Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the House will soon vote on a bill concerning patent law in the United States of America, and that is a ho-hum of an issue for most people. In fact, it is one of those issues that people want to turn their radios off if it even comes on a local talk show to discuss, but the fact is this piece of legislation will make the difference as to whether or not America remains the leading economic power on this planet or whether or not our economic adversaries destroy us and destroy us as business competitors in a few short years ahead. It will also determine whether or not those people who are yawning at the other end of their radios saying should I listen to this or forget it, whether or not their families will have the standard of living that is higher than the standard of living of working people around the world. What has given America the edge has been our technological edge on the competition. This has been true throughout our history, and we are about to pass a bill that will dramatically change American patent law and permit America's economic adversaries to steal every one of our new innovative and technological ideas. H.R. 3460 has already passed out of subcommittee and committee. I have spoken to some of the members of that subcommittee who had no idea what was in the legislation that they passed. First of all, let us note that Patent Commissioner Bruce Lehman, our patent commissioner, several years ago went and made a hushed agreement with his counterpart in Japan, to do what? And we have a copy of that agreement. That agreement superimposes, says we will superimpose the Japanese patent system on the United States of America. So, my colleagues, we are about to change our patent law and make it exactly like the Japanese patent law, and of course we know the Japanese are so creative. What we do know about Japan is that they are not creative; they are improvers and perfecters, but they are not creators. All the new ideas that have come out of that country, and now they want to change our system to make it like Japan's. Also in Japan, of course, the huge special interests steal from the ordinary people any new idea that they have. Well, this hushed agreement was first implemented when they tried to sneak something into the GATT implementation legislation, and succeeded, which ended the guaranteed patent term for Americans, and again it is a ho-hum issue. Who could pay attention to little details to whether the patent term is guaranteed or whether it is an uncertain patent term? Well, step No. 2 in trying to make our patent system like Japan's is very easy to understand. It mandates that every American inventor who applies for a patent will be forced to see every detail of his invention published for the entire world, every Asian copycat, every economic adversary of the United States. Every enemy of the United States will have every one of our technological ideas before the patent is issued to the inventor. This does not make sense to anybody. Nobody says is that really happening? Do not turn off that radio dial, Mr. and Mrs. America. Listen to the details of what is going on, or we are going to find our children's future being robbed because H.R. 3460 should be called the Steal American Technologies Act. It mandates every one of our technological secrets to be published for the world to steal, which will eliminate America's technological edge and our ability to compete, and ultimately the standard of living of our people will decline, and that will not be ultimately 20 years from now, that will be ultimately 5 years from now. This bill also obliterates the Patent Office. The one thing that we have had, these civil servants at the Patent Office, these patent examiners who struggle to define what you own as a patent applicant as they issue your own patent, they are having basically their civil service protection ripped away. They are eliminating the Patent Office; literally they are obliterating. This is part of our Constitution, and they are going to resurrect it as what? Sort of an independent quasi, quasi-private corporation. This quasi-private corporation operation is going to have no board of directors. It is not a part of the legislation. Instead it creates a czar of patents who will be able to be appointed for 5 years but cannot be removed unless it is for cause, and that man, who is it going to be? The same guy who made the deal with the Japanese to eliminate our patent system. No; we need to save America's technology by voting against H.R. 3460 and for the Rohrabacher substitute which would replace the bad parts of that bill. People need to talk to their Congress men and women, or the big corporations who are in favor of this change will have their way and the American people will lose our standard of living. People need to talk to their congressmen to support the Rohrabacher substitute to H.R. 3460, the Steal American Technologies Act.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf].

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, during election years we hear a lot of people who are steamed on this issue or that issue. They are very upset about it. The fact is that many times it is just because it is an election year, and we have to remember that. For example, the other party did control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency for 2 years just prior to when Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress. During that 2-year time period, if indeed it had been important for the Democratic Party to pass an increase in the minimum wage, they would have passed that increase in the minimum wage because they had control of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency, but they did not. If, indeed, there is something where Republicans in the Senate are holding back on an increase in minimum wage in order to get something else that they want, I think we have to remember that if we call that holding it hostage, the liberal Democrats who controlled both Houses of Congress and the Presidency must have held the minimum wage hostage for 2 years because they had all the power in the world to do what they wanted to do. Also, when we hear about other apsects that seem to be important now to the people on the other side of the aisle, campaign reform, for example, it should not be any surprise to anyone who is really paying attention that they could have also passed any type of campaign reform they wanted. After all, they did control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. But they did not do that. Maybe they are upset now because they are suggesting that they want to do something that they did not do when they had the power to do it. That is sort of confusion. Well, I would like to talk about something that I talked about long before it was a political year, something that really does cross political boundaries, because on this particular issue there is widespread bipartisan support from people who are sincerely concerned about an attack on a fundamental building block of American prosperity. Both Democrats and Republicans have signed on to a bill that I have to restore the guaranteed patent term to Americans. I know this sounds like a yawner of an issue. I mean, patent law, after all. But what is happening right now, and most Americans do not understand it, is that there is an absolutely despicable underhanded attack on the American patent system. We have multinational corporations that are engaged in an effort to change the fundamental law that has permitted America to be the No. 1 technological power in the world. Yes, patent law is such a yawn. Who is concerned about patent law? Well, long ago our economic adversaries and, yes, our military adversaries figured out what America's greatest strength is. It is not that our people work so hard, because our people do work hard, but people all over the world work hard. But our people when they work, or our defenders when they defend our country, have superior technology. That gives us our edge. It always has. We have the technological edge. That is what has secured our country's security and has secured us a standard of living that has been admired and envied all over the world. Is it any surprise, then, that our economic adversaries and countries that do not like the United States would look for our Achilles heel? What is it that gives us that power? What gave Samson that strength but his long locks? Our secret is the fact that we have had the best technology, and we have had the best technology because we have had the strongest patent system in the world. Now, there is an underhanded effort, an effort that has been going on for about 2 years to try to change the fundamental patent law of this country so that it will undermine America's ability 10 years down the road to outcompete our economic adversaries. Some people, of course, who are supporting the patent changes are doing so perfectly well-intentioned, and perhaps they bought into this or that argument. The fact is, what is the driving force behind those who want to change our patent law? The driving force is an idea that we should globalize all patent law, so all of the laws should be the same, and Americans who have had the strongest guaranteed patent rights of any people in the world will just have to live with fewer rights because we need a global harmonization of law. Well, that concept may appeal to some people. It certainly appeals to multinational corporations and big businessmen. But that is a threat to the American well-being. H.R. 3460 is about to be put to this floor, and it would steal America's technology. It should be defeated and the Rohrabacher amendment put in its place.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Sanders amendment to restore a reasonable pricing clause for drugs that are developed at taxpayer expense. Let me make it clear, this affects, this amendment only affects those drugs that are developed at taxpayers' expense. It does not affect any drugs that are developed solely by the private sector and by the pharmaceutical companies themselves. Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of taxpayer accountability. Taxpayers who fund this biomedical research to the tune of billions of dollars should not be forced to pay excessive prices for the drugs that they themselves have helped develop, but that is exactly what is happening. Mr. Chairman, the drug companies are now free, after getting taxpayers' money to develop their product, to gouge those very same people 10, 20 times the cost of their own product. They charge that to the American people who are paying for their research. The American people end up paying twice. Now, is that not nice? This is a corporate form of welfare, and it has got to stop. Drug companies are making fortunes off the backs of working people. If they developed the product themselves at their own expense, the Government should not step in. But we have continually said in this Congress that we want to cut down the expenses of Government, cut down welfare. This is welfare for the rich, for the corporations. The American people should not be insulted by being forced to pay for the research of a company who then turns around and gouges them for the price of the product that has been developed. Mr. Chairman, I support the Sanders amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. This is totally consistent. Even before Billy Dale was fired, I remember when this administration came in, I remember it like it was yesterday, all of a sudden they started calling taxation, what, contributions. And they started calling government spending an investment. Remember that? They would not use the word ``taxation'' and they would not use the words ``government spending.'' And when I knew that when someone who is so disciplined to do something so, what I considered disrespectful as to try to just change the words so the American people do not even know what is going on, so they cannot make a decision based on what policies they like or do not like because they are just corrupting the whole language so the American people will not understand what they are talking about, I said, this is one of the most heinous administrations that I have ever seen.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We know what happens when someone is put into this situation. Ordinary working people, they say, you can defend yourself against these charges. We know what that means. That means that someone's life savings is gone. That means that someone who has been saving up for maybe all their life in order to have a little house at the lake or something or a dream vacation with their wife, that is gone. That is over with. Any of the niceties that they wanted to save up for, gone, because the money that should be going into that which they have worked for and struggled for all their life goes to pay some lawyer to defend themselves from going to jail so that the President of the United States can put a crony in that position.