John Johnston

Mr. JOHNSTON

Mr. JOHNSTON. Does the Senator from Massachusetts know how many amendments and when we might expect to finish tonight?

Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. JOHNSTON. Would it be out of the question to stack some votes tonight?

Mr. JOHNSTON

Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. JOHNSTON. When the statute says we should invite President Li, they should come with all appropriate courtesies, that is just not a casual visit, as if by a foreign tourist. ``All appropriate courtesies'' means, in effect, we ought to invite a head of state and have this, in effect, as a state visit. Is that not what the plain language means?

Mr. JOHNSTON. I know. But when it says we should seek a visit with ``all appropriate courtesies,'' what does ``all appropriate courtesies'' mean?

Mr. JOHNSTON. If the Senator would yield, I was not suggesting--and I tried to make it clear--I was not countenancing any violations of the missile treaty control regime, which, by the way, I do not. If they violate it--my own opinion is they did. That violation was, what, 3, 4 years ago. I forget exactly when. They have the capacity to continue to violate it further, but are not at this time. I do not excuse that. But I say that really what we ought to do is reassure Taiwan, as we have, that the law of the land is the Taiwan Relations Act, that we will not countenance any invasion of Taiwan, but that our policy ought to encourage peaceful reunification, one China, peaceful reunification, two regimes, which six Presidents have signed on to, and we should not change that--that is what I am saying--and reassure both parties.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Exactly.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Is the Senator saying that we should encourage a unilateral declaration?

Mr. JOHNSTON. Would my friend find at fault this formulation, that the United States should make it clear to both sides that reunification, if it occurs, is a bilateral decision of the two countries, to be taken peacefully, and that the United States step aside, step out of the arena, having reassured both sides--Taiwan that we do not countenance any invasion, and the PRC, that we are not encouraging a unilateral declaration of independence--and let those two parties make their decision?

Mr. JOHNSTON

Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, what I meant is sort of a precipitating event that caused this tit-for-tat thing, and the Chinese are clearly greatly to be criticized for all of those things that my colleague said, but I really meant the precipitating events. You can point to that as the events that started it all, and that has led from that point on.

Mr. JOHNSTON

Mr. JOHNSTON. That is precisely right. One of the problems with Russia now is that they do not have open markets. We are trying to encourage that. It so happens that chickens are a huge business in Russia, and the American chicken is more economically produced, is a better quality, and is preferred by Russians.

