Dana Rohrabacher: “President Clinton seems like he is absolutely committed on this upcoming trip to China. We have asked him to reconsider…”

“President Clinton seems like he is absolutely committed on this upcoming trip to China. We have asked him to reconsider this trip and, no, he will not reconsider the trip. And Congress officially asked him whether or not he would at least attempt not to do something in Tiananmen Square which would then make a mockery of the human rights commitments of this country by holding some sort of meeting with people who murdered hundreds if not thousands of human rights activists at that very same location 10 years ago. But, again, we were rebuffed in that request as well. The President of the United States as the President of the world's leading democracy will visit, then, the world's leading human rights abuser, the world's most powerful totalitarian regime. Well, this President does have an excuse. Yes, in the past President Reagan visited China and so did President Bush. But in the past when Presidents have visited China, I think it is important for us to understand that China at that time was in a transition, or going through changes that made it appear that China would someday evolve out of its dictatorship. And thus it is all right to visit a country that is not free, but it seems to be going in the right direction in that its government is permitting more freedoms. Unfortunately that is not the case for this Presidential visit.”