of ‘‘spreading
counterrevolutionary propaganda’’ for his peaceful par-
ticipation in the Democracy Wall movement;
(10) during his long imprisonment Wei was sub-
jected to torture and other ill treatment which left him
in extremely poor health;
(11) far from advocating an ‘‘overthrow’’ of the Gov-
ernment of China, Wei has been a strong advocate of
nonviolence and a peaceful transition to democracy; and
(12) Wei was regarded as a leading contender for
the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize, having been nominated by
parliamentarians throughout the world, including 58
members of the United States Congress;
Whereas, with respect to Communist Chinese trade and eco-
nomic policy—
(1) the United States Trade Representative’s 1996
National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Bar-
riers notes that ‘‘China continued to use standards and
certification practices which the United States and other
trading partners regard as barriers to trade’’;
(2) the report indicates that ‘‘Despite its commit-
ment under the 1992 market access Memorandum of Un-
derstanding to publish all laws and regulations affecting
imports, some regulations and a large number of direc-
tives have traditionally been unpublished, and there is no
published, publicly available national procurement code in
China’’;
(3) the report finds that ‘‘China’s market for serv-
ices remains severely restricted’’;
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(4) these practices limiting American access to Com-
munist China’s market have contributed to an increase in
the United States trade deficit with China from $10 mil-
lion in 1985 to $33,807,000,000 in 1995, according to
the United States Department of Commerce;
(5) these unfair trade practices and tariff and non-
tariff barriers result in lost opportunities for American
companies and lost jobs for American workers, and harm
the United States economy;
(6) the failure of Communist China to stop the pi-
racy of intellectual property, including music, videos,
books, and software required by the January 16, 1992,
agreement on intellectual property rights, is evidenced by
the necessity of further agreements (signed on March 11,
1995 and June 17, 1996), and the threat of over
$2,000,000,000 in sanctions as a means of achieving as
yet hoped-for compliance with the agreements;
(7) according to the United States Trade Represent-
ative’s 1996 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign
Trade Barriers, investment restrictions by Communist
China are ‘‘abundant’’;
(8) under so-called ‘‘export performance require-
ments,’’ Communist Chinese authorities frequently force
foreign manufacturers operating in Communist China to
export 50 to 70 percent (and sometimes more) of their
goods to other markets, as a condition of approving the
investment;
(9) two-thirds of Communist China’s exports are, in
fact, manufactured by foreign firms operating in Com-
munist China;
(10) the export performance requirements imposed
on foreign investment by the Communist Chinese govern-
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ment serve to undercut domestic producers employing
millions of Americans;
(11) Communist China has failed to liberalize its
foreign exchange market, and to make the Yuan fully
convertible;
(12) Communist China maintains two exchange
rates for the Yuan, an official rate for Chinese citizens
and a swap rate for foreigners, and regularly manipulates
the exchange rate to the advantage of domestic exporting
industries;
(13) even with the establishment of currency swap
markets, this gap between the official and swap rates
serves as (a) a subsidy for Communist China’s exporters
to the United States, totaling nearly $15,000,000,000 in
1993, and (b) a nontariff barrier to United States ex-
ports, artificially raising the price of exports in Com-
munist China’s market;
(14) Communist China received over $4,000,000,000
in multilateral loans from the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank;
(15) the United States is the largest shareholder in
these banks, and thus can exercise considerable leverage
over loans to Communist China; and
(16) Communist China has continued to insist that
Taiwan not be admitted to the WTO unless it is admitted
simultaneously, notwithstanding the differences in the
status of their compliance with the criteria for WTO
membership;
Whereas given the number and gravity of these issues, the
debate over Communist China’s most-favored-nation
trade status cannot bear the weight of the entire bilateral
relationship between the United States and the People’s
Republic of China; and
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Whereas these issues should be promptly addressed by appro-
priate legislation: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, The Committee on International Relations,
the Committee on National Security, the Committee on
Ways and Means, and the Committee on Banking and Fi-
nancial Services will each hold hearings on the matters
described in the preamble to this resolution insofar as
those matters fall within their respective jurisdictions and,
if appropriate, report legislation addressing these matters
to the House of Representatives not later than Septem-
ber 30, 1996.
Æ