WASHINGTON -- Gary Bauer, former Republican presidential candidate and Campaign for Working Families Chairman, today issued the following statement following the House of Representative's vote granting permanent normal trade relations for China.
In the public debate leading up to the House passage of a bill bestowing permanent most favored nation status on communist China, Bill Clinton uttered at least one statement that was entirely truthful: 'The consequences of this vote will be felt after I am no longer president.' On this point I am in complete agreement with Mr. Clinton. We will be dealing with the disastrous consequences of this capitulation for decades to come.
When Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938, waving a scrap of paper with Hitler's signature and proclaiming 'peace in our time,' Winston Churchill rose in the House of Commons and thunderously proclaimed that the cause of freedom had suffered an 'unmitigated defeat.' I fear the same is true of today's vote in Congress.
As Clinton predicted, the consequences of this vote will be felt long after he has left the White House. Our nation and the cause of freedom will pay a high price for today's shortsighted action. China has secured what it most desired: full membership in the international economic order without having to make a single concession on human rights, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to rogue client-states, or its increasingly aggressive posture in Asia.
China is an emerging superpower ruled by a brutal communist elite devoted to building a military capable of challenging the United States for world domination. While there may be some limited, short-term gains to be realized from the China trade, in the long run the only thing today's vote accomplished is to help enrich a current adversary and potential enemy.
Churchill said it best five years before the start of World War II: 'If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worst case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.'
It is doubly shameful that my Republican Party -- the party of Ronald Reagan that throughout the Cold War resolutely held the line against communism, defended liberty and opposed the forces of appeasement -- delivered the balance of votes for this misguided retreat from our most cherished principles." |