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleagues to continue joining me in this discussion, and then I will use the last half-hour or whatever I have left to go on about the patent issue, which is an issue that I have been championing here, and will go into great detail for the record after we are done with this discussion. Let me just note that I worked in the White House for 7 years. I was a speech writer for Ronald Reagan during that time period. I am fully aware of the apparatus in the White House, and I was absolutely horrified to see what was going on there in terms of these FBI files. Let me also note that I was horrified when Billy Dale, who was a hard-working, just regular human being, a civil servant who spent his time in the Reagan administration but before that the Carter administration, so Democrat and Republican administrations, sacrificed his life, had done a terrific job, always having to improvise because every time it was a crisis getting people here and there, and then to have this person fired dramatically, right off the bat. This President showed what he thinks of the working people and the standard operating procedures of the White House by firing this civil servant, and trying to replace him with who? Some Hollywood producer who had a travel agency, in order for them to get this person into a position to basically make some money off getting people to and from Presidential functions. Well, that was totally out of line, the procedure was totally out of line, but the President did that, and now we find out that that was just basically the first significant indication of what this White House was going to be like. We would not even know about the FBI files, the hundreds of FBI files that are in the hands of a political operative, actually two political operatives, Democrat political operatives people who had been active in campaigns. Not only active in campaigns, but their job in the campaigns was opposition research, dirt diggers. These people ended up with hundreds of FBI files in their position, and would we know about it if the Republicans had not won control of this body? We had to subpoena these documents. We had to force the While House to give us the documents which eventually led to the information they had violated the procedure, that they were such scofflaws at the White House that they permitted this to happen. Let us note one thing, Chuck Colson, I was a reporter prior to becoming Reagan's speechwriter, I remember Chuck Colson. I was a reporter during the White House and Watergate years. I remember what Chuck Colson went to jail for. He went to jail because he was in possession of one FBI file and showed half of one FBI file to one person who was not qualified to see that FBI file. And now this administration has put hundreds of FBI files in the possession of political hacks.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Every dirty little thing that anybody can say, totally unsubstantiated rumors are put in FBI files. And they are put in there so that later on if there is a problem, people might follow up, the FBI might follow up to see if there was someting valid to this terrible rumor. So this young lady that you are talking about, if she is ever made an enemy of somebody by stealing somebody's boyfriend, if that person is jealous and says terrible things about her moral character, that is in those FBI files.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. They charged them with crimes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How this ties in, of course, is that Billy Dale's FBI file was pulled in order to what? In order to destroy that person, in order to give cover to the President and his clique. They were going to destroy this man, and those are the people now who are in possession of hundreds of other FBI files. This is totally outrageous. Chuck Colson goes to jail for one half of one FBI file and these people and these media, I might add, who are sitting and letting this thing go by, yes, there is some criticism, there is some criticism, but have we seen the follow-up questions and the follow-up questions at the press conferences that we would have seen if this would have been a Republican administration?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I appreciate being part of that discussion. I would like to now talk a few minutes about another issue that is, I believe, perhaps just as disturbing as anything we were talking about in terms of what is going on down at the White House. I have spoken on the floor on many occasions on this issue. But it has yet to come to the floor because there seems to be some maneuvering going on. The issue I am talking about is whether or not the American patent system will survive as was envisioned by our Founding Fathers and whether the patent rights of the American people will be protected or whether the patent rights as we know them will just totally be destroyed and another system, totally alien to the patent system of the United States, superimposed on us, destroying our rights as Americans and hurting our ability to compete and to produce new technologies. I have spoken on this so many times that everywhere I go people are asking me, how is it possible that after I have given so many speeches and I have been on so many talk shows that Congress still may pass, and there is a very good chance that this bill still may pass when it comes to the floor, and that is H.R. 3460, I call it the Steal American Technologies Act, how is it possible that a bill like this, like H.R. 3460, that will basically destroy the American patent system as we know it and that will mandate every American inventor to fully disclose all the details of every new invention that he is working on, even before the patent is issued, how is it possible that patriotic Members of Congress may well pass this travesty into law? This attack on America's future may well pass this body and this Congress. I am standing here basically by myself tonight. So how is it possible, when this room is filled with all of these people, 435 Representatives, that they could possibly pass a bill like this. Because once you know the basics, that it is going to mandate that every inventor disclose to every thief in the world every secret of new American technology even before patents are issued, that does not take a rocket scientist to know what the outcome of that is going to be. Yet I am telling you today that when this vote comes to the floor, if it comes soon, it will happen, there is a good chance that the 435 Members of this body will vote to make that part of the law. They will vote to take, which is another part of H.R. 3460, the Steal American Technologies Act, they will vote to take the current patent office, which has been part of the United States Government since our Constitution, since Benjamin Franklin wrote it into our Constitution, and obliterate it, eliminate it as part of the Government and resurrect it in a new form, which is a post office like, quasi-corporate entity that, once resurrected, would be under the control of one director who could not be removed for policy decisions but instead only for cause. Once he is in there, he has almost dictatorial power over the patents issued to the people of the United States. How is it possible that we would be willing to take this system that we have got that has done so well for America and come up with this result? Well, it is possible, number one, because there are powerful foreign multinational and even domestic corporations that want to steal people's patents. Surprise, surprise. Is anyone really surprised when they hear that? Is it odd that a foreign corporation or some multinational corporation or even a huge domestic corporation would like to steal people's ideas and not pay them for royalties for their new ideas and their new creations? Well, that is not odd at all when you think about it. That is not odd at all. It is odd, however, that 435 Members of Congress are going to listen to big corporations and perhaps not take it one step further and say: ``Wait a minute. What does this mean to the American people?'' Their interests basically, these very, you know, big multinational corporations, their interests are not the same as those people who are part of the citizenry. Now, that is not hard to understand as well, and basically these large corporations, unlike the American citizenry, have money to pay for lobbyists, they actually have access to congressman, they have access to me as well, just like every other congressman. We will listen to the big corporations in our district because they employ a certain number of people in our district, but we have to understand that when we are talking to corporate representative, that that representative may not even represent the interests of his own working people. He may only represent the interests of the people who own that corporation. And Lord know who own these corporations these days. Might be national interests, might be foreign interests, might be who know who is really controlling the board of directors of many large corporations? But one thing is for sure: That corporate entity does not necessarily speak for the well-being of the community, or the State, or the country, or even the employees of that corporation, to some degree. Now, they claim, the big corporations claim, that the reason why they are backing, the most of the large corporations are backing, this H.R. 3460, the Steal American Technologies Act, they claim the real reason they are doing that is to stop a few inventors from gaming the patent system. It is called submarine patenting. That is what they claim is the reason that they want to make these drastic changes in the patent system of the United States of America: because these few people, they are gaming the system, and by doing so they extend the length of time that the patent will be actually in force in the outer years when that time period would not really be due to them had they not, quote, elongated the system and worked it. Well, to stop this submarine patenting, these powerful forces claim that we must destroy the whole payment system. That is a patent system that has served us well since the founding of our country. We cannot do other things that will perhaps try to solve the problem for administrative, you know, focus on the problem. We cannot do things by trying to basically just single out submarine patenting and say these are the things we need to do to solve that. No, we have to basically destroy the American patent system and replace it with something else. That is their excuse, that is the basic excuse that they are using for their actions, the submarine patent issues. Basically it is like a doctor saying: ``Well, you got a hangnail. Oh, yeah, I see you're in pain, and I really sympathize with that. Hangnails are problems, and hangnails are bad. Look at how evil hangnails--here is a giant picture of hangnails.'' And then you hear lectures about hangnails, lectures about hangnails, and in the end the doctor says, ``And by the way, we're going to amputate your leg in order to cure the hangnail.'' You say: ``Wait a minute, doctor, I just want my hangnail cured. Can't you just sort of cut the nail off or something?'' ``No, no. We're not going to think of anything else. If you want to talk about anything else, we know you're in favor of hangnails. We're going to amputate your leg.'' Well, if you get a doctor giving you that type of, you know, that approach to solving your hangnail problem, you better get yourself a new doctor or you better question what that doctor's motives--or you better question his sanity. To stop a few inventors from having a couple of extra years on their patent term, the idea of destroying the patent term as we know it, eliminating the guaranteed patent term of 17 years, it is absolutely ridiculous. You basically are declaring war in order to stop some petty theft at a local store. We must basically--what they are asking us to do is to force all our creative people in the name of stopping a few submarine patentors who are gaming the system to elongate their patent by a little bit-- basically we are, in the name of doing that, we are going to force every one of the inventors of the United States of America, every one of our creative geniuses, to expose and to publish every detail of the new technologies they are working on. They are saying, on top of that, we are going to obliterate the Patent Office as part of our Government and resurrect it as a quasi-independent, post office-like government corporation. Now, that does not make sense, that in order to solve that problem that we have got to go to those lengths to do it. That is why I happen to believe that the submarine patent issue is what we call a straw-man argument. I mean it is something that has been created there for people to argue with, and it is really not--you know, really you are not fighting against the submarine patent because the submarine patent issue may or may not be real. It is a problem, but compared--but obviously it is such a small problem as compared to the incredible solution that is being offered us that that may not be the real force that is driving the changes in our patent system. By the way, one of the things that they are suggesting as a solution to the submarine patent problem is this new system, of course a new patent office, totally new patent office, obliterate the old one that has been serving us since the Constitution, and in the new Patent Office the patent examiners who decide--these patent examiners, they work hard, and they decide who owns these new technologies that are worth billions and billions of dollars. Some of these new technologies will be creating billions of dollars of wealth. The new patent examiners in this new quasi-government, quasi-private corporation will be stripped of their civil service protection, which is an invitation to people from the outside to try to influence the process, and it is an invitation to corruption because these people now will not have their civil service protection to protect them against being fired for unjust reasons. Now, this is a scenario that we are going to take these civil servants who have been