Political Quotes

“I thank my friend, my colleague from Florida, for the time. Mr. Speaker, when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in the year 2007--and this was through legislation that I had the privilege of authoring with Tom Lantos, our esteemed late chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the only Holocaust survivor to have served in this body--when we passed that in the House and we had the celebration of the Dalai Lama right down the hall, the plight of the people of Tibet was at the forefront of U.S. policy toward China. {time} 2030 But in the years since, as China has gained both in strength and in power, I have grown increasingly worried that Tibet has been pushed to the periphery, to the edges. It is an afterthought. I was worried that China's bullying and intimidation tactics, on display throughout the world, had extended so far that our United States Congress no longer had the will, no longer had the desire, to speak out in support of Tibet. But with this bill, Mr. Speaker, authored by my good friend and my colleague, Congressman Jim McGovern, we are finally reversing that trend. We are sending a clear message, a true signal, to the regime in Beijing that the United States has indeed not forgotten about the people of Tibet, that Congress will not accept Beijing's bullying and its intimidation, and that we will stand up in support of human rights for the people of Tibet.…”