Mr. Luther?

Mr. LUTHER. Yes.

Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Luther votes yes.
Mr. Davis?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Davis votes yes.

Chairman GILMAN. The clerk will call the absentees.

Chairman GILMAN. The clerk will report the vote of Mr. Sanford. The clerk will call Mr. Sanford.

Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Sanford?

Mr. SANFORD. No.

Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Sanford votes no.

Chairman GILMAN. The clerk will report the vote.

Ms. BLOOMER. On this vote there were 22 ayes and 16 noes.
Chairman GILMAN. The motion is agreed to.

Mr. BERMAN. A point of parliamentarian inquiry.

Chairman GILMAN. Inquiry by the gentleman, Mr. Berman? Mr. BERMAN. Under the procedure, this expedited procedure, is this resolution still entitled to a debate on the floor?

Chairman GILMAN. Yes, it is.

Mr. BERMAN. So this was just one step in the process.

Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, the Chairman is authorized to make motions under Rule 20 of the rules of the House relative to going to conference on this resolution or a counterpart from the Senate. Without objection, the staff director is authorized to make technical, grammatical, conforming changes to the resolution. The Chair announces that the Committee intends to file its report on this measure promptly within 2 days. Does any Member wish to have the right to file opposing views, Mr. Campbell? Mr. Campbell, do you want to file opposing views?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I sure do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman will be protected.

I now would like to remind the Members we have just one other measure we will take up now, and then we will be recessing until 2:30. We will now proceed to take up H. Res. 364, urging the introduction and passage of a resolution on the human rights situation in the People's Republic of China at the 54th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

This will be a very brief discussion. I urge our Members to please stand by.

The Chair will now consider the resolution relating to the issue of China in relation to the deliberations of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a resolution before the Committee.

The clerk will report. The Committee will come to order. Please proceed.

Ms. BLOOMER. "H. Res. 364 urging the introduction and passage of a resolution on the human rights situation in the People's Republic of China at the 54th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights."

Chairman GILMAN. This resolution was considered by the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Human Rights and on Asia and Pacific and reported from them with an amendment in the nature of a substitute now before the Members and labeled “Committee Print."

Without objection, the Committee Print will be considered as original text for the purpose of amendment. Without objection, the clerk will read the preamble and operative language of the Subcommittee's amendment in the nature of a substitute for amendment.

Ms. BLOOMER. "Whereas the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997 state that '[t]he Government [of China] continued to commit"

Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute is considered as having been read and is open to amendment at any time.

I now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, sponsor of the resolution, to introduce the resolution.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to thank you for being one of the principal co-sponsors and my good friend, the chairman of the Asian Committee, Mr. Bereuter, and many of my friends on the other side of the aisle, including Mr. Gephardt, who also co-sponsored the resolution.

I urge every Member of this Committee to support H. Res. 364. This resolution urges the introduction and passage of a resolution on human rights in the People's Republic of China at the 54th Session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which begins next

week.

H. Res. 364 has already been cosponsored by 26 Members from both sides of the aisle, and both the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights and the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific have reported the same amended version to this Committee.

If any government deserves to be the subject of a Human Rights Commission resolution, Mr. Chairman, the Beijing dictatorship does.

In his testimony before the Subcommittee last month, Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck made clear that the "Government of China continues to commit widespread and well-documented abuses in all areas of human rights."

He also testified that there have not been any major improvements in that situation during the last year.

As detailed in the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in China, those abuses included extrajudicial killings, the use of torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and forced sterilization, the sale of organs from executed prisoners, and tight controls over religion, speech, and press.

Persecution in some minority areas, such as Tibet and East Turkestan, even intensified during the past year.

I wanted to mention, in particular, the arrest and long-term detention by the Beijing regime of the 6-year-old child, the Panchen Lama. What words are strong enough to describe a government that arranges the disappearance of a little boy because he is too much loved by his own people? What measures are strong enough to take against such a government?

Now, the Panchan Lama is eight, assuming that he is still alive, and many of us are very concerned about his well-being.

Frankly, Mr. Chairman, this resolution is the least that we can do for the Chinese and the Tibetan people. We need to stand with the oppressed and against or at least in exposing the misdeeds of the oppressor.

Unlike our annual MFN debate, it does not implicate the commercial interests of the United States. Indeed, this resolution merely urges the Administration to do what it promised to do when it delinked MFN for China from human rights considerations in 1994 and that was "to insist that the U.N. Human Rights Commission pass a resolution dealing with the serious human rights abuses in China." Those abuses continue unabated and a need for a resolution is more pressing than ever.

Wei Jingsheng, the great Chinese democracy advocate and former prisoner of conscience, appeared before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights last month.

At that hearing, and again in a letter which I would be asked be made a part of the record, he wrote an open letter to Congress urging us to pass a clear resolution calling on your representatives in the U.N. Commission for Human Rights in Geneva to hold fast in their efforts supporting a China resolution.

Mr. Wei explains that, and I quote, "The success of the Chinese Government to silence the world community has serious consequences. It is a massive blow to the Chinese people's determination to struggle for human rights and democracy. They are left with a feeling that they have been betrayed."

Mr. Chairman, I would ask that a Human Rights Watch Asia Report entitled, "China, Chinese Diplomacy, Western Hypocrisy, and the U.N. Human Rights Commission" be made a part of the record and in it this group in 14 pages, single-spaced, details how the Chi

nese dictatorship was able to muscle its way and to buy its way into a vote last year of no action on a resolution condemning the human rights abuses by giving out money and doling out money to representative countries that were part of the U.N. Commission in Geneva.

Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[The report appears in the appendix.]

Mr. SMITH. And I do ask that Members support this. It is the bare merest, least that we can do, I would submit, to make a stand on behalf of the oppressed in China.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Hamilton.

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I support the resolution and I commend Chairman Smith for bringing it forward.

I think it is necessary for the United States to offer a resolution at Geneva as a sign of our very strong interest in and concern about human rights in China. China must have no doubt in their mind that we care deeply about human rights in China, and they must have no doubt that a decent relationship with the United States will certainly be circumscribed so long as the Chinese Government abuses its citizens.

Let me just add a one word of caveat, however, if I may. This resolution is headed for defeat in Geneva. That is a foregone conclusion. What worries me here is that we are pushing a resolution in Geneva that is going to be defeated and that could convince the Chinese that the world does not care about human rights.

I hope they don't take that to be the case, but we do hand at least a tactical victory to the Chinese by pushing forward this resolution and failing to even get it on the calendar, which is what is going to happen here, and the Chinese then will be in a position to proclaim a victory.

We must make very clear to the world how deeply we feel about human rights-Chairman Smith has done a very good job of that— and let them know how deeply Americans care about human rights in China, but we ought not to have any illusion here about the tactical situation that we are confronted with.

I plan to vote for the resolution. I urge my colleagues to do the

same.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.

Mr. Bereuter.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I speak in support of the resolution. In fact, this resolution was considered by the Asia Pacific Subcommittee and unanimously supported by Mr. Smith, the prime sponsor of this legislation, and me, and his Subcommittee staff and mine worked very conscientiously together. We worked out a few factual differences, and added a few things that we thought should be added on both sides.

So we are very much in agreement.

I think it is important to note that, while there is dispute in some cases about human rights abuses, as a minimum, the documentation provided in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on the People's Republic of China is sufficient for us, more than sufficient, to continue to try to use what I think is the appro