Chris Smith

When you say you do not have time for something, you have not stated a fact, you have stated a priority.

All Federal departments of government, every single one, should have to report on what they are doing to bring democracy to China by advancing human rights and the rule of law there.

It is shocking to me that there is no such law at the present time.

It calls on Congress to enact a China Democracy Act, recognizing that advancement of human rights and democracy in China is in America's national interest.

Congress should pass a simple, short and sweet China Democracy Act.

Americans of conscience should insist that their government confront China on human rights issues.

We must abandon the delusion that economic growth will bring human rights and democracy in China.

The reason for the 'no,' I do believe, is that there is that undue fear.

It is gross negligence on our part that we have not availed ourselves of that technology.

We have leverage to move the United Nations to be a force speaking out against China's treatment of political dissidents and North Korean refugees.

Silence is not a neutral factor, it is a negative factor, and has great negative weight.

Today's silence flies in the face of an American history where Theodore Roosevelt complained about Soviet pogroms, and Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter raised human rights issues.

We cannot get the State Department to do it.

Hu Jintao has said that if China cannot maintain the 'purity of the Internet,' it cannot maintain the 'stability of the socialist state.'

The fact that he is in jail is in naked, open Chinese violation of its UN treaties.

So the first thing it seems to me that needs to happen is that we must raise our voices about these human rights cases.

I think the risks of China remaining a dictatorship, for China itself and for the world, greater by orders of magnitude than they were during the years that Ronald Reagan tried to deal with the Soviet Union.

This would not be a non-binding resolution. Instead, it would be binding legislation flatly stating congressional judgment that advancing human rights and democratic values in China is decidedly in America's national interest.

I do not think it is necessary for another Pearl Harbor to wake up the American people.

This means that America is destined to be responsible for people who are pursuing similar dreams in other countries.

I firmly believe that things could change if America were to wake up from its vacant and passive view of China.

It is the efforts of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Congressman Smith and Senator Rubio, who speak up and take a stand on human rights that give me hope for the future.

I believe that someday China will be free.

The United States must show leadership in this regard and it must send a very strong message.

That is why I introduced yesterday the China Human Rights Protection Act of 2015, H.R. 2621.