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Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support of our friend David Perdue's nomination to be Ambassador to China. This is certainly one of the most important nominations and appointments that will come across this floor, and the President is to be commended for picking David Perdue for this position.

China, as we all know, is the largest, the most significant, probably the longest lasting foreign policy challenge that the United States of America has, and it is going to continue to be for some time.

Today, we have seen, over the last recent decades, China move from a third-world country to a near peer to the United States. Their economy is growing rapidly, and they have done it the old fashion way: They have stolen every good idea that we have and used it to their own devices, which has brought them to the challenging position they are in for the United States. And they are a very different country than the United States is.

The world, I think, is very quickly developing into a bipolar position, where, on the one hand, you have democracies and semi- democracies like the United States, made of up of free people, of capitalism, of free markets, of entrepreneurs, and of people who very much value human rights and value the individual way, ahead of the state. On the other hand, you have countries like China that are communist. They are socialists. They are not free market or capitalist motivated. And they have no regards for human rights. The best example of that is the genocide that they commit against the Uighur Muslims in China, and the world pretty much looks the other way while they do human rights abuses that are way over the top.

So, Senator Perdue--David--you have your work cut out for you. This is going to be a challenge as we go forward, particularly over the next 4 years.

In addition to that, China has done everything it can to infiltrate the United States. Most people in America have no understanding about the tremendous amount and the millions of dollars that the Chinese Government pumps into our colleges and universities here in the United States. I myself and others have long been trying to put a stop to this. No foreign government can come into our political system and use money to influence our political system, and yet a foreign government like China can go into our colleges and universities and pump in millions of dollars and use the influence of that money to influence the colleges and universities. We don't allow this in our political system because we don't want foreign influence in our political system, nor should we allow this kind of influence in the institutions that make up the education system for future Americans.

We need to put a stop to this, and all of us, I hope, will be glad to partner with our friend David Perdue as he confronts these issues from Beijing.

In this administration and in his first term, President Trump demonstrated that he will be tough on China. He has to be.

We need a strong leader like David Perdue at the front of our fight with the Chinese Government to execute on President Trump's vision, and I hope my colleagues will join me today in supporting Mr. Perdue to be Ambassador to China.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that we commence the vote on the nomination.

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