[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  CONTROL OF RELIGION IN CHINA THROUGH 
                       DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM
=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

              CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
 
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 


              Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov

                              __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-647 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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              CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                    LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

Senate                                     House

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Chair          JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts,  
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California                 Co-chair
MARCO RUBIO, Florida                 CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma             THOMAS SUOZZI, New York
TOM COTTON, Arkansas                 TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey
STEVE DAINES, Montana                BRIAN MAST, Florida
ANGUS KING, Maine                    VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan
                                     JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
                                     MICHELLE STEEL, California

                     EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

               DANIEL K. KRITENBRINK, Department of State

                  MARISA LAGO, Department of Commerce

                   THEA MEI LEE, Department of Labor

                 LISA JO PETERSON, Department of State

                     UZRA ZEYA, Department of State

                      Matt Squeri, Staff Director

                   Todd Stein, Deputy Staff Director

                                  (ii)


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               Statements

                                                                   Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from 
  Oregon; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.....     1
Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern, a U.S. Representative from 
  Massachusetts; Co-chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on 
  China..........................................................     2
Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from New 
  Jersey.........................................................     3
Statement of Nury Turkel, Chair of the U.S. Commission on 
  International Religious Freedom................................     5
Statement of Karrie Koesel, Associate Professor, University of 
  Notre Dame.....................................................    18
Statement of Chris Meserole, Director of Research, Artificial 
  Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative, Brookings 
  Institution....................................................    20
Statement of Emile Dirks, Postdoctoral Fellow, Citizen Lab.......    22

                                APPENDIX
                          Prepared Statements

Turkel, Nury.....................................................    33
Koesel, Karrie J.................................................    34
Meserole, Chris..................................................    38
Dirks, Emile.....................................................    44

Merkley, Hon. Jeff...............................................    53
McGovern, Hon. James P...........................................    53

                       Submissions for the Record

Statement of Freedom House.......................................    55
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    58
Witness Biographies..............................................    50

                                 (iii)

 
     CONTROL OF RELIGION IN CHINA THROUGH DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM

                              ----------                              


                      TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

                            Congressional-Executive
                                       Commission on China,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The hearing was held from 10:00 a.m.to 11:43 a.m., via 
videoconference, Senator Jeff Merkley, Chair, Congressional-
Executive Commission on China, presiding.
    Also present: Representative James P. McGovern, Co-chair, 
Senator Ossoff, and Representatives Smith and Hartzler.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 
   OREGON; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

    Chair Merkley. Good morning. Today's hearing of the 
Congressional-Executive Commission on China entitled ``Control 
of Religion in China through Digital Authoritarianism'' will 
come to order.
    Before we turn to the subject of this hearing, I'd like to 
take a moment to acknowledge and thank President Biden for his 
recent appointment of five executive branch commissioners to 
this Commission. This marks the first time in nearly six years 
that the Commission includes executive branch commissioners. 
Their appointment will bolster our ability to bring the 
expertise and perspective of the various branches of government 
to our work monitoring human rights and the rule of law in 
China. As we develop recommendations for legislative, 
executive, and international action, dialogue to coordinate our 
efforts will be critical, as it has been in recent years, in 
implementing legislation spearheaded by this Commission, such 
as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the Uyghur Human 
Rights Policy Act, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy 
Act, and more.
    I look forward to working closely with our new 
commissioners. Those commissioners are Assistant Secretary of 
State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, 
Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Marisa 
Lago, Under Secretary of Labor for International Affairs Thea 
Lee, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of 
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Lisa Peterson, and Under 
Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human 
Rights Uzra Zeya. Welcome to our new commissioners. We are 
absolutely delighted to have you.
    Today our hearing focuses on freedom of religion, 
particularly recent developments in Chinese authorities' use of 
technology to crack down on the free exercise of religion. 
While many of our hearings explore violations of religious 
freedom--in Xinjiang, Tibet, and elsewhere--this is our first 
hearing dedicated to this topic since 2018. Recent Chinese 
Communist Party steps to use digital repression to strengthen 
control of religion make this an especially timely hearing. As 
more religious activity and resources move online, especially 
in response to COVID, Chinese officials have expanded their use 
of digital tools to surveil and suppress online religious 
expression. Invasive surveillance technologies and mass 
biometric data collection track and monitor religious groups 
that authorities deem to be a threat.
    In March of this year, new measures for the administration 
of internet religious information services went into effect, 
which require a government-issued permit to post religious 
content online and which ban the online broadcasting of 
religious ceremonies, rites, and services, among a host of 
other restrictions infringing on Chinese citizens' freedom of 
religion. These measures control how individuals and 
communities worship, with the aim of sinicizing religion to 
conform with Party priorities. As we will hear today, those 
priorities are political and social control. To achieve that 
control, Chinese authorities cite objectives like combating 
crime and countering so-called religious extremism as they 
undermine fundamental human rights. The recent UN High 
Commissioner for Human Rights report on Xinjiang calls this 
what it is, a pretext that conflates personal religious choice 
with extremism and leads to severe human rights abuses.
    Our first witness today is one of the most powerful voices 
in the world when it comes to exposing these abuses and 
advocating for those who simply wish to exercise their basic 
rights. I'm honored that Nury Turkel is here with us. After we 
hear his perspective, our second panel of eminent experts will 
help us understand the tools of digital surveillance and 
repression, the risks of this model of authoritarian management 
of religion spreading to other countries, and recommendations 
for how defenders of religious freedom can respond. I look 
forward to our witnesses' testimony.
    I'd now like to recognize my co-chair, Congressman 
McGovern, for his opening remarks.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
MASSACHUSETTS; CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON 
                             CHINA

    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to 
our witnesses. Religious freedom has been at the core of the 
Commission's work since its founding, and I appreciate your 
scheduling this hearing on this important topic. The Chinese 
government's record on religious freedom is as atrocious as it 
is well documented, including by this Commission and by the 
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose chair 
we're honored to have as a witness today. In our thoughts today 
are the prisoners of conscience who have had their religious 
liberty violated by the Chinese government. It is our moral 
responsibility to help them tell their stories and those of the 
people whose voices do not reach us.
    Today's hearing will focus on new and insidious methods 
authorities are using to exert control over religious practice, 
including online regulation and digital surveillance 
technologies. The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion 
or belief last year reported that the Chinese government 
reportedly uses biometrics, digital surveillance, and personal 
data for behavioral analysis for identifying ``extremist'' or 
``unhealthy'' thought. He notes that such technologies used in 
the counterterrorism context threaten freedom of thought.
    This aligns with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' 
recent report on Xinjiang, which explains how Chinese officials 
misused counterterrorism policy to brutally repress Uyghurs and 
other Turkic Muslims and deny their ability to practice their 
religion and cultural heritage. This shows how the right to 
freedom of religion intersects with other fundamental rights--
the freedoms of speech and association, equal protection, due 
process, presumption of innocence--all of which are protected 
under international human rights law.
    In this light, I hope the witnesses will expand on the 
meaning of sinicization of religion--a process to coerce 
religious believers' allegiance to the state and the Party. We 
also want to understand how sinicization manipulates the 
teaching of religious principles to imply that they support the 
Party's ideology. It appears that the Party is exploiting 
religion as a means to impose social control.
    Last month, a group of UN experts, including the special 
rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, issued a statement 
against the cynical abuse of religion or belief as a tool of 
discrimination, hostility, and violence, and noted that 
international law rejects any attempt to use religion or belief 
as justification for the destruction of the rights and freedoms 
of others. USCIRF (the U.S. Commission on International 
Religious Freedom) shows that the United States seeks to be a 
leader in promoting international religious freedom. To be 
effective, however, we must live up to the standards we demand 
of other countries. We lack credibility in criticizing China 
for using religion as a pretext to restrict other liberties if 
our own government, including at the state level, engages in 
the same behavior.
    Two final points. One, while China officially only 
recognizes five religions, our analysis and advocacy must 
recognize that there is a stunningly wide array of religious 
belief in the country. PRC regulation not only harms religious 
freedom but its diversity, too. Lastly, as China suffers from a 
devastating heat wave, I am interested in how restrictions on 
religion undermine the cause of environmental protection, given 
the links between spirituality and nature within Buddhism and 
Daoism, for example. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look 
forward to the testimony.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Congressman McGovern.
    Congressman Smith, did you wish to make some opening 
remarks?

                 STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH,
             A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY

    Representative Smith. Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Chairman. I want to thank you for organizing this very 
important hearing on an extremely important topic. Digital 
authoritarianism perhaps is too benign a phrase for what we are 
seeing take place today in Xi Jinping's China. Rather, it's 
digital totalitarianism or techno-totalitarianism, if you 
prefer the alliteration, for nothing more clearly illustrates 
the fundamental distinction between authoritarianism and 
totalitarianism than this attempt by Xi Jinping to dictate the 
beliefs of one's innermost conscience and how one forms the 
very thoughts to lift up in prayer to God.
    Xi Jinping dictates, in effect, the totality of society, 
for there is nothing beyond the Communist Party decrees. This 
is not simply authoritarianism, but a dictator that lets the 
priest or preacher think of things of God and theology, though 
once he steps out into the political realm in criticizing the 
government he is subjected to arrest and silencing. Rather, we 
see under Xi Jinping the sinicization of the very content of 
belief, the rewriting of the words of scripture--be it the 
Bible, Sutra, or Koran--to conform with Xi Jinping Thought.
    Indeed, one need only go back to the era of Mao Zedong and 
the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution to find anything 
remotely comparable. While Mao particularly hated religions 
deemed foreign, in reality he waged a war against anything that 
smacked of the four olds: old ideas, old culture, old customs, 
old habits. Ironically, the result of Mao's bringing the 
entirety of Chinese society to its knees was a loss of faith in 
the Communist Party, which subsequent economic growth and 
prosperity could never fully restore; plus the growth of 
religious belief and revivalism that we see manifested among 
the Chinese people today, which Xi Jinping now seeks to further 
control.
    In so doing, Xi is able to draw upon technology, the likes 
of which the Mao Zedongs could only dream of, from artificial 
intelligence, to tracking apps, which bring us closer than ever 
before to the nightmare envisioned by George Orwell. Again, 
this totalitarianism is not simply authoritarianism. In 2018, I 
wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post entitled ``The World 
Must Stand against China's War on Religion.'' In it I stated, 
``The ruling Chinese Communist Party has undertaken the most 
comprehensive attempt to manipulate and control or destroy 
religious communities since Mao made the eradication of 
religion a goal of his disastrous Cultural Revolution half a 
century ago. Now Xi, apparently fearing the power of 
independent religious belief as a challenge to the Communist 
Party's legitimacy, is trying to radically transform religion 
into the Party's servant, employing a draconian policy known as 
sinicization.''
    That was in 2018, when the Party was implementing a five-
year plan to bend religion to the goal of building a socialist 
society, as we've seen in documents such as the online outline 
of the five-year working plan for promoting the sinicization of 
Christianity. That's their plan. That document contains 
principles which are applied broadly to all religious believers 
and must be observed, such as: ``embrace and support the 
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, be guided by the 
core values of socialism, and endorse the system, ways, 
theories, and culture of our country's development, integrate 
outstanding Chinese traditional culture with advanced socialist 
culture.''
    Five years from 2018 brings us to today. Since then, the 
repression has only gotten worse, with the Chinese Communist 
Party under Xi exercising greater control over the content of 
religious education and the content of scripture, while 
extending his grip geographically to the once-free bastion of 
Hong Kong, where even the towering giant of religious freedom, 
Cardinal Zen, was arrested in May of this year, and his trial 
is scheduled to begin next week. I pause here to call upon Pope 
Francis to speak out with clarity and conviction on behalf of 
Cardinal Zen and the persecuted church in Hong Kong and China. 
With that, again, I look forward to our witnesses and yield 
back to you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, again, for the hearing.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Congressman Smith.
    I'd now like to turn to the witness for our first panel, 
Nury Turkel. He is the chair of the U.S. Commission on 
International Religious Freedom. Mr. Turkel was born in a 
reeducation camp, spending the first several months of his life 
in detention with his mother. He came to the United States in 
1995 and was later granted asylum. A lawyer, a foreign policy 
expert, and a human rights advocate, he serves as the chair of 
the board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project and as senior 
fellow at the Hudson Institute. Previously he served as the 
president of the Uyghur American Association. Mr. Turkel, the 
floor is yours.

