[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8491 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 8491

   To designate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a transnational 
                         organized crime group.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 1, 2020

 Mr. Perry (for himself, Mr. Burchett, and Mr. DesJarlais) introduced 
    the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the 
                               Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To designate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a transnational 
                         organized crime group.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Designating the Chinese Communist 
Party as a Transnational Organized Crime Group Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The 90,000,000 members of the Chinese Communist Party 
        (referred in this Act as the ``CCP'') are the sole ruling 
        political party of the People's Republic of China (PRC) under 
        the direction of General Secretary Xi Jinping.
            (2) On June 30, 2020, in direct violation of the Sino-
        British Joint Declaration, the PRC passed a draconian national 
        security law for Hong Kong that gives the ruling CCP sweeping 
        new powers over the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong.
            (3) The national security law allows mainland Chinese 
        officials to operate in Hong Kong and gives Beijing the power 
        to subjugate the people of Hong Kong to the dictums of the CCP.
            (4) The physical wellbeing of foreign nationals is at risk 
        under the CCP's new National Security Law.
            (5) In response to the CCP-led human rights violations of 
        unjust abuse and detention perpetrated against the Uyghurs, 
        Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on July 9, 2020, that 
        the Trump administration would bar the entry of the following 
        three prominent CCP officials into the United States--
                    (A) Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party's Secretary 
                of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in 
                Northwest China and a member of the Politburo;
                    (B) Zhu Hailun, Party Secretary of the Xinjiang 
                Political and Legal Committee (XPLC); and
                    (C) Wang Mingshan, Party Secretary of the Xinjiang 
                Public Security Bureau (XPSB).
            (6) On July 13, 2020, the Chinese Foreign Ministry imposed 
        sanctions against four United States officials, including 
        Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 
        Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, and the Honorable Sam 
        Brownback, United States Ambassador for International Religious 
        Freedom, in retaliation to Mr. Pompeo's July 9th announcement.
            (7) On September 22, 2020, the House of Representatives 
        passed H.R. 6210, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, in a 
        wide, bi-partisan manner.
            (8) Despite China's promise to confirm all forms of 
        fentanyl as a class of drugs effective May 1, 2019, the PRC 
        remained the primary source of fentanyl trafficked into the 
        United States last year, according to a 2020 DEA Intelligence 
        Report.
            (9) Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine 
        and killed 18,335 Americans in 2018.
            (10) Chinese scientists and authorities knew about the 
        coronavirus as early as December 2019, but were ordered by 
        Chinese government officials on January 3, 2020, to transfer 
        samples to state institutions or destroy them.
            (11) The CCP refused to allow the World Health Organization 
        to visit their country and refused repeated offers of 
        assistance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control throughout 
        the month of January 2020.
            (12) The Chinese government did not concede clear evidence 
        of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus until January 
        19, 2020.
            (13) China chose to lock down the city of Wuhan on January 
        23, 2020, but not before 5,000,000 people had already left the 
        city.
            (14) Chinese doctors who attempted to provide transparency 
        regarding the consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus were 
        arbitrarily arrested, and several remain unaccounted for.
            (15) The Chinese government imposed travel bans on its own 
        people but told other nations, including neighboring ones, that 
        similar restrictions were unnecessary.
            (16) There have been more than 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 
        in the United States and approximately 980,000 deaths, 
        globally.
            (17) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
        Christopher Wray recently described ``the greatest long-term 
        threat to our Nation's information and intellectual property, 
        and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and 
        economic espionage threat from China.''.
            (18) Director Wray unequivocally identified the source of 
        this economic espionage, malignant foreign influence, and 
        menacing threat: ``when I speak of the threat from China, I 
        mean the Government of China and the Chinese Communist 
        Party.''.
            (19) According to the updated 2017 report issued by the 
        Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, the 
        PRC is responsible for coordinating a massive campaign in 
        intellectual property theft, stealing anywhere between 
        $250,000,000,000 and $600,000,000,000 annually from the United 
        States.
            (20) The IP Commission's estimate does not include the 
        ``full cost of patent infringement--an area sorely in need of 
        greater research''.
            (21) The United States Trade Representative has confirmed 
        the findings of the 2017 IP Commission's report.
            (22) The IP Commission found that forced technology 
        transfer accounts for anywhere from $180,000,000,000 to 
        $540,000,000,000 per year in lost value for the United States 
        economy; of that value, the IP Commission also found that China 
        accounts for the most of that theft.
            (23) According to Director Wray, the level of the CCP 
        criminality is so widespread and voluminous that ``the FBI is 
        opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about 
        every 10 hours and of the nearly 5,000 active FBI 
        counterintelligence cases currently underway across the 
        country, almost half are related to China.''.
            (24) The nonprofit investigative body, China Tribunal, 
        detailed in their March 2020 report that the CCP's campaign of 
        forced organ harvesting against innocent victims could 
        constitute one of the world's ``worst atrocities committed'' in 
        modern times.
            (25) The 2019 report issued by the Congressional-Executive 
        Commission on China described the failure of the CCP to protect 
        the human rights of its citizens: ``[The 2019 report] found 
        that the human rights situation has worsened and the rule of 
        law continues to deteriorate, as the Chinese Government and 
        Party increasingly used regulations and laws to assert social 
        and political control. . . The abuse of criminal law and police 
        power to target rights advocates, religious believers, and 
        ethnic minority groups also continues unabated, and reporting 
        on such abuses became increasingly restricted.''.
            (26) The criminally negligent actions taken by the CCP 
        following their discovery of the coronavirus have contributed 
        to the loss of millions of American jobs and the onset of a 
        global recession.

