Rohrabacher: Why aren't we causing a revolution in China?

Last night in a C-SPAN televised speech, Dana Rohrabacher called Chinese government officials “gangsters,” slammed both Bush presidential administrations for failing to challenge China’s human rights abuses and complained that the U.S. Government isn’t working to spur a democratic revolution in that nation on the eve of the next Olympic games.

Oh, and the OC-Long Beach Republican congressman also told us that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have been a coward to stand up to the Chinese Communists. This is one area Rohrabacher might have keen insight. He served as a Reagan White House speechwriter.

Here’s an excited Dana:

Up until Tiananmen Square there was a legitimate reason for us to try to build the economy of China, to create closer ties. Because there was an evolution going on both economically and politically in China and when it reached a point at Tiananmen Square, you might say the tipping point, the United States didn’t stand up. The Chinese gangsters just like in Burma, the military regime, had to make its decision: Was it going to open fire on their own people? The Chinese goverment was facing this decision and our government did nothing. And we said nothing. It is my contention that had Herbert Walker Bush, then President of the United States, sent a message to the Chinese leaders that if you murder and try to slaughter the democratic movement in China, we are withdrawing from our economic cooperation that we have agree to they would not have done so. And I will tell you tonight, Ronald Reagan would have sent that letter in a millisecond. Ronald Reagan would have been told the the democratic movement was on the verge of success, but they would be slaughtered if they sent the troops in and they need to send a message to the leadership of China, saying we are gonna withdraw our economic, uh, uh, cooperation with them if indeed they did mow down their own people. Reagan would have done it. This president Bush’s father did not and thus we have had in the last two decades not a transition to democracy but only a growing of their economy which now gives them greater military capabilities and gives them greater wealth from which to try to undermine the United States. And, again, as we look at this threat what is really important is the same thing that is really important in Burma and elsewhere the basic message that we need to understand tonight when confronting regimes like China and Burma and confronting radical Islam that hates America lets remember it’s the people who want to live decent lives and live in democracy who are America’s greatest allies. The people of China need to know that we are on their side. They need to know that the people of the United States and the people of China all long to treat people decently and to live in freedom and justice. The people of China will be on our side if we are on their side. But we’ve been so busy building an economic infrastructure that permits wealth to flow to China that we have not bothered to make the demands on the government or to create the democratic movements in China that would move their government from within.

Say what you will about Rohrabacher on a long list of subjects (especially his support for gangster-tied Sheriff Michael S. Carona), but the congressman is probably one of the few politicians in the world still brave enough to challenge Corporate America’s silence as it partners with the Communist regime.