Mr. JOHNSTON. This is not the only item of interest and not the only thing that the President discusses with President Yeltsin, but it certainly is a legitimate one. I can say if those were Louisiana chickens, I would be calling him up and saying, ``Mr. President, don't stand for this. Speak to your friend, President Yeltsin, about it.'' Now, Mr. President, this time last week we had a very dangerous world situation where two American carrier battle groups were steaming in the vicinity of the Strait of Taiwan and where the People's Republic of China, the largest country in the world, was engaging in live-fire tests, close to Taiwan. It is not an understatement to say that the world was in real danger of a conflagration at that time, not because anyone desired war but because the close proximity of these forces involving live fire made the possibility of a misstep, of a bump in the night between two ships, of a misspent or misfired rocket or shell, a very great danger. Today, Mr. President, we all breathe easier as the crisis has passed. Mr. President, the problem remains. The potential for a huge crisis remains. I would like to speak to what I regard as a very fateful decision. That is, the pending legislation; the pending legislation, Mr. President, would move this country, in my view, from a policy of engagement with the largest country in the world to a policy of containment of the largest country in the world, and containment equals--make no mistake about it--a new cold war. I can assure my colleagues that if I know anything about China, they will not be contained, and you can get ready for a new cold war if this bill should pass and become law. Now, this bill, Mr. President, in my view, is potentially the most insidious bill that has been passed by either House in my 24 years in the U.S. Senate. I believe it has the significance, if passed and signed into law, of the Tonkin Gulf resolution. I think Senator Nunn has called it a declaration of war. The President has promised to veto it. Mr. President, make no mistake, it is a very serious step for the U.S. Congress to be considering. I believe the Senate should sober up before this ill-conceived policy takes root. Now, just what is this bill, and why do I call it so insidious and potentially--potentially--a Gulf of Tonkin resolution? First, it says that the Taiwan Relations Act supersedes the Shanghai communique. Of course, the Taiwan Relations Act deals with the defense of Taiwan; the Shanghai communique deals principally with a one-China policy. What do we mean by one-China policy? One China, two systems, peaceful reunification. The three points of the triangle which have been repeated by everyone: one China, two systems, peaceful reunification. To say that the Taiwan Relations Act supersedes the Shanghai communique is not simply to say, as my dear friend from North Carolina, Senator Helms, says, simply to state the obvious--that is, that an act of Congress supersedes an executive agreement. We know that. What it is saying is that, in effect, it nullifies, it subsumes, it cancels out the Shanghai communique and that the United States Congress, in this case, because it is a sense-of-the-Congress provision, that the United States Congress is abandoning the Shanghai communique. That, Mr. President, is very serious. It also encourages the Taiwanese to move toward independence. We also rename and upgrade the Taipei representative office. In itself, this does not constitute a move toward independence. But taken together, particularly with an invitation to President Li Teng-hui to visit the United States ``with all appropriate courtesies,'' these three elements taken together, Mr. President, are unmistakable. They are abandonment of the one-China policy, a move for independence for Taiwan. Now, Mr. President, the House, apparently sensing the seriousness of the step they were taking, adds a further element not contained therein that it is our intention to assist in the defense of Taiwan, which, indeed, might be necessary should we enact this ill-conceived piece of legislation--a fateful, fateful decision, Mr. President. One thing is absolutely clear: The unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan is unacceptable to the People's Republic of China and will be resisted. Now, up until last year, things were going along swimmingly. The United States, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan were all reading off the same song book. We were all saying one China, two systems, peaceful reunification and, indeed, we have reinforced, many times over, the Taiwan Relations Act, which was not at all inconsistent with one China, two systems, peaceful reunification. That is what the Taiwanese were saying, what the PRC was saying, and that is what President Nixon said in the Shanghai communique; that is what President Carter said in the joint communique of 1979; that is what President Reagan said in the joint communique of 1982; that is what President Bush said, and that is what President Clinton is saying. All were saying the same thing. Things were going along very well. There were 1\1/2\ million Taiwanese who visited the People's Republic of China. There were tens of billions of dollars of investment by Taiwan in China. Talks were going on between the leaders of the two countries, or two areas. And then what happens? Well, we had what the Congress regarded as a very innocent invitation by Cornell University to have their distinguished alumni, President Li Teng-hui, come back and make a speech. We, in the Congress--or at least almost everyone in the Congress said, ``Look, this is not a State visit, there is no significance to this. This is simply a homecoming to the old university, the old school.'' Well, Mr. President, we may have thought that in the Congress--but, I did not share that view, and I was the only Member of the Senate who voted against that visit--but I can tell you that the world, and certainly the People's Republic of China, and certainly Taiwan, did not regard it as such an innocent visit. On the visit, he brought along government leaders from Taiwan. He promised no press conferences, but said, ``I will be available if you stand behind this bush when I am walking on the Ellipse. You can ask your question and I will give you an answer.'' And that happened. He was met by Members of Congress. It had all the trappings, Mr. President, of a State visit, and it was clearly regarded by the People's Republic of China as being something more than a homecoming to the old university. And that, in turn, Mr. President, has been