SENATE BILL: Dept. of Ext. Aff.: September 2011 Foreign Policy Review (law'd)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd like to see full economic restrictions on Belarus, possibly partial economic restrictions on PR China, and partial military restrictions on Nigeria.

I'd like to offer these as three separate amendments.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm dead against economic restrictions on China.  It would be unwise to do so at this time, given how important continued economic cooperation with them is.

In that case, how do we feel about more extensive military restrictions?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

We don't need economic restriction on China, we do need some kind of a strategy however to achieve an agreement on protecting intellectual property.

While certainly worth talking about, that's not my main problem with China.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I singled out Belarus for economic restrictions because it's a hardline dictatorship that its neighbors tend to find next to impossible to do business with and Nigeria for partial military restrictions because of internecine instability there. I was reasonably content with current policy towards most other countries.

In the case of China, I don't feel that it's necessarily wise to deal with them to quite the extent that we do if they are going to pursue predatory mercantilism as a matter of course.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I agree but I would like to keep it within the range of our options. I'm reconsidering anything that would imply mandating it in the Foreign Policy Review, though, so I'd like to withdraw my current amendment in favor of one saying 'Atlasia reserves the right for the Administration to act immediately in response to any violation of international or human rights norms by the government of China within the confines of international law' or something along those lines. If anybody can offer a more tightly worded version of such an amendment I would appreciate it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

All right. In that case I like the wording of the first sentence regarding China in the current FPR (I understand Napoleon's concerns). My worry is that the second sentence might be prejudicial to our ability to change policy in the future, though if somebody with more foreign policy experience than I have tells me otherwise I'll drop my concerns about this entirely and we change the policies towards Belarus and Nigeria and move on.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Aye.