    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

    AUTHORITARIANISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS: POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS
                        HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGES IN CHINA

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA, THE PACIFIC AND NONPROLIFERATION

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               DECEMBER 10, 2019

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 116-86

                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           Available:  http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
                                docs.house.gov,
                           or http://www.govinfo.gov

                                   __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    38-546PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2020

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                       ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman

    BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
    GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York               Member
    ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey		     CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
    GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia         STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
    THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida	     JOE WILSON, South Carolina
    KAREN BASS, California		     SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
    WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts	     TED S. YOHO, Florida
    DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island	     ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
    AMI BERA, California		     LEE ZELDIN, New York
    JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas		     JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
    DINA TITUS, Nevada		     ANN WAGNER, Missouri
    ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York          BRIAN MAST, Florida
    TED LIEU, California		     FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
    SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania	     BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
    DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota	             JOHN CURTIS, Utah
    ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		     KEN BUCK, Colorado
    COLIN ALLRED, Texas		     RON WRIGHT, Texas
    ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		     GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
    ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia	     TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
    CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania       GREG PENCE, Indiana
    TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey	     STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
    DAVID TRONE, Maryland		     MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
    JIM COSTA, California
    JUAN VARGAS, California
    VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas

                        Jason Steinbaum, Staff Director
                   Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director

                                     ------

             Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation

                      BRAD SHERMAN, California, Chairman,

    DINA TITUS, Nevada                   TED YOHO, Florida, Ranking Member
    CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	     SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
    GERALD CONNOLLY, Virgina	     ANN WAGNER, Missouri
    AMI BERA, California		     BRIAN MAST, Florida
    ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		     JOHN CURTIS, Utah
    ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia

                        Don MacDonald, Staff Director

                               C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                      INFORMATON SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

    Information submitted for the record from Representative Sherman.     4

                                   WITNESSES

    Zenz, Dr. Adrian, Senior Fellow, China Studies, Victims of
      Communism Memorial Foundation..................................    18
    Jawdat, Ferkat, Uyghur American..................................    23
    Siu, Joey, Vice President, City University of Hong Kong Students
      Union..........................................................    32
    Richardson, Dr. Sophie , China Director, Human Rights Watch......    40

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing Notice...................................................    61
    Hearing Minutes..................................................    62
    Hearing Attendance...............................................    63

    AUTHORITARIANISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS: POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS
                        HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGES IN CHINA