accompanied by a whole barrage of acts and initiatives designed to move in the direction of independence. Why does a province of China--if that is what Taiwan is, as the Chinese claim--need membership in the United Nations? That upsets the PRC. We put that kind of language, also, in our resolutions, and, Mr. President, it constitutes still another act of this Congress moving toward unilateral independence of Taiwan. Mr. President, just a few days ago, Deputy Foreign Minister Liu was meeting with us down in S-211, a stone's throw from where we stand. Ten Senators were there. We had an in-depth discussion with Deputy Foreign Minister Liu. He reiterated the peaceful unification theme. He reiterated the indelible, irrevocable friendship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. But he said, ``The United States, of all countries, should understand our attitude in the People's Republic of China about Taiwan.'' He said, ``You fought a civil war, the bloodiest war in the history of your country, about the question of unification, and about the question of unilateral declarations of independence. So you, America, ought to understand our feeling, because our feeling was just like President Lincoln's feeling about the American Civil War.'' He said, ``The issue is sovereignty. We regard a declaration of independence by Taiwan as a matter of sovereignty, which we will safeguard.'' He said--and I took down these notes--``It is an overriding task. There is no other choice.'' He quoted Deng Xiaoping as saying this was an ``explosive issue, as big as the universe; compared to it, all other issues are easy.'' Mr. President, you can take solace from that in the repetition of the peaceful reunification. You can take solace from the fact that it is a one China, two systems, peaceful reunification system, which he repeated. You can take solace from the fact that he repeated the friendship of the People's Republic of China with the United States. But it is unmistakable--unmistakable--that a unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan and moves by the United States Government to encourage that are unacceptable and are going to lead to trouble. Now, if that is what we are going to do, Mr. President, as a nation, as a State Department, as an administration, as a Congress, I, for one, want this Congress to have its eyes wide open about what the implications are of that fateful move. This is not a series of moves to invite people back to universities for the old alumni to get together and give the old college yell. It is not about that. It is about war and peace, about the stability of Asia, and it is about the future of this country. Now, Mr. President, one of the most important questions I think you can ask is: What is the defining international event of this era? What is the defining international event of this era? Is it the war in Bosnia? Is it peace in the Middle East and all that that portends and all of its implications? Is it the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russia and privatization, and all of the problems that are happening in Russia? I do not believe so. Mr. President, Sareed Zakaria, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, stated in the New York Times of February 18 that, ``The defining international event of this era is the rise of China to world power.'' It is happening so fast, its implications are so vast that it is an event that is being missed. And, certainly, the implications of the event are being missed by the vast proportion of Americans, and I submit, by most Members of this Congress. Indeed, I, myself, really missed the significance of what is happening. I first went to China with a number of my colleagues in 1976. At that time, China was backward and poor and oppressive. It was depressing. Everybody dressed the same. No food. No travel. No automobiles. No jobs. No nothing. I remember the one particular riveting sight I saw was the cabbages piled on the street--and this was in November--for the winter. There was just a big mound of cabbages to be used by the people to eat. They were piled on the street, and they would come and grab a cabbage when they needed it. And you could go to the markets, which we did, and there was nothing there. So, Mr. President, as I read about progress and growth in China, as the years passed since that trip in 1976, I intellectually could believe it. But I just did not really realize it until 1992 when I went to a conference where Larry Summers, who at that time was the chief economist of the World Bank, was making a speech. He said that China would be the largest economy in the world shortly after the turn of the century. These words rang in my head like an unbelievable statement-- the largest economy in the world, that backward country that I saw, was impossible I thought. So I made arrangements within a month to go to China. Mr. President, I was blown away. It was astonishing. It is one vast construction site in China. It is already the second or the ninth largest economy in the world depending on how you calculate those things, what figures you use. But it is arguably the second largest economy in the world. There are traffic jams. There is abundant food. There is colorful and even stylish clothing. Forty percent of the people have color televisions. Twelve percent of the people in China had VCR's. You have CNN, you have five-star hotels, and as I mentioned, you have traffic jams. In 1976, when we landed in Shanghai, they did not even have automobiles. They had to bring the automobiles down from Beijing on railroad cars. Now when you go to China there are traffic jams. On my trip last year, going back to Beijing from where we were should have taken about 2\1/2\ hours. It took 7 hours because of the traffic jams. The growth is so vast. Kwangtung Province, where I arrived, is larger than any country in the European Community, other than reunited Germany. They have had in the previous 10 years a cumulative growth of 440 percent--440 percent in 10 years. It is a growth rate today of three to four times the growth in the United States. We are very proud of our growth rate here. They continue to project a growth rate of 8 to 9 percent. Mr. President, it is astonishing what is going on. I urge my colleagues, every Member of the Senate, to get over there and see. See for yourself, not just the growth, but make your own opinion about what kind of country this is and what kind of future they have. In my view, Mr. President, 20 years from now our country will be judged by its success in foreign policy, in its