During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) questioned David Perdue, President Trump’s China Ambassador nominee, about President Trump’s dismantling of Voice of America.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Senator Merkley.
00:02Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and welcome, Senator Perdue.
00:05Welcome, Dr. Crowley.
00:07I really wanted to focus on two themes regarding China.
00:13And one of those themes to me is symbolized by the work
00:16that Marco Rubio and I did here.
00:18We both served on the China Commission.
00:19We held a lot of hearings about human rights.
00:21We teamed up to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act
00:25and legislation related to Hong Kong, related to Tibet.
00:29Really highlighting the massive abuses of human rights in China.
00:34And that Forced Labor Prevention Act,
00:37that has been the most effective measure in the world
00:39to actually say articles produced in China
00:42with slave labor cannot come into a domestic market.
00:45We're hoping Canada and Mexico and Europe follow our lead.
00:48Do you support that act?
00:52There's another thread, though, in potential foreign policy
00:56with China that I think is better symbolized
00:58by Elon Musk.
01:00He built a factory in Xinjiang province,
01:04which is China wanted that there to basically rebut the concerns
01:08about slave labor in Xinjiang.
01:10In exchange, they give him a massive amount of Chinese loans
01:14to help build that factory.
01:15It is now Tesla's largest factory in the world.
01:18Those products could not even be imported to the U.S.
01:20under the Forced Labor Prevention Act.
01:24In addition, he has said things about China
01:27like China is more responsive to the happiness
01:30of people than in the U.S. That bothers me.
01:33He has said, I'm kind of pro-China on another occasion.
01:38The Trump administration and the Biden administration both said
01:42what's going on in Xinjiang is genocide.
01:45It's horrific.
01:47I'm very concerned about that.
01:49I want for our representation,
01:52which you will soon be carrying forward, to be shining a light
01:57on the abuses in China, the suppression,
01:59the transnational repression
02:00against the Chinese diaspora around the world.
02:04It puts a huge contrast where we stand in terms of freedom
02:08for people in the world and where China stands in terms
02:10of repression of freedom in the world.
02:13Which theme?
02:15The theme symbolized by Marco Rubio in putting a spotlight
02:20on the repression and human rights abuses and the genocide
02:23or the Elon Musk theme where he wants our government
02:26to help him do more and more business in China.
02:29Which theme are you going to represent?
02:31Well, first, I enjoyed our conversation, Senator,
02:34and this topic came up in there.
02:35And I really appreciate your heart for this.
02:37I've watched it for 10 years.
02:39And I respect that.
02:41One of my top responsibilities as the spokesperson for the people
02:45of America in this administration is
02:47to make sure they understand how deeply we feel
02:49about the atrocities.
02:51There's no other word for it.
02:52So I agree with you that we cannot turn a blind eye,
02:55not just in Xinjiang, but, I mean, everywhere we see it.
02:59You know, if you look at the slave laborers,
03:01one of the things they used to basically cheat the WTO system
03:05that wanted to have equal and fair trade around the world.
03:08My view right now, if America doesn't stand
03:11up for that, no one else will.
03:13Well, I appreciate your response.
03:16I hope when the pressure comes
03:17from very powerful American entrepreneurs that says,
03:22we want you to help them do more business in China rather
03:25than pointing out the human rights concerns,
03:27that you'll point out those human rights concerns.
03:29And it sounds like that's where your heart is.
03:31And I appreciate that.
03:33I want to turn to the U.S. Agency for Global Media,
03:36Voice of America, that was shut down.
03:38And when it was shut down, China entities said, hey, this is great.
03:43They celebrated.
03:44They really resented Voice of America putting a spotlight
03:47on the genocide in Xinjiang.
03:49They really resented spotlighting Chinese aggression
03:52in the South China Sea.
03:54They really regretted commentaries
03:56about the Chinese economy and some of the commentary
03:59that showed the overcapacity of factories in certain sectors
04:02and certainly in the housing sector.
04:05Meanwhile, though, I'm very confused because Trump
04:08and Musk, President Trump and whatever position Musk holds,
04:14advisor, Advisor Musk, they accused Voice of America
04:18of promoting anti-American propaganda.
04:20I don't get that.
04:21I've never seen evidence of anything
04:24but promoting American values and putting on a spotlight
04:27on issues including what China is doing to its own people.
04:31What am I missing?
04:33Well, Senator, it's a big question relative
04:35to how do we defend against their propaganda
04:38and then how do we get the free world's message out.
04:40As I said earlier, I think what we've been missing is we've been
04:43doing this too much unilaterally.
04:45And I think if we engage our allies in a way
04:48that we maybe haven't done in the past,
04:50we can develop a unified approach.
04:52Going back to the funding of that, I think once we see
04:54that the investment strategy of that,
04:57of those funds is consistent with foreign policy,
05:01this strategy will be developed, in my opinion, as a voice,
05:05as Ambassador of the United States in China.
05:08I will echo this dramatically over there.
05:10It's one of our top priorities and this is something
05:12that we will not give up on.
05:14Well, I do appreciate that because I feel like having Voice
05:17of America and Radio Free Asia helping
05:20to counter the disinformation and propaganda that comes
05:23out of the Chinese government is really an important part
05:26of truth-telling in the world.
05:28The Chinese don't like it
05:29because they don't want truth-telling in the world.
05:31I hope you'll be a champion for truth-telling.
05:33Thank you, sir.