protecting us, that we are going to change the system that has been protecting us and that we are basically going to force our people to publish everything so every thief in the world can see it. This is an obscene and an insane proposal, and I have no doubt that some of those pushing the H.R. 3460, the Steal American Technologies Act, actually believe that this destruction of the American traditional patent system is necessary because a few inventors, so-called submariners, are gaining a few extra years out of the system. But I also have no doubt that for many of the multinational corporations pushing H.R. 3460, this submarine issue, like I say, is nothing more than a front, and what they really want to do, what they really want to do is to steal and to control the new wealth-producing technologies that are being invented by Americans, especially those in the years ahead. So there are some people who are very sincere and, I am sure, have been taken in by the argument. There are also some people who know very well, the corporate interests who are out in the hinterland pushing this, know very well that they want to take American technology and use it without paying for it. I mean this is an incredible scenario. People can say: Can this really happen in the United States of America? Yes, it can, and the 435 Members of the body here could possibly pass this bill. It is heinous, and it is evil, and basically, if they get away with it, they will be not only stealing technology, but they will be stealing the standard of living of the American people's children today. If we Americans lose our technological edge, the standard of living of our people will go down, and our children will suffer because of it. Our Nation will not be able to compete as we are today. What gives us the competitive edge today? What gives us the competitive edge is the fact that you know people making more money, they have better technology in order to our-compete those poorly paid people overseas. Yet as I said, Congress may pass H.R. 3460, and why? Because many Members, perhaps a majority of my fellow colleagues who are going to vote on this issue, do not know a thing about it. They do not know about this bill. They are at home now asleep or they are with their families or out to a movie or they are reading their work for tomorrow, their paperwork for tomorrow's committee session. Whatever it is, most of my colleagues are not listening to this. But if your Congressman does not know about it, your congressman, a Congressman from anywhere in the United States could vote on this bill, and you know about it, but that Congressman does not. Someone who is reading the Congressional Record or listening in over C-SPAN will now know more about this bill than their own Congressman, and it is vital, if democracy is to work in an atmosphere like this, that the people get involved in the process because you make a difference; every citizen makes a difference when it comes to a situation where a bill may come to this floor when people out there listening to C-SPAN know more about this bill than their own Representative in Congress does. By the way, this bill already passed through subcommittee and committee, and it passed through in a breeze. There was almost no opposition in the committee. Now, I am not a Member of either one of those committees, but I did ask members of the subcommittee and the committee if they knew that the bill that they had voted for would mandate the publication of all of our American ideas to every thief in the world so every thief in the world would know it even before the patent is issued. And I will tell you that Members I talked to said: ``Oh, no. It doesn't do that. No, no, you're kidding me. That bill doesn't do that.'' I said: ``Yes, it does.'' ``No, no, no. It doesn't. No one would put that bill in front of us like that.'' The members of the subcommittee, several of the members I talked to, would not believe me that that is in the bill. Because they could not believe that the committee would actually pass something so stupid. Well, how about eliminating the Patent Office and ripping away the civil service protection from our patent examiners? I asked several of my Democratic colleagues about that. ``Oh, no. That's not in the bill. I didn't vote for that. That's not what happened.'' But it was, and the fact is those colleagues that I talked to are very concerned about public employees and whether or not Government people who work for our Government, Federal employees, are being treated fairly, and they could not leave believe that was in the bill. They had just voted for it. It takes telephone calls and letters from constituents to get the attention of many people who are voting on this floor, especially when they are being approached by powerful interest groups like huge corporations from their own district. Now, basically there is only one thing that I believed in, can basically stop this underhanded attack on America's future, and that is if our system, as our Founding Fathers envisioned it, works, and meaning that the people of America start working at making sure that our system works. Basically people have got to call their Congressmen or their Representative here in the House and insist that he or she oppose H.R. 3460, the Steal American Technologies Act and support the Rohrabacher substitute. That is my substitute that I will offer on the floor if this bill gets to the floor, and, as I say, there is some back-room maneuvering going on now that may--that you know, I will have to watch out very carefully for and the American people may have to mobilize to oppose H.R. 3460 at a moment's notice. My substitute will eliminate the provisions of H.R. 3460 that would critically wound our patent system and replace them with the language in the bill that restores American patent protection. Basically we are going to restore something that was taken away, and most Americans do not even know this was taken away. Up until this Congress passed the GATT implementation legislation, Americans, as a right just like any other right, the right to go to church, the right to speak, the right to assemble, you name it, that we have a right to a guaranteed patent term of 17 years. This is something we have had. It was 14 years for about the first 50 years of our country, and then after that it was 17 years of a guaranteed patent term. It was always our right to have a guaranteed patent term, meaning no matter how long once you applied for a patent, no matter how long it took you to get your patent, you were guaranteed after that patent was issued that you would have 17 years of protection. Well, has already been obliterated because into the GATT implmentation legislation we snuck a provision that was not required by GATT. This was not something that we agreed to in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. We did not agree to changing that. These people just snuck this provision in even though it was not required by GATT, knowing that we would have to vote for the Whole GATT--you know if we did not, if we wanted to stop this, we would have to vote against the entire world trading system. So they have already eliminated that. My bill, by the way, H.R. 359, which is my substitute to the Steal American Technologies Act, would restore, would take their language out and put language into the law that restores the guaranteed patent term that was taken away 1\1/2\ years ago. This battle is so vital that I would hate to think that Members are going to vote on this and not be fully aware of what they are voting on. We cannot sit back and expect that that is going to happen on its own. Many Members may think that this bill, when they come in here to vote on it, is just a routine bill that has no interest to their constituents and no long-term interest to the United States of America, because what we have is huge corporations with a lot of money pushing H.R. 3460 on one side, and a bunch of little guys on the other side. We have the Inventors' Association, small business people. Many of America's universities are on the side of the Rohrabacher substitute, because they rely on the royalties from their own patents to sponsor much of their research at American colleges, and they have come out, MIT and Harvard, many of the major universities in our country, 60 of them have come out in favor of my substitute. But basically they do not have the money to put in to fight this. They do not have big PR firms coming down to talk to us and lobby us. So basically we have to make sure, the American people have to make sure, that the people representing them in Congress know how important this is. Let us get down to basics, get down to the basics of why it is important. America has had the strongest patent system in the world since the founding of our country. This is basic to what our Founding Fathers believed in. We needed up, because we had this patent protection, with more freedom and a higher standard of living than any other country in the world. Average people were living well. They had rights. They had decent lives. We were not created by people who thought we were going to be a country where just the elites lived well. We have seen that erode over the years. But before this time, during the last century and even now, America has been the world's innovator. McCormick, the one that invented the reaper, and Fulton, the steamboat; it was Samuel Morse who invented the telegraph, and Bell the telephone; Edison the electric light; and of course two fellows, two ordinary Americans, two fellows who did not have a big college education, who worked in a bicycle shop, two brothers invented the airplane, invented manned flight. If they had to change the rules back then, who knows, the Wright Brothers, would they have kept their invention? Maybe Mitsubishi would have come by and stolen their ideas, because it had not been published, so Mitsubishi would hear about it and read about it, and then come into court. And you tell me who is going to win in court, the guys in the bicycle shop, or this huge megacorporation over in Japan trying to steal the patent. Tell me who is going to win in court in a situation like that. We would have ended up with an aerospace industry in Japan, and we would end up with working people in the United States impoverished. Instead, our Founding Fathers knew the importance of technology and put that right into our Constitution. It did not just happen. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, they understood that. They planned for it. Thank God for our Founding Fathers, thank God for their foresight. Now we are taking that idea of technology and freedom, and people right now are maneuvering behind the scenes to destroy that basic concept. Other countries, of course, will own their patent systems over the years. Those patent systems were established to help who? It was totally different than our system. Their patent system was based on the idea that what we want to do is have a patent system so that we can get the information out to as many people as possible, so that our corporations will be able to have all this information, and they will be able to put it into their production processes. That is a totally different concept than what emerged here in the United States. There they felt it was more of a collectivist approach, and the system was set up to help the hierarchy. Here we believe that patent protection is like the protection of property rights. In fact, a patent as established by the Constitution is a property right, just like owning a small farm. Our Founding Fathers did not put things in about collective farms, like they did in Russia and all this stuff, because they knew if the individual farmer owned his own land, that we would produce more wealth from it. They knew also that if you had patent protection, that our creative genius, our American people would come up with ideas that would produce enormously more wealth, and they would do it because we were protecting that new idea as their right for a given period of time, a guaranteed patent term. That served us well because we looked at the invention of new ideas as the creation of new property, of new wealth. With this, with this idea, as compared to the Japanese system and the European system, which looked at a patent system as just a distribution of information, America became an unmatched economic dynamo in the world. We were on the cutting edge of all new technologies for a century and a half, because we had a patent system that encouraged our people, and that is why we prospered. Some people say Americans worked so hard. That is why America is a prosperous country, because Americans worked so hard. I hate to tell you this, Mr. Speaker, I have been all over the world and there are a lot of people who work really hard. They work hard. They struggle and they slave and they sweat, and they get nowhere. They have no standard of living, they are treated like dogs. They have no decent living for their family and they have no hope that their family will ever live any better. Why is that? Because when our people worked hard, our people had the benefit of cutting edge technology. Our people were always equipped with the best technology so they could produce more wealth. When they worked hard, it was as if 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 other people in other countries were working hard, because those people were basically working as slaves. Our people were working as independent, proud laborers and were provided the technology they needed because we had a system that encouraged people to invest in technology; because