Short title

This Act may be cited as the

Combatting the Persecution of Religious Groups in China Act

Findings

Congress makes the following findings:(1)According to estimates included in International Religious Freedom reports issued by the Department of State, Buddhists comprise 18.2 percent of the total population in the People's Republic of China, Christians, 5.1 percent, Muslims, 1.8 percent, followers of folk religions, 21 percent, and atheists or unaffiliated persons, 52.12 percent, with Hindus, Jews, and Taoists comprising less than 1 percent.(2)The Government of the People’s Republic of China recognizes 5 official religions, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism (according to an International Religious Freedom report issued by the Department of State), and only religious groups belonging to 1 of the 5 sanctioned patriotic religious associations representing those religions are permitted to register with the Government and hold worship service, excluding all other faiths and denying the ability to worship without being registered with the Government.(3)The activities of state-sanctioned religious organizations in the People's Republic of China are regulated by the Chinese Communist Party, which manages all aspects of religious life in the country.(4)The Chinese Communist Party is actively seeking to control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith through the Sinicization of Religion, a process intended to shape religious traditions so they conform with the objectives of the Chinese Communist Party. (5)On February 1, 2018, the Government of the People’s Republic of China implemented new religious regulations that imposed restrictions on Chinese contacts with overseas religious organizations, required Government approval for religious schools, websites, and any online religious service, and effectively banned unauthorized religious gatherings and teachings.(6)There are numerous reports that authorities in the People's Republic of China have forced closures of Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Taoist houses of worship and destroyed public displays of religious symbols throughout the country.(7)Authorities of the People's Republic of China have arrested and detained religious leaders trying to hold services online.(8)There are credible reports of Chinese authorities raiding house churches and other places of religious worship, removing and confiscating religious paraphernalia, installing surveillance cameras on religious property, pressuring congregations to sing songs of the Chinese Communist Party and display the national flag during worship, forcing churches to replace images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and banning children and students from attending religious services.(9)It has been reported that the Government of the People’s Republic of China is rewriting and will issue a version of the Bible with the correct understanding of the text according to the Chinese Communist Party. Authorities continue to restrict the printing and distribution of the Bible, Quran, and other religious literature and penalize publishing and copying businesses that handle religious materials.(10)According to International Religious Freedom reports issued by the Department of State, the Government of the People’s Republic of China has imprisoned thousands of individuals of all faiths for practicing their religious beliefs and often labels groups of those individuals as cults. (11)According to the Department of Labor, the Government of the People's Republic of China has arbitrarily detained more than 1,000,000 Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in China’s far western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.(12)It has been reported that the Government of the People's Republic of China engages in transnational repression activities such as relentlessly intimidating diaspora religious communities and others with ties to China. (13)As of October 11, 2019, the Political Prisoner Database maintained by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China counted 1,598 cases with information on political and religious prisoners known or believed to be detained or imprisoned in China.(14)As of June 30, 2023, the Political Prisoner Database maintained by the human rights nongovernmental organization Dui Hua Foundation counted 2,897 individuals imprisoned in China for organizing or using a cult to undermine implementation of the law.(15)The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) maintains a list of religious prisoners of conscience who were imprisoned in China for their religious belief or non-belief, religious activity, religious freedom advocacy, and other related issues. Those prisoners of conscience include—(A)the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedun Choekyi Nyima, who has been held captive along with his parents since May 17, 1995; (B)Pastor Zhang Shaojie, a Three-Self church pastor from Nanle County in central Henan, who was sentenced in July 2014 to 12 years in prison for gathering a crowd to disrupt the public order;(C)Pastor John Cao, a United States permanent resident from Greensboro, North Carolina, who was sentenced to 7 years in prison in March 2018 under contrived charges of organizing illegal border crossings; and(D)Pastor Wang Yi of the Early Rain Covenant Church, who was arrested and sentenced to 9 years in prison for inciting to subvert state power and illegal business operations.(16)Authorities of the People's Republic of China continue to detain Falun Gong practitioners and subject them to harsh and inhumane treatment.(17)Since 1999, the Department of State has designated the People's Republic of China as a country of particular concern for religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.). (18)On June 17, 2020, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (Public Law 116–145) came into force, requiring reporting on human rights violations and abuses committed by the Government of the People’s Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and calling for the use of targeted sanctions against officials of the People's Republic of China found to have engaged in such violations.(19)On June 21, 2022, section 3 of Public Law 117–78 (22 U.S.C. 6901 note) (commonly referred to as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act) came into force, blocking products, goods, and material originating from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from entering the United States due to the risk that such items were produced using forced labor.(20)The National Security Strategy of the United States, issued in 2017, 2015, 2006, 2002, 1999, 1998, and 1997, committed the United States to promoting international religious freedom to advance the security, economic, and other national interests of the United States.