                           Tuesday, December 10, 2019

                            House of Representatives

                     Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and

                                Nonproliferation

                          Committee on Foreign Affairs

                                         Washington, DC

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., in
    room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad Sherman
    (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Mr. Sherman. The subcommittee will come to order.
        Without objection, all members will have 5 days to submit
    statements, questions, and extraneous material for the record,
    subject to the length limitation in the rules of the committee.
        We do expect votes to be called on the floor of the House.
    When that happens, we will adjourn, and we will reconvene when
    that voting is completed.
        Today is a special day for two reasons. First, this is U.N.
    Human Rights Day; and, second, this is unfortunately the day
    when the human rights of the entire Congress will be abridged
    by knowing that Mr. Yoho will not be with us for more than an
    additional 12 months.
        But it is auspicious that today is Human Rights Day because
    this completes a series of three hearings of the subcommittee
    on human rights. First, we focused on Southeast Asia; then we
    focused on South Asia. Much of that hearing was focused on
    Kashmir, but we also had one witness who focused exclusively on
    Pakistan, and we had considerable discussion regarding Assam,
    Sri Lanka, and other issues.
        Today we focus on China. We were going to have a hearing
    covering all northeast Asia, but there is so much going on in
    China. I should mention that that--had we gone broader, that
    hearing would have covered North Korea. To honor Human Rights
    Day, the Administration has refused to sign off on a U.N.
    Security Council discussion of human rights in North Korea.
    That decision is definitely questionable, and the human rights
    in North Korea are an abomination that angers the world.
        So this hearing will complete our three hearings on human
    rights, and I should also mention that I expect tomorrow that
    the Financial Services Committee will vote to make me chair of
    its Capital Markets Subcommittee.
        Those of you familiar with Congress know that you can only
    have one gavel at a time, and I do not--if I had a gavel here,
    I would hand it to the gentleman from northern California, Mr.
    Bera, who I am sure will take over this committee in the weeks
    and months to come, and has been an outstanding member. This,
    of course, is all subject to a meeting of Democrats on the
    Foreign Affairs Committee, which I am sure will go very
    smoothly.
        So I know this subcommittee will have completed its work on
    human rights hearings and will be in good hands in the years to
    come.
        Today we focus on human rights in China. One of the
    greatest human rights crises in the world is China's ``strike
    hard'' campaign against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities
    in Xinjiang Province. Under the guise of counterterrorism, the
    Chinese Communist Party is seeking to eradicate Uyghur culture
    and religious belief. At least a million Uyghurs and perhaps
    far more are in what one Pentagon official has called
    concentration camps. Whether they are concentrated or not, they
    are camps surrounded by barbed wire where people are not
    allowed to leave.
        The ``strike hard'' campaign has also witnessed the
    systemic use of forced labor, which is now, unfortunately,
    entangled in Western supply chains to a degree that we do not
    fully understand, and perhaps our witnesses can enlighten us.
        The Communist Party has built an Orwellian surveillance
    State in Xinjiang that is gradually being adopted perhaps
    over--across China, and even worse may be a Chinese export.
        Last week the House passed the Uyghur Act. The text that
    was passed was an amendment in the nature of a substitute that
    I wrote and presented to the full Foreign Affairs Committee. It
    was based on legislation from three separate bills, one put
    forward--with legislation being put forward by Jim McGovern and
    Chris Smith; by myself and my ranking member, Ted Yoho; and by
    Gerry Connolly and Ann Wagner as well.
        The Uyghur Act would require President Trump to impose the
    Global Magnitsky sanctions against all Chinese officials who
    are responsible for the suppression of the Uyghurs. We are long
    past the point when this should be done, and it should not be
    linked to any ongoing negotiations on trade or any other
    subject.
        The legislation requires that the Commerce Department
    prevent U.S. technology that can be used to repress Uyghurs
    from being exported to China. This bill passed I believe
    unanimously on the House floor, and I urge our colleagues in
    the Senate to pass the Uyghur Bill Act and send it to the
    President, who should sign it.
        The last 6 months have seen massive protests in Hong Kong.
    At times, two million Hong Kongers out of a population of just
    over seven million have taken to the streets. These protests
    began in response to a bill that would have allowed people in
    Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China where the court's
    respect for human rights is highly questionable.
        Since then, the protesters have added four additional
    demands, including an independent inquiry into the police's
    excessive use of force as well as universal suffrage in Hong
    Kong in its elections. It should be worth noting that Beijing
    committed itself to universal suffrage in Hong Kong as part of
    is basic law for governing the city, but it is yet to make good
    on that promise.
        Although the Hong Kong government has withdrawn the
    extradition bill that initially spurred the protest, it has yet
    to commit to the protesters' other demands. Sadly, in recent
    weeks, there has been growing violence by the Hong Kong police
    and to some degree by demonstrators. And I would point out that
    the demonstrators in Hong Kong are most effective when they are
    peaceful.
        In response, Congress has passed, and the President has
    signed into law, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act,
    and legislation that restricting exports of certain police
    weapons to Hong Kong. Among other things, the Hong Kong Human
    Rights and Democracy Act requires the Secretary of State to
    annually certify that Hong Kong still enjoys sufficient
    autonomy from the mainland to justify the U.S. giving that
    territory preferential treatment on trade and other economic
    concerns.
        I should also note that the House passed the Stand with
    Hong Kong Resolution, which I introduce with Ranking Member
    Yoho, Ms. Wagner, Mr. Connolly, and others. There are countless
    other human rights issues in China today, including Tibet,
    where the Communist Party is seeking to control who will
    succeed to the position of Dalai Lama when the current Dalai
    Lama passes on.
        On this issue, Jim McGovern and Chris Smith have introduced
    the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2019, which I am a co-
    sponsor of. I believe that the full committee will be taking up
    this bill shortly. Ranking Member Yoho also has a resolution
    supporting Tibet's autonomy and supporting the current Dalai
    Lama.
        But the Communist Party is also seeking to extend political
    control beyond its borders. It is a threat not only to human
    rights within China, but also here in the United States. Many
    Americans were first made aware of this when the Communist
    Party targeted the Houston Rockets' general manager because he
    chose to support the Hong Kong protests, yet the NBA is far
    from a unique case for the Communist Party of China has used
    access to the Chinese markets to compel U.S. and foreign
    businesses to toe the party line on countless issues, from
    Taiwan to Tibet to Hong Kong to Xinjiang.
        Hollywood, very important to my district--I represent more
    studios, I believe, in Congress than anyone else--has been
    especially targeted. What the Communist Party does is it said
    only 34 U.S. films can be shown in China each year. Then it
    dangles that in front of studios, making it plain that their
    films will not be among the 34 if they were to dare to make a
    film about Tibet or Xinjiang or Hong Kong.
        I also fear that the Communist Party's efforts to control
    speech around the world will grow more intense as it introduces
    this social credit system. This system will give a social
    credit score to individuals and businesses based on their
    loyalty to the Communist Party of China.
        I recently had a meeting with the former Chinese Ambassador
    to the United States, who remains very active in policy, and
    several others from the Embassy, where they all denied knowing
    that there was anything being worked on called a social credit
    score in China.
        So without objection, I will enter into the record 12
    articles, all describing these in detail, all from publications
    respected in China.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Sherman. This social credit score will also be used to
    penalize those who buy, say, American cars or otherwise help
    reduce the U.S.-China trade deficit.
        I want for the record, though, to point out that I am not
    implacably anti-China. I have been the loudest voice on the
    committee for peace in the South China Sea, and for a cooling
    off of naval relations between our countries. But what China is
    doing with regard to human rights is something for us to focus
    on today on U.N. International Human Rights Day.
        And with that, I turn it over to the ranking member.
        Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Sherman. There are 10 minutes left in votes, so we can
    hear your opening statement and then go to the floor, if you
    want.
        Mr. Yoho. All right. Yes. Let's go ahead and do that. I
    will not be more than 10.
        [Laughter.]
        First off, thank you for the job you have done. I think you
    have been a very valuable and effective chairman, and I will be
    sad to see you leave. But I am glad you are pointing to that
    fellow there because I think Dr. Bera will do an outstanding
    job in your footsteps. So thank you for your service.
        The social credit scores of China--wow, what a powerful
    tool. Would any government love to be able to control their
    citizens, so that nobody runs a red light, nobody crosses,
    jaywalks? What a great tool. But what a threat to freedom and
    liberty.
        This is a scary thing that we are going on, and this
    meeting--this hearing is so important. And I want to thank
    Chairman Sherman and our brave witnesses for making the hearing
    possible today. There is no more important topic for the
    subcommittee to focus on, and this is a message that needs to
    get out to the world. This is something that our manufacturers,
    our NBA--not only the owners but the players--need to
    understand. What is going on?
        How many people in the audience are from Xinjiang or you
    are Uyghurs or you have been to that area? How many people? And
    I am doing this because I know china is probably going to watch
    this, and I hope you guys are OK with that.
        We know what is going on over there, and we are going to
    let the world know what is going on. It is unacceptable. We
    have been through this before. We saw General Eisenhower after
    World War II when he went to the concentration camps say,
    ``Never again.''
        But it is going on, and it is going on right now. And every
    time you buy a product that says, ``Made in China'' you are
    empowering the suppressive Communist regime, which incidentally
    in their manifesto, in their Statements say there is no higher
    power than the Chinese Communist Party. Period. There is no
    deity. Xi Jinping is the closest thing to a deity in China. And
    the role of the Chinese people according to the Chinese
    Communist Party is to serve the Chinese Communist Party.
    Whereas, in Western democracies, the role of the government is
    to protect the God-given rights of our citizens and to empower
    our citizens.
        And this is why this message and this hearing is so
    important, because that message needs to get out. When our
    manufacturers go over there, they do it for profit. When NBA
    goes over there, they do it for profit at the expense of people
    that you know.
        The Chinese Communist Party's repression is the greatest
    threat to global human rights and Democratic freedoms. As I
    said in an op-ed I published late last year titled ``China's
    Second Century of Humiliation,'' Xi Jinping is the most
    accomplished human rights violator alive today, and history
    will record that, and I hope he is listening.
        Our witnesses today are on the front lines of a global
    struggle against Xi Jinping and his Communist Party that offer
    socialism with Chinese characteristics. Give me a break. It is
    Communism with suppression on steroids.
        They are leaders. They are leaders. The brave Hong Kongers,
    like Joey here, thank you for coming to our office and I
    appreciate what you all are standing up to do. And I know you
    have put your life in jeopardy, but you are standing up for
    those innate values that we have all been born with of liberty
    and freedom.
        So thank you for standing against the CCP's foot soldiers,
    defend their rights, and wake up the world to their threat.
        Ferkat, you have shown the world a shining example of
    bravery in the face of oppression. Somebody heard one of your
    podcasts today. They were sharing this story, and they broke
    down in tears with your story, and I hope you share that today
    as you fight to free his family from the horrific
    imprisonments.
        Dr. Richardson and Dr. Zenz, thank you for being here. You
    guys are global leaders in bringing the CCP's abuse to light.
    The human rights challenges we all face is massive in scale.
    The recent weeks of secret party documents on Xinjiang, the
    Xinjiang papers, revealed the worst of the abuses occurring
    inside China and are personally directed by Xi Jinping himself.
        This is a wakeup call, and I am glad these papers came out
    because this is people within the Chinese Communist Party
    knowing what he is doing is bad. And so this is something that
    the more we talk about this, and the more we bring this out and
    the awareness campaign, the more it is going to affect their
    decisions.
        Xi has directed a party to use all organs of dictatorship
    to oppress people. Over and over again, the nature of the
    Chinese Communist Party is revealed. But despite the scale of
    these abuses, the world remains largely silent. Our goal is to
    make them wake up, so that their hearing aids are turned on.
        In fact, many countries openly support the CCP's
    atrocities. In the U.N. and on the international stage, dozens
    of countries have defended China's concentration camps.
    Unacceptable. And the international response to Beijing's
    ongoing interference in Hong Kong has been limited at best.
        More and more countries are adopting oppressive laws
    modeled after China's digital authoritarianism, and the CCP is
    exporting its repression around the world. He has offered ZTE
    technology to Maduro in Venezuela, Iran wants it, Putin wants
    it, and I cannot think of a better tool for a dictator to have
    than that.
        China-subsidized tech companies sell dystopian technologies
    to dictators, and the CCP forces international businesses to
    echo its censorship and propaganda. You know, the NBA is a
    perfect example, Marriott Hotels for recognizing Taiwan,
    airlines for saying we are flying to the country of Taiwan. Oh,
    you cannot do that because you have offended somebody in China.
        Disney was going to show films--their new film coming out
    that had the nine-dash lines and said Taiwan was a province of
    China. Thank God for some of the ASEAN countries that said this
    is BS; you are not showing those movies in our country. I
    applaud those countries.
        The scale of CCP human rights abuses, combined with CCP's
    ability to export these abuses globally, has no parallel. We
    need to be on the right side of history. The world has never
    before been challenged by this kind of technology in a
    threatening and negative, suppressive way that China is using
    this today.
        The United States has taken some significant steps in 2019,
    including the enactment of the Hong Kong Human Rights and
    Democracy Act, the House passage of the Uyghur Human Rights
    Policy Act, we passed the Cambodia Democracy Act, but there is
    much more to be done and we have not yet brought the full
    weight of the U.S. Government to bear.
        The world is still mostly silent on the CCP human rights.
    Without a mobilized international response, the United States
    has to continue to lead, and that is why I am thankful for our
    hearing today, so we can reflect their human rights leadership
    in our policy.
        And I look forward to discussing the current state of the
    CCP's repression and the individual freedoms and democracy and
    suggestions on our next steps. And I am looking forward to
    coming back because I am kind of fired up about this.
        [Laughter.]
        You all take care. We will see you in a minute.
        Mr. Sherman. One thing that illustrates the need for human
    rights in China is that 1 minute after we all leave, which is
    right now, I am going to ask the cameras to turn off, and my
    staff will work with anybody in the audience who cannot have
    their face on the tape, so that we will have a place where
    people can watch and where there will be no filming.
        With that, we stand adjourned until after votes.
        [Recess.]
        Mr. Sherman. I should point out, so I believe staff has
    taken action to make sure that anybody who does not want to be
    in this video, their face will not appear.
        I should point out that I have got to commend Mr. Yoho for
    the title of his article, ``The Second Century of Chinese
    Humiliation,'' now being humiliated by their own government.
    Now I will stack that up against what my staff came up with as
    the title for this hearing, ``Authoritarianism with Chinese
    Characteristics.''
        With that, I will ask whether anyone wants to make an
    opening statement. The man who will soon be yielding me
    sufficient time to make small opening statements at hearings of
    the subcommittee, Dr. Bera.
        Mr. Bera. Yes. I just wanted to make a quick statement on,
    you know, it has been a pleasure working with you as the
    chairman of this subcommittee, and certainly the issues that
    you have taken on with regards to human rights and human
    dignity and looking for a better, more collaborative world.
        So I have appreciated your leadership on that. And, I will
    try to take the baton and keep that going in the same direction
    and trajectory. So, with that, I will yield back.
        Mr. Sherman. Ann, do you want an opening statement?
        Mrs. Wagner. Just to echo the gentleman's--associate myself
    with his words. We are glad, as someone who serves on Financial
    Services, that you will be moving up the dais in that regard
    and will be sorely missed here, but we look forward to carrying
    on in your good stead. So we thank you.
        Mr. Sherman. I thank you.
        We have four witnesses today. Two of them have been
    suggested by the minority party. Two of them have been selected
    by the majority party. There is so little partisanship on this
    effort that no one watching these hearings will be able to
    figure out which are the two witnesses Yoho selected and which
    are the two the chairman selected.
        But the first witness I will call on is Adrian Zenz, who is
    a former senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of
    Communism Memorial Foundation. He supervises Ph.D. students at
    the German-based European School of Culture and Theology. He
    has arguably done more than any academic to expose China's
    massive detention centers in Xinjiang, and the general
    oppression of the Uyghurs.
        Please proceed, Doctor.