it was a guaranteed patent term, people would invest in it, and also inventors could come up with new ideas because they would benefit from that guaranteed patent term. Basically, with that technological edge, we defeated our enemies in war. We did not win the cold war because we matched the Communists may for man. We did not win the cold war because of that. Everybody knows that. Look back at our other wars. We did not win these wars because our people just, you know, had human wave attacks against our enemies. It was because our people were equipped with the best technology, and we could send them into battle with the dignity of knowing their lives counted, and we were trying to do our best to help them do their mission and come home safely, because we invested in the technology. That was the same reason we were winning the economic wars. We beat our economic competitors because we had technology. Coupled with the hard work and responsibility of our people, this new technology made sure America beat our competitors and ensured a higher standard of living for our people. That has not escaped, by the way, the attention of our adversaries. That is very easy to see. Our adversaries understand that fact, that it has been our technology that gave us our leverage. So should it surprise anyone that today our patent system is under incredible attack, and that it is kind of a hush attack, people do not know not know much about it? Even the Members of Congress do not know about it. Even the 430 Members of Congress who are going to vote on this do not know about it. But I can tell the Members, our economic adversaries know exactly what is going on. They understand that America's patent system has provided us the edge to defeat them in the past, so what they are going to do is just totally change and destroy our American patent system. If it is done in the way, the manner that is going on, they may just succeed. How we can see this is really easy. Bruce Lehman was appointed by Bill Clinton to head our Patent Office. He is the head of our Patent Office. One of the first things he did was go to Japan, and there in Japan he signed a hushed agreement. I have a copy of that and I put it in the Congresssional Record a couple of weeks ago. He signed a hushed agreement with the head of the patent office in Japan, and here are two unelected officials, and what was the agreement? The agreement was to harmonize the American patent system with Japan's. It did not say anything about submarine patents. They are going to claim the reason they are doing everything is the submarine patent, get rid of those submarine patents. But in reality that agreement in Japan mentioned nothing about submarine patents. What it did say was that our system was going to be cast off, and instead we were going to have the Japanese system superimposed on us. That is what harmonization means. Harmonization does not mean we are bringing the Japanese up to our level of protection. It means that our people are going to lose protection and our system is going to become like Japan's. What kind of system does Japan have? Let us just remember this. How many new inventions have come out of Japan in the last 100 years? The Japanese are accurately known as people who are basically copiers and improvers, and basically people who perfect other people's ideas and other people's inventions. They do not, they are not known, because they do not really develop a lot of new technology on their own. Why is that? Under the Japanese system, yes, they have immediate publication. What happens when they have immediate publication in Japan? Immediately the big guys, the huge corporations and these Japanese conglomerates and these monopolists surround the little guy, and this little guy, or maybe it is just two bicycle shop owners, just two brothers who work in a bicycle shop or something, but whoever it is who has the idea, they are confronted with the most powerful economic forces in society and they are beaten down. They are beaten down and they are destroyed if they try to resist. The Japanese have had to put up with this, and Japan has been the worse for it, because their creative people have not had the outlook the American people have had. Thus, they have had to rely on the United States and others to produce the technology they need for their whole industrial infrastructure. Now people in our Government are trying to maneuver to make our system identical to what Japan has had in these last 50 years. It is absolutely mind-boggling. Basically, how are they going to achieve this? Step No. 1, as I said, already happened. It already happened. We had our guaranteed patent term of 17 years and they snuck that change into the GATT implementation legislation, and it sailed right on through. I will tell the Members, I was outraged. I felt betrayed, because I had supported the GATT implementation legislation. I voted for fast track, knowing that there was an agreement that they would not put anything into the GATT implementation legislation unless it was required by GATT itself, and that way they could bring the whole bill here. That is what fast track means, they could bring the whole bill before this Congress and there could be no amendments, you would have to vote up-or-down on it. They snuck this provision in as if it did not mean anything, but it has tremendous implications for our future. I raised hell about it, and the gentleman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, and other leaders of the Republican Party guaranteed to me that I would be able to have a chance to rectify that on the floor of the House of Representatives. That is why I then authored a bill, H.R. 359, and submitted that legislation, because I had that guarantee that they would have a chance to rectify it, because it should not have been in the GATT implementation legislation in the first place. Guess what, H.R. 359 was tied up in subcommittee for over a year. Eventually what came out of subcommittee was not H.R. 359, but H.R. 3460, which is officially the Moorhead-Schroeder Patent Act, which I am calling, and I think more accurately is reflected by the title, the Steal American Technologies Act. So at least, however, I have been guaranteed that if that bill, H.R. 3460, comes to the floor, that I will have a chance to offer my bill, which restores the American patent, guaranteed patent term, as a substitute for 3460. Basically, I believe H.R. 3460 would finish the job, and if we take a look at it, this is what the provisions are, it would finish the job of harmonization started with this underhanded change in the GATT implementation legislation. America's huge corporations have apparently bought off on the idea that we should have a global economy, and that our harmonization of patent law with the Japanese is the first step toward this global economy. I happen to believe that global commerce is a good thing. I am not an isolationist and I am not someone who is a protectionist. I believe in free trade between free people, and I make absolutely no apologies for that. If American companies cannot compete, they should not be protected by the Government. But we should make sure that we set the ground rules up so Americans are protected from having their technology stolen from them and used against them, and basically H.R. 3460 would take us toward global harmonization, a global economy, by destroying the rights of the American people, by attacking our ability to create a high standard of living in America. In other words, they are trying to bring down the standard of living of the American people in order to achieve a global economy; you know, dilute our rights as Americans. It is ridiculous. What does H.R. 3460 do? No. 1, it demands that any idea, when an inventor comes in and applies for a patent after 18 months if that patent is not issued, that inventor is going to see his ideas published so every thief, every Asian copycat, every pirate in the world will be able to see it and steal it. No. 2, it obliterates the Patent Office as we have known it since it was put into the Constitution and resurrected some quasi- governmental or quasi-private corporation which is basically run under the dictatorship of one man who is appointed by the President but cannot be kicked out without cause, not just for policy disagreements. The patent examiners there will lose their civil service protection and there is an invitation to steal our technology and an invitation to corrupt the whole system at the Patent Office. Basically we will have established a czar of the Patent Office for 5 years. Mr. Speaker, we do not need czars or dictators or kings in the United States of America. We need Government officials who are accountable to the American people for the decisions that they are making. Basically this is a formula for catastrophe. We are basically trying to remake the American patent system into the Japanese system. I had a Member of Congress tell me today, ``Well, you know, if those other countries have certainly gotten their systems ahead of ours and they're more modern than ours, we should have a patent system like theirs.'' I wanted to basically explode when I heard this idea that the Japanese system--that has fostered no new improvements, that has kept the Japanese people at the mercy of these huge corporate interests-- that that is a better system than ours which was established by our Founding Fathers to guarantee the property rights of our people and has basically given birth to a standard of living and a degree of freedom that the people of the world have never seen before, that the Japanese system is better than ours? Basically there are many people who have influence on the people who will vote on this. There are large corporations, there are people who maybe honestly believe that we have to have a global economy and if it means sacrificing the American people, so be it, because a global economy will bring world peace and all the blah-blah-blah. Well, those people may believe in it. Those people may really believe and there may be some who honestly believe that the submarine patents are so heinous that we can destroy everything in order to get to those few submarine patenters. Let me add this about submarine patenters just to let you know. Ninety-nine percent of all people who apply for a patent in the United States beg and plead to have their patent issued immediately. ``Please give me my patent right away,'' because they know until they get the patent issued to them, they cannot go out and start earning money from it because they cannot get investors, that very few investors will invest in patent pending. But if you have got your patent issued, they will pay attention to you. They are pleading, please, and they know, and these, quote, submarine patenters they are talking about, if they elongate the system, they might find out that they are left behind because new technologies have come along and just left them behind and made their, quote, great technologies obsolete. They know that. The submarine patent issue, some people may believe in it. I hope they listen to the arguments I am presenting because I believe it is a totally fallacious argument that is being used to justify a horrible, horrible change in our system that will bring about terrible consequences for the United States of America. How can we stop this juggernaut? Those people who honestly believe in submarine patents, if they do, they do. You try to give them the logical arguments. But those other people, those other companies, those other corporations and those people, the influence peddlers they hire, we can stop them because democracy works. We can stop them if people will contact the man or woman who represents them in Congress and say, H.R. 3460, the Steal American Technologies Act, has to be defeated, and the Rohrabacher substitute has to be put in its place. If we get enough people doing that, we will make the system work, I believe it will work, and I believe we will triumph over this, because 200 years ago when our Founding Fathers and mothers established this country, there were so many hardships and there were so many challenges and they knew that people would be coming at us just like this. Our Founding Fathers knew this. They knew that people would say, ``Hey, where is America's Achilles' heel?'' They knew that. They knew they would come straight forth. But they also knew you could trust the people, you could count on people to defend their standard of living and their families and their freedom. That is what we are up against today. It is a fight for the future of the United States of America. I hope and I pray that the American people will become activated after the Fourth of July and that we will win the day.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I had faith that the American people would know that taxes are not a contribution and that all government spending is not just an investment. I think we can trust the American people. It says in God we trust, but was also trust the American people. And we hope that God works his will through the American people. So I wanted to thank you both.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. This would never have happened, the American people would never know about this had the Republicans not won a majority in this body. Even with the Republican majority, the White House tried to stonewall us every step of the way in getting this information.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith].

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Fowler]. (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough].

