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Regarding China, yes, Hunter has warned us for years!

AUTHORIZING EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT (NORMAL TRADE RELATIONS TREATMENT) TO PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
(House of Representatives - May 24, 2000)

Mr. HUNTER: Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, in March of 1941 our former colleague, Carl Anderson, a Representative from Minnesota, warned us about the danger of arming potential adversaries. He said then that the chances of war with Japan were 50-50, and, that if our fleet had to meet the Japanese fleet, we would meet a fleet which was built with American steel and fueled with American petroleum.

A few months later at Pearl Harbor, 21 American ships were destroyed, 300 planes were destroyed, and 5,000 Americans were killed and wounded by a Japanese fleet that was built with American steel and fueled with American petroleum.

Well, whichever side of this debate one is on, everyone here has to concede American dollars are arming Communist China today. Let us look at what they have done with the $350 billion that they have amassed in trade surplus over the last 8 years. The Sovrenny class missile destroyers, straight from the Russians, designed for one purpose, to kill American aircraft carriers, were purchased with American trade dollars. The SU-27 fighter aircraft, high performance aircraft, capable of effective warfare against America's top line fighters, were purchased with American trade dollars. On top of that, kilo class submarines, AWACS aircraft, air-to-air refueling capability, sophisticated communications equipment, all purchased with American trade dollars, and compounding the danger, China's own sales to nations like Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and North Korea of components for weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Speaker, we have just left the bloodiest century in the history of the world. In a way it is a century of triumph for America. The story of the 20th century is the story of a great Democrat President, FDR, who stood with Winston Churchill against Germany's Hitler. It is the story of a great Republican President, Ronald Reagan, who faced down the Soviet empire and disassembled Soviet Union.

But it is also a story of tragedy, because 617,000 Americans lie in cemeteries across this country and in the oceans of the world and the battlefields of the world as people who were killed in action saving the world for freedom in this last century.

Many of them fought in wars for which we were unprepared; that is a tragedy of the 20th century. But the greater tragedy, which could be the tragedy of the 21st century, could happen if this country, having fought and bled and sacrificed to dissolve the Soviet empire, through a massive infusion of cash produces, by our own hand, another military superpower, and if the cemeteries of this country one day hold the bodies of Americans in uniform killed with weapons purchased by American trade dollars. That will be the greatest tragedy of this new 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, let us avoid that tragedy. Vote no on PNTR.

http://www.house.gov/hunter/news_prior_2006/PNTR-flrspch.htm