      STATEMENT OF DR. ADRIAN ZENZ, SENIOR FELLOW, CHINA STUDIES,
                VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION

        Dr. Zenz. I would like to thank you, Chairman and the
    ranking member and the others, for inviting me to testify.
        In 2017, China's Xinjiang region embarked on the probably
    largest incarceration of an ethno-religious minority since the
    Holocaust. Now it is clear that this internment forms only the
    first internment forms only the first phase of a long-term
    strategy of unprecedented and intrusive control.
        Beijing's long-term strategy in Xinjiang is being
    implemented under the heading and guise of poverty alleviation,
    notably industry-based poverty alleviation. I have identified
    three schemes or flows by which the State seeks to place the
    vast majority of minority adults into different forms of
    coercive or at least involuntary labor.
        Flow 1 pertains to persons in what I call vocational
    training internment camps. Camp detainees can end up in
    factories on internment camp compounds, in industrial parks
    which can be located near camps, the camps in them, or village
    satellite factories. One document promised a participating
    company that 500 internment camp laborers would be brought to
    the facility with accompanying police guards.
        The employing companies receive 1,800 Chinese yuan State
    subsidy for each internment camp laborer they train, 5,000 yuan
    for each they employ, and a shipping cost subsidy of 4 percent
    of their sales volume.
        In 2018, Huafu Corporation, which operates the world's
    largest dyed yarn production in Xinjiang, received half a
    billion Chinese yuan, approximately $71 million U.S., in
    subsidies from the Xinjiang government.
        Flow 2 pertains to a vast government scheme that puts
    hundreds of thousands of so-called rural surplus laborers into
    centralized training involving 1 month of military drill, 1
    month of political thought indoctrination, and 1 month of
    vocational skills training. Workers are then sent off to their
    new work destination in large groups.
        Flow 3 places rural Uyghur women into village factories
    equipped with nurseries for infants as young as a few months
    old. Government village work teams use thought transformation
    to convince these women and their parents of the benefits of
    full-time factory labor.
        Government documents note that factory work transforms
    women away from tradition and backward-thinking. One propaganda
    text States that this causes minority workers to become born
    again. The Chinese term for born again used here is the same as
    in the Chinese Bible, equating forced labor with starvation.
        Beijing is turning its internment campaign into a business
    of oppression where participating companies benefit not only
    from government subsidies and from--but also from cheap
    minority labor. As a result, they will be able to undercut
    global prices.
        Particular concern is that all of these labor flows are
    mixing beyond recognition. Graduates from interment camps work
    alongside workers from other flows. Products made by any
    combination of these workers are then exported or shipped to
    eastern China. As a result, many or most products made in China
    that rely at least in part on low-skilled labor-intensive
    manufacturing can contain elements of involuntary ethnic labor
    from Xinjiang.
        The Better Cotton Initiative, BCI, the world's largest
    cotton standard, which aims to promote sustainability and
    better working conditions, recently stated that a continued
    presence and engagement in Xinjiang would continue to benefit
    local farmers.
        BCI states there is no direct evidence that forced labor is
    being used on BCI-licensed farms in Xinjiang. After Huafu,
    which is on the BCI council, was scrutinized. BCI responded by
    noting that Huafu had commissioned an independent social audit,
    which did not identify forced labor. Asking for an independent
    social audit in an environment as controlled as Xinjiang is
    like asking the fox to check that no hens are missing.
        My own research on Huafu comes to far more troubling
    conclusions. Over 90 percent of its staff are ethnic
    minorities, mostly rural surplus laborers. Huafu's website
    states that a large number of world surplus laborers are idle
    at home, which brings hidden dangers to public security.
        Company reports depict hundreds of Uyghurs in military
    uniforms at a staff training event, and a Xinjiang government
    website reports that Huafu is part of an official training
    initiative where Uyghurs are put into centralized military
    drill, thought transformation, and de-extremification.
        Once employed, staff are subjected to intensive ongoing
    political indoctrination, including oath swearing sessions and
    mandatory written reports designed to establish correct values.
        The German company Adidas audited Huafu's spinning
    facilities in Aksu and found, quote, ``no evidence of force
    labor or of government involvement in the hiring of their work
    force.''
        A cursory search shows Chinese media outlets citing Huafu's
    own management openly saying that the local government sends us
    workers according to our staffing needs. A report from the Aksu
    government propaganda bureau confirms that the prefecture
    trains and then sends Uyghur workers to Huafu. Government
    reports that in that very region as many as 200 adults from a
    single village were rounded up by government work teams and
    shipped off to work at factories.
        The third example pertains to garment maker H&M, which
    continues to procure yarn from Huafu, but from their yarn mills
    outside of Xinjiang. However, 19 provinces and cities in
    eastern China are mutually paired with minority regions in
    Xinjiang. This involves extensive state-mandated labor
    transfers.
        Government reports state that one county in Xinjiang alone
    sent 103 rural minority surplus laborers to Huafu's factory in
    Anhui Province in eastern China.
        I am coming to a close here.
        In order to benefit from--in light of these present
    findings, I call upon the U.S. Government to embark on a
    detailed investigation of policies and practices of involuntary
    labor in relation to Xinjiang and the involvement of American
    companies. After passing their Uyghur Human Rights Act,
    stopping the business of oppression in Xinjiang is the next
    step.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Zenz follows:]

        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        We will now call upon Ferkat Jawdat, who is a Uyghur
    American activist and software engineer. He immigrated to the
    United States in 2011 with three of his siblings to live with
    his father who had immigrated in 2006.
        In February 2018, Ferkat's mother was sent to an internment
    camp in Xinjiang, along with his--along with two younger
    brothers and in-laws. Ferkat has been publicly advocating for
    his mother and her family and their release, and has met with
    Secretary Pompeo on that issue.
        Please proceed.

              STATEMENT OF FERKAT JAWDAT, UYGHUR AMERICAN

        Mr. Jawdat. I would like to thank Chairman Sherman and
    Representative Yoho and all of the members of this committee
    for giving me the chance to share my story and be the voice of
    my people here today.
        I am here to speak as a Uyghur American, subject to China's
    long arm of terror. I am here to ask the Congress and the
    President to stand up for freedom. I came to the U.S. in 2011
    with my three other siblings to reunite with my father who had
    came here in 2006 and applied for political asylum. But my
    mother could not reunite with us because the Chinese government
    would not issue her a passport. We had exhausted all of the
    legal channels to get her here. China holds her hostage as
    leverage over us.
        On February 6, 2018, my mother left me her last message on
    WeChat, the Chinese version of WhatsApp. She told me she was
    going to the school. This is a code word that they use to
    describe the camps. Then she disappeared.
        A month later, five people from my father's side, they all
    wound up in 1 day and sent to one of those camps. I waited for
    more than 7 months, praying my mother and the relatives will be
    released. It was the darkest period of my life. I was
    desperate, I was scared, and I was nervous.
        Finally, I decided to speak out. Since September 2018, I
    have met many U.S. officials and gave interviews to more than
    40 news outlets around the world. I was worried and scared.
    Each time I spoke out, my cousins, uncles, aunts, and even my
    75-year-old grandmother was threatened by the Chinese officials
    or the police. They were forced to sign documents stating that
    they will cutoff all contact with me.
        Three days after I had the meeting with Secretary of State
    Mike Pompeo in March this year, the Chinese police transferred
    my aunt and uncle to the prison, and later they sentenced them
    for 7 and 8 years for crimes that they never committed.
        After my story was published in The New York Times in May,
    I received a phone call from my mother. She told me she was
    released and then begged me to stop criticizing China and
    speaking out. Three days later, I found that she was released
    only for 1 day to call me, and she was surrounded by police
    officers and then brought back to the camp again the next day.
        After my mom became ill in the camp, she was brought to a
    hospital. An ethnic Chinese senior doctor told officials that
    the only way to keep my mother alive is to allow her to
    contact--having contact with her family members and to get
    proper medical treatment. My mother was released in June, and
    we can now talk by phone. But she is in constant monitoring,
    and she is being visited by the Chinese police or the
    government officials every single day.
        She had to pose for the videos or pictures holding an apple
    or just pretending that she is drinking or eating at the house.
    Since my mother was released, the Chinese security agents
    contacted me twice on WeChat. They demanded that I listen to
    them and work with them in order to keep my mother safe.
        They hinted they could get her released to the U.S. if I
    cooperate with them. When I refused, they told me I should be
    ready to pay the price as I was going up against a global
    superpower. They told me I was worthless. I was powerless.
        The State Department issued a statement on November 5
    calling on China to release the families of three Uyghur
    Americans and stop threatening us. Four days later, the Chinese
    government falsely branded me and Arafat Arkin, who is sitting
    here in the audience, as members of a terrorist organization.
    And then they also released a video of our parents, our family
    members, where they say that they have never been sent to the
    camps and that they are living happily.
        As a result of my testimony in this room today, China may
    release another video or another article where they force my
    mom or my relatives to speak against my will. I worry about
    what will happen to my mother, and then especially after The
    New York Times' podcast released yesterday. Even before that,
    they already threatened that they can just kill my mother if
    that has been--if it has been published online.
        The U.S. Government has led the world in responding to the
    Uyghurs' nightmare. All of the Uyghur Americans, including
    myself, my family members, we all really appreciate it, and
    then thankful for being a member of this great country.
        I also ask Congress to pass the Uyghur Human Rights Bill
    before the end of the year, and send it to the President's desk
    and urge him to sign it and let it come a law. I also ask
    Congress to increase funding for Radio Free Asia, the Uyghur
    Service, and also provide more funding for the Uyghur
    organizations like the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the
    Uyghur American Association.
        And for the last, as a son, I ask your help to bring my
    mother to the U.S. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Jawdat follows:]

        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Sherman. Thank you. What you tell us is chilling and
    may justify the tariffs we have on Chinese goods, even if we
    did not have a trade dispute.
        I now go on to Joey Siu, who is vice president of the City
    University of Hong Kong Students Association, is an activist
    with the Hong Kong protesters. Ms. Siu has organized peaceful
    protests, including the assembly of 60,000 people calling for
    international support in August of this year.
        She has met with over 60 political leaders from eight
    countries over the past 3 months and has testified at the
    United Nations in Geneva.
        Ms. Siu.