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the Chinese dictatorship knows that it is getting a $35 billion net surplus from their current trade relationship with the United States. That is $35 billion worth of jobs that they have got here that we do not have because they have got it over there. They know that they have got that $35 billion surplus because they flood our markets with all kinds of goods, putting our people out of work because we charge them a 2-percent tariff under the current rules of trade and they charge our products a 30 and 35-percent tariff as we send our goods over there. Thus, our people lose their jobs and they gain $35 billion to build their military to repress their people. This current trading relationship is a sham. It is not to the benefit of the United States of America. Do not expect those bloody-fisted tyrants in Beijing to listen to us about human rights or listen to us about not threatening their neighbors if we do not have the guts to change that relationship that puts $35 billion of hard currency in their pockets.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, in May 1994, President Clinton de- linked human rights considerations from our trading relationship with China. He told us then that an improving economy in China would be accompanied by an improvement in Beijing's respect for human rights and would make China a more responsible member of the family of nations. Today, China's human rights record is worse, and its growing economy has served to underwrite an enormous military expansion and to enrich the Chinese Communist party elite. President Clinton was wrong to de-link our China trade policy from human rights just as George Bush was wrong in not cutting off MFN after the Tianamen Square massacre. If we had stood up for our principles then, we would likely be re-extending MFN to a freer and less threatening China today. This vote is not a litmus test on free trade. I believe in free trade among the free people of the world. This is a litmus test about American jobs and human rights. China has 6 to 8 million people in over 100,000 labor camps making products for export. I am a free trader, but slave trade isn't free trade. And how can be expect American workers to compete with Chinese slaves? We are losing over $30 billion in our bilateral trading relationship with Beijing in spite of billions of dollars in loans to China sponsored by the World Bank and our own Export-Import Bank. Over $4.3 billion of international loans and guarantees went to China in 1995. $800 million in loans and guarantees came from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. I would like to submit for the Record a list of international loans to China. The justification for these handouts, we are told over and over again, is that China's market is so big and full of such incredible potential that we must close our eyes to the more distressing things in China. China's American apologists claim that Beijing fears the United States is trying to contain China. That is not true. The Chinese know it isn't true. Everyone knows it isn't true. If anything, we are bending over backwards to engage China. No, the real threat here is that China may threaten Asia--all of Asia. The PRC's actions in the Spratlys, Taiwan Strait, Burma, and the South China Sea, and its accelerating military buildup indicates that China is seeking a hegemonic role for itself in Asia. The implication is that Beijing eventually intends to challenge United States naval power in Asia--that means conflict--almost certainly initiated by Chinese aggression against a democratic neighbor. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an analysis which outlines possible Chinese ambitions in Asia, and a report by the Republican Policy Committee on Communist China's invasion threat against Taiwan. So China is building up its military and threatening its neighbors, and we are financing this threat to Asian stability through our trade relationship. China's apologists shrug off these threats, but they are real. Just last week China initiated a door-to-door campaign in Tibet to confiscate photographs of the Dali Lama. Reports indicate that those who refuse are jailed, beaten, tortured, even murdered. This isn't some account from the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward, this is happening now. The Chinese are undertaking a campaign of ethnic cleansing which would make even the most hardened Serb Chetnik wince. Chinese officials routinely inject pregnant Tibetan women to induce birth. They then inject the newborn in the head killing it in front of the mother. The third procedure is to sterilize the women. Another popular practice of the Communist Han Chinese is to simply rape Tibetan women. Muslims in Sinkiang Province, or East Turkistan, are also being repressed. Where do the arguments we heard last year to justify MFN for China differ from the ones we hear today? Does it matter that China tried to undermine Taiwan's democratic elections, or broke international agreements on nuclear proliferation, or bilateral agreements on intellectual property rights? Does it matter to those of you who are voting for MFN that China kills its infants in its state-run orphanages? Where does that enter into a moral person's calculations? Where does torture of Catholic priests or repression of Christianity enter into the picture? In voting to ignore the crimes of the Communist regime we demoralize the democratic forces in China? We are turning our backs on the very people we should be supporting, people who believe in our values, in liberty and freedom and democracy. These are the people we defeat by renewing MFN. It's Harry Wu, the Panchen Lama, and Wei Jingshen we turn our backs on by renewing MFN. We ignore the threat to attack Los Angeles, the recent nuclear weapons test, and the seizure of 2,000 fully automatic machine guns by U.S. Customs officials which were being smuggled into the United States by People's Liberation Army-owned firms. But even on purely economic grounds, MFN should be opposed. Giving away American jobs to bolster a rogue regime like this is not beneficial for America. We hear about U.S. sales of commercial jetliners to China--and I come from an area heavily dependent on aerospace--but most of our exports to China are unfinished goods or raw materials. China's tariffs on United States products entering China's market-- especially finished products or high technology consumer goods--are, on average, dramatically higher than our tariffs on Chinese goods--even without MFN, their tariffs on us would still be higher than ours on them. For those with eyes, it is easy to see that any industry that China wants to develop is closed off to American manufactured goods. Meanwhile, China has launched deliberate efforts to open private front companies in America whose mission is to steal American technology our firms here. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an article that appeared in the Denver Post which discusses this issue. I would also like to submit for the Record an article which discusses China's other covert intelligence operations, referred to as ``political action work'' by the Chinese. Chairman Floyd Spence is investigating this issue, and I commend him for that oversight effort. This year's debate has to go beyond the notion of China's large market justifying our accommodation of China's rogue status. Why do we permit U.S. dollars to finance the military buildup of a repressive dictatorship that is likely to be our enemy? Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record two papers, one concerning China's arms exports and the other addresses China's military modernization. Lord, grant that our sons never go to war with this Asian Godzilla, armed to the teeth with high technology weapons bought with the currency of MFN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record a series of articles which appeared in the January 11, 1996, edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review which discuss questions surrounding the Pentagon's effectiveness in controlling sensitive technology being transferred from America to Red China. Mr. Chairman, I would also like to submit for the Record a paper by Greg Mastel and Gregory Stanko which discusses China's deliberate policy of stealing America's intellectual property. The American people should know that MFN is worth about $10--12 billion a year to China. Why should the American people reward China's bad behavior with a $10 billion benefit? Some of our military service chiefs are already talking about uncertainty in Asia as a partial justification for billions dollars in defense spending. Another cost to the American taxpayer of our current China policy. America's domestic programs shouldn't reward bad behavior, and our international policies should be no different. A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to be different. Well, by that definition, another year of MFN for an increasingly belligerent, more heavily armed, more repressive, Communist-run China is insanity times ten on our part. We are here to do God's work and the work of the American people. Disapprove MFN for China and do both. Vote ``yes'' on my resolution of disapproval. Chinese Strategy in Asia and the World (By Prof. June Teufel Dreyer) the chinese view of china's strategy The view of its strategy that the People's Republic of China (PRC) presents to the international community was expressed metaphorically to a U.S. military attache in terms of an ant hill. Somewhat isolated, tribal, and mistrustful of others, the colony is mainly focussed on internal concerns. Members are sometimes sent outside in search of needed items, but the colony is basically self-sustaining. Only when others encroach too closely or attempt to kick the ant hill will the millions of ants of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) come charging out of the colony to bite them.\1\ Chinese commentators have been at pains to deny that their country is strategically ambitious. A deputy director of the Beijing-based Center for Chinese Foreign Policy Studies attempted to quell fears that the PRC's impressive economic growth would lead to an increase in military strength that would pose dangers to the international community. Since, he argued, economic construction remains the government's priority, ``its security strategy is to maintain a favorable environment for the economy and make utmost efforts to prevent military confrontation, whether within or outside its borders.'' \2\ Another approach is to define the possibility of an aggressive strategy out of existence. For example, the commandant of the PLA's National Defense University stated that ``China's socialist character ensures that it positively will not strive for hegemony.'' \3\ The commandant does not address the question of why other socialist countries such as the former Soviet Union had not been inhibited from seeking hegemony. Since, he continues, China has committed itself to economic development as a priority, a peaceful and stable international environment is necessary. Having thus established that ``China's socialist system ensures that China will unswervingly pursue a defensive national defense policy and military strategy,'' the author outlines a broader and less peaceful-sounding agenda: the arms forces exist to * * * consolidate national defense, withstand aggression, protect the ancestral land, protect the peaceful work of its people, defend the country's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and safeguard national unity and security * * * we adhere to a self-defense position of, if others do not attack us, we will not attack them; if others do attack, we will certainly attack them. We adhere to a strategy of gaining mastery by letting others strike first.\4\ In support of the contention that its strategy is peace and economic development rather than confrontation, PRC sources point to the country's very low defense budget. According to statistics presented by former PLA deputy chief of staff Xu Xin, the PRC's defense budget has risen by only 6.2 percent over the past ten years when an average inflation rate of 7.7 percent is factored in. As a proportion of gross national product (GNP), defense expenditures have fallen over the same period: in 1985, the figure was 2.8 percent; in 1994, it was 1.3 percent. Meanwhile, the United States spent 4.3 percent of its GNP. Moreover, China's military expenditure per soldier is less than one-sixtieth of that of Japan's Self Defense Forces and a mere one-seventieth of that of the American military. Even so, Xu continued, the majority of this modest per- soldier expenditure is used for such purposes as the basic necessities of daily life for its soldiers, plus the costs of administration, routine training, equipment maintenance, and the like. So little remains after these expenditures have been made that it would be impossible to purchase large quantities of equipment. ``It is thus obvious that the claims that China is intending to buy an aircraft carrier and is expanding its military armaments clearly are made by people who have an axe to grind.''