Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to Mr. Cline's amendment. This amendment is impractical and infeasible, like the bill he is trying to amend. This amendment will require the Department of Homeland Security to identify and report on any U.S. college or university that has any relationship with a Chinese entity of concern. The Republican author of H.R. 1516 and the Homeland Security Committee Republicans who rammed this partisan bill through committee should have done a little factfinding before bringing this bill to the floor. Had they done so, then Mr. Cline would not be asking for this impractical amendment because his colleagues would have been able to tell him which universities in the United States have a relationship with a Confucius Institute or Chinese entity of concern. The problem at the heart of this amendment is the Republicans' made- up, overbroad definition of ``Chinese entity of concern.'' It requires a multipart test to identify Chinese universities that participate in military-civil fusion, the Chinese defense industrial base, and receiving funding from the Chinese Communist Party. I agree that those sorts of relationships between Chinese universities and the Chinese Communist Party are a problem, but the term ``Chinese entity of concern'' goes way past actual security risks and deems every Chinese university a threat without regard to actual national security concerns.…”