             STATEMENT OF NURY TURKEL, CHAIR OF THE
       U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

    Mr. Turkel. Good morning, Chairman Merkley, Co-chair 
McGovern, and honorable members of the Commission. Thank you 
very much for inviting me to testify on behalf of the U.S. 
Commission on International Religious Freedom. I appreciate 
your steadfast leadership and continuing attention to the 
Chinese government's assault on religious freedom, targeting 
many ethnic and religious communities across China, including 
Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, underground Catholic and 
Protestant house church Christians, and Falun Gong 
practitioners, just to name a few.
    For decades, the ruling Communist Party has placed religion 
under tight, comprehensive, and coercive control. It exercises 
control by using arbitrary laws and regulations, implementing 
them through a complex but sophisticated web of Party and 
government agencies at all levels, including the CCP's infamous 
United Front Work Department, State Administration for 
Religious Affairs, and China's public security and state 
security apparatus. Anyone suspected of violating the CCP's 
religious policies is severely punished. China's egregious 
abuse against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims is a case in 
point that the United States Government rightfully has formally 
recognized as genocide and crimes against humanity. Even the UN 
High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on Xinjiang 
confirmed that severe violations have occurred and may amount 
to crimes against humanity.
    The crackdown on religion has become increasingly harsh in 
recent years under the brutal rule of CCP leader Xi Jinping, 
leading some experts to call his decade-long reign a bitter 
winter for religious freedom in China. Xi Jinping's new 
regulation on religion, the Measures for the Administration of 
Internet Religious Information Services, represent a new low 
for Xi and his government. Its impact cannot be overstated, as 
the regulation imposes new restrictions on religious 
activities, further constricting the narrow space in which 
religious groups can operate.
    This new regulation has particularly significant and 
adverse effects on independent, unregistered religious 
communities. Because of the government's severe persecution, 
many of them rely on online platforms and resources for 
religious education, training, religious gatherings and 
worship, and other religious activities. These online platforms 
and smartphone apps are often the only viable means through 
which these religious communities can carry out activities and 
connect with one another, especially during the strict COV-19 
lockdown.
    The negative impact of this regulation is already being 
felt across China, since it went into effect in March 2022. 
Chinese authorities have recruited hundreds, if not thousands, 
of auditors to target and censor religious content on the 
internet. Christian and Tibetan Buddhist groups have reported 
that their websites and WeChat virtual groups were shut down 
and are no longer accessible. USCIRF is concerned that this 
regulation will lead to more persecution and abuses, especially 
for groups with foreign connections.
    Regulations also impose tighter restrictions on state-
sanctioned religious groups. These groups are required to 
submit detailed information to authorities to apply for a 
permit to operate online. In addition, they are required to 
self-censor their religious material on the internet. 
Therefore, even state-sanctioned religious groups are not safe 
and could be punished if they are found to be non-compliant 
with government policies.
    We are all aware of the Chinese government routinely 
monitoring actions and censoring all kinds of online content, 
including religious materials. But this new regulation is the 
first of its kind designed to specifically target religious 
content on the internet, and it has created a chilling effect 
on many religious groups and individuals. It is tantamount to a 
total ban on religious activitty, as many groups are no longer 
able to operate in person or online.
    The order to cleanse the internet of any exposure to 
religion came from the highest echelon of the Party, Xi Jinping 
himself. At the 2016 National Conference on Religious Work, 
attended by high-level Party and government officials, Xi 
Jinping expressed particular displeasure toward the phenomenon 
of internet religions. Five years later at the 2021 National 
Conference on Religious Work, Xi again emphasized the need to 
strengthen the management of religious affairs on the internet.
    It is important to note that Xi Jinping sees religion as 
fundamentally connected to national security. As a consequence, 
he has underscored the need to fight against foreign 
infiltration through the use of religion and religious 
extremism, including the internet. This new regulation is an 
integral part of the CCP's sinicization policy to subjugate and 
control all ethnic and religious groups, coercing support and 
loyalty to the CCP's rule and its policies, or else facing 
severe consequences.
    Mr. Chairman, this new regulation is the latest example of 
the CCP expanding and refining its techno-authoritarianism 
toolkit at home. It tries to intimidate and coerce its citizens 
to perpetuate its rule. Ethnic minority regions, Tibet and 
Xinjiang in particular, have borne the brunt of the CCP's 
technology-enhanced brutality in recent years, as this 
Commission has well documented. The CCP has been exporting its 
techno-authoritarianism overseas to countries with poor human 
rights records as well.
    Oppressive regimes can emulate the Chinese model to 
persecute political dissidents and human rights advocates. The 
United States Government and companies must continue to ensure 
that critical technology is not exported to China nor 
contributing to any religious freedom abuses abroad. USCIRF 
also recommends that the United States Government impose more 
targeted sanctions on Chinese officials and entities 
responsible for severe religious freedom violations, especially 
those within the United Front Work Department, the State 
Administration for Religious Affairs, as well as China's public 
security and state security apparatus. These entities are 
directly involved in drafting, implementation, and enforcement 
of the new regulation on internet religious activities.
    In closing, I would like to thank the Commission again for 
the opportunity to testify and for your attention to the plight 
of all persecuted ethnic and religious groups in China. I look 
forward to your questions.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you very much for your testimony.
    We'll now have a round of questions from members of the 
Commission who are with us. I believe we're allocating seven 
minutes to each member, and I'll encourage people to wrap up 
their remarks if they're hitting that boundary.
    I'll begin, Mr. Turkel, by noting that you have been a 
target of the Chinese government's intimidation and threats, as 
have many other Uyghurs and others globally. As this 
transnational repression targets Uyghurs and Hong Kongers and 
Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners, human rights advocates, 
journalists, and others outside of China's borders, what should 
the United States do to address this problem?
    Mr. Turkel. Chairman, thank you very much for bringing up 
my own experience, at least in the past decade or so. I came to 
the United States, as you noted, in 1995. Now I'm an American 
citizen--a U.S. official--and the Chinese government is 
retaliating against me and my family for my service in the U.S. 
Government and for advocating for a strong human rights policy 
through my professional work and personal advocacy.
    Last December I was sanctioned by Xi Jinping's China, and 
this May I was also sanctioned by Putin's Russia, so two of the 
world's worst human rights abusers have sanctioned me. The 
consequences of my being sanctioned are very, very serious. I 
still have my mother, whom I have not seen since 2004, living 
in communist China. The last time I saw her was when she was 
here with my late father for my law school graduation, and I 
don't even know if I will see her again. The Chinese--this is a 
hostage-taking. This is direct retaliation against a U.S. 
official. And this is retaliation against an American citizen 
who's exercising his freedom of speech in the United States.
    I am grateful that you and other Members of Congress have 
been paying attention to this, but we need to have a clear 
policy that includes a legislative mandate. As far as I know, 
there are no legal tools available to go after those 
individuals engaging in transnational repression. I do believe 
that there is good will within our government, but we need 
clear guidance. I think Congress can play a significant role.
    Also, I would like to see law enforcement act a little bit 
more coherently, even aggressively. The FBI put out a bulletin, 
which was very, very helpful, but at the same time, I'm sensing 
that the Uyghur American community feels a little hopeless that 
the U.S. Government role, and even the law enforcement role, 
that are clearly described and mandated in the Uyghur Human 
Rights Policy Act, have not been done. Also, our government 
needs to understand what transnational repression entails. That 
could be done through an annual human rights report. That could 
be done through public education. That could be done through 
hearings like this.
    Then finally, I'd like to see the officials responsible for 
designing and carrying out transnational repression, whether it 
be in Tehran, whether it be in Moscow, whether it be elsewhere, 
or Beijing, face consequences. They should not be allowed to 
come to the United States, and our allies in liberal 
democracies should consider similar measures. Why would they 
stop this kind of behavior if they don't face consequences? 
It's quite simple, so we need to act on this societally, 
governmentally, and also in tandem with our partners and allies 
who value human rights, who value freedom of speech, who value 
religious freedom.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you for your response. I'm going to 
keep raising the issue of transnational repression. We're often 
thinking about the human rights issues inside other countries, 
and certainly that's our role as a Commission in terms of 
what's happening inside China, but we also have to realize what 
China is doing outside of China, and inside the United States, 
in violating the human rights of those resident here.
    Let me turn back to what's happening inside of China. In 
your testimony you note the connection Xi Jinping draws between 
the management of religion and national security. As I noted in 
my opening remarks, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 
called this linkage a pretext for serious human rights 
violations in Xinjiang. What more can be done so the Chinese 
government and other governments cannot hide behind this so-
called counterterrorism or counterextremism strategy to flout 
binding international human rights laws in regard to religion?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you, Chairman, for that excellent 
question. Since 2014, the Chinese government, through its 
national security strategy, clearly stated that the freedom 
that we treasure, that they cannot stand, is part of their 
national security concern. They're constantly battling against 
``Western'' influence or ``foreign'' influence. To the CCP, 
even though religious freedom is something constitutionally 
guaranteed with specific language, such as you can be a certain 
religious faith, the Party has never allowed its citizens to 
practice; that's only on paper.
    On national security concerns, the convenience the Chinese 
find in, in particular, the Uyghur religion is the fact that it 
can be easily linked to counterterrorism or the fight against 
three forces, as they often say. Fight against extremism--
religious extremism, separatism, and terrorism. Even to this 
day, after the UN recognized that there are crimes against 
humanity underway, the Chinese top diplomats in Washington, 
Beijing, and Geneva are still repeating those same lines.
    They may also underestimate the intelligence of the people 
in the free world, that they can tell that this is not the type 
of counterterrorism that the United States government sees, or 
that our European allies see. Secretary Blinken said it very 
clearly in his ``60 Minutes'' interview, that the United States 
does not believe that the U.S. and China are fighting the same 
type of terrorism. The Chinese can say this 15 times more, but 
it does not hold any water.
    Here's the important aspect of what they're trying to do. 
This is all about preemptive policing. That religious belief is 
now linked to national security is a cancerous tumor. It needs 
to be cut out or killed with a spray of chemicals. This is a 
part of their public remarks. The CCP, for example, likens 
Uyghur Islam to mental illness, and claims that followers are 
abnormal and therefore, as former Chinese Ambassador to 
Washington Cui Tiankai said, those people need to go through 
thought transformation to be normalized. He said this on CNN to 
the American people. Those tumors, those thought viruses, to 
the Chinese government are a national security concern that 
need to be taken out before they metastasize and spread to 
vital organs.
    And what do we do? I don't think that the United States 
Government treats religious freedom--human rights--as a 
national security concern. We always deal with it once it turns 
into a humanitarian crisis, genocide, war crimes. It becomes a 
very costly operation. I'd like to see our government in its 
overall foreign policy agenda, as initially intended, to put in 
place the International Religious Freedom Act. We need to make 
an integral part of our national security agenda--specifically 
in our foreign policy engagements--diplomatic engagement with a 
government that has a dismal human rights and religious freedom 
record.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you very much for your insight and use 
of your role on the Commission on International Religious 
Freedom to be such a powerful voice for religious freedom in 
the world.
    Congressman and Co-chair McGovern.
    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, Mr. Turkel. Next month, the Sino-Vatican 
Agreement is up for renewal, and last week Cardinal Secretary 
of State Pietro Parolin expressed confidence that the agreement 
would be renewed, saying ``When you negotiate with someone you 
must always start from recognizing their good faith.'' Really? 
I mean, I certainly would not have made a statement like that. 
Let me ask you, what is your assessment of the state of 
Catholics in China today? Are they subject to the same level of 
sinicization as other religions? And as Mr. Smith pointed out 
in his opening statement, Cardinal Zen goes on trial next month 
in Hong Kong. Do you think that Vatican authorities have done 
enough to defend him?
    Mr. Turkel. We have been publicly expressing concern over 
the silence at the Vatican with respect to persecuted Catholics 
in Hong Kong and in mainland China. I think that the constant 
Chinese battle against Western influence, by and large, 
includes the Christian Catholics in China. To the Chinese 
government, the concept of foreign religion essentially entails 
Uyghur Muslims and the Christian Catholic community in China. 
Now they've tested it out. It worked, and essentially no one 
paid a price for it within the Chinese leadership, with the 
mildest of criticism around the world. Thank God we live in a 
country that's shown leadership in this effort.
    The cause has not been serious enough to the CCP 
leadership, and the Catholic community in China does not have 
the type of voice that they should have in this kind of 
discussion. I worry that the same method being implemented in 
the Uyghur homeland, without many consequences, now will be 
implemented in the Christian community. We're already seeing 
signs of similar practices, removing crosses from the top of 
the churches in China and also putting up Xi Jinping's pictures 
on the walls inside the places of worship. In the case of the 
Uyghurs, it's a no-go. You don't look at images to practice 
your religion.
    So now with the sinicization effort, they're rewriting the 
Bible, rewriting the Koran to make it communist ideology as a 
religion. Communism is not a religion. It may be a religion for 
Xi Jinping and his cohorts, but it's not a religion. Abrahamic 
religion and communism are incompatible. This is a destructive 
effort, and I will have to repeat this I don't know how many 
times: What is the cost that the CCP leadership has suffered?
    Yes, we have imposed sanctions. It has been a long 
proposition. The United States has shown leadership. Where are 
the European allies? Where are the other liberal democracies 
who believe in human rights, who believe in religious freedom? 
Unless this becomes a collaborative global effort and we impose 
serious costs on the CCP leadership, they will continue this 
with impunity.
    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you. I appreciate your response.
    Mr. Turkel, you know, Tibetan Buddhists value the 
preservation of the natural environment as an integral part of 
their spiritual belief system, as we hear often from His 
Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is true of others, including 
Chinese Buddhists, Daoists, and folk religion practitioners. 
Should we look at environmental destruction, including that 
wrought by climate change, as impinging on the religious 
freedom of these faith traditions?
    Mr. Turkel. Both the Tibetan Plateau and the Uyghur 
homeland, which some people describe as the Taklamakan Desert, 
have been earlier targets for the CCP's environmental 
destruction, degradation efforts. In the case of Xinjiang, for 
example, they've been testing nuclear weapons since the 1960s. 
They still use dirty coal to make polysilicon. In the case of 
the Tibetans, they've been destroying forests, and there's 
serious water pollution in the Tibetan area. Also the Chinese 
government's attempts at moving people from inland Chinese 
cities are creating pressure on local people's lives that could 
be as simple as jobs, as simple as the resources.
    In the case of the Tibetans, I believe that the Tibetan 
people have in recent years not been talked about enough, as 
has been the case in the past. I think we need to start paying 
attention. I worry that the Chinese are trying to buy time, 
waiting until the Dalai Lama's time expires. That will be a 
disastrous circumstance and situation, both inside and outside 
of Tibet. We still don't know the whereabouts of the Panchen 
Lama, and this should concern us. So this all, again, just 
boils down to the CCP's fear of religion.
    Actually, this has been scientifically proven: In a society 
where the government respects religious freedom, that naturally 
brings stability. That naturally makes the society prosperous. 
So the Chinese, instead of spending billions of dollars on 
domestic security, scaring its own population or being fearful 
of their own population, and engaging in destructive efforts to 
destroy this proud Tibetan nation, the Uyghur nation, the 
Catholics, and others--they should be leaving people alone, 
letting them live the life they want to live.
    I think in the long term, the Chinese Communist Party has 
not only been disastrous for worldwide rights concerns, but is 
also creating a long-lasting effect on the psyche, on the 
social health of Chinese society.
    Co-chair McGovern. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back my remaining time.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you.
    Congressman Smith.
    Representative Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    First of all, to Chairman Turkel, thank you for your 
extraordinary leadership, your courage, and the fact that you 
have family members, your mom, who are at grave risk from the 
Chinese Communist Party, and yet you speak with such clarity 
and such precision and courage. I can't thank you enough for 
that leadership. To have you walking point is a blessing to the 
Commission on International Religious Freedom, so thank you 
again for that leadership.
    To the point on the Vatican agreement, when I was chairman 
of this Commission, I did travel over to the Vatican. I asked 
Cardinal Parolin, the secretary of state, not to engage in that 
agreement, not to agree to giving Xi Jinping veto power over 
bishops, which I think is absurd and completely undermines the 
underground Catholic church. I have met many members of that 
church in-country, including Bishop Su of Baoding province who 
was out of prison and went back to prison, spent more than 
almost 40 years, no one knows for sure how many because he may 
have died since. The underground Catholic church has been hurt 