\5\ foreign views of china's strategy Skeptics find these explanations unconvincing. The ant hill metaphor falls short because the ants' understanding of the territorial limits of their colony does not necessarily coincide with that of others, so that someone this particular group of ants may regard as encroaching on their hill or kicking it may believe that the area in which he is walking does not belong to the colony. Moreover, despite the efforts of the Chinese ant elite to moderate the breeding habit of the hill's members, the population of the colony continues to grow. This may lead the elite to extend to the maximum degree possible the space available to the colony. And, finally, there are other ant colonies in the area who are as sensitive to what they consider encroachment on their turf as the Chinese ants. The contention that the PRC will never attack unless attacked first comes athwart the fact that China attacked Vietnam in February 1979 without having been attacked first. Presumably the author of the article cited above would point out, as China definitely did at the time, that the action was not an attack but rather a ``pre-emptive counterattack.'' A February 1996 article in the PLA's official newspaper Jiefangjun bao (Liberation Daily) describing the advantages of the pre-emptive strike in limited, high-technology war suggests that the Chinese leadership continues to value the concept.\6\ Beijing's warning that it would attack Taiwan were the island's government to declare itself independent mentions nothing about a prior attack on the mainland by Taiwan. A 1992 law passed by China's National People's Congress gives the PRC the right to enforce by military means its claim to the territorial waters around islands whose ownership is disputed. Again, no prior attack on the PRC need take place. When Filipino president Fidel Ramos arranged a guided tour of Chinese installations on islands claimed by the Philippines, the PRC warned that if it happened again, forcible means would be employed. No one suggested that the Philippines might have to attack China first. With regard to defense expenditures, skeptics point out that looking at the military budget as a percentage of China's GNP may show a decline, but that it is a slightly declining share of a rapidly growing pie. Moreover, the published defense budget is not the same as the actual defense budget, which is estimated to be anywhere from two to five times the budget that is officially reported. The higher figures typically include costs for the People's Armed Police (PAP), which contains many demobilized regular army members. The PAP has primarily domestic functions, but could be used transnationally if the need arose. A comprehensive study done by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1995 which excludes PAP costs concludes that the Chinese defense budget is three times that officially reported.\7\ It notes that many expenditures that would be considered under the defense category if it were calculated according to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standards appear under other categories in the PRC's budget. Demobilization costs, for example, are the responsibility of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. And expenditures for nuclear research and development costs, which are believed to be very large, are not included in the defense budget. The costs for recent sizable acquisitions of equipment from Russia, including 72 Su-27 fighter planes and at least four Kilo class submarines, came out the State Council's budget rather than that of the PLA. These expenditures are not small: the first batch of 26 Su- 27s alone was purchased for U.S. $1 billion, or almost $40 million per plane. While the purchase price of the submarines has not been made public, Russia has sold other Kilo-class submarines for approximately $240 million apiece, indicating that the bill for four, plus associated expenses, will add up to another $1 billion.\8\ The cost of a recent acquisition of Russian radar to equip 100 Chinese-built J-8 II jet fighters was reportedly $500 million.\9\ There have also been major purchases from Israel. Researchers at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimate the price of Israeli arms transfers to China since the early 1980s at $2 to $3 billion.\10\ While the actual impact of these purchases on the Chinese economy will be somewhat softened by the fact that a portion of it is in barter rather than hard cash, they nonetheless represent huge expenditures. These, of course, are just foreign purchases, which represent only a fraction of total spending. The military correspondent of a respected Hong Kong newspaper placed the cost of each domestically-produced M-class missile fired into the Taiwan Strait at $2 million, and estimated the total cost of the PRC's seven war games and missile testing in and near the strait between July 1995 and March 1996 at a billion dollars. The final round of missile testing, he noted, took place while the National People's Congress was in session. While the NPC was not discussing the wisdom of the tests, this topic apparently having been declared off limits, NPC deputies from central and western provinces were complaining publicly \11\ about the central government's failure to route development funds to them. And, in internal meetings, deputies from the coastal provinces were complaining bitterly about the loss of revenue and foreign investment that the missile tests were having on their economy.\12\ None of this lends credence to the picture of a PRC so budget-conscious and focussed on economic development that it has neither the will nor the wherewithal to pursue ambitious strategies. Since the strategy this increasingly capable force structure is intended to support is not consonant with China's public statements, analysts must try to ascertain it from other evidence. The years from 1989 through 1991 appear to have been a watershed for the Chinese leadership. The bloody suppression of peaceful demonstrators at Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China in the spring of 1989 tarnished the international image of Deng Xiaoping's era as one of benign communism. It increased the sense of isolation of the Chinese leadership, even as foreigners continued to visit the PRC in large numbers and more Chinese than ever were travelling abroad. When, only a few months later, the Soviet Union began to crumble, the PRC elite's sense of dwelling in a hostile international environment deepended still further. Elation over the conservative coup against Gorbachov was short-lived, since the plotters were quickly arrested and the republics that comprised the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) became independent, non-communist states. The repercussions that this could have for China were all too clear to the PRC's octogenarian powerholders. They interpreted publicly- expressed Western hopes that the PRC would undergo a gradual transition toward liberal democracy as harboring malicious intent. This ``sinister plot of peaceful evolution'' was believed to be aimed at overthrowing the socialist government of China and repeatedly denounced in the official press. ``International splittists'' were believed to aim at dismantling the People's Republic of China in the same manner that the USSR had disintegrated. While certain of the above-mentioned views seem overdrawn, there was abundant evidence of foreign collusion with national splittists. Tibetans have been especially successful in mobilizing international sympathy in support of their desire to be free of Chinese rule. In 1989, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee announced that the Dalai Lama, Tibet's long-exile spiritual and temporal leader, had won its annual award for peace. The world-wide publicity attendant on the award and the prestige that accrues to recipients were very upsetting to Beijing. Many countries have Tibet Houses to serve as foci for Tibetan culture abroad, and a highly unusual but exceptionally motivated multinational coalition of film stars, rock bands, politicians, scholars, and individuals seeking spiritual enlightenment through Tibetan Buddhism support the cause of independence. When the Mongolian People's Republic was replaced by the republic of Mongolia, Tibetan Buddhism, which had been suppressed under the MPR, quickly reappeared. Young Mongols were reportedly learning Tibetan in preference to Russian. They, too, appeared to favor independence for Tibet. More worrisome to the Chinese leadership with regard to Mongolia was the possibility that China's ethnic Mongols, most of whom live in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region that borders the new republic, would want to join it. In the far northwest of the PRC, a variety of Muslim groups ranging from the fanactically religious Hamas to secular Turks were aiding local Turkic Muslims in efforts to recreate an East Turkestan Republic free of Chinese domination. Coastal provinces, while evincing no interest in declarations of independence, were nonetheless behaving in ways that indicated that they were making decisions independently of Beijing. Foreign investment was an important factor in their ability to ignore the central government's wishes. Hong Kong money was more instrumental to the development of Guangdong province than funds from Beijing, and Taiwan investment in Guangdong and neighboring Fujian far exceeded transfer from the central government to those areas. Similarly, the cities of the northeast attracted funding from Japan and South Korea. The dollar amounts of these investments are huge. According to official statistics provided by the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), the small island-state has invested $1.7 billion in Guangdong's Shenzhen Special Economic Zone alone.\13\ These are the figures reported to the government by its citizens, and are believed to substantially understate the actual amounts. America's reaction to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait heightened China's sense of international threat. U.S. president George Bush quickly put together a multinational coalition to force Saddam Hussein to relinquish Kuwait. Bush also expressed the wish that the Iraqi people would overthrow Saddam. Already on the defensive, the Chinese leadership saw ominous portents for itself, perhaps with regard to its desire to absorb Taiwan, by force if necessary. Foreign ministry spokespersons explained that, although China opposed the use of force against another nation, the PRC had long adhered to the Five Principles of the People, one of which was non-interference in the affairs of other states. Therefore, the ``principled stand'' of the PRC was to remain aloof from Saddam Hussein's differences of opinion with Kuwait. It is possible that Bush influenced China's eventual decision to abstain from the United Nations Security Council vote through promising to renew the PRC's controversial Most Favored Nation status a few months later. In any case, the Chinese press tended to portray U.S. behavior in the Gulf War as bullying. In its view, the world's only remaining superpower, now that it was no longer checked by the Soviet Union, was attempting to force other countries to accept American values and the American social system, regardless of how inappropriate they might be to the countries they were being forced on. The PRC was particularly sensitive to U.S. pressures with regard to human rights, which had sharpened after the events at Tiananmen in 1989. China's own interpretation of human rights, spokespersons explained, had nothing to do with a system of checks and balances or the right to criticize the socialist system. Rather it focussed on the right to earn a living and the ability to obtain needed social services. Co-existing with this view of the United States as an arrogant bully was the impression that the United States was a declining superpower. Government-affiliated think tanks held symposia on Paul Kennedy's imperial overstretch and Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations, with participants predicting the eventual decline and fall of the American imperium. When asked about the apparent contradiction between these two views, a researcher at the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences explained to the author that ``we think the United States is a declining power, but a dangerous declining power.'' Chinese Strategic Actions Confronting an international environment that it perceived as hostile and a domestic environment in which its own prestige and legitimacy seemed to be eroding, the leadership appeared to fall back on nationalism. Official spokespersons stridently reiterated ``China's principled stand'' on a variety of international issues, and declared that the Chinese people would not be bullied. Actions taken in