    STATEMENT OF JOEY SIU, VICE PRESIDENT, CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG
                          KONG STUDENTS UNION

        Ms. Siu. Good afternoon, Chairman Sherman, Ranking Member
    Yoho, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for holding
    the hearing on the Human Rights Day, the day when the free
    world countries celebrate the adoption of the Universal
    Declaration of Human Rights.
        However, there is a totally different story under the
    Chinese authoritarian regime. Millions of people face severe
    oppression in their daily struggles to defend human rights. We
    Hong Kongers are one of them, and at this critical juncture, we
    are facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
        Ever since the movement broke out on 9th of June, the crowd
    has not stopped taking to the streets for our five demands. The
    massive arbitrary arrests and political prosecutions have
    created a chilling effect on the rights to freedom of assembly
    and expression in Hong Kong.
        Police siege of the Polytechnic University represents the
    most serious occasion of human rights violations. Voluntary
    first-aiders and journalists were arrested and forced to kneel
    with their hands tied--a scene which may not be visible if in a
    war zone. Medical supplies, food and water supplies, were
    cutoff from the campuses then.
        The hygiene soon became a problem, and the desperate
    atmosphere was also traumatizing. The government created a
    humanitarian crisis in Hong Kong.
        On the most critical night, more than 1,000 Hong Kongers
    went onto the streets to rescue the trapped victims inside the
    Polytechnic University. The police responded with brutal
    suppression, resulting in a stampede. Until today, the police
    have fired around 10,000 tear gas canisters, 6,100 rubber
    bullets, and 19 live rounds. Although the police brutal arrest
    and dispersion tactics counts as gross violations of the
    international human rights standards, they continue to enjoy
    impunity from the law and receive full support from the Chinese
    communist government.
        In detention centers, detainees are often tortured or ill-
    treated, where access to legal assistance and medical supplies
    is often denied. Victims have also reported sexual and gender-
    based violence committed by police officers. In a shocking
    case, a teenage girl filed a complaint against the police after
    allegedly being raped inside the police station by multiple
    police officers. She even needed to undergo a termination of
    ensuing pregnancy.
        The pro-democracy camp's landslide victory in the district
    council election 2 weeks ago demonstrates Hong Kongers'
    overwhelming support for the five demands. Yet we must bear in
    mind that candidates who advocates for independence or self-
    determination for Hong Kong are still deprived of the right to
    stand for elections.
        In 2016, Edward Leung, candidate representing Hong Kong
    indigenous, was barred from participating in the legislative
    council election. And in the same year, six elected lawmakers
    was disqualified.
        Edward Leung is now serving his 6-year imprisonment of
    rioting, a crime under the public ordinance, for his
    participation in the 2016 Mong Kok arrest. The vague
    terminology, combined with the disproportional sentences,
    allows the Hong Kong government to arbitrarily arrest and
    prosecute protesters. The ordinance has been repeatedly
    criticized by the United Nations for curtailing the freedom of
    assembly and expression.
        As the court hearings regarding the 2016 Mong Kon unrest
    continues, more than 6,000 politically motivated arrests have
    been made since June. As a result of political prosecution, Ray
    Wong and Alan Li, founders of Hong Kong Indigenous, fled Hong
    Kong in 2017 and were granted asylum status in Germany.
        They were the first two political refugees from Hong Kong
    and now we fear that the world is seeing more and more from
    Hong Kong. Freedom of press and academic freedom are also under
    threat. Major media companies have been bought by the pro-
    Beijing tycoons resulting in serious censorship in news
    publications.
        Police unauthorized entry into the universities,
    accompanied by invasive use of force, severely encroach upon
    academic freedom. The government has installed a considerable
    amount of intelligent street lamps with high resolution
    security cameras across the city. Police force was also found
    to have used facial recognition technology to identify
    protestors since 3 years ago.
        The China Communist government clearly has a plan to
    establish totalitarian control in Hong Kong. Having been turned
    into a police state, the city is not far from becoming a
    surveillance state. The threat of Chinese interference is not
    limited to Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.
        China has been exporting a surveillance technology, along
    with its mode of totalitarian governance, to countries along
    the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing's grand imperial projects
    is posing a significant challenge to the rules-based order and
    democratic values across the road.
        We are grateful to the U.S. Government for passing the Hong
    Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The earlier the
    Administration imposes sanctions on the perpetrators of human
    rights violations, the less human cost Hong Kongers need to
    suffer.
        We sincerely ask the U.S. Government to lead all other
    democracies in the world, to ensure China complies with the
    international human rights standards. We ask urgently the U.S.
    Government to lead an international inquiry on Hong Kong police
    brutality against the Hong Kong people.
        We defend freedom and human rights, not only for ourselves
    but also for the other people around the world. We need the
    United States and the other countries to stand with us.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Siu follows:]

        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        After we hear from the last witness, I will call upon Mr.
    Bera, and then Mr. Yoho, for their questioning.
        And earlier in my opening remarks, I criticized the
    President for not signing off on having U.N. hearings today on
    human rights in North Korea, but I should point out he did sign
    the legislation that we passed overwhelmingly in the U.S.
    Congress on Hong Kong.
        With that, I will recognize our last witness, Sophie
    Richardson, who is China Director at Human Rights Watch and is
    the author of numerous articles on domestic Chinese political
    reform, democratization, and human rights. She has testified
    before at the U.S. Senate, but much more importantly, at the
    House of Representatives.
        And she is qualified to address not only the issues address
    by our other witnesses, namely Hong Kong and Xinjiang, but can
    also enlighten us with regard to Tibet, and the great Chinese
    heartland where human rights are also a concern.
        Ms. Richardson. Dr. Richardson.

       STATEMENT OF DR. SOPHIE RICHARDSON, CHINA DIRECTOR, HUMAN
                              RIGHTS WATCH

        Dr. Richardson. Chairman Sherman, Ranking Member Yoho,
    members of the subcommittee, we wish we had better news to
    share with you with any of many issues I have been asked to
    talk about today. But from the 156th self-immolation last week
    of a Tibetan, to more than 10,000 rounds of tear gas fired at
    largely peaceful protests in Hong Kong, from the one million-
    plus arbitrarily detained Uyghurs who, contrary to party
    officials' claims that they have, quote, ``graduated'' are
    clearly not free, to authorities crushing independent civil
    society and peaceful dissent, partly through pervasive State
    surveillance, including the social credit system, the realities
    are, at best, challenging.
        In addition, Chinese government threats to human rights no
    longer stay within China's borders. They range from undermining
    norms like academic freedom at universities in the U.S. to
    undermining key institutions like the U.N.'s Human Rights
    Council.
        I would like to spend my time today talking through a
    couple of different areas of recommendations. I hope that is
    acceptable to you. The first is about multilateralism,
    specifically with a view toward accountability. We have got a
    lot of evidence of grave human rights violations in Xinjiang.
    We are good on that.
        What we need is to combat China's power in the
    international system and particularly within the United
    Nations, which is effectively blocking many of the different
    pathways to accountability. Let's recall today the proceedings
    began this morning in The Hague against the Myanmar government
    for its gross violations of Rohingya's human rights. We have to
    imagine the same outcome for the family members of all of these
    people who are sitting here with photographs.
        The United States has found ways to support some of the
    efforts related to Xinjiang at the Human Rights Council and at
    the General Assembly in New York. But the reality is that the
    U.S. not being a member of the Human Rights Council has
    hampered those efforts. It has ceded that institution to
    greater Chinese influence, and it has made that institution
    that much more difficult to access for independent civil
    society from China.
        So, quite simply, if we have any expectations that the
    Chinese government is going to be held to the same standards as
    any other government in the world, the U.S. has to be a robust,
    principled, consistent, reliable player there. So that is one
    area we can talk about.
        With respect to sanctions and export controls, we certainly
    share your views about Global Magnitsky sanctions that are
    appropriate for multiple China situations. I think the
    Administration's willingness to use that tool, just in the last
    day or two with Cambodia and Myanmar, but not in China, has not
    escaped Beijing's attention.
        We are encouraged by the Department of Commerce's additions
    of the Xinjiang public security bureau, particularly to the
    entities list. We also encourage scrutiny of CETC, which is the
    conglomerate that is responsible for building the integrated
    joint operations platform, which is sort of the central brain
    of high-tech surveillance in Xinjiang.
        We particularly appreciate the current Uyghur Act's
    approach to export/re-export in in-country transfers, that it
    focuses on the potential threats to human rights rather than a
    specific technology or a specific company, because that matches
    the grim reality today in China, which is that authorities do
    not necessarily want things like handcuffs or tasers to commit
    human rights abuses; they want things like DNA sequencers. And
    U.S. legislation needs to catch up to that reality.
        Third, with respect to pending legislation, we are
    certainly broadly supportive, both of the Tibet Support and
    Policy Act and the Uyghur Act and encourage the Senate to take
    those up quickly and pass them.
        One other area I want members to think about is ensuring
    that U.S. companies, universities, and other institutions are
    not part of the problem. I think this committee can certainly
    do a lot of work in urging any U.S. company that has a presence
    in Tibet or Xinjiang to publish its due diligence strategy to
    show that it has thought through the human rights risks to
    doing business in those regions.
        On a related note, we would certainly urge very close
    scrutiny of any assessments that claim they have unfettered
    access to supply chains. As Professor Zenz has pointed out,
    this is a very difficult region to independently assess much of
    anything, but U.S. universities I think also need to be pushed
    to ensure that they are taking all possible steps to mitigate
    clear Chinese government threats to academic freedom on
    campuses.
        I am happy to elaborate on the work that we have done
    setting out steps that schools can take to challenge these
    kinds of threats. We sent it to all 50 U.S. State university
    systems. Relatively few have replied at all. None of them I
    would say have replied thoughtfully to show that they are
    taking these concerns seriously.
        Last but not least, it is imperative that the U.S. continue
    to support independent civil society in China. The Chinese
    government's foreign NGO management law has made that
    considerably more difficult. We have confidence that the U.S.
    can be nimble and thoughtful and agile and keep supporting the
    people inside China who are really trying to make change.
        We also hope the U.S. is actively tracking and vigorously
    pushing Chinese authorities over those authorities' harassment
    of family members inside China for the activism of people
    outside China.
        So I think combining these different elements makes for the
    most successful possible human rights dialog between people in
    the U.S. and in China, and I am happy to answer any of your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr.. Richardson follows:]