severely by this.
    I also think it has a chilling effect on the church's voice 
in speaking out for the Uyghurs, and speaking out for the 
Tibetan Buddhists, for the Protestants. The solidarity with all 
those persecuted faiths, Falun Gong, does not have the same 
articulation that it would otherwise have. I do hope that the 
church will reconsider its position very seriously. Let me also 
say, in response to the Chairman's question--it was a good 
one--what do we do now? I would respectfully say that it's 
time. You know, we do have Magnitsky sanctions, and we are 
trying to hold those most responsible for their egregious 
behavior to account.
    In March, I introduced H.R. 7193, the China Trade Relations 
Act of 2022, that would reestablish human rights linkage to our 
MFN, to our trade relationship, with China. This is not a 
partisan dig, but on May 26, 1994, Bill Clinton delinked most 
favored nation status from human rights. I believe very, very 
passionately that that's when the Chinese Communist Party said: 
``They just care about profits.'' You know, the balance of 
trade last year was well over $350 billion. They are an export 
economy.
    If we had human rights linkage that was serious and said 
that unless there's serious sustained progress on human 
rights--and of course, religious freedom is at the core of all 
of this--there would be amelioration of their policy, and I 
think reform. When they think we're bluffing and we just talk 
and don't have any linkage to trade, I think we lose an 
opportunity to protect the sanctity of religion, of all the 
religions and religious practices in China. So Mr. Chairman, 
you might want to speak to this, Mr. Turkel, if you'd like. But 
I do think we need to get even more serious about this.
    Had we had it since 1994, I do think that reformers of some 
kind would have made sure that this exporting economy called 
China would have made systemic changes in their barbaric 
practices, especially their persecution of religious freedom. 
So, Chairman Turkel, if you want to speak to that I would 
appreciate it. And if not, I understand. But I do think we have 
to get even more serious. I mean, China has so exploited the 
trade relationship and has brought to their shore dual-use 
items that now have transformed them into a superpower. Even on 
the military side alone, we have sold them the rope that they 
someday hope to hang us with.
    So if you could, Mr. Turkel.
    Mr. Turkel. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Definitely. 
We have a lot to do. I need to use this time to bring up 
something that supports your ideas, which is that last December 
most people in the United States, around the world, noticed 
something very significant. The United States Government, the 
Biden administration, sanctioned--they added the Chinese 
Military Medical Academy and its 11 affiliates to the Commerce 
Department's Entity List--which is an export ban list, as you 
know--for developing brain-control weaponry to be used on 
ethno-religious groups, especially the Uyghurs.
    This just didn't catch much attention. I think this kind of 
focused, targeted sanctioning, Entity Listing, needs to 
continue to happen. Why would the Chinese government develop 
brain-control weaponry to be used? Again, to the earlier point, 
they used to control the behavior of the Uyghur people, of 
religious communities, but now they want to control their 
bodies. This weaponry essentially controls the communication 
between your body and your brain. People need to look at it. 
This is the type of regime that should come across as 
disturbing, alarming news to all of us.
    As we know, technology and economic development are 
supposed to foster freedom and improve our lives. But Chinese 
progress--though some people make flattering statements on TV 
or in their academic papers, specifically on China's science 
and technology and economic development--is not moral progress. 
Chinese technology has been enabling and facilitating 
collective punishment and enslavement of vulnerable 
populations.
    Now Chinese surveillance, this technology, has become part 
of ordinary people's lives. It's in their homes. They have QR 
codes on their doors. It's in the places of worship--in 
churches, mosques, temples. Everything, every aspect of the 
people within communist China, is subject to this level of 
persuasive and sophisticated surveillance and we've got to do 
something about it.
    The one thing I have in mind that I think Congress should 
consider is putting in place something like the Foreign Corrupt 
Practices Act (FCPA). In the 1970s when this law was enacted, 
it was not really known to most people. It has become a very 
effective tool around the world today. The U.K. has similar 
measures. And now, instead of going to foreign countries, 
playing by their rules, we're exporting good corporate 
practices. The entire global business community follows the 
FCPA.
    We need to have something like that when it comes to tech 
authoritarianism, digital surveillance. This is a serious 
problem. This is about our future. If we don't stop this, if we 
don't blunt this, this will become a serious problem, create 
enormous challenges to civil liberties and religious freedom, 
even the democratic process, as simple as some dictatorship or 
authoritarian regime monitoring voting records, monitoring the 
opposition party's activities. That is a real threat to 
democracy, at a bare minimum.
    Representative Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I 
yield back.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you, Congressman Smith.
    And now we're going to turn to the Senate side. Senator 
Ossoff.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, Chair Turkel, for your service and your 
testimony today. I led a delegation to India about a week and a 
half ago and had the opportunity in Dharamshala to meet with 
leaders of the CTA (Central Tibetan Administration) and Tibetan 
government-in-exile. How would you characterize, based upon 
your knowledge and understanding, the CCP's use of digital 
technology for purposes of repression and control in Tibet?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you, Senator. We've been hearing this and 
reading about it--this is an erroneous statement, actually, 
that the surveillance technology has been developed and tested 
on the Uyghurs, and now it's spreading. Actually, it's the 
other way around. It initially started in mainland China, where 
this person that the United States Government sanctioned, Chen 
Quanguo, was the Communist Party chief in Tibet. It was 
initially implemented in Tibet. It was very successful, and he 
got promoted by Xi Xinping in August 2016.
    He took his apparatus, his team, his security detail, over 
to Urumqi, set up this command center in an old hotel. This was 
profiled in The New Yorker. The Tibetan people actually were 
affected by this early on, but we failed to pay attention. We 
failed to detect the early warning signs and then it becomes a 
much bigger operation when Chen Quanguo took the same practice 
over to Urumqi. He was given resources. He was given authority, 
even a seat in the Politburo. That essentially paved the way 
for today's Uyghur nightmare.
    The Tibetan people have not only been subjected to that. As 
I noted earlier, they have been pretty much forgotten. We need 
to pay attention to them. They are also facing an existential 
threat. They are also facing a serious political threat, 
stemming from Beijing. They're also facing a serious leadership 
threat, because the Panchen Lama is still in Chinese custody, 
has been disappeared. First things first, we have to implement 
the existing laws designed to protect the Tibetan people's 
rights.
    I'm glad that we have an Under Secretary of State who is 
the special coordinator for Tibet. As somebody who knows the 
Tibetan leadership and Tibetan community, in previous years I 
was so frustrated that our government did not even open its 
doors--Lobsang Sangay, for example, former president of the 
Central Tibetan Administration, was not even allowed to enter 
the White House, could not even enter the State Department. Our 
officials ended up going to the hotel to meet with him.
    I mean, the laws are put in place to follow. We have to 
implement the laws with respect to the Uyghurs, the Hong 
Kongers, and Tibetans. Otherwise, it's meaningless effort. 
First things first, we have to go back to the way that we 
treated Tibetan issues a decade or so ago, with seriousness. I 
know that we have not been able to make the progress that we 
want to see, but we have not been persistent in our efforts.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Chairman Turkel. I'd like to ask 
you as well how you have observed and understood the same 
technologies, techniques, and tools that have been used to 
surveil and repress religious minorities also being used to 
target journalists.
    Mr. Turkel. I can't emphasize enough the sophistication of 
Chinese surveillance. Unlike our government, and unlike other 
governments, the Chinese have no resources problem. They have 
been pouring in zillions of dollars into R&D and also control 
of those tech companies. The journalists have been surveilled, 
kicked out, but a couple of years ago they started coming back. 
For a long time, the Washington Post did not have even a single 
reporter, until recently, in China.
    Again, the Chinese want to hide their crimes. The Chinese 
want to continue to confuse the international community. The 
Chinese government wants to continue to engage in 
disinformation because journalists, specifically Western 
journalists, could do investigative journalism. They can try to 
get to the bottom of it. This attack on Western journalists 
started when Wen Jiabao was the prime minister. Melissa Chan, 
the former Al Jazeera journalist, was one of the first ones 
kicked out of China. She was just doing her job. The Chinese 
could not stand her, and this practice is still continuing.
    Are we doing the same thing with their reporters? Is social 
media doing the same thing? For example, today a guy from the 
Global Times put out inflammatory, offensive statements on 
social media. And this Twitter tolerates, whereas our 
journalists could not even go there to report. This needs to be 
addressed at the highest levels.
    One other thing that I need to point out is the 
surveillance of journalists and surveillance of ordinary 
citizens. Chinese high-tech firms are essentially state 
entities. They are SOEs, state-owned enterprises. As reported 
and written in several books recently, the Chinese government 
has a number of red phones. This was also profiled in a book 
that I wrote about. A German scholar--a German journalist, Kai 
Strittmatter, has a book called We Have Been Harmonized. It 
describes how every single Chinese high-tech CEO's desk has a 
red phone directly connected to the leadership, so the 
leadership in the CCP apparatus controls high tech. If the CCP 
does not like any journalist, any citizen, any entity, or even 
foreign officials, they can order them to do things that serve 
their interest, so this is an intertwined, interactive system, 
and I don't think, again, that we're paying enough attention.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you for your testimony and your 
service. I appreciate it and look forward to following up with 
you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator.
    We now turn back to the House side. Congresswoman Hartzler 
is with us.
    Representative Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, Chairman Turkel, for your courageous leadership 
and providing us with the information that's so sorely needed. 
I'd like for you to expand a little bit on some of the comments 
you've made here just answering questions, but also on your 
testimony, where you talk about the CCP exporting its techno-
authoritarianism overseas to other countries, and oppressive 
regimes emulating this China model for the treatment of 
political dissidents and human rights advocates. You say that 
our government must continue to ensure that critical technology 
is not exported to China and contributing to religious freedom 
abuses.
    I wonder if you could list several examples of the 
countries this has been exported to and specifically what 
critical technology you're referring to. Are you referring to 
5G technology? You've talked about Tibet a little bit, but 
could you just outline some of the countries where they're 
exporting and specifically what they're exporting, so we can be 
very clear and fully aware of what we need to watch for and 
what we need to try to stop?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    First of all, the equipment. Their equipment still gets 
support from our technology firms--software, hardware. A few 
years ago when Huawei was added to the Entity List, the 
Financial Times reported a conversation with one of the folks 
who worked for Huawei. This person essentially said, with this 
Entity List designation, our phones, our equipment just become 
a frame. This will be disastrous for the company. In order for 
this company to catch up with the technology, even with the 
support that they're receiving from Silicon Valley, it takes 
decades. So that's the reality of the Chinese high-tech 
industry.
    I can say this--I'm not a tech person, but I can say that 
based on the reading that I've done, the research that I've 
done, Silicon Valley has been complicit. We need to look into 
their role. We need to eliminate the gray areas in the laws and 
regulations. We need to make it difficult for Silicon Valley 
companies to continue to find a way to get a waiver. Even 
companies or entities added to the Entity List or sanctioned--
there is a way to go around it. There is a thing called a 
special license that the Office of Foreign Assets Control 
issues. There is a way that they can get a waiver to continue 
their business practices.
    The other thing--we need to look at this societally, 
governmentally. Based on the book that I was referring to, our 
hospitals, our schools, our prisons, in one instance one of the 
military bases, even our embassy in Afghanistan--now not being 
used--were using Hikvision cameras. We know that this is a 
state-owned enterprise. This is linked to the CCP. In the 
United States even today, you can find Hikvision cameras. 
They're available. This is wrong.
    Then the third thing that we need to do is talk to our 
European allies. This is not about the United States stopping a 
certain country or a company for our geopolitical interests. 
This is about the future. The European community is still not 
on the same page as we are when it comes to these serious 
threats.
    Finally, we need to have a judicial process, law 
enforcement process, to go after the businesses, the Chinese 
high-tech, that have a business presence in the United States. 
There's no international law that addresses their complicity in 
human rights abuses, and the genocide, for example, in China, 
but we do have Federal courts. Some of the Chinese companies 
that are present in the United States are subject to local 
Federal court jurisdiction. Why can't the Justice Department 
open an investigation, look into those companies that have a 
business presence here and who have been implicated in the 
ongoing human rights abuses? Again, laws are put in place to 
implement, enforce. This has to be looked at diplomatically, 
legislatively, and specifically in a law enforcement aspect.
    Representative Hartzler. Thank you very much. I introduced 
legislation to the NDAA a few years ago specifically so that 
Hikvision could not be sold anymore in our country--the video 
surveillance cameras--so I'm very interested and very concerned 
to hear that they're still present. I definitely will be 
looking into that. I know many of us here at this hearing are 
very concerned about that, so thank you for giving us an update 
on that. That's very concerning.
    On another subject, though, I wanted to bring up that 
through the Defending Freedoms Project, I'm a congressional 
advocate for three Chinese Christian prisoners--Pastor John 
Cao, Pastor Zhang Shaojie, and Pastor Wang Yi. These brave men 
and their stories can be searched and read about more on the 
internet. But my question is, do you think that the CCP's 
efforts to censor and shut down certain online information 
pertaining to religion will have an impact on our access to the 
pastors' information here in the United States? How would you 
recommend that advocates continue to support current and future 
victims of religious persecution, should access to their 
stories be limited or removed?
    Mr. Turkel. Congresswoman, this is such an important 
question. Not only are we not going to be able to get access, 
but even a simple communication with anyone outside of the 
country that is perceived as hostile to the CCP has 
consequences. You know, they monitor our phone calls, 
communications, your access to certain webpages. Sorry to keep 
bringing up the Uyghur situation--the Uyghur phones have to be 
scanned by the police at the mobile police stations set up on 
the streets.
    We don't have information as to whether this is the same 
practice that the Chinese have in inland China cities, but once 
that's already been successful in one place, it's reasonable to 
expect that the Chinese will transfer this over to the other 
provinces because, again, this is such an insecure regime that 
it's fearful of its own population, fearful of people of faith, 
people of reason who desire to be left alone. They will do this 
at any cost, with any justification. It's a very troubling 
trend.
    The online databases not only in China, but outside of 
China, have also been subject to various attacks. Some NGO 
websites are regularly attacked by Chinese hackers. Now we have 
a new trend--I don't know if this is the case today, but when I 
was testifying in the summer of 2021 at a House Foreign Affairs 
Committee hearing, the YouTube channel had lots of 
disinformation on the right bar while having the hearing on the 
left side of the screen, so our firms, again, need to step up.
    We need to be able to technologically support those who are 
courageous--who share information with us--so that we can 
assist them. We also want to find a way to protect those who 
have been critical in sharing information. As we noted, there 
are no journalists on the ground. We have to rely on those 
courageous people to get information. Otherwise, we will not be 
able to help. Even the UN report--my recently published report 
cites several individuals providing information and who now 
fear for their lives. Again, this is something that Congress 
could help with, and I'm afraid that without cause, without 
pushback, the Chinese will even do more harm to vulnerable 
religious and ethnic communities.
    Representative Hartzler. Very, very concerning. I sure 
appreciate this.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    Thank you, Mr. Turkel, for your testimony, for your service 
to our country, and for your tireless advocacy for freedom of 
religion.
    We will now turn to our second panel. I'll invite the 
witnesses for our second panel to turn on their videos. I'll 
give them an introduction and we'll dive in.
    Let's start with Karrie Koesel, an associate professor of 
political science at the University of Notre Dame, who 
specializes in the study of contemporary Chinese and Russian 
politics, authoritarianism, and religion in politics. She is 
the author of Religion and Authoritarianism: Cooperation, 
Conflict and the Consequences. She is also the co-editor of 
Citizens and the State in Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing 
China and Russia. I'd like to note that she previously taught 
at the University of Oregon.
    Chris Meserole is research director of the Brookings 
Institution's Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology 
Initiative, and a Fellow at the Brookings Foreign Policy 
program. His research is focused currently on the increasing 
exploitation of digital technology by authoritarian regimes and 
violent non-state actors. He's the co-author of a report on how 
Russia and China are exporting digital authoritarianism and has 
testified before the U.S. Commission on International Religious 
Freedom on the digital repression of religious minorities in 
China.
    Emile Dirks is a postdoctoral fellow at Citizen Lab at the 
University of Toronto. His research focuses on the policing of 
so-called target people, Chinese citizens whom the Ministry of 
Public Security views as threats to social stability and 
national security, as well as police-led mass DNA collection 
and surveillance programs. Two of his most recent publications 
concern mass DNA collection programs in China.
    Thank you, all three of you, for joining us for this 
hearing. Without objection, your full written statements will 
be entered into the record. We ask that you keep your remarks 
to five minutes. We'll begin with Dr. Koesel.

