[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 260 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 260

Remembering the 32nd anniversary of the violent repression of peaceful 
  protests centered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and expressing the 
sense of the Senate condemning the Government of the People's Republic 
  of China's ongoing denial of basic rights and fundamental freedoms.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              June 8, 2021

    Mr. Rubio (for himself and Mr. Merkley) submitted the following 
  resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Remembering the 32nd anniversary of the violent repression of peaceful 
  protests centered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and expressing the 
sense of the Senate condemning the Government of the People's Republic 
  of China's ongoing denial of basic rights and fundamental freedoms.

Whereas, during the spring of 1989, an estimated 1,000,000 people engaged in 
        Tiananmen Square protests and staged similar protests in over 400 
        Chinese cities, including among many others, students, workers, 
        academics, journalists and government employees;
Whereas the peaceful demonstrations of 1989 called upon the Government of the 
        People's Republic of China (``China'') to eliminate corruption, 
        accelerate economic and political reform, and protect human rights, 
        particularly the freedoms of expression and assembly, issues that have 
        become more acute in United States-China relations 32 years later;
Whereas, on June 4, 1989, troops of the People's Liberation Army, at the behest 
        of Chinese Communist Party leadership, attacked Tiananmen Square to 
        repress demonstrators, crushing defenseless protestors with tanks and 
        firing on them indiscriminately, killing hundreds or possibly thousands 
        of individuals;
Whereas, since June 4, 1989, the Government of China censors any mention of the 
        Tiananmen Square Massacre, even the date it occurred, and imprisons and 
        harasses its own citizens who attempt to discuss or peacefully 
        commemorate Tiananmen Square protests and their violent suppression;
Whereas the Tiananmen Mothers--a group in China composed of parents and family 
        members of individuals killed on or around June 4, 1989--have annually 
        called upon the Government of China to reveal the full truth of what 
        transpired, and some members of this group have passed away without 
        obtaining justice and accountability for their family members who were 
        killed in 1989;
Whereas people of mainland China and Macau are again barred this year from 
        commemorating the lives lost and the legacy of the 1989 massacre, and 
        the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the 
        People's Republic of China (``Hong Kong'') is using pandemic 
        restrictions as a pretext for denying the vigil organizers a permit to 
        gather;
Whereas the Government of China continues to view the demands of the Tiananmen 
        protesters, including democracy, transparency, rights protections, and 
        freedom of speech, as threats to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist 
        Party's hold on political power;
Whereas the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre is a poignant 
        milestone, particularly as the autonomy of Hong Kong and freedoms 
        guaranteed to the people of Hong Kong have been crushed by the 
        Government of China's imposition of the Law of the People's Republic of 
        China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special 
        Administrative Region on June 30, 2020;
Whereas the people of Hong Kong have peacefully commemorated the Tiananmen 
        massacre each year faithfully in large numbers;
Whereas, starting in 2020, the Hong Kong Police Force has blocked the annual 
        candlelight vigil to commemorate Tiananmen;
Whereas Hong Kong's autonomy and freedoms have been blatantly denied by the 
        actions of the Government of Hong Kong and the Government of China, 
        particularly over the past several years, with disqualifications of 
        elected members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, blocking citizens 
        from running for office, failing to address the petitions of the Hong 
        Kong people, banning a political party advocating Hong Kong 
        independence, failing to address excessive use of force by police, and 
        criminalizing peaceful political activities through the use of spurious 
        charges of ``subversion,'' ``collusion with a foreign country or with 
        external elements,'' and ``secession'';
Whereas reforms to Hong Kong's legislative council ended any semblance of 
        electoral democracy in Hong Kong by requiring the nomination of 
        candidates by the Election Committee, which previously only elected the 
        Chief Executive, reducing the number of directly elected seats from 35 
        to 20, and requires vetting by a screening committee of the 
        ``patriotism'' of any candidate, defined as allegiance to the Government 
        of Hong Kong and the Government of China and often interpreted as 
        support for the Chinese Communist Party;
Whereas the political turmoil in Hong Kong is the result of actions of the 
        Government of Hong Kong and the Government of China, including the 
        arbitrary arrests and sentencing of peaceful protesters, including well-
        known democracy advocates such as Joshua Wong, Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai, 
        Lee Cheuk Yan, Margaret Ng, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Au Nok-hin, Figo 
        Chan, and others;
Whereas, on May 6, 2021, four Hong Kong pro-democracy activists--Joshua Wong, 
        Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, and Jannelle Leung--were sentenced to lengthy 
        prison terms for participating in last year's Tiananmen Square vigil;
Whereas the arbitrary arrests of Hong Kong residents for participating in 
        peaceful rallies and vigils, which is a violation of the rights 
        guaranteed to the residents of Hong Kong by the International Covenant 
        on Civil and Political Rights and the Joint Declaration of the 
        Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 
        and the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Question of 
        Hong Kong, done at Beijing on December 19, 1984 (the ``Sino-British 
        Declaration''), should be considered by the international community to 
        be the arbitrary detention of political prisoners for the purposes of 
        applying sanctions under the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 
        2019 (Public Law 116-76) and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (Public Law 116-
        149);
Whereas China's National People's Congress has imposed national security 
        legislation with respect to Hong Kong in contravention of the procedures 
        outlined in the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 
        of the People's Republic of China (the ``Basic Law'');
Whereas that legislation has nullified the independence of Hong Kong's judiciary 
        and its tradition of rule of law by suspending due process and trial by 
        jury for cases deemed issues of national security;
Whereas the implementation of that legislation has effectively destroyed Hong 
        Kong's autonomy in direct violation of the Sino-British Declaration;
Whereas the National Security Law is in direct conflict with the rights 
        guaranteed to the people of Hong Kong by virtue of the International 
        Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Hong Kong is made 
        subject by way of the Basic Law;
Whereas the United States Department of State, pursuant to the United States-
        Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 (Public Law 102-383) and the Hong Kong 
        Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (Public Law 116-76), determined 
        that Hong Kong no longer manifests a ``high degree of autonomy'' 
        distinct from mainland China;
Whereas vague national security laws are used widely in mainland China to 
        imprison or arbitrarily detain dissidents, rights defenders, civil 
        society advocates, religious leaders and adherents, former party 
        members, and persons from ethnic groups whose religious freedom, 
        linguistic rights, and political expression are heavily restricted by 
        Chinese authorities;
Whereas human rights, democracy, and religious freedom advocates continue to be 
        imprisoned, arbitrarily detained, disappeared and held incommunicado in 
        undisclosed locations, and abducted across international borders under 
        vague national security laws and other criminal charges in mainland 
        China, including Gao Zhisheng, Gui Minhai, Xing Wangli, Jiang Tianyong, 
        Wu Gan, Qin Yongmin, Zhou Shifeng, Yu Wensheng, Wang Yi, and Nobel 
        laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in state custody nearly four years ago;
Whereas the Chinese Communist Party and the Government of China used the tools 
        of state power to silence whistleblowers at the onset of the COVID-19 
        pandemic, including doctors such as the late Li Wenliang, journalists, 
        lawyers, scientists, and concerned citizens, and has subsequently 
        imprisoned some of these individuals, including Zhang Zhan, who was 
        sentenced to four years in prison on account of her whistleblowing 
        activity, and Chen Zhaozhi, who has been detained for over a year on 
        account of COVID-19 related social media posts;
Whereas the United States Congress, particularly in recent years, has passed 
        numerous measures articulating the longstanding and bipartisan 
        commitment to human rights in China, including--

