Lateefah Simon: “let me speak briefly on both the Taiwan situation and the North Korean situation. I am pleased to cosponsor the…”

“let me speak briefly on both the Taiwan situation and the North Korean situation. I am pleased to cosponsor the concurrent resolution of Senator Murkowski. I commend him for his leadership on this. We ought to maintain a good relationship, if possible, with the People's Republic of China, but they should not be permitted to veto our standing up for human rights. Senator Murkowski mentioned that when President Lee landed in Hawaii at a military base on his way to Costa Rica, he was not permitted to stay overnight. The base commander was not permitted to come out and greet him. Is this the President of a dictatorship? We treat dictators better than we treat the freely elected President of Taiwan. Taiwan is doing everything that we say a country should do--free press, a multiparty system, holding elections--and yet we treat them as a pariah. We treat them as they used to treat people with leprosy. It is very interesting what happened in Germany. There were two Germanys, and we recognized both Governments. Neither Government was particularly happy that we did it, but it did not prevent the two Germanys from coming together. And that should be our attitude toward Taiwan. I realize that right now formal recognition is not going to be in the cards for Taiwan.”