                 STATEMENT OF KARRIE J. KOESEL,
         ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

    Ms. Koesel. Good morning and thank you. Chair Merkley, Co-
chair McGovern, and distinguished members of the Commission, 
I'm honored to participate in today's hearing. In my remarks, I 
will focus on three long-term strategies used to assert Chinese 
government control over religion and the implications for 
religious groups on the ground.
    As we know, contemporary China represents one of the most 
restrictive environments for religion and religious communities 
around the globe. The reach of the Chinese state into religious 
life is extensive. This first strategy of control utilizes 
technology. In the past decades, strategies of religious 
management have expanded with the development of digital and 
surveillance technologies. These technologies facilitate 
systematic and coordinated efforts to collect information, to 
monitor, and to target religious communities, especially those 
perceived as operating outside of state-set parameters or those 
viewed as extremists.
    The Chinese surveillance state monitors social media to 
identify and collect information on religious believers and 
their networks. It uses phone apps to transmit information on 
user activity and their locations, facial recognition 
technology, and CCTV cameras at temples, churches, and mosques 
to keep tabs on not only attendance, but also the content of 
religious services. Religious life is ostensibly monitored at 
every level--in public, in private, and virtually.
    The implications: First, expanding digital technologies 
accelerate the crackdown on unregistered religious groups. 
These are groups not formally affiliated with government-
sponsored patriotic associations and they operate in private. 
They tend to include Protestant house churches, underground 
Catholic churches, but also unregistered Buddhists, Daoists, 
and Muslims, as well as practitioners of folk and popular 
religions. The growing sophistication of the Chinese 
surveillance state means it is increasingly difficult for these 
communities to operate under the radar.
    A second implication is that control of religious 
expression online is increasing. Online forums, microblogs, and 
instant messaging platforms face increased censorship. These 
online communities are seen as vehicles of ``religious 
infiltration'' and a source of religious growth, especially 
among Chinese young people on college campuses.
    A second strategy is sinicization. Religious communities 
have been asked over the past decade to sinicize. This is a 
long-term strategy to manage religious life, to insulate it 
from ``foreign influence'' by making it more Chinese, but more 
importantly, to instill fealty to the Party-state. Sinicization 
prioritizes the integration of politics and ideology, as well 
as support for the leadership of the Party at the center of 
religion.
    At present in China, there is no central policy 
articulating how sinicization should develop. Instead, this has 
been left up to the five patriotic associations to introduce 
their own plans. Now, it is within each of these plans that we 
can see a clear political direction. The Catholic plan, for 
instance, asserts that sinicization requires conscientious 
approval of politics and obedience to the national regime. The 
Protestant plan calls on pastors to harmonize biblical 
teachings with ideology and to preach core socialist values. 
The Buddhist plan prioritizes the study of Xi Jinping Thought. 
Even Daoism, an indigenous religion in China, has developed a 
plan to sinicize.
    The takeaway here is that sinicization centers on the 
``Partyfication'' of religion. It is a strategy to politically 
reorient China's faithful, not embrace traditional culture or 
Chinese values. One implication is that sinicization efforts on 
the ground are currently quite uneven. Religious communities 
have some flexibility in interpreting sinicization, and the 
Party seems content to allow some latitude so long as the 
efforts show necessary reverence.
    A second implication is that the long-term impact remains 
uncertain. It remains to be seen whether sinicization will rein 
in religion, cultivate love for and loyalty to the CCP, or 
divide religious communities internally. Historically in China, 
processes of sinicization actually encouraged religious growth, 
so this may be one outcome.
    The final strategy I wish to highlight on controlling 
religion is more outward facing. This is the so-called Three 
Troops strategy launched under Xi Jinping, which brings 
together Party and government officials, prominent religious 
representatives, and academics to counter what are perceived as 
U.S.-led international efforts to promote religious freedom. 
The implication here is that Chinese strategies of religious 
management are shifting. They're shifting from defense to 
offense, and from domestic to global, with the broader goal to 
counter and to quiet foreign advocacy for religious freedom.
    I'd like to close with a few recommendations. U.S. advocacy 
for religious groups in China and calls to protect religious 
freedom and human rights, can backfire, because we know this is 
seen as evidence domestically in China of fomenting instability 
or foreign forces trying to divide the country. However, there 
are steps we can and should take to support freedom of religion 
and belief. Bilateral engagement. We need to consistently raise 
issues of religious freedom and human rights in China in public 
and in private meetings with our Chinese counterparts. We 
should work with U.S. allies and partners to take similar 
action, especially in the Muslim-
majority world.
    Second, we need to build expertise. We need to prioritize 
funding domestically to maintain U.S. expertise on China. It is 
a national security imperative that we increase support and 
training of American students and scholars in China and the 
Chinese language.
    In closing, I'd like to thank the Commission for your 
attention and leadership on this important set of issues. My 
written testimony elaborates on the strategies and offers 
additional recommendations. I look forward to answering any 
questions you have. Thank you.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you, Dr. Koesel.
    We'll turn now to Dr. Meserole.

 STATEMENT OF CHRIS MESEROLE, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, ARTIFICIAL 
  INTELLIGENCE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE, BROOKINGS 
                          INSTITUTION

    Mr. Meserole. Chairman Merkley, Co-chairman McGovern, 
distinguished members of the Commission, thank you for the 
opportunity to speak before you this morning on such a vital 
and important issue. Although there is a growing awareness of 
the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party's model of 
digital authoritarianism, the extent to which its expansion has 
converged with the Xi regime's increasing restrictions on 
religious freedom is far less well known. I'm grateful for the 
chance to share my thoughts on how that convergence came to 
pass, the unprecedented challenges it poses for freedom of 
religion within China and around the globe, and how the United 
States should respond.
    After the arrival of the internet in China in the late 
1980s, the Chinese Communist Party was quick to recognize both 
the risks and opportunities posed by digital technology and 
began building out an unprecedented apparatus for online 
censorship and surveillance. When Xi Jinping took power in 
2012, he moved quickly to consolidate that apparatus under his 
control, while also investing heavily in the equipment, 
infrastructure, and training to build out real-world 
surveillance programs, like SkyNet, smart cities, Sharp Eyes, 
and early pilots of the social credit system. Since these 
systems often lack due process and public oversight, the Xi 
regime has effectively built out the world's most comprehensive 
digital architecture for repression.
    Unfortunately, the Xi regime has also, in tandem, built out 
a legal and bureaucratic architecture for religious repression, 
too. Most notably, Beijing has sought to rein in what it views 
as religious extremism in Xinjiang and Tibet. But the Xi 
regime's efforts to curtail religious freedom extend well 
beyond its counterterrorism policy. In 2016, Xi held a two-day 
conference on religion in which he previewed strict new 
religious regulations across China and urged the CCP to 
``actively guide the adaptation of religions.'' Several years 
later, another set of regulations came into effect requiring 
religious organizations to ``spread the principles and policies 
of the Chinese Communist Party.''
    These regulations were so far reaching that a Chinese 
Catholic priest lamented that in practice, your religion no 
longer matters--if you are Buddhist, or Daoist, or Muslim, or 
Christian. The only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese 
Communist Party. Regrettably, the Xi regime's effort to control 
all religious life then directly converged with its effort to 
expand digital surveillance in late 2021. Although Chinese 
officials had imposed some measures to regulate online 
religious activity before--most notably their decision to ban 
the sale of Bibles online--Xi himself brought the issue to the 
fore in another conference on religion at the end of last year.
    In addition to reiterating his earlier call for the 
sinicization of religion, Xi's remarks at the conference 
insisted that ``China must strengthen the management of online 
religious affairs.'' Soon thereafter, Chinese officials then 
released new regulations banning foreign organizations from 
publishing content online and requiring registered religious 
organizations to receive licenses for streaming religious 
services and ceremonies. Shortly after the regulations came 
into effect in March 2022, provincial governments began 
training new staff to censor online religious activity and 
ensure compliance with the new regulations.
    Importantly, these new regulations represent a significant 
and troubling expansion of China's surveillance state. 
Provincial authorities will still play a leading role in 
regulating religion, as they have historically, but with the 
key agencies responsible for the Chinese surveillance apparatus 
also jointly issuing the new regulations--including the 
Ministry of Public Security--the oversight of religious 
activity now formally extends far beyond local administrators. 
Put in Orwellian terms, Big Brother now has clear authority to 
extend its watchful eye over people of faith.
    For Chinese citizens, what this means is that the 
surveillance and regulatory system that has long monitored 
their public religiosity now extends to private faith, too. GPS 
sensors in smartphones and cars, plus facial recognition that 
can track citizens across a city, make it difficult for private 
and covert religious communities to form and operate 
undetected. Meanwhile, client- and server-side scanning have 
made it possible to detect private religious activity like 
downloading a picture of the Dalai Lama or reading a Bible, 
while smart televisions and cellphones make it possible to 
remotely watch and hear private prayers within a home. Most 
importantly, the knowledge that state authorities are able to 
monitor even private religious activity can create a chilling 
effect that ultimately deters individuals from engaging in 
private religious expression at all.
    China's ongoing zero-COVID policy stands to exacerbate 
these trends. With COVID restrictions requiring the frequent 
closure of houses of worship, online platforms and smartphone 
applications have enabled many household churches and other 
religious organizations to remain in community. The recent 
online regulations thus remove a key option for exercising 
private and public religion at a time when it is needed most.
    Yet, as devastating as the Xi regime's digital 
authoritarianism and religious repression are for the Chinese 
people, they will not be felt solely within China's borders. 
The country has not only exploited popular messaging 
applications like WeChat to monitor diaspora communities 
abroad, it has also willingly sold its surveillance 
technologies for everything from computer vision to deep packet 
inspection to over 80 countries, including those like Iran, 
whose political leaders have explicitly lauded China's 
surveillance model and whose regime has a long history of 
targeting religious minorities for repression.
    The Xi regime's expansion of its surveillance state and 
recent crackdown on religious activity both online and offline 
cry out for a forceful response from the United States. 
Although the Biden administration has taken an increasingly 
hard line toward Beijing, particularly in denying it access to 
many of the advanced technologies its surveillance system 
relies on, much more can and should be done. Most notably, the 
U.S. Government needs to formulate and execute a coherent plan 
for countering digital authoritarianism globally and, as 
important, organize itself for the long-term nature of that 
threat.
    Absent a more comprehensive and persistent approach, the 
system of digital repression that has so tragically denied 
religious freedom to residents of Xinjiang and Tibet will not 
only persist but stands to be replicated among religious 
communities across the globe.
    In closing, thank you again for the chance to testify this 
morning, and even more for casting light on the daunting new 
era of religious persecution that the Chinese Communist Party 
has ushered in. Thank you again.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you, Dr. Meserole.
    Now we'll turn to Dr. Dirks.

