Political Quotes

“I rise to discuss a concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the President of Taiwan, Li Teng-hui, be allowed to visit the United States. We submitted this concurrent resolution, Senate Concurrent Resolution 9, last week. We had 36 bipartisan cosponsors, some 11 or 12 Democrats, and 24 or 25 Republicans. Specifically, the concurrent resolution calls on President Clinton to allow President Li to come to the United States on a private visit, as opposed to an official state visit. An identical concurrent resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 33, has been submitted in the House by Congressmen Lantos, Solomon, and Torricelli. Why should we simply let the People's Republic of China, our friends in China, dictate to us who can visit our country? The current State Department policy of saying that allowing Li to visit would upset relations with the People's Republic of China offends the Senator from Alaska. I think Taiwan has made great strides toward achieving some of the goals that we have achieved in our democracy, such as ending martial law, free and fair elections, a vocal press, and in human rights great advancements have taken place. Taiwan is a friendly, democratic, stable, prosperous country and the 5th largest trading partner of the United States and the world's 13th, I might add. They buy twice as much from the United States as from the People's Republic of China.”