Dana Rohrabacher: “Mr. Speaker, we are at a defining moment. The Communist Chinese authorities and the oppressed people of China and other…”

“Mr. Speaker, we are at a defining moment. The Communist Chinese authorities and the oppressed people of China and other countries around the world are watching. They will note what we are doing here today. During the cold war, America made some strategic alliances with sometimes dictatorial regimes. Perhaps the most blatant of these strategic alliances was that we established a positive relationship between the Communist government of China and the United States of America. The cold war is over. If it ever made any sense for us to be locked arm in arm with an oppressive regime, it makes no sense today. The people, the free people of the world, the people who look to the United States of America, know we mean what we say. President Clinton, during the last visit of this Communist dictator to our country just a few weeks ago, had some words to say. Unless we put muscle behind those words, it will have the opposite impact than what the American people think. It will actually demoralize those people who believe in freedom overseas, and it will create strength among the Communist dictators to hold power, if they think those words about human rights were nothing more than word confetti for the American people. No, today the U.S. Congress is going to act.…”