                   STATEMENT OF EMILE DIRKS,
                POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW, CITIZEN LAB

    Mr. Dirks. Distinguished members of the Commission, thank 
you for holding this hearing and inviting me to participate. 
Today through my testimony I would like to highlight three 
aspects of the Chinese government's control of religion through 
digital authoritarianism. One, Chinese police engage in 
widespread digital surveillance of practitioners of banned 
faiths. Two, to surveil these practitioners, China's police 
collaborate with other Party-state offices. And three, police 
are now engaged in a mass DNA collection program targeting the 
people of Tibet.
    Understanding these surveillance programs and developing 
effective policies and responses requires researchers capable 
of analyzing Chinese language sources. Therefore, today I will 
recommend that the United States Government provide greater 
Federal funding to Chinese and minority language learning 
programs at universities and colleges.
    My first point, well known to those who study state 
surveillance in China, is that China's police digitally surveil 
practitioners of banned faiths. Operating outside China's 
system of officially recognized religions, China's banned 
faiths include Falun Gong and the Church of Almighty God, among 
others. To Chinese police, practitioners of banned faiths are 
``target people'' who threaten social stability. As target 
people, practitioners are surveilled through police-run 
databases. Police collect personal data from practitioners, 
including data on their faith, and then categorize them 
according to the level of threat they purportedly pose.
    As a form of digital surveillance, these databases severely 
restrict practitioners' freedom. Police files on registered 
practitioners are associated with machine-readable national ID 
cards. For example, when a practitioner uses their national ID 
card to check into a hotel room, an alert is sent to the local 
police. Based on this alert, police can intercept the 
practitioner to interrogate or detain them. However, police 
cannot control practitioners through digital surveillance 
alone. This leads to my second point.
    In order to deepen state control of practitioners of banned 
faiths, police routinely collaborate with other Party-state 
offices to visit practitioners at their homes. These home 
visits play multiple roles. On one hand, authorities may 
provide economically disadvantaged practitioners with social 
assistance. Assistance is meant to encourage practitioners to 
break with their faith and return to mainstream society. On the 
other hand, home visits are also used to search for evidence of 
ongoing worship or to warn practitioners against associating 
with fellow believers. Home visits can also strengthen digital 
surveillance. Through home visits, Party-state officials 
collect personal information on practitioners, which is then 
added to police databases.
    Authorities have long used home visits and digital 
surveillance against religious authorities. In the Tibet 
Autonomous Region, even practitioners of officially recognized 
religions, like Tibetan Buddhism, are subject to intense state 
control. However, in the Xi Jinping administration, new forms 
of biometric surveillance have emerged. This brings me to my 
third point.
    Since 2016, police in the Tibet Autonomous Region have 
engaged in a mass DNA collection program targeting the whole of 
the region. Mass DNA collection in Tibet is unconnected to any 
ongoing criminal investigation. Instead, police have targeted 
entire communities of Tibetan men, women, and children for DNA 
collection. The scale of DNA collection is immense. My research 
suggests that since June 2016, police may have collected DNA 
samples from between one-quarter and one-third of Tibet's 
population, or between 919,000 and 1.2 million DNA samples. DNA 
collection appears to be ongoing, and when completed, a mass 
DNA database covering Tibet will give police a powerful tool of 
social control to use against the region's people.
    Through digital surveillance, inter-bureaucratic 
cooperation, and mass DNA collection, China's police surveil 
and repress religious and ethnic minority communities. 
Understanding these developments requires researchers capable 
of analyzing the Chinese language sources that describe these 
surveillance programs. However, according to some reports, the 
study of foreign languages at U.S. universities and colleges is 
declining. This is worrying. If this trend is not reversed, the 
United States Government may lack future researchers capable of 
understanding the control of religion through digital 
authoritarianism in China. This in turn will undermine the 
United States Government's capacity to craft effective policies 
in response.
    Therefore, I recommend that the United States Government do 
two things. One, increase Federal funding for Mandarin and 
Cantonese Chinese language programs at universities and 
colleges. And two, increase Federal funding for language 
learning programs at universities and colleges focused on 
minority languages spoken in China, including various Tibetan 
dialects, Uyghur, and others. Increased funding for language 
studies will lay a strong foundation for future research into 
the control of religion through digital authoritarianism in 
China. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I 
look forward to your questions and comments.
    Chair Merkley. I really appreciate the testimony from all 
three of you.
    I want to start with trying to understand better the 
control of information. I was thinking back to 2011, when 
Majority Leader Reid organized a bipartisan delegation of 10 
senators to visit China. Hu Jintao was the leader or China, and 
everything we heard while we were there was about how things 
were opening up, that there was less repression of religion, 
that labor leaders who had concerns were being encouraged to 
present them so that those issues could be addressed, and that 
environmentalists who were raising concerns about pollution in 
the rivers were no longer considered critics but helpful 
advocates on how to address serious problems.
    There was just kind of a whole trend. Then in 2012, 10 
years ago, Xi Jinping became general secretary, and will 
probably soon be assigned to his third five-year term. It feels 
to me, as an outside observer, a nonexpert, that his personal 
vision for China has been driving a reversal of the trends that 
we saw in 2011, so I wanted to ask, and I don't want to take up 
the whole seven minutes with it, but perhaps Dr. Meserole, do 
you want to take this question on--Is it right to perceive that 
really Xi Jinping is driving this massive national crackdown 
that has many aspects, including the crackdown on religious 
worship?
    Mr. Meserole. I think it's certainly right to pin the 
extent and scale of the current crackdown on Xi Jinping and the 
regime that he sits on top of. I will note that the kind of 
digital surveillance apparatus that he inherited long pre-dated 
him. It's something that emerged in the early 1990s and was 
progressively built out alongside the growth of the internet 
within China.
    What changed under Xi Jinping was twofold. I think in the 
broader sense of opening that you had mentioned, there had been 
this series of reforms that the Deng Xiaoping era from the 
early 1980s on had ushered in, in the sense that China needed 
to open up and engage a little bit more with the rest of the 
world, which would be key to their economic growth. And I think 
that proved tremendously successful in terms of the economic 
growth that they were able to achieve.
    By the time Xi Jinping came in, I think that growth had 
started to slow a little bit, and on top of that, he himself 
inherited an administration that had decentralized over three 
decades by that point. Most of the focus had been 
decentralizing out some of the different centers of power 
within China. As an example of that, there were something like 
60 different regulatory agencies overseeing the internet and 
having say over different pieces of the internet when Xi 
Jinping came to power.
    One of the first things he did when it comes to digital 
repression is consolidate all of those agencies under the 
Cyberspace Administration of China, and also to elaborate a 
little bit more clearly what the control authorities of 
different agencies are under his direction. As a result, he's 
been able over the last 10 years to exert greater and greater 
control over the digital surveillance system that they've 
developed, to the point where now I think the scale, the 
extent, the reach, all of which are really unprecedented, I 
think do owe to him, and he is certainly the most responsible 
for both how it's built out and how it's directed at this 
point. I think especially in light of the upcoming third term, 
potentially, I think it's alarming that he has so much control 
over it.
    Chair Merkley. Well, this digital surveillance is so scary, 
and then you throw in the DNA database surveillance. I'm 
reminded of a movie from 25 years ago that was called 
``Gattaca.'' The name came from the initials that represented 
four bases of DNA. Nobody could move without being watched very 
carefully, both from the perspective of what they were doing 
online and their DNA. And here we are. This science fiction has 
become a reality.
    One of the pieces of this is the monitoring of websites. 
Help us understand this. We hear that you now have to be 
registered to be able to have a website that expresses anything 
that involves religion. So in my mind, I'm picturing a system 
where no websites are allowed to be accessed unless they're 
preregistered, and I'm also picturing the Great Firewall. Are 
there a thousand Chinese basically tracking every church in the 
world that's putting something up on the web and saying, oh, 
their website cannot be accessed?
    Is it an opt-in or opt-out system? How do they do this? I'm 
really struck by the fact that you can now not put your baptism 
up online, or a sermon up online. That the CathAssist Catholic 
app was shut down in just a month. That in May 2022, just a few 
months ago, China Aid Association reported that a website that 
had been up for 21 years, a Christian website, a repository of 
music and hymns, was shut down, and so on and so forth. Help us 
understand how the website control is being operated.
    Mr. Meserole. Yes. It's a great point. I would say that 
there are actually two levels of censorship of religious 
activity. If you are a church, or a mosque, or a temple in 
China and you're trying to have some kind of web presence, one 
option is to go out and just register a domain name and have an 
actual website that your organization controls and owns. To do 
that, you need to register. When somebody logs onto a browser 
and enters your URL into the browser and wants to visit your 
site, what there is on the back end is a database of domain 
names that then can take that string of text that you entered 
in for the URL and then translate it into the server that posts 
the content for that site.
    What China can do is basically say, you need to have 
certain kinds of registration requirements to be able to get a 
domain name that we will put into our global database of domain 
names, and what servers they point to on the internet. It's 
this crucial chokepoint where the human-readable part of the 
web meets the digital, numeric part of the web, and they can 
very actively and easily set up processes where, again, you 
might need to register for a license to be able to get a domain 
name. That'll be tied to that central database that they have 
for domain names. That's fairly straightforward to block, and 
it's something that the government is going to have control 
over.
    The other way to do it is--even now in the United States, 
for example, you'll see different religious communities 
sometimes not even register a website anymore. They'll just go 
on Facebook, or they'll use a social media app as their main 
kind of online presence. Similar things can happen within 
China, where the responsibility starts to lie less with the 
state and more with those private companies.
    Actually, one of the things that I'm most concerned about 
with this new set of online religious regulations is that the 
same thing that we've seen play out in the nonreligious space, 
where commercial entities within China are held more and more 
responsible for taking a proactive stance in censoring content, 
that this will actually start to come into play with religion, 
too. If a religious community is trying to use WeChat or 
another app as its de facto home online, that application now 
is responsible for censoring that.
    They're actually going to be more conservative than the 
government in many cases in censoring content because for them 
it's not always clear what kind of communities are and aren't 
allowed and so they'll default to the most conservative 
interpretation of that to stay in the good graces of the state. 
But between that and the domain name registration issue, it's 
very straightforward for China to be able to start to block 
religious groups from having an online presence and being able 
to communicate with their community that way.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you. It's scary as hell, and I'm 
worried about all the forms in which this affects us here 
within the United States as well, as we address the challenges 
of technology. What China's doing and the example they're 
setting for other authoritarian regimes is transforming the 
world and so I'm so glad we're holding this hearing.
    Co-chair McGovern.
    Co-chair Mcgovern. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Dirks, thank you for the detail in your testimony about 
the collection of DNA of Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous 
Region. It's very troubling, and I know it's not isolated. 
Human Rights Watch says that coercing people to give blood 
samples can violate an individual's privacy, dignity, and right 
to bodily integrity, and may constitute a degrading treatment, 
and as a mass policy is a serious human rights violation. What 
steps can the United States take to ensure that American 
companies are not complicit in this, or that the research 
efforts do not use this data?
    Mr. Dirks. Thank you for your question. Yes, the program, 
as detailed both in my own research and also in the recent 
report by Human Rights Watch, is quite disturbing. In terms of 
how the United States Government or allies can ensure that non-
Chinese companies are not involved in these programs--one of 
the ways is to examine public procurement documents to ensure 
that material produced by companies outside of China is not 
being used in mass DNA collection programs, for example in 
Tibet.
    But again, going back to my recommendations, one of the 
things that this requires is researchers that are able to dig 
through the public record, that is often Chinese, and actually 
analyze these sources. So I think, again, it's vital that we 
provide funding to Chinese language programs to ensure that 
researchers are actually capable of doing this kind of open-
source research in the future, which in turn would help to 
inform effective U.S. Government policy in the future.
    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you.
    Mr. Meserole, you testify to China's role not only in 
exploiting digital surveillance technology but in providing the 
model that has normalized the practice of religiously motivated 
repression globally. You specifically cite the case of Saudi 
Arabia, and the fact that it has used Israeli tech, not 
Chinese, to surveil and target dissident communities at home 
and abroad. From the perspective of the individual, do the 
human rights implications of digital surveillance differ 
depending on the status of the relations between the U.S. 
Government and the government doing the surveilling? As a 
public policy matter, would the challenges of digital 
authoritarianism be better addressed by focusing on the 
technologies and their use, or by focusing on select countries?
    Mr. Meserole. Just to answer the first part of the question 
about whether, from an individual's experience, it really 
matters, I would say if you're being repressed and you're being 
denied your ability to exercise religious freedom, I'm not sure 
exactly that you'd care what layer of the text app that's 
happening at, or who's in control of that. It does matter, I 
think, the U.S. involvement there, in the sense that I think we 
have leverage over different regimes that we can use and 
exercise to get them to push back on this kind of technology.
    That's where I would turn to the second part of your 
question about digital authoritarianism. I think we want to 
highlight certainly that there are particular regimes like 
China, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and others, that I think are 
actively developing these kinds of surveillance systems. My big 
fear is that there are 5 billion people in the world who are 
not in China, not in the U.S. or Europe, and their digital 
infrastructure is being built out right now. We need to have a 
proactive and coherent foreign policy, effectively, for how we 
want to handle this challenge of digital authoritarianism so 
that individuals around the world are able to exercise their 
religion freely, are able to worship freely, are able to go 
online freely.
    I think we would probably be better served if there were a 
single coherent policy for the U.S. Government on digital 
authoritarianism, rather than what we see now, which is, China 
pops up and does something, Iran pops up and does something, 
and we're addressing it on a case-by-case basis as opposed to 
taking a much more proactive and coherent view, which would 
ideally be the direction we would go in, especially given the 
long-term nature of the challenge.
    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Koesel, what are your thoughts on the upcoming renewal 
of the Sino-Vatican agreement, and the Vatican's position going 
in?
    Ms. Koesel. Thank you for your question, Congressman.
    I should start by saying I haven't reviewed the documents. 
I don't believe they're publicly available. So going into it, I 
think it's more ``wait and see'' as to what will come out of 
this agreement. We haven't seen what this will mean for 
religious communities within China, especially the Catholic 
Church, and whether we'll see a greater integration between 
underground Catholics and the official Catholic church. I think 
that is the hope, potentially, coming from the Vatican, that 
this will be a pathway to allow greater expression for 
religiosity within China and a healing and bringing of these 
two churches together. But at this point, it is wait and see 
until those documents, or whatever will be released, are 
available.
    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back my time.
    Chair Merkley. Thank you.
    Congressman McGovern, the Senate vote is underway. I know 
that we have Congresswoman Hartzler waiting to ask questions. 
Can I turn the gavel over to you for the balance of the 
hearing?
    Co-chair McGovern. Absolutely.
    I'll turn to Representative Hartzler.
    Chair Merkley. Great. Thank you.
    Representative Hartzler. Thank you. Thank you both, Mr. 
Chairman.
    This question is for Chris Meserole. To what extent are 
U.S. companies implicated in the PRC's digital repression of 
religion? And are there instances of U.S. application stores 
removing religious apps from their storefronts at the request 
of the PRC? And are there areas where U.S. companies might be 
vulnerable to participation, knowingly or unknowingly, in the 
repression of religion?
    Mr. Meserole. That's a great question. I think to the 
question about whether American companies are actively engaging 
in removing religious content, I think it's undeniably true at 
this point. You know, if you go to Amazon.cn. you can't buy a 
Bible there. If you use an iPhone, there are certain kinds of 
religious apps that are not allowed within China, because they 
follow the Chinese law.
    I don't think it's controversial to say it's a challenge 
for American companies to operate in China and not follow these 
restrictions, which means that pretty much any American company 
operating in China and putting out a consumer application or 
platform app store, they're going to run into these issues and 
they're going to have to comply with China, or else they're 
going to have to leave the country. Those who are still there, 
I think we have to assume, are in compliance with what China is 
doing.
    More broadly, I think that there's also the question of 
American firms and their involvement or the use of their 
products within the surveillance state itself. I've been really 
heartened to see the more aggressive steps that the White House 
has started to take recently, especially when it comes to 
export control, things like the export control restrictions on 
Nvidia's GPUs for cloud computing servers, which are really the 
best servers that you would want to use to train AI models, in 
particular the kind of AI models that are used in facial 
recognition, the best-performing models for facial recognition.
    We know that China has developed machine learning models to 
explicitly identify religious minorities as they pass through 
the country. Those models were more likely than not trained on 
either Nvidia GPUs or AMD GPUs. By banning the sale of those 
GPUs to China, it won't cripple them from being able to develop 
those kinds of models, but it will hamper their ability to do 
them at scale, especially if these technologies mature, so I 
think ideally we would continue to place more and more 
restrictions on the kinds of unique hardware that China relies 
on the U.S. for to literally build out the surveillance 
apparatus that it's been developing.
    Representative Hartzler. That is encouraging, that there's 
at least some pushback that we are doing to be helpful here. We 
do not want to be complicit in any of this, and anything that 
we can do to stop this spread around the world, and also to 
help the people of China, we need to do.
    Thank you very much to all the witnesses for your testimony 
and your work. I really appreciate it. I yield back, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Co-chair McGovern. Thank you very much. I don't see any 
other members or senators on the call, so I will bring the 
questioning to an end.
    Let me just thank the panelists again. I think you're 
reminding us all about how important language promotion is, 
something we need to act on in the House version of the 
COMPETES bill. There was a provision to put more money toward 
promoting the issue of language. I mean, we need to be teaching 
not just Mandarin but all the different dialects of China. 
Hopefully we can continue to build on that and maybe figure out 
a way to get the Senate to take it, and we can move on that. I 
also thought the suggestion that we need a common U.S. holistic 
policy on digital surveillance is something that we need to 
pursue.
    Again, I thank all of you for being with us and for your 
excellent testimony. We may have additional questions, which 
we'll follow up with in writing, but let me just bring this 
hearing to a close and say thank you to everybody. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the hearing was concluded.]

