Asa Hutchinson: “I feel compelled, as I listen to the arguments that have been raised over and over again, and particularly the phrase…”

“I feel compelled, as I listen to the arguments that have been raised over and over again, and particularly the phrase that 'it is a different China today.' Well, it is not my opinion that I am citing today. It is our own State Department's 1996 country report on the conditions in China. So I remind my colleagues on the floor right now that our State Department, in looking at China, said, yes, it is a different China; the difference is that 8 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, after those brave students stood in front of those tanks, there is not one remaining independent free voice in China today. That is our State Department. Every dissident has either been killed or imprisoned or exiled. There are none of those independent voices. That is the China that exists today. That is what our State Department has said. Now, the State Department had a new report they were going to issue. It was supposed to have been out months ago. It was delayed. It was supposed to have been out in June, and it has been further delayed until after the MFN votes were over. I wish the administration had ordered that latest State Department report to be issued so that the Members of the Senate could see what the latest evaluation of the conditions in China really are. The latest we have, in the 1996 country report, is that there are no free voices in China today.”