Joe Biden: “President Clinton, as he prepares to depart for China, carries with him an obligation, which I am sure he will fulfill…”

“President Clinton, as he prepares to depart for China, carries with him an obligation, which I am sure he will fulfill, to do his best to advance U.S. core interests with Beijing and to communicate the values of the American people directly to the Chinese people. But what is also at stake, I think, is that there is a concomitant responsibility on the part of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress to adhere to a practice that has been in place for the 25 years that I have been in the U.S. Senate; that is, when a President is abroad, for the Congress to refrain, if only temporarily, from acting on matters that would affect the country which the President is visiting. So I ask my Republican friends, in the spirit of bipartisanship in the conduct of American foreign policy, to refrain from offering amendments to the DOD bill, if it comes up, that are designed to sanction and/or publicly criticize China at the very moment the President of the United States will be in China.”