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


                            A P P E N D I X

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


                          Prepared Statements

                                ------                                


                   Prepared Statement of Nury Turkel

    Good morning, Chairman Merkley, Co-chair McGovern, and Honorable 
Members of the Commission. Thank you for inviting me to testify on 
behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, at 
this important hearing.
    I truly appreciate your steadfast leadership and continuing 
attention to the Chinese government's religious freedom abuses 
targeting many ethnic and religious communities across China, including 
Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, underground Catholic and Protestant 
house church Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners, to name a few.
    For decades, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has placed 
religion under tight, comprehensive, and coercive control. It exercises 
control by using arbitrary laws and regulations and implementing them 
through a complex but sophisticated web of Party and government 
agencies at all levels, including the CCP's United Front Work 
Department, State Administration for Religious Affairs, and China's 
Public Security and State Security apparatus.
    Anyone suspected of violating the CCP's religious policies is 
severely punished. China's egregious abuses against Uyghurs and other 
Turkic Muslims is a case in point and one which the U.S. Government has 
determined amounts to genocide. Even the UN High Commissioner for Human 
Rights' recent Xinjiang report confirmed that severe violations have 
occurred and may amount to crimes against humanity.
    The crackdown on religion has become increasingly harsh in recent 
years under the brutal rule of CCP leader Xi Jinping, leading some 
experts to call his decade-long reign the ``bitter winter for religious 
freedom in China.''
    Xi Jinping's new regulation on religion, the ``Measures for the 
Administration of Internet Religious Information Services,'' represents 
a new low for Xi and his government. Its impact cannot be overstated, 
as the regulation imposes new restrictions on religious activities, 
further constricting the narrow space in which religious groups can 
operate.
    This new regulation has a particularly significant and adverse 
impact on independent, unregistered religious communities. Due to the 
government's severe persecution, many of them rely on online platforms 
and resources for religious education and training, religious 
gatherings and worship, and other religious activities. These online 
platforms and smartphone apps are often the only viable means through 
which these religious communities can carry out activities and connect 
with one another, especially during the strict COVID-19 lockdowns.
    The negative impact of this regulation is already being felt across 
China since it went into effect in March 2022. Chinese authorities have 
recruited hundreds, if not thousands, of auditors to target and censor 
religious content on the Chinese internet. Christian and Tibetan 
Buddhist groups have reported that their websites and WeChat virtual 
groups were shut down and are no longer accessible. USCIRF is concerned 
that this regulation will lead to more persecution and abuses, 
especially for groups with foreign connections.
    The regulation also imposes tighter restrictions on state-
sanctioned religious groups. These groups are required to submit 
detailed information to authorities to apply for a permit to operate 
online. In addition, they are required to self-censor their religious 
materials on the internet. Therefore, even state-sanctioned religious 
groups are not safe and could be punished if they are found to be non-
compliant with the government's policies.
    We are all aware that the Chinese government routinely monitors and 
censors all kinds of online content, including religious materials. But 
this new regulation is the first of its kind designed to specifically 
target religious content on the internet, and it has created a chilling 
effect for many religious groups and individuals. It is tantamount to a 
total ban on religious activities, as many groups are no longer able to 
operate in person or online.
    The order to de-religionize the internet came from the highest 
echelon of the Party, Xi Jinping. At the 2016 China National Conference 
on Religious Work attended by high-level party and government 
officials, Xi Jinping expressed particular displeasure toward the 
phenomenon of ``internet religions.'' Five years later at the 2021 
China National Conference on Religious Work, Xi again emphasized the 
need to ``strengthen the management of religious affairs on the 
internet.''
    It is important to note that Xi Jinping sees religion as 
fundamentally connected to national security. As a consequence, he has 
underscored the need to fight against ``foreign infiltration through 
the use of religion'' and ``religious extremism,'' including on the 
internet. This new regulation is an integral part of the CCP's 
``Sinicization policy'' to subjugate and control all ethnic and 
religious groups, coercing support and loyalty to the CCP rule and its 
policies, or else face severe consequences.
    Mr. Chairman, this new regulation is the latest example of the CCP 
expanding and refining its techno-authoritarianism toolkit at home, as 
it tries to intimidate and coerce its own citizens to perpetuate its 
rule. Ethnic minority regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, in particular, 
have borne the brunt of the CCP's technology-enhanced brutality in 
recent years, as the China Commission has well documented.
    The CCP has been exporting its techno-authoritarianism overseas to 
countries with poor human rights records as well. Oppressive regimes 
can emulate the ``China model'' to persecute political dissidents and 
human rights advocates. The U.S. Government and companies must continue 
to ensure that critical technology is not exported to China and 
contributing to any religious freedom abuses abroad.
    USCIRF also recommends that the U.S. Government impose more 
targeted sanctions on Chinese officials and entities responsible for 
severe religious freedom violations, especially those within the United 
Front Work Department, the State Administration for Religious Affairs, 
as well as China's public security and state security apparatus. These 
entities are directly involved in the drafting, implementation, and 
enforcement of the new regulation on internet religious activities.
    In closing, I would like to thank the Commission again for the 
opportunity to testify and for your attention to the plight of all 
persecuted ethnic and religious groups in China. I look forward to your 
questions.
                                 ______
                                 

                 Prepared Statement of Karrie J. Koesel

    Chair Merkley, Co-chair McGovern, and distinguished members of the 
Commission. I am honored to participate in today's hearing on the 
control of religion in China through digital authoritarianism.
    In my remarks today, I will focus my attention on three strategies 
used to assert Chinese government control over religion and the 
implications for religious life. These strategies are part of a long-
term and coordinated effort to contain and transform religion in China.

                               Background

    Contemporary China represents one of the most restrictive 
environments for religion and religious communities around the 
globe.\1\ This is not by accident, but by design. Since coming to power 
in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has promoted state atheism, 
viewed religion as an impediment to the advancement of socialism, an 
ideological competitor, and vehicle for foreign influence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 
``OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous 
Region, People's Republic of China,'' August 31, 2022, https://
www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-
31-final-assessment.pdf; Office of International Religious Freedom, 
``2020 Report on International Religious Freedom,'' US Department of 
State, May 12, 2021, https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-
report-on-international-religious-freedom/; Samirah Majumdar and 
Virginia Villa, ``Globally, Social Hostilities Related to Religion 
Decline in 2019,'' Pew Research Center, September 30, 2021, https://
www.pewforum.org/2021/09/30/globally-social-hostilities-related-to-
religion-decline-in-2019-while-government-restrictions-remain-at-
highest-levels/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The CCP's approach toward religion has been guided by twin goals of 
containment and control. Religious life has been tolerated, so long as 
it stays within tightly defined parameters and serves the interests of 
the party-state. The Chinese government recognizes only five religions 
(Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism), ritual and 
worship are restricted to registered sites, religious communities are 
channeled into religious patriotic associations, and clergy must be 
trained in government-sanctioned seminaries where 30 percent of the 
curriculum is devoted to patriotic and ideological education.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ ``Order of SARA No. 16, Measures for the Administration of 
Religious School [in Chinese],'' Chinese Government Web, April 23, 
2021, http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2021/
content_5623053.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The reach of the Chinese state into religious life is extensive.
            strategy 1: digital & surveillance technologies
    Under General Secretary Xi Jinping, strategies of religious 
management have expanded with the development of digital and 
surveillance technologies. These technologies facilitate systematic and 
coordinated efforts to collect information, and monitor and target 
religious groups and practitioners, especially those perceived as 
operating outside of state-set parameters or viewed as security 
threats.
    The Chinese surveillance state monitors social media to identify 
and collect information on religious believers and their networks; it 
tracks phone apps that transmit information on user activity and 
location; it utilizes facial recognition technology to follow movement; 
and relies on an impressive array of CCTV cameras at temples, churches, 
and mosques to keep tabs on attendance and the content of religious 
services.
    Recent measures regulating religious information online bring 
religious communities in compliance with other laws on Internet 
security. Religious associations, schools, and monasteries must obtain 
a license for maintaining websites and online religious content must be 
approved by government representatives at provincial religious affairs 
departments.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ ``Regulations on Religious Affairs,'' SARA, Chinese Government 
Web, February 1, 2018, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2017-09/07/
content_5223282.htm; ``Measures for the Administration of Internet 
Religious Information Services,'' Chinese Government Web, March 1, 
2022, http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2022/content_5678093.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Religious life is ostensibly monitored at every level--in public, 
in private, and virtually.

                              Implications

      Expanding digital technologies accelerates the crackdown 
on unregistered religious groups. Religious communities not formally 
affiliated with the government-sponsored religious patriotic 
associations operate with no legal protections. These communities meet 
in private homes, hotels, factories, fields, and in virtual 
communities; they include Protestant house churches, members of the 
underground Catholic Church, unregistered Buddhists, Daoists, and 
Muslims and practitioners of popular and folk religions. The growing 
sophistication of the Chinese surveillance state means it is 
increasingly difficult for unregistered communities to operate under 
the radar.

      Control of online religious expression is increasing. 
Religious online forums, microblogs, and instant messaging platforms 
run by individuals face increased censorship (e.g., WeChat, Weibo, QQ, 
RenRen). These online tools and virtual communities are seen as a 
vehicle of ``religious infiltration'' and source of religious growth on 
college campuses.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Ge Chengguang, ``An Analysis of the Influence of Internet on 
College Students' Religious Beliefs,'' Gong Wu Yuan, https://
www.21ks.net/lunwen/zjxylw/76485.html.
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                        strategy 2: sinicization
    Under General Secretary Xi, religious communities have been asked 
to sinicize. Sinicization is a long-term strategy to insulate religious 
life from foreign influence by making it ``more Chinese'' and ensuring 
fealty to the party-state.\5\ Specifically, Sinicization prioritizes 
the integration of political ideology and support for the CCP. A 
handbook for Chinese government officials outlines the Sinicization of 
religion as:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Xinhua, ``Xi Calls for Improved Religious Work,'' April 24, 
2016, China.org.cn, http://www.china.org.cn/china/2016-04/24/
content_38312410.htm.

        Religious personnel and believers must identify and agree with 
        politics, love the motherland, support the socialist system, 
        support the leadership of the CCP, and abide by the laws, 
        regulations, and policies of the country; Integrate culturally, 
        meaning to interpret religious teachings according to the 
        requirement of contemporary China's development and process and 
        in line with the excellent traditional Chinese culture; Adapt 
        to society, adjust religious concepts, systems, organizations, 
        etc.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ Zhong Ji, Key Words for Party Members and Cadres to Study in 
the New Era [in Chinese], (Beijing: Party Building Books Publishing 
House, 2019), 62.