        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        Mr. Bera.
        Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding
    this important hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for
    having the courage at some risk to step up and share the
    stories. It is incredibly important, and to have a platform
    such as this.
        When I think about my introduction to activism, it was as a
    young college student in the apartheid movement in the early
    1980's, and so forth, and it almost is as though we have got to
    create public awareness and a similar movement to build on what
    I hope are our core values as the United States of America of
    human rights and human decency and not sit silent.
        Dr. Richardson, you may have the best perspective on this.
    Obviously, China controls the flow of information within China,
    information from Hong Kong, information from Xinjiang. How much
    does the rest of the Chinese domestic population know what is
    happening within their own borders?
        Dr. Richardson. Well, getting at that kind of information
    requires a couple of things. First, access to a really good
    VPN, which has gotten much harder. But it also requires knowing
    to ask, knowing enough to go looking. And if you have been told
    all your life that, Xinjiang is a hotbed of terrorism, and,
    therefore, Chinese government policies in the region are
    justified. And you have never had the opportunity to second-
    guess that or been given reason to do that. You are probably
    not going to.
        And, some of my colleagues speak very eloquently about the
    very jarring reality of, for example, leaving the country to
    come to school, for example, in the U.S. and being confronted
    with a completely different set of facts and not--and going
    through the process of understanding not just that what you
    have been taught all of your life is, at best, questionable, if
    not completely fictitious.
        But then the process of relearning and understanding how
    you can actually give credence to certain kinds of information,
    it is very challenging on many levels.
        Mr. Bera. And what tools do we have, say, in the
    multilateral Western world to get information into China about
    potentially what is going on?
        Dr. Richardson. I think that ranges everywhere from anti-
    circumvention technology, or I should say pro-circumvention
    technology, to the wonderful work that is done by different
    services like VOA and RFA.
        I think keeping the doors open to students and to scholars
    who want to come to the United States is critical. And treating
    that impulse as an opportunity for solidarity rather than just
    a national security issue, which is really how it has been
    discussed here for the last year, I think those are all
    important ways of giving people access to alternative
    narratives and information.
        Mr. Bera. You touched on the role of the U.S. corporate
    sector, as well as academic institutions, and certainly, again,
    going back to my introduction in the early 1980's some of that
    was putting pressure on the U.S. corporate sector as well as
    the U.S. academic sector. At this juncture, do you see much of
    that happening at the grass-roots level, or, you know, from a
    State-by-State perspective? Or is it still very early?
        Dr. Richardson. I would say that it is very fragmented, and
    I think they are very different discussions about the
    involvement of companies and the kinds of due diligence
    standards that they are expected to uphold. I think the
    discussion for and about universities is different, which is
    not necessarily to say that some of them are not just as
    problematic in their relationship. So I think they have a
    different set of responsibilities and obligations.
        I think universities are really struggling to understand
    the scope of threats to academic freedom that stem from Chinese
    government pressure. They seem to think for the most part that
    unless a Chinese diplomatic is, for example, telling them they
    cannot have--telling a senior-level administrator that they
    cannot have a particular event on campus, that there are not
    problems. They are not--they are not looking at examples like
    at the U.C. Davis campus a couple of weeks ago, you know,
    students ripped--pro-Beijing students ripping down Lennon Walls
    and other pro-democracy Hong Kong materials.
        The school is not proactively saying, in a very broad
    sense, you cannot do that and taking a stand on issues like
    that. Some of it is very, through micro-level awareness, that
    big institutions I think are struggling to get their heads
    around.
        Mr. Bera. So probably, you know, one thing that definitely
    is within our control, if you are in the U.S. domestically, is
    to raise that awareness, to make sure proper information is
    getting out to kind of the U.S. corporate social
    responsibility, community, and certainly to the big academic
    institutions, and that flow of information getting out there,
    and certainly to the big academic institutions and that flow of
    information getting out there.
        And, again, not going to be easy, but certainly I think it
    is incredibly important to create both a grass-roots--one last
    question, kind of on the multilateralism where Western
    democracies, countries that share similar values about human
    rights, we have not heard as much of that kind of multilateral
    coalition coming together to exert pressure or exert economic
    pressure.
        Now, are you seeing some of that coming together or----
        Dr. Richardson. I guess maybe I have a bit of a different
    view on that. I mean, the 25 governments, not including the
    United States----
        Mr. Bera. And maybe that is the perspective that----
        Ms. Richardson [continuing]. Came together in July to offer
    up the first serious criticism via the Human Rights Council
    president about Xinjiang calling for access.
        Mr. Bera. And maybe playing off of that, how diminished is
    our role by not being part of the human rights community right
    now?
        Dr. Richardson. Well, it is about being part of the Human
    Rights Council particularly. But, you know, I cannot in 5
    seconds answer. It is enormously problematic. Other governments
    wants the U.S. leadership. They want the air cover.
        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you.
        I will yield back.
        Mr. Sherman. I now recognize the gentlelady from Missouri.
        Mrs. Wagner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the
    ranking member allowing me to jump ahead here.
        The New York Times recently published hundreds of pages of
    leaked party documents relating to oppression of the Uyghurs.
    Some seem to suggest that the rampant human rights abuses in
    Xinjiang had caused rifts in party leadership. Mr. Jawdat, how
    significant are these dissenting voices? And how can the United
    States leverage internal disagreement to blunt Beijing's attack
    on the Uyghur Muslims?
        Mr. Jawdat. So, for that question, I think before, like, we
    come to the question part, like it is really important to know
    that the documents were released by someone inside a party.
        Mrs. Wagner. Right.
        Mr. Jawdat. And then he or she stated that the reason that
    he risked his or her life to publish the documents is to get Xi
    Jinping and then the party officials in front of justice. So we
    have to get the signal.
        And then the world is waiting for a document or proof or
    evidence, like for years, but now we got--we have got the hard
    proof. It is coming directly from Xi Jinping himself.
        And then there is disagreements between the Communist Party
    about what to do, how to suppress the Uyghurs. But it is really
    good to see that there is at least some people in the Chinese
    government, the ethnic Chinese officials, that they are trying
    or saying no to the Xi Jinping's order.
        Mrs. Wagner. Well, I hope we can continue to leverage a
    little bit of that internal dissent, and it is up to us to give
    voice. I thank you for your courage and all----
        Mr. Jawdat. Thank you.
        Mrs. Wagner [continuing]. That you have endured.
        More than a year ago, in a controversial bid to insulate
    Chinese Catholics from persecution and intimidation, the
    Vatican signed a deal with the Chinese government allowing it a
    role in appointing Catholic bishops in China. In the meantime,
    China has launched a Sinicization campaign to dilute the
    religious, ethnic, and cultural identities of minority groups.
        Dr. Richardson, how is Sinicization affecting Chinese
    Catholic communities, both State-sanctioned and underground?
    And how has the Vatican responded?
        Dr. Richardson. ``Sinicization'' means being loyal to the
    party and the government, above anything else.
        Mrs. Wagner. It is an amazing word; is it not? Yes.
        Dr. Richardson. And it is a little hard to reconcile with
    the concept of the freedom to believe.
        Mrs. Wagner. Correct.
        Dr. Richardson. Since one rather does seem to replace the
    other. So the problems that we are seeing as a result of the
    Sinicization campaign are not unique to people who are
    worshiping in State-sanctioned Catholic churches versus
    underground ones. This is relevant to Tibetan Buddhists. It is
    relevant across different faith communities.
        It is hard to see much of a consequential response
    whatsoever from the Vatican. There was a Global Times story
    this morning that I believe suggested that the Pope had China
    and the Chinese people central to his heart. It is up to the
    Vatican to say whether that is accurate, but negotiations seem
    to be proceeding between the two about the selection of
    bishops.
        Mrs. Wagner. Well, as a cradle Catholic, I believe that it
    is incumbent upon the Vatican to call this Sinicization
    campaign out, especially given the agreement that they have
    undertaken with the Catholic bishops in China. And I would very
    vociferously call on that here.
        China is in the process of assembling and implementing a
    dystopian social credit system that uses data mining and
    surveillance to score citizens--to score citizens based on
    their, quote, ``trustworthiness.'' I understand China plans to
    deploy a similar system now to track businesses operating in
    China.
        Dr. Richardson, again, what is the status of the corporate
    social credit system? And how do you anticipate it will be used
    to coerce and intimidate foreign actors?
        Dr. Richardson. The most recent development was about 3
    months ago when Chinese authorities announced that they were
    going to use the social credit system, whether they were going
    to apply the corporate version of it not just to domestic
    companies but to foreign ones as well. I can only assume that
    our collective social credit scores are pretty low at the
    moment.
        It is very difficult to tell just how integrated across the
    country these systems are. And at the moment, from our
    perspective, they appeared designed to reward or induce
    particular kinds of behavior. It is not exactly clear what
    sorts of punishments will follow for having a low score.
        We know that if you have got a good score, for example, you
    are more likely to be able to enroll your child in the school
    that you want, or you will not have problems doing things like
    buying plane tickets or accessing State services. But if you
    have a low score, you can run into problems.
        And, of course, in a normal world, this might just be sort
    of a consumer rating system maybe. But we are talking about an
    environment in which the law is whatever the Chinese Communist