conjunction with these declarations included: Establishing close ties with Burma's State Law and Order Restoration Commission. This has been described as an alliance between two pariah governments. At the time that close relations began, the Chinese leadership was widely criticized internationally for killing unarmed civilians at the spring 1989 demonstrations. Similarly, many countries shunned the SLORC when it put Aung San Suu Kyi under those house arrest after she won the country's 1988 presidential election. The PRC has built several roads from its southern border which Burmese patriots feared might be used as invasion routes by the Chinese military. China also sold an estimated $1.5 billion of weapons to the SLORC, thereby enabling the Burmese military to more efficiently quash popular opposition to the SLORC's rule. Additionally, the Chinese constructed a naval base on Burma's Cocos island, facing the Indian Ocean, including radar installations, and other bases at Hainggyi Island and Mergui. This upset India, which has regarded itself as guarantor of stability in the area. These fears were magnified when, in August 1993, the Indian navy captured three Chinese trawlers in the Bay of Bengal. \14\ Passing a law in February 1992 unilaterally claiming ownership of the Spratly, Senkaku, and Paracel Islands as well as Taiwan, and asserting the right to ``adopt all necessary measures to prevent and stop the harmful passage of vessels through its territorial waters [and for] PRC warships and military aircraft to expel the invaders.'' \15\ Announcing that it would not take part in sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) when it was discovered in 1991-92 that the DPRK either possessed or was about to possess nuclear weapons. Because China borders on North Korea and has many rail, air, and land connections with the country, it was deemed unlikely that the sanctions would be effective without the PRC's participation. In early 1995, constructing bunkers and radar installations on islands whose ownership is contested with the Philippines, and placing boundary markers meant to demarcate the PRC's territorial waters less than fifty miles from the Philippines' Palawan Province. In spring 1995, circulating a map showing the Natuna Islands as part of China's exclusive economic zone. The Natunas, which contain rich gas deposits, are administered by Indonesia. Selling 5,000 ring magnets to a state-run nuclear-weapons laboratory in Pakistan in 1995, as well as continuing to secretly export nuclear, chemical, and missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. \16\ Beginning oil-exploration in the Senkaku Islands, despite Japan's continuing claim to the island. \17\ Conducting five sets of missile launches and war games in the Taiwan Strait between July 1995 and March 1996. Taiwan's president Lee Tenghui had angered China with his efforts to raise the island's international profile, and the PRC wished there to be no doubt about its dislike of Lee before Taiwan's voters went to the polls for the island's presidential election on March 23, 1996. Announcing that Hong Kong's democratically elected legislature would be abolished after China takes over the colony in July 1997 and setting up a provisional legislature to begin governing before that date. The only member of Beijing's carefully chosen preparatory committee to vote against the provisional legislature was immediately told that he would not be part of the new group.\18\ Postponing a vote on a United Nations resolution which would extend the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti for an additional six months and threatening to use its veto in the UN Security Council if necessary to block the action. The PRC became angry with Haiti because it invited Taiwan's vice- president Li Yuan-zu to attend the inauguration of president Rene Preval in February 1996.\19\ Continuing nuclear testing despite repeated requests to do so. With France having declared an end to its testing, the PRC is now the only state which continues to detonate fissile material. Foreign Reactions These actions, when combined with the substantial weapons purchases discussed above, were consonant with a strategy of China bent on playing the role of hegemon in Asia, as well as exercising substantial influence outside of Asia. Questions of whether or not this is inevitable and how advantageous a strong China would be to global stability have been hotly debated. A columnist for The Manila Chronicle applauded the idea of a strong China, writing:thank God that, with the Soviet Union's disintegration and Russia now an American lackey, there is one nation--and an Asian nation at that-- that will not be cowed by the U.S. and will stand up to American arrogance and bullying. Thank God for other countries like Iran, Iraq, Cuba and Libya. Otherwise the Americans, who consider themselves a superior race, one of the great hoaxes of our times, would hold all of us hostage to their nuclear arsenal and grind all of us under their heels . . . But China should be able to strike at some American cities with its own intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it is this danger that may stay the bullies' hand and counsel caution and prudence.\20\ Less emotional responses tended to focus on the theme that the sum total of the PRC actions cited above was less hostile than it seemed. For example, many analysts consider the Philippines' claim to the Spratly Islands to be weak. Indeed, Corazon Aquino's administration had planned to renounce the country's claim until an upsurge of nationalism made it politically impossible to do so. It is therefore possible to view China's actions as an effort to challenge a weak adversary, and perhaps to issue a warning to other claimants. An Australian analyst goes so far as to state that since China [both PRC and ROC]'s claim to the Spratlys is well- established, the PRC's plans to take the Spratlys by force ``is probably consistent with international law and international practice.'' \21\ As for Taiwan, those sympathetic to China's actions believe that, in seeking a higher international profile for the Republic of China on Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui knew he was courting disaster. Moreover, the United States should never have granted Lee a visa to visit its territory. Lee used the occasion to make a speech lauding his country's accomplishments. Hence, not the PRC but the ROC, in collusion with the United States, was responsible for the crisis in the Taiwan Strait. With regard to nuclear testing, China has on several occasions indicated its willingness to participate in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). It is in favor of the eventual complete destruction of all nuclear weapons.\22\ However, to join in a moratorium on testing before the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) goes into effect would be to freeze the People's Republic of China in a position of permanent inferiority to the advanced Western powers whose ranks it desires to join. China's goal in its current rounds of testing is the successful miniaturization of nuclear weapons. This should be completed by the time the CTBT goes into effect. At this point, the PRC will ratify the treaty and abide by its provisions. Nor are the roads and bases in Burma necessarily as menacing as they have been portrayed. China may want an outlet to the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean for commercial purposes rather than because of military considerations. Given Burma's rickety infrastructure, road construction and port development are absolutely necessary before this outlet for Chinese goods is feasible. Therefore, it is in China's best interest to help the Burmese government to improve that infrastructure. Deng Xiaoping's economic development policies had the unintended effect of advantaging the industrial growth and income levels of coastal provinces while disadvantaging those of inland provinces, thus creating ill-will between the two areas and exacerbating regional tensions. Being able to export the products of nearby Yunnan and Sichuan through Burma has the potential to mitigate some of these tensions. A deep-water port on Hainggyi Island could provide Chinese manufacturers with an outlet to markets in the Indian Ocean and beyond. Moreover, neither the hydrography nor the topography of Hainggyi is suited to the construction of a major naval installation. The seaward approaches include several shoals, and the main shipping channel is both narrow and subject to heavy silting. Water levels vary substantially in accordance with the yearly monsoon, and there are strong tides. These factors would complicate the berthing and navigation of large vessels. If armed conflict were to break out, a naval base at Hainggyi would be vulnerable to mining and attack from the sea.\23\ Reports of intelligence surveillance activities based on the Cocos Islands are, in the opinion of some, overdrawn. If China wants to collect intelligence on India, the task could be better carried out from a facility on the Burmese mainland that is located closer to India's missile launch facilities. Such a location would encounter fewer logistical difficulties as well. Moreover, according to reports from India, China already conducts electronic and other surveillance in the Indian Ocean from trawlers.\24\ As for Korea, the same issue of state sovereignty that made China reluctant to endorse a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Iraq's annexation of Kuwait made it refuse to participate in sanctions against the DPRK. Moreover, since North Korea's economy is believed close to collapse, sanctions might prove the death blow, and China might be invaded by millions of starving refugees and be burdened with an unstable regime on its borders. The PRC hence has sound security reasons for wanting to avoid any actions that would cause the demise of the DPRK. While there is a certain degree of validity to these arguments, they fail to convince in many ways. If the PRC's claim to sovereignty in the Spratlys is strong, then why has China been unwilling to submit it to adjudication? It has, moreover, been unwilling to enter into multilateral discussions with the other claimants. This gives the impression that the PRC intends to use its large size to intimidate individual claimants in a way that would be more difficult in a multiple forum. The negative publicity from maintaining an intransigent stance in a bilateral context would also be less than in a larger gathering. Hence, shrewd calculations of self-interest rather than a ``principled stand'' based on respect for international law is the PRC's real motivation. As for the argument that China's construction activities in Burma have commercial rather than military motives since the areas chosen are not the best ones for large ships and other military platforms, the same arguments could be made about commercial vessels. It seems unlikely that such extensive facilities would be being constructed for the use of small commercial ships. The products of China's southwest could more efficiently be transported to market by larger vessels. The high costs of construction would not appear to be justified by the expected commercial returns, and there are better alternative uses of the funds. Those who plan bases in Burma may not be applying the same standards of logic and efficiency as foreign analysts. They may also have information and/or motives not available to these analysts. Were logic alone to be applied to China's relations with Burma, it would probably tell the PRC not to become so closely identified with the SLORC at all. The regime is much disliked by ordinary Burmese; should it be toppled from power, the SLORC's successor might well ask the Chinese to leave. With regard to Taiwan, China's stand also seems unduly belligerent. Even if Lee's efforts to maintain a higher profile for the island convinced PRC leaders that he meant independence despite the fact that Lee has never publicly stated that he is in favor of independence, raining missiles off its coasts and moving troops and equipment into menacing positions near the island seems an overreaction. In the past, the PRC was able to achieve much by threatening economic boycotts of countries who sold weapons to the ROC or gave its diplomats a degree of respect that the PRC thought offensive. One imagines that the proponents of the tough line on Taiwan were feeling increasingly desperate on noticing that countries who continued to publicly endorse a one-China policy had privately come to terms with the reality that two sovereign states existed. The direct popular election of the ROC president, the capstone of the island's impressive democratization process, symbolized to the mainland leaders Taiwan's desire to determine its own future and was therefore the catalyst for the PRC's belligerent posture. China's reasons for going ahead with nuclear testing while declaring its ``principled stand'' on the eventual complete destruction of all nuclear weapons also seem disingenuous. If the PRC does intend to sign and abide by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and eventually destroy all its nuclear weapons, one must question the need for expensive, ongoing research and development of products that are slated for destruction. There is certainly no nuclear threat to the PRC in the interim period. Also, given China's stands in certain aspects of the negotiation process, there is some possibility the PRC will not actually sign the CTBT. For example, it has continued to maintain that the CTBT should allow peaceful nuclear explosions, which China claims it needs for purposes of resource extraction. There is little support for this position elsewhere. Arms control experts point out that peaceful nuclear explosions are also unsafe, and that it is more difficult to determine whether a test is for peaceful purposes or military purposes than the Chinese allege. Furthermore, using nuclear explosions to extract resources is highly uneconomical.