    Put simply, Sinicization is the ``partyfication'' of religion.
    It is important to note that Sinicization is not new to China nor 
to the CCP. Xi's predecessors from Mao to Hu all took steps to adapt 
Marxism-Leninism to a Chinese context, which led to the development of 
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Sinicized Marxism.\7\ 
Foreign missionaries also attempted to root churches locally to make 
them more acceptable. Matteo Ricci dressed in Buddhist robes and 
introduced Catholicism through Confucian concepts.\8\ However, the 
CCP's Sinicization of religion is distinct from earlier efforts in that 
it puts the party-state at the center of religious life.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Hu Jintao, ``Hu, Jintao's Report at the 17th National Congress 
of the Communist Party of China [in Chinese].'' The State Council 
Information Office of the PRC, October 26, 2007, http://
www.scio.gov.cn/37231/Document/1566887/1566887_11.htm; Wang Qi, ``Why 
Does the General Secretary Place So Much Emphasis on the Sinicization 
of Religion in Our Country? [in Chinese],'' December 6, 2021. UFWD of 
CPCCC, http://www.zytzb.gov.cn/202112qwpl/364882.jhtml; Yang Fenggang, 
``The Sinicization of Chinese Religions: From Above and Below,'' 
Religion in Chinese Societies 18 (2021): 16-43.
    \8\ Matteo Ricci, Douglas Lancashire and Hu Guozhen, The True 
Meaning of the Lord of Heaven = Tianzhu Shiyi. Chinese-English ed. by 
E.J. Malatesta, (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources in cooperation 
with the Ricci Institute, 1985).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    At present, there is no central policy articulating how 
Sinicization should develop. Instead, the national religious patriotic 
associations have introduced five-year plans to answer Beijing's call. 
It is within these plans we clearly observe the political direction.
    The Catholic plan asserts that Sinicization ``requires 
conscientious approval of politics. Love of the motherland and 
obedience to the national regime is the responsibility and obligation 
of every Christian.'' \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ ``Five-Year Work Plan for Advancing Adherence to the Direction 
of Sinicization of Catholicism in Our Country [in Chinese],'' CPA and 
BCCCC, October 8, 2018, https://www.chinacatholic.cn/html/report/
18100224-2.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Protestant plan calls on pastors to harmonize Biblical 
teachings with the ideology of the party-state and to preach Core 
Socialist Values \10\ and patriotism from the pulpit and in 
seminaries.\11\ It recommends displaying expressions of faith in forms 
such as traditional melody, calligraphy, and paper cutting. Pastors 
should blend notions of love and respect attributed to Mencius with 
Biblical teaching that focuses on loving others as yourself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ Core Socialist Values have been articulated as a set of moral 
values to guide China's national rejuvenation, and include prosperity, 
democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, the rule of 
law, patriotism, dedication, friendliness, and integrity; see, e.g., 
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/19thcpcnationalcongress/2017-10/12/
content_33160115.htm.
    \11\ ``Five-Year Plan for Promoting the Sinicization of 
Christianity in Our Country (2018-2022) [in Chinese],'' CCC and TSPM, 
March 27, 2018, https://www.ccctspm.org/cppccinfo/10283.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Buddhist plan for Sinicization prioritizes the study and 
implementation of Xi Jinping Thought. Religious personnel are urged to 
accept and support the leadership of the party-state and promote 
Buddhist teachings in line with Core Socialist Values.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ ``Outline of the Five-Year Work Plan for Adhering to the 
Sinicization of Buddhism (2019-2023) [in Chinese],'' Buddhist 
Association of China, November 14, 2019, https://
www.chinabuddhism.com.cn/e/action/ShowInfo.php?classid=506&id=40672.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Islamic Association's Sinicization plan highlights the 
integration of Chinese aesthetics and patriotism into religious and 
cultural life. This includes adopting Chinese styles of clothing to 
correct the practice of imitating foreign Islamic dress, promoting 
architectural styles in mosques that highlight Chinese elements, using 
``Confucianism to interpret scripture,'' and teaching Core Socialist 
Values in mosque curriculum.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ ``Outline for the Five-year Year Work Plan for Adhering to the 
Sinicization of Islam in China (2018-2022) [in Chinese],'' https://
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yqRJy1eNTNZdEqq8n12MKg.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Even Daoism--an indigenous religion to China--has developed a plan 
to Sinicize. The Daoist plan calls for incorporation of Xi Jinping 
Thought into the traditional Daoist canon and the promotion of 
patriotism and political education in religious circles.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ ``Outline for the Five-Year Work Plan for Adhering to the 
Sinicization of Daoism (2019-2023) [in Chinese],'' http://
dao.china.com.cn/2019-11/14/content_40959194.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The takeaway from these plans is that Sinicization centers on the 
partyfication of religion.

                              Implications

      Sinicization is a strategy to politically reorient 
China's faithful, not embrace traditional Chinese culture or values. 
Sinicization seeks to subdue religion so that it aligns with the 
ambitions and interests of the party-state. Beijing is planning for a 
long-term coexistence with religion, and Sinicization is one answer to 
managing religious growth.

      Sinicization efforts remain uneven. Religious communities 
have some flexibility and are interpreting Sinicization in different 
ways. Some religions have incorporated Chinese folktales or Confucian 
parables into religious services. Others have embraced traditional 
clothing for clergy or integrated Chinese traditional architecture into 
building renovations. Still others have held flag-raising ceremonies, 
organized patriotic speech contests, or added photographs of Xi Jinping 
next to sacred objects. Thus far, the party-state seems content to 
allow flexibility, so long as Sinicization efforts show necessary 
reverence.

      The long-term impact of Sinicization is uncertain. It 
remains to be seen whether the Sinicization campaign will rein in 
religion, cultivate love and loyalty toward the CCP, or divide 
religious communities and foster resentment among China's faithful. 
Historically, processes of Sinicization have nourished religious growth 
in China, as external faiths have become more familiar and embedded in 
local traditions and social fabrics. Therefore, it is within the realm 
of possibility that Sinicization may increase religiosity, an outcome 
that Beijing is likely not anticipating.
                      strategy 3: ``three troops''
    The third strategy of religious management is outward facing. 
General Secretary Xi has called for the development of ``Three Troops'' 
to address major religious issues at home and abroad.\15\ The Three 
Troops initiative brings together party and government officials, 
prominent religious representatives, and academic researchers to 
improve China's ability to implement the Sinicization of religion, and, 
more importantly, to counter what is perceived as U.S.-led, 
international freedom of religion initiatives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ See, e.g., Xu Yihua, ``The Background and Current Tasks of 
Cultivating the ``Three Teams'' of Religious Work: Learning from the 
Spirit of the 2021 National Conference on Religious Work,'' The World 
Religious Culture 1 (2022): 60911, https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/_t2515/b0/
a3/c21257a438435/page.htm; ``Welcome to the 20th National Congress of 
the Communist Party of China, Opening a New Situation for Religious 
Work in a New Era,'' China National Daily, http://www.mzb.com.cn/html/
report/22082392-1.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              Implications

      Chinese strategies of religious management are shifting 
from defense to offense. The Three Troops initiative is intended to 
counter and quiet foreign advocacy for religious freedom in China.

      Beijing is harnessing religion for soft power purposes. 
There is growing recognition that religion is a beneficial form of soft 
power and can be used to enhance relations with countries and win 
public opinion, especially through infrastructure initiatives, such as 
the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
                            recommendations
    International advocacy for Chinese religious communities and calls 
to protect religious freedom and human rights can backfire in China 
because it is seen as evidence of external forces seeking to divide 
China, foment instability, and challenge CCP rule. However, there are 
steps that can and should be taken to support freedom of religion and 
belief.

                          Bilateral Engagement

    Consistently raise the issue of religious freedom and human rights 
in China in public and in private meetings with Chinese counterparts;

      Urge Chinese authorities to release prisoners of 
conscience who have been detained, placed under house arrest, or 
imprisoned for their religion or beliefs;

      Press Chinese authorities to refrain from conflating 
peaceful religious activity with extremism and terrorism;

    Work with U.S. allies and partners to take similar action, 
especially Muslim majority partners.

                        Pathway for Registration

    Encourage Chinese officials to create a pathway for registration of 
unregistered religious communities that includes direct registration 
with the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), not through 
religious patriotic associations.

                            Build Expertise

    Prioritize funding to maintain U.S. expertise on China. It is a 
national security imperative that we invest and increase support for 
training American students and scholars in China and Chinese language. 
Federal support of DOE International Education programs, including 
Title VI and Fulbright-Hays is crucial.
    In closing, I would like to thank the commission for your attention 
to this important set of issues. I look forward to answering any 
questions that you have.
                                 ______
                                 

                  Prepared Statement of Chris Meserole

    Chairman Merkley, Chairman McGovern, distinguished Members of the 
Commission, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you this 
morning on such a vital and important issue.
    Although there is a growing awareness of the threat posed by the 
Chinese Communist Party's model of digital authoritarianism, the extent 
to which its expansion has converged with the Xi regime's increasing 
restrictions on religious freedom is far less well known. I'm grateful 
for the chance to share my thoughts on how that convergence came to 
pass, the unprecedented challenges it poses for freedom of religion 
within China and around the globe, and how the United States should 
respond.

