REPRESENTATIVE DAVID WU

Testimony for U.S.-China Economy and Security Review Commission

April 14, 2005

 

 

Chairman D'Amato, Vice Chairman Robinson, today's hearing co-chairs Commissioner June Teufel Dreyer and Commissioner William Reinsch, and members of the US - China Economic and Security Review Commission, I would like to begin by thanking you for holding this hearing, and for extending this opportunity to speak in front of this panel. As a Chinese American and a person who aspires to a democratic and prosperous China, I am pleased to present my views today and look forward to working with this Commission to help develop America's policy on China.

 

When I first arrived in Washington, DC in 1999 as the newly elected representative from the First Congressional District of Oregon, I was immediately faced with the challenging choice of first extending what used to be called the Most Favored Nation status to People's Republic of China (PRC), and then the Permanent "Normal Trade Relations." As many of you may remember, I voted against the annual extension of MFN and PNTR for China in 1999 and 2000.

 

As a former business lawyer who represented American businesses in their trade concerns in China and other countries, I believe in the virtue of trade. I believe such commercial and intellectual interactions between the American and Chinese people could financially benefit both peoples, raise China's standard of living, and stimulate independent thinking and democratic development in China.

 

However, after four plus years of trade under the previously agreed-upon terms of the PNTR legislation, I remain skeptical about trade's ability to single-handedly foster a multi-party democracy in China.

 

In the United States and many parts of the world, the Internet provides a liberal forum where individuals can discuss any number of subjects, from your local football team, scientific reviews, to talks about elections and political subjects. In America, this is simply a fact of life we enjoy and take for granted.

 

For the past decade, e-commerce and websites like sohu.com, sina.com, and Yahoo China are popularizing Internet use in the PRC. Next to the United States, China's approximately 78 million Internet users constitute the world's second largest online population. American technology entrepreneurs are rushing to China to cash in on potential business opportunities. While US businesses should get a fair shot at the Chinese market, I believe America should not lose sight of its core values of promoting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

 

In the last year along, the PRC government graduated from simply blocking certain objectionable websites, such as popular news sites like the New York Times and the Washington Post, to increasingly sophisticated and intensive censorship efforts.

 

Both the US State Department and other human rights sources documented a Chinese Internet police force at in excess of 30,000. These censors monitor online conversations at real time and block out anything they consider to be inappropriate. Aside from taking down web content, PRC officials also work to take down the physical infrastructure of the Internet. Just in 2004, the Chinese authorities shut down more than 12,575 Internet cafes

 

Aside from investing in manpower to monitor the Internet, the PRC is also investing in sophisticated technology to police the online community. Recent crackdowns have focused on online discussion groups, one of the most vibrant parts of the Internet.

 

The Chinese government is systematically going after student-run online discussion groups. Tactics employed include requiring individuals to reregister with their real names, discontinuing access to these online forums beyond the university campuses, and taking these discussion forums offline altogether.

 

How are all these Chinese governmental actions important? After all, the Internet is more popular than ever in China, and American businesses are still in position to make a profit in that country.

 

I submit that the American people consented to a bilateral trade agreement with China because we not only want to trade with that country, but also because we believe spreading universal values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

 

Instead of spreading these important values through trade, American ventures in China are forced to submit to PRC's oppressive standards and cannot operate in the same openness that have not only made Silicon Valley the envy of the technology world, but also promote traditional American strength of openness and value for human dignity and democratic governance.

US Department of State 2004 Human Rights Report on China

Los Angeles Times, 2/14/05