Chris Smith: “Mr. Speaker, whatever decision we make today, the American people will see it as a decision about the role of morality…”

“Mr. Speaker, whatever decision we make today, the American people will see it as a decision about the role of morality in U.S. foreign policy, and they will be right. Mr. Speaker, this is a vote about whether a government which practices forced abortion and forced sterilization on a massive scale should be rewarded or punished. It is a vote about how a government treats its own people, especially people of faith, Catholic bishops, priests and Protestant ministers and Tibetan monks and nuns. This is a vote about a government that routinely uses slave labor and does so with impunity. I have held six hearings in my Subcommittee on International Relations and Human Rights on various aspects of human rights in China. We heard from people who survived the Laogai, the gulag system, people like Harry Wu. And I can tell my colleagues, the victims are not in favor of continuing most-favored-nation status with China because they know a butcher when they see one. Today's vote is about dying rooms and inhumane orphanages, where baby girls and handicapped children are left to die simply because they are unwanted by the dictatorship. Today's vote is about what happened in Tiananmen Square--because what was overt in 1989--the silence of dissent--is more covert and sophisticated today. But the repression remains pervasive and brutal.”