WASHINGTON - Gary Bauer, former Republican presidential candidate and Campaign for Working Families founder, today issued the following statement regarding the China trade vote comments made during President Clinton's news conference this afternoon.
"Neville Chamberlain apparently is alive and well and living in the White House. President Clinton's comments during his press conference today confirmed all that is wrong with this administration's failed policy of abject appeasement toward China. All that was missing was the umbrella.
"It is simply incredible that, when asked about China's human rights abuses, the President responded almost as an apologist for the communists' brutal oppression of the Chinese people instead of delivering a strong message rooted in America's historic values.
"Clinton offered a, rambling, muddled, mealy-mouthed defense of Zhu Rong-ji, chief architect of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and other communist leaders responsible for the sustained, systematic suppression of the most basic rights for which the United States has made enormous sacrifices in blood and treasure. This is Exhibit A for how our policy of appeasement is changing America and leading us to abandon our democratic ideals and moral principles in the name of so-called free trade.
"And once again Clinton missed an opportunity to send a clear, unmistakable message to Beijing that the U.S. will defend democratic Taiwan against any military attack or attempt to force the free Taiwanese to unite with the Communist mainland. While ambiguity in diplomacy has its uses in certain circumstances, in this case the mixed signals the Clinton-Gore administration is sending to Beijing are dangerous. China's leaders might be tempted to use force against Taiwan in the mistaken belief that the U.S. would not respond. Such weak-kneed palaver as the President offered today invites aggression -- a lesson we ought to have learned from Munich." |