stability, in the prosperity of its citizens, in the job rate, and in the growth rate, all of those things, but also by how successfully we deal with China and these other rapidly growing countries on the Pacific rim. This is one area where we make or break, in my judgment, the future of this country. So just what are the implications then of having a policy--of changing from a commitment to engagement to a policy of containment toward this rapidly growing country? I can tell you, this, Mr. President, a policy of containment, I believe, leads to cold war. Here is what I think is possible. A hot war is possible--not probable, but it is possible. The destabilization of Asia is an expected event. What is Japan going to do when the area becomes destabilized? I can tell you what Japan is going to do. They are either going to insist that the United States come in with our nuclear umbrella in vastly greater numbers, or they are going to want to rearm. It is tit for tat. When Japan begins to rearm, the People's Republic of China is going to want to rearm that much more. What do they do in Indonesia? They will want to rearm. What about Vietnam, which has been a traditional enemy of the People's Republic of China? They are going to rearm. Pretty soon you have a real donnybrook of a cold war. Mischief in Korea? Look at the People's Republic of China. They have played a very salutary and peacemaking role with the United States in trying to moderate North Korean policy. Believe me. Everybody knows that. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I can tell you that everybody knows that. You can read it in the paper. But if they are suddenly our adversary, what is their role going to be with respect to Korea? Arms proliferation? Oh, I know, it has been prominently printed that they have violated the MTCR, the Missile Treaty Control Regime, by shipping M-11 rockets to Pakistan and that they are shipping magnets which can be used for uranium enrichment also to Pakistan. Mr. President, there is a lot of evidence printed in the paper about these things. I must tell you that, while I clearly do not countenance what they have done or what they have alleged to have done, these are hardly the kind of violations that rise to the level of what is possible. These enrichment magnets that they talk about can be used for uranium enrichment, no doubt. But they do not find themselves on the schedule of things that were prohibited. That is their argument at least; it is for uranium enrichment and not for making bombs. On the MTCR violations, they are not alleged to have shipped anything lately. None of that has appeared in the newspapers. The administration, faced with the information, did not see fit to put sanctions for that reason. But whatever their present conduct is with respect to proliferation, it is nothing, compared to what they could possibly do. Do not forget what their capabilities would be on proliferation. They have the capacity to vastly increase their military spending. They are being criticized for increasing it way too much right now. But it is less than 12 percent of what we spend. Mr. President, they have the capacity. If we want to provoke them, if we want to challenge China's pride and national feeling, believe me, they can increase way beyond 11.8 percent of what the United States spends. What kind of damage would this do to the U.S. economy? Well, you can count on inflation because I guess we, along with all of this new cold war, revoke MFN. And all of these products which we import from them, we pay more for those. How much tax would we pay for this new cold war, for this new military buildup that would come? How many lost jobs in America? Most important, Mr. President, could we be successful? If we set out to contain China, could we be successful? I can tell you this, Mr. President. We successfully contained the Soviet Union, but it took us trillions of dollars, it took us 40 years, and it took the unified support of all of the countries of Western Europe all working together, all joining together in NATO. Who is coming to the defense of the United States saying, ``Yes, United States, let us contain China.'' Who is doing that? Name for me one country that is doing that outside of Taiwan. Do the Germans? No. Look, Helmut Kohl has been to the PRC--over there at least twice seeking commercial contracts. They have invited Li Peng to come to Germany. The British? Oh, no. They may disagree a little bit about Hong Kong, but, Mr. President, the British are not trying to contain the People's Republic of China. The French? No. The French are selling nuclear reactors to China and beefing up in contracts all the time. Nobody would support a policy of containment. It is a cold war that we would have to sustain ourselves. So, if we are going to try to contain and have a new cold war with the People's Republic of China, we are going to have to do it alone, and it is going to be a very, very expensive endeavor. We are not going to pass this kind of legislation on the cheap. It is going to be very expensive--not just in the dollars we put into defense, not just in the jobs lost in America, but what it does to the economy of this country. To abandon one China, to abandon a policy of containment, to make China our adversary would constitute perhaps the greatest diplomatic failure in United States history. The fault of all of this is that we are presented with two choices. They say it is either appeasement or it is containment. It is either you are weak or you are strong. You have no other choice in between. Those are the wrong choices. We are told that if we are weak, you encourage and you reward misconduct. If you do not stand up and tell them exactly what to do on human rights, then you are countenancing all these violations. And there are violations of human rights, to be sure. And the same thing is true of trade and Taiwan and proliferation; you have to stand up and be strong, they say. And if you are strong, we can change it all. We have absolute power, so Americans think, or some Americans think, to change China. All we have to do is tell them what to do and they will do it. As Orville Schell said in the New Yorker--Orville Schell is a great author. You remember he wrote that book about nuclear winter, so he certainly knows about the dangers of international conflicts. But just last week he said in effect: Mao taught his comrades in arms to respect real power. The idea that, if you are strong, stand up and it will happen. Or Charles Krauthammer said, ``We ought to revoke MFN. Send the fleet into