Jeff Fortenberry: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for conducting this Special Order. I appreciate the gentleman…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for conducting this Special Order. I appreciate the gentleman inviting me to come down here. Just a few observations, if you will. As I have watched the speeches tonight, there has been a litany of concerns about China's aggression, China's positioning, China's covert activities, China's willingness to engage in intellectual theft, China's pervasive influence all around the world. I have been to China once. I found it to be highly engaging. I found the people that we were with to be very welcoming and warm. I am very grateful and try to be attentive to China's long-suffering and rich cultural history. And as China tells us, there is room enough in the Pacific for two superpowers, and I want to return to that point. When I looked out of the window of the place where I was staying in Beijing, it looked as though fog had set in. But it wasn't fog; it was pollution. The air was so thick, you could hardly see maybe 20 feet. If you live in Beijing, it takes 5 years off your life because of the pollution. In fact, I had one Chinese person whisper to me: ``What is the point of all this economic development if it kills you?'' And I really wanted to tell him: ``Please, don't say that too loudly.'' The point is that China has engaged in a series of unfair subsidies that create an unlevel playing field for trade. China's very system, a capitalistic-communist hybrid system is very different than ours.…”