    Party says it is when it says it is that. And there is no right
    to privacy, and there is no way for people to know fully how
    they are being rated, what the consequences are. It is an
    entirely arbitrary system.
        And in a way, I think to the extent some people inside
    China have expressed enthusiasm for this idea, that is as much
    a commentary on how politicized and corrupt the legal system is
    in not being able to deliver consistent verdicts about what
    behavior has been codified by law, it is----
        Mrs. Wagner. The repression and the brainwashing is
    significant. My time has expired. I want to thank you all for
    being here, for your courage. And everyone who sits behind that
    this Congress and this committee care deeply about bringing
    light to this process and this disgraceful humanitarian regime.
        So I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Sherman. Yes. Dr. Richardson, when the Chinese
    diplomats were in my office, they denied the social scoring
    system even existed. Do organs of the Chinese government at
    least admit that this is happening? Or do they consistently
    deny? Or is it like they deny on Mondays and admit it on
    Tuesday?
        Dr. Richardson. Well, I mean, let's recall that this is the
    government that denied for a year was arbitrarily detaining any
    Uyghurs, and then, you know, and there is----
        Mr. Sherman. But is the Chinese government on record as
    saying they are developing a social scoring system? Or do they
    try to deny it constantly?
        Dr. Richardson. You know, some parts of the government have
    publicly acknowledged the social credit system, mostly at the
    municipal level, governments that are using it for access to
    local public services. But, no, there is evidence out there. It
    is not a problem.
        Mr. Sherman. And they claim that they will lower their
    tariffs, we will lower ours, and we will have fair trade. Can
    this system be used to punish either individuals or companies
    that choose to buy products or services from the United States
    when they could have bought them from Chinese companies?
        Dr. Richardson. I do not think we have any information to
    answer that question yet. So I guess I would default to a more
    general observation that it is our arbitrary, right?
        Mr. Sherman. Right. And we do know that it is the position
    of the Chinese government, buy the Chinese products, and that
    is one of the reasons why we have the world's--the largest
    trade deficit in history with China.
        The World Bank is supposed to be helping countries that are
    trying to develop. We had Mnuchin come before the Financial
    Services Committee and think it was a great victory that China
    was only going to get $1 billion--turns out it is closer to 2
    billion--of concessionary loans from the World Bank, including
    our money.
        But it particularly troubles me, in light of this hearing,
    I am told that the World Bank currently funds several
    vocational schools in Xinjiang. Does the World Bank have the
    capacity to make sure that those schools are not part of this
    incarceration/retraining system? Mr. Jawdat?
        Mr. Jawdat. I just wanted to add, like as a comment, like
    to your question is, well, like you said it is that more than
    $1 billion, some part is from our money, that some part is
    coming from my tax in the U.S. that I am making, I am paying
    for the government. And then it is being used to put my mom in
    the camp.
        Mr. Sherman. Why the U.S. Government has not drawn a line
    about our participation in the World Bank and demanded a zero
    approach to subsidizing the Chinese government is something I
    addressed to Mr. Mnuchin, and you may want to address to the
    Administration as well.
        I know the State Department is not represented here at this
    hearing, but is the United States doing all we can to get our
    diplomats and to get nonprofit--rather, non-governmental
    organizations access to Xinjiang? Does anyone know? I do not
    even know if we are even trying. Dr. Richardson?
        Dr. Richardson. I think it is a little bit different for
    diplomats and for NGO's. I certainly would not object to the
    State Department being more adventurous, actually trying to
    send diplomats to----
        Mr. Sherman. I certainly have not read any report of
    anybody making it from our embassy in Beijing out to western
    China.
        Dr. Richardson. I think their calculation is that they
    would be so heavily surveilled they would be turned around on
    arrival. And, look, that is the reality. That would happen. But
    I think at this point the U.S. should be considering, for
    example, stating explicitly that it is pursuing consular cases.
    There are plenty of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents
    who have family members who have been detained.
        Mr. Sherman. Right.
        Dr. Richardson. I see no reason why the State Department
    could not be more aggressive in trying to visit the region to
    try--with the explicit stated purpose of trying to visit those
    family members, even if they do get turned back. Let that be
    reported.
        Mr. Sherman. Exactly. And I would point out that Chinese
    diplomats fly around our country as they will. What can the
    United States do to ensure that Americans are not purchasing
    goods made with forced labor?
        Dr. Zenz. I think the U.S. Government is becoming aware of
    the issue slowly. I have done my part in this. The problem is,
    the forced labor situation is very complex and very
    complicated. It does not just involve internment camp labor. It
    involves involuntary training, putting women into small-scale
    village factories, and transferring minorities to work in
    participating larger corporations in eastern China. And that is
    one of the examples I gave in my testimony.
        And so the problem is there is a lack of understanding and
    awareness, especially of the cross-linkages between Xinjiang
    and eastern China. And I think it would be very good if the
    U.S. Government, for example, sent a strong signal, a strong
    message of concern to the business community, because my
    impression is that the business community is just really trying
    to get away with whatever they can as we have seen in recent
    weeks.
        Mr. Sherman. I am going to sneak in one question quickly,
    because I do not know if anybody has an answer. Do any of you
    have a view as to why the Trump Administration has not used the
    Global Magnitsky sanctions on a single Chinese official, not
    even the party secretary for Xinjiang?
        Let the record show no one could answer the question.
        Dr. Zenz. I have heard through the grapevine that the
    Treasury Department--and this is not my personal observation,
    but it has been heard through--it has been rumored through
    several grapevines, let's put it that way, and it has become
    almost maybe public knowledge that the Treasury, which is, you
    know, primarily of course responsible for agreeing to the
    Magnitsky, did not in any way want human rights considerations
    in Xinjiang to impact the trade negotiations. So prioritizing
    the trade negotiations.
        Mr. Sherman. One would hope that people would read the
    statute and realize you cannot ignore human rights statutes,
    even if you think that is achieving another purpose.
        With that, I will recognize the ranking member.
        Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate
    everybody's testimony. I think it all comes down to the money,
    and I am going to address that later.
        But first off, I want to say how blessed I am to have been
    born in America, to live in this country, because I--and I feel
    guilty for not appreciating it every day. But when I see you
    holding up signs and pictures of your family members, how
    fleeting freedom is, and how fortunate we are in this country.
    Thank you all for being here. Thank you all for braving coming
    out in public.
        And I am going to ask the audience again, of the members of
    your family that have been picked up and sent so-called to the
    re-education camps, how many of those did that freewill? I see
    no hands, so I would say none.
        How many were gainfully employed and law-abiding citizens
    before they got picked up? How many? Your mother was? Anybody
    else?
        All the pictures here, these people had jobs? They were
    working? They were lawfully employed? Law-abiding citizens? How
    many of them were deemed terrorist or were troublemakers? That
    is what we know, yet China says it is for their own good.
        We have talked to other members from Xinjiang, pharmacists,
    accountants, doctors, that were just living their life, and
    they had a belief, a religious belief. And I wanted to say to
    Ambassador Wagner that the Pope is going to have some
    explaining to do when he meets up at the Pearly Gates of St.
    Peter's that he has put God under the Chinese Communist Party,
    because China said that there is no God.
        Dr. Richardson, you brought out--you talked about, can you
    send this committee and my office the letter you sent to the 50
    universities?
        Dr. Richardson. Of course.
        Mr. Yoho. I would like to help you have a followup with
    that.
        Dr. Richardson. Thank you.
        Mr. Yoho. Because I want that answer, too, because we have
    asked that. We cannot dictate to China. We cannot force China
    to do anything. The message we need to send to China is--and to
    our manufacturers is to institute what we have deemed the ABC
    policy in manufacturing, and that is called manufacture
    anywhere but China, because it is about the money.
        The only thing that allows China to do what they are doing
    is because of the money. They have cornered the market on the
    rare earth metals. They have cornered the market--100 percent--
    of the vitamins and minerals that go into our livestock feed.
    They control 85 to 90 percent of the APIs, which are the active
    pharmaceutical ingredients. And the list goes on and on and on.
        And so we cannot force them to do anything, but we sure can
    put public pressure on our manufacturers. We can put public
    pressure on the NBA. And it makes me sick that they come out in
    defense of China, but yet they are actively supporting a
    government that is actively suppressing the people. And it is
    just not the people of China. It is what we see in Hong Kong.
        And thank you for standing up and doing what you do, Joey.
    I have followed you and this protest over the weekend. I want
    you to know that it is not going unnoticed. It is noticed here
    in the United States of America. It is noticed around the
    world. And as the chairman said, the more you can do it
    peacefully, the stronger the message is, because China cannot--
    they do not know how to deal with freedom of thought, because
    you do not honor the Chinese Communist Party on a pedestal and
    bow down to it, because that is not the way we are designed.
        But you know what we can do, is when I went shopping this
    weekend to do some projects around the home, I had to buy
    something. It was made in China. I put it back, and I looked
    until I found something that was made in the country of Taiwan.
    I paid $1.50 more--maybe extra for it, and I am happy to
    support the country of Taiwan over supporting a Communist
    regime that I know is not looking out for humans and human
    rights.
        And so that is what we can do individually as people. And
    if enough of us do that, that message gets over there clear,
    and I think with the people releasing those 400 pages, I think
    that is awesome, and that person should get the Nobel Peace
    Prize when this all settles, because these people on--this is