the Taiwan Strait,'' said Krauthammer, and ``After all,'' he says, ``if you wait for war, you invite war.'' I am not sure what he meant by that. I took it to mean that you ought to go ahead and risk war right now and let us have it sooner rather than later. Mr. President, this kind of talk--be tough, challenge them, tell them exactly what to do--in my view are not the choices facing this country. Appeasement or containment are not the proper choices. The faults of China are very well-known. I really believe that the press, to some degree, has done a job of demonizing China. Part of that is China's fault because reporters go to China and they are treated badly. They treat reporters in China like a lot of politicians in America would like to treat reporters if they thought they could get away with it. But we know better and so we smile all the while. How do you think George Bush would have treated reporters if he thought he could have gotten away with it, or Bill Clinton, how do you think he feels about some of these reporters who write about Whitewater? But the Chinese treat them that way and they get terrible press. Look, China is not a democracy. They do not have a Bill of Rights. They have all kinds of human rights violations. Ask Wei Jen Sheng about that. No question about that. Trade abuses? Yes. Intellectual property abuses? Yes. Live fire was a provocative thing in the Strait of Taiwan. Proliferation, MTCR, all of these things are faults of China which have been publicly and widely chronicled all over the United States, so we know they have plenty of faults. Mr. President, if they have faults, they are not nearly as bad as their harshest critics would indicate. This is not a hostile regime. This is not a regime that is threatening its neighbors. It is not threatening to invade Taiwan. It is certainly not threatening any of their other neighbors. They never have, Mr. President. They have committed themselves over and over again to what they called nonhegemony in the region. They are proceeding toward Westernization at an astonishing pace. Privatization. It may not be a democracy, Mr. President, but it is certainly not communism. Their market is about half-and-half--half free open market and about half State controlled, and the proportion that is free is growing all the time. I remind my colleagues that this country does not have a 100-percent free market. There are vast areas such as the post office, such as the Government which are not free in the United States. But theirs is about 50-50. The products produced are free. The difference between China in 1976 when I was first there and now is mind-boggling. There is travel now. Just to give you one example is the unit system they used to have in 1976. A block captain would give out the job, the ration stamps, and the housing of every person. They were tethered to and controlled by their block and their block captain. They could not travel. They would not have had the money to travel. There was no job to be had elsewhere. Indeed, in 1989, Tiananmen Square was more of a revolt against the assignment of jobs, I believe, than it was about democratization. Today, the block system does not exist in vast areas of China. There are hundreds of millions of Chinese who travel and have traveled and take jobs on their own without permission of the block captain. You want to know what real freedom is, Mr. President, or what real oppression is. It is the inability to travel and get a job and work where you wish. But now there is this freedom to get jobs and jobs in Western-controlled companies where they are absorbing Western culture, Western ways, and Western freedom. We hear that there are widespread death penalties in China. According to the New York Times, in the first 6 months of 1995 there were 1,865 death penalties meted out in China. That is not disproportionate to the amount of death penalties meted out in this country for those whose conduct merits the death penalty. I happen to be a supporter of the death penalty properly acquired. You may still disagree with 1,865 death penalties meted out in China in the first 6 months, but this is hardly Nazi Germany during their worst times. The National People's Congress, Mr. President, is acquiring more and more power all the time. Indeed, there are some China watchers who say that Choa Zhenwei, who is the head of the National People's Congress, is a competitor with Jiang Zemin for power. I do not give that as my own view, but it is clear that the National People's Congress is getting additional power and is making a step, a real step in the direction of some kind of democracy. In fact, they fairly recently enacted measures which provide that you cannot be held for more than 30 days without charges being filed, a presumption of innocence. That sounds fundamental, and it is, but they did not have it in China and they now have it and the National People's Congress gave it to us. You now have lawsuits in China about the environment, about zoning, consumer lawsuits. These did not exist a few years ago. They did not exist, indeed, at the time of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Now, all of these things which I am telling you may not help Wei Jen Sheng, who is probably the most prominent of the dissidents at this time. But it is progress. And the point is, this is not a rogue regime. It may not be a saintly regime. It is neither. Just as the economy is not a Communist economy, it is not a total free market either. It is about 50-50. And you have to engage China as an emerging country, as a changing country. What I believe this country needs is to determine what kind of China we want and devise a policy that has some possibility of getting us there. What do we want from China? Most important, we want a responsible member of the international community. We want a country that respects the rule of law--certainly in trade--and in human rights and in commerce and in every way that we can urge them to do so, a responsible member of the international community. We want them, I believe, to be a prosperous China. With 1.2 billion citizens and all that power, a country which is declining, which is not prosperous, is a dangerous country for all of Asia and all the world. Most of all, we want a friendly China. It is clear, to get there, that China does not respond to a list of demands. I wish that it were true. I wish that we could give them our list and tack it on the church door and expect that these things would be done, but they have shown time and time again that public pressure and hectoring of