Statement of policy

(a)

Holding senior officials of the People's Republic of China responsible for religious freedom atrocities

It is the policy of the United States to consider any senior official of the Government of the People’s Republic of China who is responsible for or has directly carried out, at any time, atrocities including arbitrary imprisonment, forced sterilization, torture, forced labor, and draconian restrictions on freedom of religion, expression, and movement against religious minorities, including Christians, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong, in the People's Republic of China to have committed—(1)a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights for purposes of imposing sanctions with respect to such official under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 10101 et seq.); and(2)a particularly severe violation of religious freedom for purposes of applying section 212(a)(2)(G) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(G)) with respect to such official.(b)

Department of State programming To promote religious freedom in the People’s Republic of China

It is the policy of the United States—(1)that the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom should support efforts to protect and promote international religious freedom in the People's Republic of China; and (2)for programs of the Department of State to protect religious minorities in the People's Republic of China and combat transnational repression engaged in by the People's Republic of China.(c)

Designation of the People’s Republic of China as a country of particular concern for religious freedom

It is the policy of the United States to continue to designate the People's Republic of China as a country of particular concern for religious freedom under section 402(b)(1)(A)(ii) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6442(b)(1)(A)(ii)) as long as the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedom (as defined in section 3 of such Act (22 U.S.C. 6402)).

Sense of Congress regarding promotion of religious freedom in the People's Republic of China

It is the sense of Congress that the United States should promote religious freedom in the People’s Republic of China by—(1)strengthening diplomacy relating to religious freedom on behalf of Christians and other religious minorities facing restrictions in the People's Republic of China, including through the widespread engagement of international partners to combat the violations against religious freedom committed by the Government of the People's Republic of China;(2)raising the cases of religious and political prisoners at the highest levels with officials of the People's Republic of China because experience demonstrates that consistently raising prisoner cases can result in reduced sentences, or in some cases, release from custody, detention, or imprisonment;(3)encouraging Members of Congress to become advocates for prisoners of conscience in the People's Republic of China through the Defending Freedoms Project of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, raise the cases of those prisoners with officials of the People's Republic of China, and work publicly for their release;(4)calling on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to unconditionally release religious and political prisoners and ensure that detainees who have not yet been released are treated humanely with—(A)access to family, the lawyer of their choice, independent medical care, and international monitoring mechanisms; and (B)the ability to practice their faith while in detention;(5)encouraging the global faith community to speak in solidarity with the persecuted religious groups in the People's Republic of China; and(6)hosting, once every 2 years, the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom organized by the Department of State in order to bring together leaders from around the world to discuss the challenges facing religious freedom, identify means to address religious persecution and discrimination worldwide, and promote great respect for and preservation of religious liberty.

Sense of Congress regarding action by the United Nations Human Rights Council

It is the sense of Congress that the United Nations Human Rights Council should issue a formal condemnation of the People’s Republic of China for the ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups and the persecution of Christians, Falun Gong, and other religious groups.