    what we are fighting--the suppression of people that have
    normal family lives. It is just because they choose to have a
    religion that the Chinese Communist Party does not agree with.
        We have seen this in Tibet. We have seen the erosion of the
    Tibetan culture. The Chinese government has put drugs in there
    to dilute that society. They are doing it in Xinjiang. They
    want to do it in Hong Kong. Who is next?
        When I first took over the chairman--if you do not mind me,
    Mr. Chairman--when I first took over the chairmanship last
    Congress of this committee, we had a meeting with the country
    of Taiwan. My office staff--one of them is right here--said
    that the Chinese Ambassadors called them, says, ``We do not
    want your member to have that meeting.''
        Can you imagine that? I am a sitting member of the U.S.
    Congress, and I am getting a call from--the Ambassador from
    China says, ``You cannot have that meeting.'' I told them to
    mind their own business; I will meet with whomever I want to.
        I was in the country of Chile with a Congressman down
    there. His brother had received two ambulances from the country
    of China. His brother is the mayor in a town. The Congressman
    was having a meeting with the country of Taiwan. China told
    him, ``If your brother has that meeting with Taiwan, you will
    not get any more ambulances.'' That is the kind of reach they
    have.
        Dr. Richardson, you brought up the effect on our
    educational system. You obviously saw what was going on in
    Canada over the weekend and last week. Pro-Beijing people were
    demonstrating and causing conflict with the people that stood
    up for the human rights and the people standing up in Hong
    Kong. This is something we, as people of free societies, can
    and will and will stand together to make this come to an end.
        I do not want to buy anything from China. When they start
    acting properly, maybe they will have to sing Amazing Grace or
    something. I do not know what it is. But then we will treat
    them as normal.
        With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and thank you for
    your time.
        Mr. Sherman. I recognize the gentlelady from Nevada.
        Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I realize that today's
    committee hearing is about the egregious abuses by China of
    human rights. But it goes much further than that. This is more
    than just bilateral relations between China and the U.S. It is
    multinational, and it certainly is a regional problem.
        I would ask Dr. Richardson if we could pick up where Ami
    Bera left off. It seems to me there is a double dilemma here.
    On the one hand, the U.S. is conceding its leadership role in
    the protection of human rights. I think that is international,
    but certainly an example is China. On the other hand, China is
    in a position where it can exert economic and security
    pressures on certain countries.
        So when we tell them, ``Do as I say, not as I do, but you
    have to do this or we will put sanctions,'' how are they going
    to balance their attempts to protect human rights with that
    pressure that they are receiving from China? And what can we do
    to try to intercede there, to be a player again?
        Dr. Richardson. I think that is sort of the $64,000
    question of our time. I think, first, the U.S. has to make sure
    that it is itself fully compliant, and behaving in accordance
    with established international human rights law.
        I would refer you to my colleagues who work on the U.S. to
    speak more specifically to some of those issues. But I think
    the U.S. has been slow to recognize and respond to the ways
    that--the many different ways that the Chinese government and
    Communist Party have moved into all different spaces of
    international relations. It is not just about U.S. development
    assistance competing with, for example, the Belt and Road
    Initiative.
        There are very complex discussions about the use of
    technology and who is going to set and defend international
    standards on things like privacy rights, or who own certain
    kinds of technology and can deploy that. There are a lot of
    different areas where I think the U.S. has some catching up to
    do in crafting policies that are consistent with international
    human rights standards, but also offer compelling alternatives
    to countries that are increasingly dependent on Chinese
    government money.
        Ms. Titus. Anybody else?
        Mr. Jawdat. One example I think of is the overwhelming
    passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act from the House.
    Like right after that, Australia and then the EU yesterday,
    they implemented their own Magnitsky sanctions for the human
    rights abusers. So even before that bill becomes a law there is
    already enough momentum around the globe that other countries
    are following the U.S. steps.
        So it is really--like many great things start from here. So
    once that bill becomes a law, it is really a great chance for
    other countries to really stand up, and then it will give you
    another like alliance, and then another power to go after
    China.
        Dr. Zenz. The biggest problem, the Chinese are very good at
    strategy, and they have always been for a long time. And I know
    that you pick countries out one by one, so the strategy is to
    isolate and to bilateral.
        The approach to contain China's human rights violation that
    we need to take must be multilateral. And China, knowing that,
    has moved to paralyze and co-opt the few multilateral
    institutions that we actually have. And that I think is the No.
    1 problem that we are facing, and that must be recognized. And
    I am not sure where the right solution even starts, but I think
    that is the key problem and a lot of countries are afraid to
    counter China very directly.
        I mean, look at Sweden. I mean, they just took a Swedish
    citizen, you know, in front of diplomats and put them--Gui
    Minhai--put him in prison. Yes, he is ethnic Chinese, so they
    think he is one of the, no matter what his passport is. And
    Sweden is not even publicly doing anything about it, and then
    the Chinese Ambassador to Sweden regularly lashes out at the
    media and everything.
        And then one of the Swedish ministers was going to attend a
    ceremony to honor or commemorate or something Gui Minhai, their
    detained citizen. And then Chinese Ambassador to Sweden
    threatened that if the minister would attend that she would get
    on a blacklist, a Chinese blacklist.
        If I was head of Sweden, I mean, I would not just say
    something, but I would say something strong. And I have no idea
    what these people do and how they think that they can get
    pushed around, but I think this is more than ridiculous. And it
    is amazing it has even gotten this far.
        Ms. Titus. Well, when you create a trade war, and then try
    to resolve it and make that the priority as opposed to human
    rights, that is the kind of results that you get here in this
    country. We seem to be afraid to stand up as well. That is the
    problem.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        For the record, if China is watching, I hope you put me on
    the blacklist. I would be honored.
        Mr. Yoho. I will be with you.
        Mr. Sherman. Good. And Mr. Yoho, too.
        For the record, I want to apologize for not calling on the
    gentleman from Michigan first, and I will call on Ms.
    Spanberger for her questions, and we will see if the gentleman
    from Michigan makes it back.
        Ms. Spanberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And to our witnesses, thank you for being here today.
        To all of the families who are present, thank you for your
    continued activism. Thank you for being here with photographs.
    Thank you for reminding Members of Congress what exactly it is
    that you are working for.
        And I see my colleague has just entered. Okay. I will
    continue. Thank you to my colleague from Michigan.
        Dr. Richardson, my question is for you. In your opening
    statement you said something to the effect of ``To commit human
    rights offenses, China does not need handcuffs. They need DNA
    sequences'' or ``they will be using DNA sequences.'' And
    through artificial intelligence and the use of more than 200
    surveillance cameras, China is developing the capability to
    conduct widespread surveillance and enforce social control.
        These capabilities, specifically the use of biometrics,
    facial, voice, iris, and gait recognition software, and
    pervasive video monitoring, are being used extensively in
    Xinjiang to identify individuals who Chinese authorities
    consider threatening.
        I am concerned about China's development of artificial
    intelligence surveillance technology, but I am also very
    concerned about reports that China is exporting this technology
    to other countries for their potentially repressive purposes.
        How can policymakers prevent U.S. actors from contributing
    either through the provision of capital or technology to the
    construction of the Chinese government's surveillance networks?
        Dr. Richardson. It is a big question. I mean, the first key
    piece clearly is knowing who is selling what, and how that
    technology is being used. I mean, the nearly 2-year-long
    conversation that we had with Thermo Fisher Scientific, a
    Massachusetts-based technology firm, revolved largely around
    the fact that they were extremely reluctant to acknowledge the
    possibility that their technology might be used in a really
    nasty way.
        So I think the conversation really has to start with
    understanding what technology is being sold and to whom and how
    it is actually being used. And the reference to handcuffs was
    that the sanctions that went into--that the U.S. imposed after
    Tiananmen, which have weakened considerably, were largely about
    crowd control or police equipment.
        But what has not kept up is U.S. legislation that responds
    to what Chinese police are now using as tools of repression. It
    is a very different set of equipment. So I think the relevant
    committees really need to look at who is selling what to whom,
    especially in light of either the addition of the Xinjiang
    public security bureau to the entities list, and the greater
    focus on some of the Chinese tech companies.
        We actually wrote in 2014 about ZTE selling voice
    recognition software to the Ethiopian government, which was at
    the time using that equipment to surveil conversations by the
    political opposition. This is knowable information. Some of us
    are working in different ways on gathering some of it, but
    presumably Congress has resources at its disposal to do a
    broader survey.
        But I think one piece of this I would encourage you to
    focus on that has not gotten as much attention as we think it
    should is also the role of sort of research and development and
    some academics and institutions in working with Chinese public
    security research institutes--such things exist--and there has
    actually been an alarming amount of collaboration between
    foreign experts and those institutions with a view toward
    refining technology.
        Last but not least, it is concerning to us that there is
    ongoing cooperation between some of the companies that are now
    on the entities list and U.S. universities. MIT's flagship
    computer science laboratory has an ongoing partnership with
    iFlytek. I do not quite understand how that works now, but
    iFlytek is on the entities list.
        But in the same way that we need to look at what
    universities are doing with respect to academic freedom, I