the Chinese is counterproductive. I would say the degree of success, of what we are able to extract from the Chinese in terms of our demands, is inversely proportionate to the amount of publicity that we give to those set of demands. Why is it that they are so inordinately sensitive, unreasonably sensitive to the demands of the United States? Very simple. They have one of the most searing histories of humiliation, certainly of a great power, that exists on the face of the Earth. In the last 150 years, they have been dominated at least four times by foreign powers. The opium wars in the 19th century--do you know, Mr. President, in the opium wars, the British invaded and subjugated China because they were trying to restrict their market of opium? Can you imagine anything less reasonable, less civilized, more to be criticized than that? That is what the British did. The Japanese did not just attack China. You had the rape of Nanking. When the British controlled Shanghai, as the great commercial center--and they had these clubs; they would not even admit Chinese in the clubs in their own city of Shanghai. Mr. President, it is a series of humiliations, historically, that have been seared into the consciousness of the Chinese. The 1949 revolution was as much about nationalism as it was about communism, and I can tell you there are strong strands of nationalism that bind the Chinese, all 1.2 billion of them, in the strongest kind of way. Add to the sensitivity that comes from that historical humiliation the fact that this country is a country in transition. Add to that the explosive growth. In that same article in the New York Times by Sareed Zakaria, the managing editor of foreign affairs, he says, ``Nowhere in history has a country grown as fast as China without political and social upheaval.'' So here you have a China that is in a power transition, with human growth almost double digits, and you have this sensitivity. So it requires, on our part, the most enormous amount of sophistication and sensitivity that we are capable of giving. So, what, then, should we do? Mr. President, we ought to get a clear and consistent China policy and articulate it. I wish the President of the United States would make a statement of where we stand. Yes, he has stated that we continue to adhere to the Shanghai communique, but he needs to make that clear. We need to understand that Taiwan is central to this issue of engagement of the largest country in the world in population and soon perhaps to be the largest economy of the world. And what does that mean? It means we need to reassure the People's Republic of China that we will not be a party to unilateral declarations of independence, that the Shanghai communique, that the Nixon doctrine, that the Reagan communique, that the Carter communique are still our policy and are not subsumed and superseded by, but are consistent with, the Taiwan Relations Act. At the same time, we should continue to reassure Taiwan that we will stand behind them when it comes to any threat of invasion; that unification needs to be peaceful. But that is what we have said all along. That is what China has said all along: One country, two systems, peaceful reunification. Now, what is wrong with that? And why can we not articulate that clearly? We need to treat their leaders with respect and dignity. As I say, they are enormously sensitive and we frequently fail to recognize that this country, the Middle Kingdom, as it has been historically called, has not, in fact, been treated with the proper respect and dignity. I do not believe that most Americans know what is going on in China in terms of the huge--not just huge growth, but huge strides forward that they are making. We need to recognize the limitations that there are on human rights. We just cannot give a list of demands, as much as we want to do so. We have to recognize those limitations. That does not mean we do not continue in the strongest way possible, that can be effective, to stand up for human rights and dignity all over the world, but it means that we do so in a way that is likely to be effective. Mr. President, if we do those things, then it will allow us to be more firm on the missile treaty control regime. It will allow us to be more firm on trade. The problem is, when you have two carrier battle groups steaming in the Strait of Taiwan, then to invoke sanctions on trade looks like a further step toward containment and cold war and makes it inappropriate to take the kind of steps on trade or MTCR that you ought to do. So that, in effect, by dealing with Taiwan in a traditional way that we should, that is to reassure all parties, one China, two systems, peaceful reunification--to reassure all parties that our policy allows us, then, to be more firm in areas that are likely to make it effective. We have surely made our point. The Chinese, I submit, have made their point, that is, they are not going to stand for a unilateral declaration of independence. We have made our point with not one but two carrier groups--not one but two carrier battle groups. We have made that point strongly. We have stood up for Taiwan, our friend. Now it is time for us to be more patient, to lower our voices, to have a greater engagement with the People's Republic of China, to have high level discussions and, most of all, to kill this very ill- considered piece of legislation. This piece of legislation, at this sensitive time, could do more than anything I know to put us at odds and put us in a position of containment and cold war with the largest nation on Earth. I yield the floor. Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I yield for a question, yes.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I got to the floor to speak about China, but first a word about chickens. Mr. President, chickens may be an important industry in Arkansas, and they are, but the reason I think it is entirely legitimate--in fact, entirely important--for this President to speak to President Yeltsin about chickens is because Russia was denying entry into the Russian market of American chickens, perhaps grown in Arkansas, but grown in America by Americans, for the wrong reasons. That is, they were not permitting these chickens to come in because they did not want the competition. Mr. President, this President, any President, has a great interest in open markets, particularly with a country which we are doing a lot to help and who we are encouraging to have open markets. I applaud this President for seeking to do away with those barriers to open markets in Russia.

