THE SENATE

S.R. NO.

67

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

S.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


SENATE RESOLUTION

 

urging the president of the united states to secure an authorized destination status agreement with the government of the people's republic of china to allow visitor visas to be issued to citizens of the people's republic of china to visit the united states; URGING PREMIER WEN JIABAO TO RESTORE HUMAN RIGHTS TO THE REPUBLIC'S CITIZENS AND CRACK DOWN ON ILLEGAL DRUG TRAFFICKING; AND REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY TO POSTPONE NEW IMMIGRATION PROCEDURES AT HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT UNTIL INCREASED CAPACITY IS IMPLEMENTED.

 

WHEREAS, Hawaii is an insular state that lacks many of the traditional natural resources that fuel a state's economy; and

WHEREAS, however, the State is blessed with an abundance of natural beauty, an accommodating climate, and a wealth of Aloha Spirit that continue to support the visitor industry as the backbone of Hawaii's economy; and

WHEREAS, thanks to booming growth in the People's Republic of China during the past decade, the number of households that has become sufficiently well-off to travel for leisure has skyrocketed as China's middle class has swelled; and

WHEREAS, the number of tourists leaving China to visit other countries almost reached 12,000,000 in the first eight months of 2003, which is a fifteen percent increase over the same period in 2002, and that number is projected to soar to 50,000,000 by 2010, and double again to 100,000,00 by 2020; and

WHEREAS, in fact, China has surpassed Japan for the first time as Asia's largest source of outbound tourists, and the World Tourism Organization predicts that China will become the fourth-largest source of outbound tourists by 2020; and

WHEREAS, twenty-eight countries, including Japan, Australia, major European Union countries, and countries in southeast Asia openly welcome visitors from the People's Republic of China; and

WHEREAS, however, in contrast, the United States government continues to maintain an icy attitude toward Chinese visitors by not issuing tourist visas, apparently in the fear that hordes of Chinese will overstay their visitor visas and become illegal immigrants; and

WHEREAS, Chinese citizens can now only enter the United States on business and education visas; and

WHEREAS, the error lies in not realizing that those Chinese citizens who are well-off enough to spend the money to travel to the United States to visit have no incentive to remain in this country to take on illegal and menial jobs in exchange for the opportunity to participate in a booming Chinese economy and enjoy a very comfortable standard of living in China; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii can take advantage of its natural attraction for Chinese visitors only if the United States changes its visitor policy towards the People's Republic of China by securing an Authorized Destination Status agreement with the Chinese government, which will allow the issuance of visitor visas for Chinese citizens to visit the United States; and

WHEREAS, according to the Tourism Liaison of the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, the current average wait time at the Honolulu International Airport for foreign passengers to be processed through immigration inspectors is one and one-half hours, which is an excruciatingly long period of time for tourists; and

WHEREAS, much of the unduly long wait time is attributable to the fact that the same number of immigration officials divide their time between Honolulu International Airport and Honolulu Harbor, causing a delay in processing at the airport; and

WHEREAS, the recently announced plan by the Department of Homeland Security to expand the program of photographing and fingerprinting foreigners before entering the United States to include 13 million more visitors from 27 countries, including Japan, can only aggravate the immigration processing time at Honolulu International Airport and cause longer frustrating waits which sour the tourism experience for travelers; and

WHEREAS, the People's Republic of China has reportedly repressed or violated the human rights of its people, particularly the crack down on the spiritual movement group known as the Falun Gong, whose practitioners have been incarcerated and put in labor camps in the name of "reeducation" and "reprogramming", according to the "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2002" (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State Department, March 31, 2003); and

WHEREAS, in Shanghai, the locus of China's economic boom, twenty year olds who have grown up in an era of rising prosperity yet still feel stifled by social controls have created a flourishing drug culture, including drugs such as methamphetamines, cocaine, and ecstasy ("Chemical Generation: Drug Abuse in the People's Republic of China", November 2002, worldandi.com); and

WHEREAS, high-purity Southeast Asian (SEA) heroin shipments destined for U.S. markets may transit through China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea, and SEA heroin trafficking links run from independent brokers and shippers in Asia through overseas Chinese criminal populations to ethnic Chinese criminal wholesale distributors in the United States (according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration at its website); and

WHEREAS, despite the recent decline in the trafficking of SEA heroin in the United States, Chinese criminal groups remain the most sophisticated heroin trafficking organizations in the world; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-Second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2004, that the President of the United States is urged to secure an Authorized Destination Status agreement with the government of the People's Republic of China to allow visitor visas to be issued to citizens of the People's Republic of China to visit the United States; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Premier Wen Jiabao is urged to restore human rights to citizens of the People's Republic of China, and to crack down on international illegal drug trafficking into the United States from China;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Homeland Security is requested to postpone implementation of the new program of photographing and fingerprinting until more immigration officials are stationed at Honolulu International Airport, and take other steps to expedite the processing of foreign visitors to Hawaii; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation are requested to assist the administration to facilitate, to the extent possible, the implementation of this Resolution; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Secretary for Homeland Security, Premier Wen Jiabao of the People's Republic of China, and the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

Report Title:

China; Tourist Visas to U.S.; China Human Rights; Illegal Drugs