    (1) the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (subtitle F of 
title XII of Public Law 114-328; 22 U.S.C. 2656 note);

    (2) the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act of 2017 (Public 
Law 115-198);

    (3) the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-330);

    (4) the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (Public Law 
116-76);

    (5) the Hong Kong Autonomy Act of 2019 (Public 116-149);

    (6) the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act (Public 116-145); and

    (7) the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-260);

Whereas, on this day, we stand in solidarity with Chinese human rights lawyers, 
        labor and free speech advocates, Christians and other religious groups, 
        and those distinct ethnic groups who face persecution, such as Tibetans, 
        who continue to face severe restrictions and a concerted state effort to 
        erase Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language, and Tibetan traditional 
        culture;
Whereas, on this day, we condemn the ongoing campaign of genocide and crimes 
        against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party and the 
        Government of China against Uyghurs as well as other Muslim ethnic 
        groups who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, more than 
        1,000,000 of whom have been forced into mass internment camps, suffering 
        a range of human rights abuses including being tortured, sexually 
        assaulted, forced to renounce their religion and pledge allegiance to 
        the Government of China, coerced into state-run programs of forced 
        labor, separated from their families, and forced to undergo abortion and 
        sterilization procedures; and
Whereas, on this day, we remember the words of the late Nobel Laureate Liu 
        Xiaobo, who said there is ``no force that can put an end to the human 
        quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by 
        law, where human rights reign supreme'': Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) commemorates the Tiananmen protests and their violent 
        suppression until such time as citizens of China are able to do 
        so freely and publicly everywhere across their country;
            (2) expresses sympathy to the families of those killed, 
        tortured, imprisoned, or exiled for their participation in the 
        pro-democracy demonstrations during the spring of 1989;
            (3) calls on the Government of China to allow those 
        Tiananmen demonstration participants currently living in exile 
        in the United States and other countries to return to China 
        without risk of repercussions or retribution to themselves, 
        their families, or their allies;
            (4) condemns the use of violence, torture, harassment, and 
        arbitrary detention as a means to repress the legitimate 
        aspirations of the people of China to speak and associate 
        freely, including to petition the government and challenge the 
        policies and ideology of the Chinese Communist Party;
            (5) calls on the Government of China to release all 
        prisoners of conscience, including prisoners detained because 
        of their participation in Tiananmen Square commemorations or 
        actions calling for the type of political reforms and rights 
        protections pursued by those who gathered in Tiananmen Square 
        in 1989 and including over one million Uyghurs and other 
        predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur 
        Autonomous Region;
            (6) condemns the forced imposition of national security 
        legislation with respect to Hong Kong;
            (7) calls upon the President to continue to use existing 
        authorities to hold accountable Hong Kong officials, including 
        Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, and Government of China 
        officials for crushing Hong Kong's autonomy and guaranteed 
        rights; and
            (8) calls upon the President to build an international 
        coalition to demand that the Government of China adhere to its 
        international agreements and human rights obligations.
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