SEC. 3. DESIGNATION OF CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY.

    (a) Transnational Organized Crime Group.--On the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall designate the Chinese 
Communist Party as a transnational organized crime group.
    (b) International Criminal Organizations Target List.--On the date 
of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation shall designate the Chinese Communist Party as a top 
international criminal organization for the Department of Justice.

SEC. 4. AMENDMENT FOR PROSECUTION OF CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY.

    (a) In General.--Chapter 96 of title 18, United States Code, is 
amended by adding at the end the following new section:
``Sec. 1969. Applying certain provisions for purpose of prosecuting 
              Chinese Communist Party.
    ``(a) In General.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the 
enactment of the `Designating the Chinese Communist Party as a 
Transnational Organized Crime Group Act', the Attorney General shall 
report to the Foreign Affairs Committee and Permanent Select Committee 
on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Foreign 
Relations Committee and Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate, 
including--
            ``(1) the rationale for the designation of the Chinese 
        Communist Party as a transnational organized crime group under 
        section 3 of the `Designating the Chinese Communist Party as a 
        Transnational Organized Crime Group Act';
            ``(2) the number and extent of a racketeering activity (as 
        defined under section 1961(1)) committed, aided, or abetted by 
        the Chinese Communist Party; and
            ``(3) recommendations for penalties pursuant to sections 
        1963 or 1964, with respect to any violation of section 1962.
    ``(b) Statute of Limitation.--No statute of limitation that would 
otherwise preclude prosecution for an offense involving a racketeering 
activity (as defined under section 1961(1)) shall preclude such 
prosecution before the date that is 15 years after the date on which 
such activity is committed by the Chinese Communist Party.
    ``(c) Legal Liabilities.--The protections against legal liability 
offered to any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state under 
chapter 97 of title 28, United States Code, or any other provision of 
law, shall not apply to the Chinese Communist Party during an 
investigation of the commission of a racketeering activity (as defined 
under section 1961(1)) or if the Chinese Communist Party is charged 
with committing a racketeering activity (as defined under section 
1961(1)).''.
    (b) Clerical Amendment.--Chapter 96 of title 18, United States 
Code, in the table of contents is amended by adding at the end the 
following:

``1969. Applying certain provisions for purpose of prosecuting Chinese 
                            Communist Party.''.
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