Mr. JOHNSTON

Mr. JOHNSTON. I thank the Senator. Madam President, this matter is not about balancing the budget, it is not even about the size of the deficit. This matter is about the relative power of the Chief Executive of the United States and the Congress of the United States. Why this Congress, this Senate, would want to give up its constitutional powers, which, by the way, I do not believe under the Constitution they have the right to do even if they wish to do that foolish thing, but why we would want to do that, I do not know. I am particularly surprised, Madam President, that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who fought so hard, for example, for star wars, why they would want to give to the President the right to veto star wars. I happen to have been an opponent through the years of star wars, at least at the levels of expenditure--$33 billion has been spent on star wars so far. I think that is a tremendous waste. But, Madam President, I defend the right of this body and of this Congress to set those priorities. Why you would want to give it to the President to be able to change a bill already signed into law and just nit-pick that bill without taking out the whole bill, I do not know, Madam President. Yesterday, there was an article in one of the Louisiana papers in which it said, ``Louisiana delegation gets piece of pork.'' They went on to describe an appropriation that Congressman Livingston and I had gotten in the New Orleans area because we had a flood down there of biblical proportions, over 20 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, seven people killed, $1 billion in damage. We were able to respond to that issue. They went on to define ``pork'' as that which was not in the President's budget. If the Congress exercised its power under the Constitution, the power of the purse, then that was pork, according to this article and according to the National Taxpayers Union. But had it been in the President's budget, it would have been perfectly all right. The idiocy of that kind of formulation, Madam President, is to me, absolutely incredible. Coming from a newspaper article, it is not unexpected because that is the kind of thing that people like to read. But coming on to the floor of the Senate and Senators saying it is the White House that knows best, it is--and we are not talking about the President; we are talking about the nameless, faceless gnomes in the White House who would be setting priorities, making policies, making the decisions about our constituents. Our constituents would be coming to us, as in the case of this 20- inch flood. You bet I was down there after the flood, as were my colleagues, going through the homes, looking at the devastation, trying to sympathize with the people, they demanding in turn that we do something about this terrible tragedy. Our colleagues are saying, ``Look, if it's not in the President's budget, it should not be part of the bill. It is up to the White House to set those priorities.'' Madam President, there was nobody from the White House down in Louisiana to see that flood. They could not be. The Office of Management and Budget does not have that kind of travel budget. They did not go down and look at the individual problems of individual States. That is the job for elected representatives. That is what the redactors of our Constitution had in mind. That is why they put the power of the purse in the Congress. We are closest to the people, and we respond to them. To leave all of that power in, as I say, not the President--maybe the President would decide on star wars or some big item like that, but the accumulation of items in that budget would be decided by OMB. And what would be the policy of OMB? They would have to have broad policies, such as to say, if it is not in the President's budget, we are going to veto it. We are going to treat everybody alike.

Mr. JOHNSTON. One additional minute.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator finds this parallel: In a conference report, when the Senate and the House go to a conference committee, there are bargains struck, and finally a bill put together. Would it not be somewhat like being able to strike a bargain, putting the bill together, signing off on it, and then after the bill is signed, have one House strike all the items that the other House wanted?

Mr. JOHNSTON. Madam President, I rise in support of the position of the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, on the line-item veto.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Madam President, the shift in power which this would bring out would be absolutely mind-boggling to me. You know, the whole fight would be, ``Can you get in the President's budget or not?'' It would make total supplicants of all Members of Congress. You might like that if you like the President. I think this President is going to be reelected. I like him. I must say I do not like him enough to turn over to him, and to all of his successors, the power of the purse when it is vested by the Constitution in this Congress. Madam President, my colleague, Senator Byrd, and others, made a powerful statement about the unconstitutionality of this provision earlier today. They surely are right. If we do not stand up for the rights of the Congress under the Constitution, I hope the courts will. I will support the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. JOHNSTON

Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, in the absence of Senator Murkowski, his staff indicated that it would be appropriate for me to go ahead and make my statement at this point, so I would like to do so. Mr. President, I want to make a few initial observations about where we are with respect to this bill and where I hope we will end up. Almost every park and public land bill reported from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in this Congress is included in the Murkowski substitute to be introduced this morning. Most of these bills are noncontroversial and were reported by the committee unanimously; some have passed the Senate already but are held up in the House; some have passed the House and could go to the President, but for the fact that they are included in this package; others have had no action in either body. While packaging these bills in this manner is not unprecedented, this particular package is unusual in at least two respects. First, for almost 1\1/2\ years we have been unable to move any of these bills through the Senate. This gridlock which has prevented our ability to legislate in this area is unprecedented. This is not the way we should do our business. Whatever happens to this bill, I hope we will not find ourselves in this situation again. For as long as I have been in the Senate we have, until this Congress, been able to move these noncontroversial but important bills back and forth between the House and Senate in a spirit of bipartisanship and comity. I deeply regret that we appear to have lost the will and/or the ability to do that in this instance. Second, the addition of the Utah wilderness bill to this package has transformed an effort to end procedural gridlock and enact a number of essential noncontroversial bills into a major battle over a very contentious wilderness proposal. The inclusion of the Utah wilderness bill in this package of otherwise relatively noncontroversial bills has brought on a filibuster here in the Senate and a veto threat from the administration. I have indicated to my colleagues from Utah that I plan to support them in their efforts to get a Utah wilderness bill enacted. At the same time, I do not want to see the committee's efforts of the last year and a half wasted by passing a bill that does not pass or cannot pass the House and will almost certainly be vetoed. Since the Utah wilderness bill was introduced, the delegation from Utah has agreed to modify it significantly. Wilderness acreage has been added and a number of significant changes in the management and land exchange provisions have been made. While I know that the changes do not go far enough for some of my colleagues, I think it is clear that the Utah delegation is serious about crafting a bill that can pass the Senate. For example, with respect to one of the most contentious provisions of the bill, the so-called release language, the substitute before the Senate today contains language very similar to an amendment which I offered in the committee on this subject and which, though it failed on a 10 to 10 vote, had bipartisan support and, as I recall, the Democrats of the committee were united on that subject. So, in effect, Senators Bennett and Hatch have agreed to the Democratic position in the committee on that subject. The substitute no longer contains language requiring that release lands, that is, lands not designated as wilderness, be managed for nonwilderness multiple uses. Likewise, the substitute does not prohibit the BLM from managing these release lands in a manner that protects their wilderness character. Thus, this new language now satisfies the primary objective that my amendment in the committee addressed. Under the language as introduced, the BLM would have been unable for any reason to manage released lands, that is, those lands not designated as wilderness, for anything but nonwilderness purposes. In addition, the BLM would have been precluded from adopting any management option that had the effect of protecting the wilderness character of these released lands. I was concerned that such restrictive language would preclude management for many legitimate purposes, such as disbursed recreation, protection of wildlife habitat or watersheds, the protection of scenic, scientific, or historical values or similar purposes. Like the language offered, which was supported by virtually all the Senators on my side, the substitute now clearly permits these management options and only prohibits the BLM from managing these lands as wilderness study areas for the expressed purpose of protecting their suitability for future inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. While I recognize that there is still a serious limitation in the view of some of my colleagues, this current formulation is significantly narrower in scope than the bill introduced and illustrates the willingness of the Utah delegation to compromise on some of these very difficult issues. I hope that both sides will make the very serious effort over the next several days to reach an accommodation on this bill. I might say, Mr. President, Senator Bennett, a former member of our committee, has shown time and time again in this Senate his willingness to be reasonable, not to be extreme in any way, and try to work to a bipartisan solution. I do not know the details of all the land in Utah. In fact, I count myself as being unlucky because I have only been to Utah once and that was to the Salt Lake City airport. I am advised that it is a magnificent State with very beautiful lands. I cannot tell you about which lands are which in Utah. However, I support the position of my colleagues from Utah, frankly, as an indication of my confidence in their fairness and their reasonableness in picking these lands and because I think the two Senators from the State ought to, in all but very extreme circumstances, have the ability to deal with wilderness matters in their State. Now, having said that, I can tell my colleagues from Utah that they are up against very strong and persuasive opposition. The most persuasive opposition you can get is a veto threat from the President. I offer to them and to my colleagues on this side of the aisle whatever services I can give in trying to find a common solution so that we can work out a bill that not only passes the Senate, gets past the filibuster, but can avoid the veto threat of the President. They have shown already, as I just indicated, on the release language, their willingness to work to this kind of purpose. I hope we can find a way to do that here on this floor so we can do more than just pass a bill in the Senate or get a majority of the votes in the Senate for a bill that does not become law; rather, that we pass a law that does become law and settles this very contentious issue in a good way for the people of this country, as well as the people of the State of Utah. I yield the floor.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Aaron Watkins, a congressional fellow employed by the Department of the Interior, and assigned to the staff of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, be granted privilege of the floor for the duration of the consideration of H.R. 1296, a bill to provide for the administration of certain Presidio properties at minimal cost to the Federal taxpayers.

Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. BENNETT addressed the Chair.