    think there is also room to look at what they are doing in
    terms of collaboration with some of these kinds of companies.
        Ms. Spanberger. Thank you very much.
        And, Mr. Chairman, I do not have a timer, so I think I am
    running short. But I want to thank the witnesses, and I yield
    back.
        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        And now I will yield as much time as he may consume to the
    very patient gentleman from Michigan, who I should have called
    on earlier.
        Mr. Levin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of all,
    I want to congratulate you on your outstanding leadership of
    this subcommittee. I do not know if this is the last hearing
    you preside over before you move on to other leadership duties,
    but I really want to thank you personally for your great work
    here.
        And I want to say to--on this Human Rights Day--we could,
    sadly, spend days of hearings on different human rights
    problems in China--the surveillance State and their sort of
    global reach on those issues, which you were just talking
    about, the situation in Xinjiang. And I give a shout-out to all
    of our Uyghur brothers and sisters. We see you. We hear you. We
    are going to fight for you, no matter what it takes, until we
    can take apart this repressive gulag, really, that exists in
    Xinjiang.
        And in Hong Kong, Ms. Siu, I was in Hong Kong in May, late
    May 1989, when over a million people took to the streets in the
    democracy movement. And I just salute your brave activism
    there.
        But later in that summer, I went on to Chengdu and tried to
    get into Tibet, and I want to focus my questions on the
    situation in Tibet. On my way, I was not able--Tibet was closed
    in 1989, and I was in Chengdu during the Tiananmen Massacre,
    and that is a whole other story.
        But anyway, on the way home--I was a graduate student in
    Tibetan philosophy--and on my way home I interviewed the Dalai
    Lama in Los Angeles. And then a couple months later, 30 years
    ago today, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Thirty years
    ago today, and it is very sad to see what has happened to the
    Tibetan nation since then.
        So, Dr. Richardson, one problem is that U.S. policymakers
    have little access to the Tibet autonomous region, and they
    have been denied access to it. The United States has requested
    permission to open a consulate in Lhasa and been repeatedly
    denied.
        What should the U.S. do about this? Should we prohibit
    China from opening up any new consulates here until the Chinese
    Party allows us to open a consulate in Lhasa? I mean, how can
    we monitor human rights there or support the Tibetan people
    there if we do not--we are not there?
        Dr. Richardson. Well, I mean, first of all, I think that is
    a reasonable strategy to try. Doing good research on human
    rights violations in Tibet is extremely challenging, and I
    would say that that is maybe one of the only things that has
    prepared us for some of the work that we have been doing over
    the last couple of years on Xinjiang, where one has to be
    incredibly patient and puzzle pieces of information together.
        The information flows have narrowed considerably,
    particularly as there are greater restrictions on Tibetan
    language social media and Tibetan's access to social media.
        Mr. Levin. Right.
        Dr. Richardson. The numbers of Tibetans leaving the region
    have plummeted. The numbers of people who used to come out
    through Nepal are a tiny fraction of what they were 10 years
    ago, and it is much more difficult for people to get into the
    region.
        That said, human beings are creative in how they manage to
    get information out. We have been doing some work on access to
    bilingual education, which is not bilingual, and have actually
    managed, through various channels, to obtain some testimoneys,
    that speak to what is happening in the region, and we encourage
    anybody who is able to do that kind of work and share those
    stories safely to do so.
        I think the U.S. has resources to know what is happening in
    the region. It would be good if it was a little bit more vocal.
        Mr. Levin. Right. Well, that is a whole other matter we may
    or may not have time to get to. But let's talk about the whole
    question of the succession of the Dalai Lama.
        The 14th Dalai Lama has said that he alone has the
    legitimate authority to--about where and how he would be
    reincarnated, but trying to signal its intention to control the
    process. Of course, we have the famous situation with the
    Panchen Lama, who they said they picked their own and then he
    is--he and his parents have never been seen since.
        I just want to emphasize that Tibet has four major--there
    are four major sects of Tibetan Buddhism, and they all have
    many reincarnate lamas. And the Dalai Lama sect, which has been
    for a long time sort of politically most powerful, would never
    dream of telling the Sakyas or the Kagyus, or whatever, who the
    reincarnate lamas are. I mean, there is no--it is a
    completely--it is a question of religious freedom, and they
    think they believe that this is actually a reincarnation
    process. So a government cannot pick someone.
        So it is especially shocking. But what is--what do you
    think we can do--I mean, what do you see as the outcome of this
    dispute given what has happened with the Panchem Lama and the
    wildly higher stakes of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama?
    What is going to happen here?
        Dr. Richardson. Well, I think one succinct, to answer, is
    to say that any Dalai Lama chosen by Beijing will be completely
    devoid of any legitimacy, both in a spiritual or a religious
    sense, but also in I think a diplomatic and political sense.
        You know, it is painfully clear, both by basic human logic
    and international law, that the right to make those decisions
    pertains solely to the community that is affected by them. And
    I think one of the best aspects of the legislation that is
    under consideration is making that view unambiguously the U.S.
    Government.
        Mr. Levin. The policy of the United States, yes.
        Dr. Richardson. And I think going out and making common
    cause with like-minded governments on that position will be
    helpful.
        Mr. Levin. So how long have you been doing human rights
    work for Human Rights Watch or otherwise?
        Dr. Richardson. I joined Human Rights Watch in February
    2006.
        Mr. Levin. So can you comment on the weight that the Trump
    Administration has given human rights vis-a-vis other aspects
    of foreign trade, military policy, U.S. national security, in
    terms of your experience with the Obama and the George W. Bush
    Administrations? With China, in general, and not just Tibet.
        Dr. Richardson. In 15 seconds?
        Mr. Levin. No. No. My chairman was good enough to give us--
    so when you are--my time will expire whenever you are doing.
    You have as long as you wish.
        [Laughter.]
        Dr. Richardson. I think----
        Mr. Sherman. But then it will expire.
        Dr. Richardson. Be careful what you offer. I think the
    Trump Administration's much more aggressive posture toward
    China is a very welcome change. We have been saying for over a
    decade this is a government that presents a serious threat not
    just to the 1.4 billion people inside China, but to the world.
        And while President Trump's loathsome remarks about
    President Xi is his best friend or that he is a brilliant guy
    or these sorts of things, are I think deeply problematic
    because they allow the Chinese leadership to choose which
    version is actually U.S. policy.
        I think the Trump Administration gets credit for doing
    things like, you know, trying to find, you know, solutions or
    support for people in the community here who are being harassed
    for speaking relentlessly about religious freedom. The rhetoric
    has been good, look that we have seen additions to the entities
    list. I mean, these are not--these are not small steps to take.
        And I suspect that the U.S.-China policy will never be
    quite the same again, which is as much a function of the
    Chinese government's aggression and its terrible track record
    on human rights issues, but I think U.S. policymakers across
    the spectrum are much more not just clear-eyed, I do not mean
    to suggest that people in the past did not understand this, but
    I think people are much more focused on what the stakes are and
    what steps they need to take now to ensure that there is
    actually some accountability and some way of pushing back
    against Beijing's encroachments, not just on rights but on
    others' use, too.
        Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
        Rather than adjourn, I am going to ask one question of Ms.
    Siu because I do not believe you have been asked a question. On
    November 24th, Hong Kong held elections for district council. A
    record 4.13 million people were registered to vote. Almost 3
    million people voted, turnout over 71 percent. The pro-
    democracy candidates won 388 seats, up from 126, with a similar
    decline on the pro-establishment candidates.
        As a result, the pro-democracy bloc will hold a majority in
    17 out of 18 of the district councils. You knew all of that. My
    question is: what possible leverage does the protest movement
    gain from that landslide victory? And what impact will these
    district council elections have on the legislative council
    elections in 2020?
        Ms. Siu. Well, so, first of all, on the 24th of November,
    the pro-democracy camp gained 85 percent of the district
    council seats in the 2019 district council election. And there
    are actually several symbolic meanings that the result brings
    us. First of all, it is a very encouraging signal that
    signifies that the majority of Hong Kongers are still in
    support of the five demands that the protestors had been asking
    for for the past 6 months.
        And it is actually also a very great advantage that the
    pro-democracy camp gained, that we got more financial resources
    in support to our--to the political prisoners that are put in
    jail and will be put in jail after the trial is brought to
    court.
        However, one very uncomfortable truth is that the
    legislative power that the district council counselors have are
    actually really small comparing to the legislative council
    counselors. And we Hong Kongers are expecting to win more
    States in the legislative council election.
        However, another question about the district--about the
    legislative council election is that even when we got most of
    the States for the directly elected legislative councils, most
    of the seats of the functional constituencies are still in
    hands of the pro-democracy--in the hands of the pro-Beijing
    side. And that is a very grave problem that hinders any acts or
    bills that are in a foundation of the pro-democracy side or
    Hong Kongers, only bills that benefits pro-Beijing camps or the
    businessmen will get passed into legislative council.
        So that is why--that is also one of the reasons why we had
    been asking for an authentic universal suffrage from both the
    executive branch and also the legislative branch, because that
    is the only way to grant this, and to grant Hong Kongers a
    responsive government, and also legislative counselors that
    draft bills that benefits Hong Kongers.
        Mr. Sherman. Thank you for your response. I want to thank
    my colleagues for being here.
        And we now stand adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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