\25\ counter-strategies Although there is a school of thought which argues that other countries can have little influence over the PRC's behavior, with the generally unspoken conclusion that therefore it is useless to try, empirical evidence indicates otherwise. While not all attempts to induce China to modify its stands have been successful, it has happened in several instances. After the NPC passed a law in February 1992 unilaterally asserting China's sovereignty over several islands including the Senkaku/Diaoyutai group which is claimed by Japan, Tokyo quietly informed the PRC's foreign ministry that this patent affront to Japanese sovereignty would strengthen right-wing sentiment in the country as well as right-wing calls for rearmament. Moreover, the visit of the emperor and empress to China would be jeopardized. The PRC's elderly leadership, with its vivid memories of Japanese cruelty during World War II, fears the re-militarization of Japan. Chinese leaders also very much wanted the imperial visit to proceed on schedule since they were hoping it would include a long- awaited official apology for Japanese aggression against China during the war. Thus, barely a month after the law was passed, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry explained that the NPC's decision ``was part of a normal domestic legislative process, did not represent a change in Chinese policy, and would not affect the joint development of the islands with countries involved in the dispute.'' \26\ Indonesia despatched its foreign minister to Bejing immediately after learning that a Chinese map showed the Natuna Islands as part of the PRC's exclusive economic zone. He was told by Chinese foreign minister Qian Quichen that the PRC considers the Natunas to be under Indonesian jurisdiction, and has never claimed them.\27\ Confronted with an unusual unity of Latin American states, including Cuba, who denounced China's playing of cold-war games on their continent, the PRC cast its security council vote in favor of extending the UN peace-keeping force in Haiti for four more months with a maximum of 1,200 troops. The resolution was introduced by China, which subsequently described its ``adherence to principles and flexibility'' as having been ``hailed by the international community.'' \28\ China's belligerence in the Taiwan Strait calmed down after two U.S. carrier battle groups were despatched to the area in mid-March 1996. The PRC even declared that Lee Teng-hui's resounding victory in the March 23 election was actually a triumph for its point of view, since Lee's major opponent had been an outspoken proponent of independence. One should not draw unduly optimistic conclusions from the instances cited above. The Chinese foreign ministry's attempt to soften the impact of the 1992 law does not mean that the law has been withdrawn; the claims made in it can be advanced again at any time. Qian Quichen's telling his Indonesian counterpart that China does not claim the Natunas does not explain how the map placing it in the PRC's exclusive economic zone came to exist. Qian's promise was apparently oral, and might be re-interpreted in the future. And the mainland could seize on any of a wide variety of happenstances to resume its menacing posture with regard to Taiwan. There are also examples of efforts to induce the PRC to modify its behavior having no results at all, or results that might even be interpreted as worse than before. For example, the PRC continued nuclear testing despite Japan's repeated entreaties that it stop. The Japanese government responded by suspending grants-in-aid to China until the testing stopped. The PRC then began conducting research activities in the Senkakus, with a Chinese source telling a Tokyo newspaper that the action had been taken as an act of reprisal for the suspended aid.\29\ The strategy that the PRC seems to be employing is one of probing: where a rival claimant or potential adversary seems weak, apply pressure. Where expedient, back down, at least temporarily. Where public opinion in the rival claimant or potential adversary seems to waver in its support for applying retaliatory pressure, ignore the pressure from that country to back down and seek to exploit the divisions. The fact that most of these countries have freedom of the press and outspoken citizens with differing opinions facilitates the PRC's task. As a case in point, Japan's attempts to modify China's behavior are not helped when Japanese newspapers report that ``most government officials are averse to freezing the loans, saying that yen-based loans are one of the bases of our policies toward China.'' \30\ Similarly, Chinese officials are well aware that both the Bush and Clinton administrations have been reluctant to apply the sanctions that U.S. law enjoins them to, fearing adverse effects on American corporations that do business with the PRC. In 1991, when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) revealed that the PRC had shipped missile components to Pakistan, the Bush administration suspended U.S. missile technology sales to the two Chinese state- affiliated companies that shipped the components. The ban was lifted less than a year later, after China pledged to follow the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime. However, In 1993, the CIA reported that the PRC had resumed shipping the components. Washington then blocked the sale of $500 million of communications satellites and related technology to Beijing. The sanctions were lifted on February 7, 1996, the same day that administration officials announced that China had secretly sold to Pakistan ring magnets used to refine bomb-grade uranium. Intelligence sources had actually revealed the sale the year before, but the State Department, fearing that making the information public would antagonize the PRC, at first maintained that the evidence was not sufficiently clear-cut.\31\ Aware that the U.S. president is reluctant to disadvantage American businesses by enforcing the penalties specified for proliferation, the PRC has little incentive to modify its behavior. Clinton will probably announce selective sanctions on selected PRC factories,\32\ more because it will enable him to deflect his domestic critics' accusations that U.S. behavior encourages China to violate agreements than because he believes that the sanctions will encourage China to modify its behavior. Unfortunately, since it demonstrates that the U.S. has written laws with sanctions that it dares not put into practice, this sort of behavior reinforces Mao Zedong's long- ago characterization of the United States as a paper tiger. While able and willing to roar loudly, the American tiger is highly unlikely to use its teeth. The PRC has shown that it will back down when confronted with determined and united resistance, as it did in the case of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti. Neither determination nor unity have characterized either the United States' or Asian countries' policies. While Asian nations quietly supported the U.S. decision to send carrier battle groups to the Taiwan area,\33\ their public stance was so low-key as to become the focus of criticism in their own countries. For example, an editorial in Bangkok's The Nation described the Thai government's response as ``flaccid diplomacy'' and warned that ``Thailand gains little by appearing so unimaginatively obsequious to Beijing.'' \34\ Similarly, the Tokyo daily Sankei Shimbun accused Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs of being ``weak-kneed'' and ``showing consideration only for relations with China, as usual.'' \35\ Although this kind of response was common, it was not universal. Fears about the implications of China's actions against Taiwan for its own territory and concerned with the fate of the thousands of Filipino guest-workers on Taiwan notwithstanding, the major concern of the Filipino press was whether their country could be dragged into a conflict between China and Taiwan if it allowed United States ships to dock at ports in the Philippines.\36\ There are signs that this attitude of fatalistic passivity may be changing. The Asian Regional Forum (ARF) was established in July 1994 to provide a high-level consultative group on security matters within the area, though it has yet to show any concrete results. ARF has created no dispute resolution mechanisms, and other members have so far been disinclined to put pressure on China to discuss the issues causing the most tension. Conversely, the PRC has successfully pressured ARF members not to allow the ROC to participate, even as an observer, and has also blocked the island from membership in the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF.\37\ The Asia-Pacific Security Dialogue, held in March 1996 against a backdrop of missile tests in the Taiwan Strait that, as one Bangkok newspaper phrased it ``unnerved the region, but this issue did not make the agenda . . . the three-member Chinese delegation at the seminar said they had no intention of allowing what Beijing considers to be an internal affairs be brought up for discussion at the forum.'' \38\ Individual and bilateral responses the China's behavior have also occurred. For example, the Japanese cabinet has submitted a bill to the Diet that would establish a 200- nautical mile economic zone around the country's coastline which will include the Senkakus,\39\ and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s Policy Research Council began ''in- depth study on measures to cope with a possible situation seriously affecting Japan's security, including introduction of emergency legislation.'' \40\ The LDP's instructions to its research council made it clear that this threat was expected to emanate from the PRC. Also to China's annoyance, Vietnam and the Philippines concluded a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea governing the two countries' conduct with regard to the disputed Spratly Islands. The PRC's position is that, since it alone holds indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly, such declarations by other countries amount to infringing on China's rights.\41\ The Philippines embarked on a force modernization program immediately after the confrontation with China in the Spratlys.\42\ And the Five Power Defense Arrangement (FPDA), involving Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, was reactivated. In late March 1996, the FPDA members held an eight-day exercise designed to repel an air attack against Singapore and Malaysia.\43\ Taiwan has also made large arms purchases, though it has frequently been prevented from buying the kinds and models of equipment it desires because supplier countries fear risking their business interests with the PRC if they sell weapons to the ROC. These are small steps, and it remains to be seen whether more substantive consensus on settling outstanding disputes with the PRC can be achieved. If the parties to the dispute over the Spratlys agree to China's demands that they negotiate bilaterally, then the position of all is weakened. One is reminded of Benjamin Franklin's advice to the fractious colonies that were attempting to resist Great Britain: we must all hang together, or most assuredly we will hang separately.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The gentlewoman is saying that 170,000 jobs are created in the United States by the China trade but are there not many more jobs that are lost in the United States?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. ROHRABACHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and to include extraneous material.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman].

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Matt Salmon, the only colleague in this body who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and who did 2 years of missionary work in China before coming here.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox], who is on the short list for Vice President.