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<dc:title>117 HR 3945 IH: General Secretary Act</dc:title>
<dc:publisher>U.S. House of Representatives</dc:publisher>
<dc:date>2021-06-16</dc:date>
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<dc:language>EN</dc:language>
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<distribution-code display="yes">I</distribution-code><congress display="yes">117th CONGRESS</congress><session display="yes">1st Session</session><legis-num display="yes">H. R. 3945</legis-num><current-chamber>IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES</current-chamber><action display="yes"><action-date date="20210616">June 16, 2021</action-date><action-desc><sponsor name-id="P000605">Mr. Perry</sponsor> (for himself, <cosponsor name-id="T000165">Mr. Tiffany</cosponsor>, <cosponsor name-id="N000190">Mr. Norman</cosponsor>, and <cosponsor name-id="G000565">Mr. Gosar</cosponsor>) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the <committee-name committee-id="HFA00">Committee on Foreign Affairs</committee-name></action-desc></action><legis-type>A BILL</legis-type><official-title display="yes">To prohibit using Federal funds to refer to the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as <quote>President</quote> on new United States Government documents and communications, and for other purposes.</official-title></form><legis-body id="H70422CB43472466B82BF559816139F88" style="OLC"><section id="H29B20031E11A41CDA7917CE6EA301CDB" section-type="section-one"><enum>1.</enum><header>Short title</header><text display-inline="no-display-inline">This Act may be cited as the <quote><short-title>General Secretary Act</short-title></quote>.</text></section><section id="H16E6D72E4E3F41908F3A1D2AF8A5E74A"><enum>2.</enum><header>Findings</header><text display-inline="no-display-inline"> Congress finds the following:</text><paragraph id="H396CB03985874B8F99184886EC657FA7"><enum>(1)</enum><text>The leadership of the People’s Republic of China has gone unchallenged in its perverse pursuits of human rights abuses across decades, including in its commission of the following:</text><subparagraph id="H881757F7213746B79BC4EAE35F3CFA53"><enum>(A)</enum><text>The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, which killed 712,000 people.</text></subparagraph><subparagraph id="H5DBB983A53294F4F90CD77AAF7450619"><enum>(B)</enum><text>The Chinese Land Reform Movement, which may have killed up to a million Chinese citizens.</text></subparagraph><subparagraph id="H63208C6359454273BB74BD41EE0233E2"><enum>(C)</enum><text>The Great Chinese Famine, a man-made disaster that may have killed approximately 30,000,000 people; of that total, it is estimated that anywhere between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 people were beaten or tortured to death.</text></subparagraph><subparagraph id="H2A5588C8546E4AA1B57179E99F9A0AB6"><enum>(D)</enum><text>The crackdown of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, which may have killed up to 10,000 people.</text></subparagraph></paragraph><paragraph id="H73833614D26F4DEEBCB4E6183517D051"><enum>(2)</enum><text>In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has continued its barbaric and uncivilized rule, including by—</text><subparagraph id="H756A0476B29347B086BBDE923593FEEF"><enum>(A)</enum><text>harvesting the organs of up to thousands of Chinese citizens every year, many of whom are Falun Gong practitioners;</text></subparagraph><subparagraph id="H177B03BB68DF4EA3BD214861B80C864D"><enum>(B)</enum><text>coercing over half a million Tibetans to work in forced labor camps in the first seven months of 2020, and forcibly sending thousands of Tibetans to areas within the People’s Republic of China (PRC); and</text></subparagraph><subparagraph id="H70E84A8343724D27B012062DF124CDB6"><enum>(C)</enum><text>imprisoning up to 2,000,000 Uyghurs and ethnic Kazaks and Uzbeks in <quote>re-education</quote> camps since April 2017, as well as condoning and facilitating the practice of forced abortion, sterilization, and other forms of sexual abuse on women imprisoned in these camps.</text></subparagraph></paragraph><paragraph id="HC1F3CAFC37B341F69E65D8334B8BB8D0"><enum>(3)</enum><text>On January 19, 2021, then-Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo determined that the CCP has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.</text></paragraph><paragraph id="HF35C5F00DCE2453FA1886A19BD4D0414"><enum>(4)</enum><text>Since late 2016, when the CCP escalated its <quote>Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism</quote>, Xinjiang province’s criminal justice system has convicted and sentenced more than 250,000 people to imprisonment, often without the defendant having committed a <quote>genuine</quote> offense.</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H1D12CDE4E2734C6E8E9035F9E4092F97"><enum>(5)</enum><text>The blatant disregard that the CCP has for basic human decency runs contrary to the well-functioning of an open and civilized society, and responsibility for the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang and human rights abuses throughout China must lie with the head of state of the People’s Republic of China.</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H6787BF537F894CE39B45851D083E89C8"><enum>(6)</enum><text>The title of <quote>President</quote> has often been utilized to describe the office of the head of state of the People’s Republic of China, in both the United States Government and private publications.</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H12529CECB33A45F5A08D381C7FCFED7A"><enum>(7)</enum><text>Addressing the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as a <quote>President</quote> grants the incorrect assumption that the people of the state, via democratic means, have readily legitimized the leader who rules them.</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H5272F91437D64CD88845A80997176DB7"><enum>(8)</enum><text>The head of state of the People’s Republic of China derives all power and authority from the CCP and is accountable only to them.</text></paragraph><paragraph id="HF5A37F84D92346E6BF6CD4F216E24A80"><enum>(9)</enum><text>The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated the following in the Executive Summary of their 2019 report to Congress: <quote>If there were glimmers of political opening in China, they have been firmly extinguished. It is for this reason that this year the Commission made the decision to start referring to Xi Jinping using the title by which he derives his authority: General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. China is not a democracy, and its citizens have no right to vote, assemble, or speak freely. Giving General Secretary Xi the unearned title of <quote>President</quote> lends a veneer of democratic legitimacy to the CCP and Xi’s authoritarian rule.</quote>.</text></paragraph></section><section id="HD7205BD9D16442779C1A430ABE4D5E99"><enum>3.</enum><header>United states policy</header><text display-inline="no-display-inline"> It is the policy of the United States to—</text><paragraph id="H7CCB5C8BDD5047EBB0FC7C03DBD22787"><enum>(1)</enum><text>condemn in the strongest possible terms the horrific human rights abuses being perpetuated and enabled by the leadership of the CCP;</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H88648EC8CBB746FFB80A7D5772F6FF73"><enum>(2)</enum><text>urge all countries to do the same;</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H3513D9E09E0F4B8C973DC344E4B99F46"><enum>(3)</enum><text>recognize the deep friendship between the United States and the citizens of the People’s Republic of China, the first victims of their government’s cruelty; and</text></paragraph><paragraph id="H39045A7EA79A415BBA4421367C2966F3"><enum>(4)</enum><text>honor the memory of all those who have died as a result of the callous rule of the CCP.</text></paragraph></section><section id="H1934B3EBDD8144B4B9CEC8BAD18DBC1D"><enum>4.</enum><header>Prohibition on using Federal funds to refer to the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as <quote>President</quote> on new United States Government documents and communications</header><text display-inline="no-display-inline"> Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Federal Government may not obligate or expend any funds for the creation and dissemination of United States Government documents and communications that refer to the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as anything other than <quote>General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party</quote>, or alternatively, as <quote>General Secretary</quote>.</text></section></legis-body></bill> 