        China's Surveillance State and Restrictions on Religion

    Before delving into how the Xi regime's rising digital 
authoritarianism intersects with its growing religious repression, each 
trend needs to be understood separately.
    After the arrival of the internet in China in the late 1980s, the 
Chinese Communist Party was quick to recognize both the danger digital 
networks posed to the Party and also their potential for surveillance 
and control. By 1994 the State Council of China had placed supervision 
of the internet under the control of the Ministry of Public Security, 
and by 1997 Wired was running a cover story on the ``Great Firewall of 
China.'' \1\ Over the next decade, Chinese authorities invested heavily 
in state censorship and surveillance technologies, including packet 
inspection and IP blocking, as part of the Golden Shield project.\2\ At 
the same time, Internet firms were increasingly held liable for hosting 
and transmitting prohibited speech, leading the largest firms--
including foreign firms operating in the country--to develop robust 
censorship and moderation capabilities themselves.\3\ By the time Xi 
Jinping took power in 2012, Chinese authorities had established an 
online censorship and surveillance apparatus whose capabilities were 
even then unprecedented in scope. Xi moved quickly to consolidate that 
apparatus under his control, primarily by establishing the Cyberspace 
Administration of China and tasking it with overseeing the country's 
censorship and cybersecurity policies.\4\ As smartphone usage exploded 
over the past decade and hundreds of millions of Chinese have come 
online, the scale and reach of online censorship and surveillance under 
the Xi regime has expanded accordingly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ ``Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China: A Human 
Rights Watch Backgrounder,'' Human Rights Watch, 2001; Geremie R. Barme 
and Sang Ye, ``The Great Firewall of China,'' Wired, 1 June 1997.
    \2\ Elizabeth C. Economy, ``The Great Firewall of China: Xi 
Jinping's Internet Shutdown,'' The Guardian, 29 June 2018.
    \3\ ``Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet 
Censorship,'' Human Rights Watch, 9 Aug. 2006.
    \4\ AJ Caughey and Shen Lu and ``How the CAC Became Chinese Tech's 
Biggest Nightmare,'' Protocol, 11 Mar. 2022.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Yet the surveillance apparatus developed by Chinese authorities is 
not limited to the web alone. As prior testimony before this commission 
has shown, Beijing has also harnessed digital technology for off-line 
surveillance and monitoring, too.\5\ Most prominently, Chinese security 
services in Xinjiang and Tibet have leveraged cameras, drones, 
smartphones, and biometric technology to turn those regions into what 
are effectively open air prisons.\6\ However, use of these surveillance 
technologies is by no means limited to Xinjiang and Tibet. Since 2005, 
when the Ministry of Public Safety and what is now the Ministry of 
Industry and Information Technology established the first ``Skynet 
program,'' Chinese officials have launched and expanded a wide range of 
digital surveillance efforts throughout the country.\7\ With prodding 
from Beijing, local authorities have invested heavily in the equipment, 
infrastructure, and training to build out Skynet as well as related 
surveillance efforts like Smart Cities, Sharp Eyes, and early pilots of 
the Social Credit System.\8\ The most sophisticated of these systems--
which have seen widespread use during the pandemic, thanks to China's 
Zero Covid policy--now also make it possible to track individuals in 
real time using facial recognition algorithms overlaid on drone cameras 
and CCTV feeds.\9\ Since these systems often lack due process and 
public oversight, the Xi regime has effectively built out the world's 
most comprehensive architecture for digital repression.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Samantha Hoffman, ``China's Tech-Enhanced Authoritarianism,'' 
CECC Hearing, November 17, 2021; Yaqui Wang, ``Testimony of Yaqui 
Wang,'' CECC Hearing, November 17, 2021.
    \6\ Nithin Coca, ``China's Digital Wall Around Tibet,'' Coda Story, 
16 May 2019.
    \7\ Zhang Zihan, ``Beijing's Guardian Angels?'' Global Times, 10 
Oct. 2012.
    \8\ Jessica Batke and Mareike Ohlberg, ``Budgeting for 
Surveillance,'' ChinaFile, October 30, 2022.
    \9\ Rebecca Heilweil, ``Coronavirus is the first big test for 
futuristic tech that can prevent pandemics,'' Vox, 27 Feb. 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Unfortunately, the Xi regime has in tandem built out a growing 
legal and bureaucratic architecture for religious repression. After 
banning religious activity outright during the Cultural Revolution, 
Chinese authorities had reversed course in the ``Reform Era'' that 
followed, most notably with the CCP Central Committee's issuance of 
Document 19 in 1982. The result was a remarkable resurgence of 
religious communities across China, with government estimates 
recognizing a nearly fourfold increase in Protestantism alone between 
1997 and 2018.\10\ Yet over the past decade, Beijing has once again 
sought to bring religion back under greater control. In part that 
effort has stemmed from Beijing's efforts to rein in what it views as 
``religious extremism'' in Xinjiang and Tibet; the country's 
Counterterrorism-Terror Law of 2016, along with corresponding measures 
and regulations, granted local authorities in each region the power to 
detain individuals for otherwise conventional religious behavior, such 
as growing a long beard.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ ``China's Policies and Practices on Protecting Freedom of 
Religious Belief,'' Information Office of the State Council, 3 Apr. 
2018; ``White Paper--Freedom of Religious Belief in China,'' Embassy of 
the People's Republic of China in the United States, Oct. 1997.
    \11\ ``China detains Uighurs for growing beards or visiting foreign 
websites, leak reveals,'' Guardian, 17 Feb. 2020; ``OHCHR Assessment of 
human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 
People's Republic of China,'' United Nations Office of the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights, 31 Aug. 2022, page 8.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    However, the Xi regime's efforts to rein in religion extend well 
beyond its counter-terrorism policy. In 2016, Xi held a two-day 
conference on religion during which he both outlined a more hardline 
vision for religious regulation and also called for greater 
Sinicization of religion, urging the CCP to ``actively guide the 
adaptation of religions'' and faith communities to ``interpret 
religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China's 
progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture.'' \12\ The 
speech came amid a growing crackdown on Christian churches \13\ and in 
advance of new regulations requiring all religious organizations to 
register with the government.\14\ Soon after the regulations took 
effect in 2018, Xi then announced that the State Administration for 
Religious Affairs (SARA) would be dissolved and its oversight function 
shifted to a new bureau in the CCP's United Front Work Department, a 
move designed to bring the management of religion further under the 
Party's control.\15\ In 2020, another set of regulations came into 
effect requiring religious organizations ``to spread the principles and 
policies of the Chinese Communist Party'' and to educate their 
adherents and leaders ``to support the leadership of the Chinese 
Communist Party'' and to follow ``the path of socialism with Chinese 
characteristics.'' \16\ In response to the regulations, a Chinese 
Catholic priest replied: ``In practice, your religion no longer 
matters, if you are Buddhist, or Taoist, or Muslim or Christian: the 
only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese Communist Party.'' \17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ ``Xi Calls for Improved Religious Work,'' Xinhua, 24 Apr. 
2016.
    \13\ Ian Johnson, ``China Bans Online Bible Sales as It Tightens 
Religious Controls,'' The New York Times, 5 Apr. 2018
    \14\ Dominic J. Nardi, ``The 2019 Regulation for Religious Groups 
in China,'' USCIRF, February 2020.
    \15\ Alex Joske, ``Reorganizing the United Front Work Department: 
New Structures for a New Era of Diaspora and Religious Affairs Work,'' 
Jamestown, 9 May 2019. https://jamestown.org/program/reorganizing-the-
united-front-work-department-new-structures-for-a-new-era-of-
diaspora-and-religious-affairs-work/
    \16\ For background, see Eleanor Albert and Lindsay Maizland, 
``Religion in China,'' Council on Foreign Relations, 25 Sept. 2020; for 
translation, see Wang Zhicheng, ``New Administrative Measures for 
Religious Groups,'' Asia News, 31 Dec. 2019.
    \17\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Xi regime's effort to control religious life then converged 
with its growing attempts to regulate online activity in late 2021. 
Although Chinese officials had imposed some measures to regulate online 
religious activity before--most notably its decision to ban the sale of 
Bibles online,\18\ and a handful of stipulations in the religious 
regulations that took effect in 2018 and 2020 \19\--Xi himself brought 
the issue to the fore in another conference on religion at the end of 
last year. In addition to reiterating his earlier call for the 
Sinicization of religion, Xi's remarks at the conference pushed for 
greater regulation of digital religion and insisted that ``China must 
strengthen the management of online religious affairs.'' \20\ Chinese 
officials then released new regulations banning foreign organizations 
from publishing content online and requiring registered religious 
organizations to receive licenses for streaming religious services and 
ceremonies.\21\ Shortly after the regulations came into effect in March 
2022, provincial governments began training new staff to censor online 
religious activity and ensure compliance with the new regulations.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ Ian Johnson, ``China Bans Online Bible Sales as It Tightens 
Religious Controls,'' The New York Times, 5 Apr. 2018.
    \19\ Article 48 of the 2020 regulations, for example, claimed that 
``internet religious information services'' also had to comply with 
relevant laws and regulations concerning religious affairs.
    \20\ Amber Wang, ``China's latest crackdown on religion bans 
foreigners from spreading church and spiritual content online,'' South 
China Morning Post, 22 Dec. 2021.
    \21\ Tsukasa Hadano, ``China Bans Online Religious Activity Ahead 
of Party Congress,'' Nikkei Asia, 6 Jan. 2022.
    \22\ John Zhang, ``127 Persons Pass Internet Religious Information 
Service License Examination in Guangdong,'' China Christian Daily, 28 
June 2022. http://chinachristiandaily.com/news/
category/2022-06-28/127-persons-pass-internet-religious-information-
service-license-
examination-in-guangdong--11614
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The new regulations represent a significant new expansion of 
China's surveillance state. Provincial authorities will still play a 
leading role in regulating religion, as they have historically.\23\ But 
with the key agencies responsible for China's surveillance apparatus 
also jointly issuing the new regulations--namely, the Ministry of 
Public Security, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry 
of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry for National 
Security--the oversight of religious activity now formally extends far 
beyond local administrators. If the impact of the new regulations can 
be put in Orwellian terms, what they mean is that ``Big Brother'' now 
has clear authority to extend its watchful eye over people of faith.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ Article 5 of the new regulations: ``The religious affairs 
departments of people's governments at the provincial level and above, 
together with the network information departments, competent 
departments for telecommunications, public security organs, state 
security organs, and so forth, shall establish coordination mechanisms 
for the administration of Internet Religious Information Services.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

          Local and Global Implications for Religious Freedom

    As I've noted in previous testimony, digital technology has 
provided extraordinary new capabilities for religious repression.\24\ 
From the Spanish Inquisition to Stalinist Russia, modern nation-states 
have long sought to persecute religious activity, often to devastating 
effect. Indeed, this happened within China itself during the Cultural 
Revolution. Yet in pre-digital eras states were largely only able to 
regulate public religion; religiosity has always been a mix of public 
and private beliefs, behaviors, and institutions, and in practice state 
regulation has generally been limited to the former. Regulating the 
offline exercise of private religion is simply too difficult and costly 
for a state to carry out at scale--which is partly why, for example, 
religious communities in Maoist China were able to endure and flourish 
anew once religious restrictions were lifted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \24\ Chris Meserole, ``Technological Surveillance of Religion in 
China,'' USCIRF hearing, July 22, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    However, the digital surveillance that China has pioneered allows 
for restrictions on even the private exercise of religion. GPS sensors 
in smartphones and cars, plus facial recognition that can track 
citizens across a city, make it difficult for private and covert 
religious communities to form and operate undetected. Likewise, client- 
and server-side scanning have made it possible to detect private 
religious activity like downloading a picture of a religious leader or 
reading a sacred text, and smart televisions and cellphones make it 
possible to remotely watch and hear private prayers within a home. Most 
importantly, however, the knowledge that state authorities are able to 
monitor even private religious activity can create a chilling effect 
that ultimately seeks to deter individuals from engaging in private 
religious expression at all. By eroding faith that the private exercise 
of religion is possible, digital surveillance works to erode faith 
altogether.
    Although China is still far from fully eradicating unlicensed 
religious activity, examples of their efforts still abound. The recent 
plight of Uighur Muslims in Western Xinjiang is most well known, with 
local authorities compiling massive DNA and facial recognition 
databases that can be used to track individual members of mosques and 
Islamic networks, as well as smartphone surveillance capable of 
blocking access to the Quran and censoring posts about Islam. Yet the 
state is not just interfering with the religious freedom of Turkic 
Muslims; Hui Muslims have also been jailed merely for creating WeChat 
groups to discuss the Quran.\25\ Nor is the discrimination limited to 
Western China. Local authorities and security services across the rest 
of China have implemented facial recognition technology--provided by 
firms like Huawei, Magvii, and Tiandy--to indiscriminately identify 
individuals who may be Muslim.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\ ``China Jails Man for Teaching Islam Online,'' CBS News, 12 
Sept. 2017.
    \26\ Paul Mozur, ``One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China Is 
Using A.I. to Profile a Minority,'' The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2019; 
Drew Harwell and Eva Dou, ``Huawei Tested AI Software That Could 
Recognize Uighur Minorities and Alert Police, Report Says,'' Washington 
Post, 9 Sept. 2022; Tate Ryan-Mosley, ``This Huge Chinese Company Is 
Selling Video Surveillance Systems to Iran,'' MIT Technology Review, 
December 15, 2021; Edward Wong and Ana Swanson, ``U.S. Aims to Expand 
Export Bans on China Over Security and Human Rights,'' The New York 
Times, 5 July 2022.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Unfortunately, many of those technologies are readily applied to 
Buddhist and Christian communities too. In Tibet, merely storing an 
image of the Dalai Lama on a smartphone can warrant detention. And 
evading the authorities online and offline is increasingly 
difficult.\27\ VPNs have been criminalized in the region, while an 
elaborate ``digital wall'' of cameras, drones, and remote sensing 
technologies has cut down the number of Tibetans successfully fleeing 
to Nepal by 97%.\28\ Unregistered Christian Churches, which are viewed 
as a potential vector for foreign influence, have also been the subject 
of intense surveillance and censorship too. Pastors have been told to 
remove themselves from WeChat groups, while other clergy suspected of 
having ties to foreign churches have had their social media accounts 
and digital content banned.\29\ Other underground or unregistered 
churches have been shut down entirely for refusing to comply with 
digital surveillance.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \27\ ``Wave of Arrests Across Eastern Tibet After Digital Search 
Operations,'' Free Tibet, 22 July 2021.
    \28\ Nithin Coca, ``China's Digital Wall Around Tibet,'' Coda 
Story, 16 May 2019.
    \29\ ``Five members of the Sion Church in Taiyuan travelled abroad 
to attend an evangelical conference, and were arrested for `the crime 
of stealing across the border','' ChinaAid, 27 July 2021.
    \30\ ``China Outlaws Large Underground Protestant Church in 
Beijing,'' Reuters, 10 Sept. 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The combination of the new religious regulations, along with 
China's ongoing ``Zero Covid'' policy, stand to exacerbate these 
trends. With Covid restrictions requiring the frequent closure of 
houses of worship (or serving as a pretext for their closure), online 
channels have offered a way for some religious organizations to remain 
in community. The new regulations thus threaten to remove a key option 
for exercising religion at a time when it is needed most.

Potential for Religious Repression Abroad

    Although the Xi regime's combination of digital authoritarianism 
and religious repression most directly impacts religious organizations 
within China, it also poses an urgent challenge to faith communities 
abroad. There are three particular dangers in that regard.
    First, China's efforts to digitally surveil and censor religious 
minorities extend well beyond its borders. As an illustration of how 
seriously Chinese authorities take the issue, in 2019 they expended a 
sophisticated ``zero day'' exploit for iOS devices on the Uighur 
diaspora. Chinese hackers had developed a way to gain root access to 
iPhone just by having the browser open a website, yet state authorities 
opted to exploit the vulnerability to monitor a small Uighur community 
abroad rather than a foreign political leader or high-value target.\31\ 
In addition, the Chinese have also sought to leverage WeChat to monitor 
ties between Christian communities abroad and those in mainland China--
to the point where domestic Chinese clergy have asked their members not 
to use WeChat with Christians in the United States.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \31\ Cooper Quintin and Mona Wang, ``Watering Holes and Million 
Dollar Dissidents: The Changing Economics of Digital Surveillance,'' 
Electronic Frontier Foundation, 9 Sept. 2019.
    \32\ Wan Zixin, ``China's Social Media Platforms--Tools of 
Religious Persecution,'' Bitter Winter, 19 May 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Second, China is increasingly exporting its surveillance technology 
to others. As part of its ``Digital Silk Road,'' the Xi regime has 
sought to couple its Belt and Road development initiative with a 
concurrent push to boost foreign sales of Chinese telecommunications 
equipment and technology, including surveillance technology.\33\ As a 
result, China has now successfully sold the surveillance technology it 
has pioneered to over 80 states globally,\34\ many of whom also have 
extensive legal and bureaucratic structures for religious repression. 
For example, consider Iran. After widespread protests throughout the 
country in 2009, Tehran purchased a surveillance system from ZTE for 
Iran's telecommunications monopoly, enabling the regime to monitor 
landline and mobile communications and carry out deep packet inspection 
across nearly all internet traffic.\35\ More recently, Tehran has 
entered into a 25-year trade agreement with China in which Iran will 
receive greater Chinese investment and technology, while earlier this 
year Iran's parliament pushed forward a new Internet ``Protection 
Bill'' that would place the country's internet infrastructure under 
control of its armed forces and security services and was explicitly 
modeled in part on Beijing's approach to internet technology.\36\ As 
one lawmaker put it, in reference to internet restrictions and 
surveillance, ``the Chinese have unique and innovative experience in 
this field, which we can put to use.'' \37\ Iran's security services 
have already made progress in that effort, with the purchase of video 
surveillance systems from the Chinese firm Tiandy--a company notorious 
for its supply of ``smart interrogation desks'' and facial recognition 
systems designed to target ethnic and religious minorities.\38\ Left 
unchecked, the Iranian regime appears intent on replicating China's 
surveillance system within its borders using Chinese-made technology. 
Given Tehran's track record, this poses serious risks to religious 
freedom in the country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \33\ Jonathan E. Hillman, The Digital Silk Road: China's Quest to 
Wire the World and Win the Future, Washington, DC: CSIS, 2021.
    \34\ Dahlia Peterson, ``How China Harnesses Data Fusion to Make 
Sense of Surveillance Data,'' Brookings Techstream, 23 Sept. 2021.
    \35\ ``Special Report: Chinese Firm Helps Iran Spy on Citizens,'' 
Reuters, 22 Mar. 2012.
    \36\ ``Iran: Human Rights Groups Sound Alarm Against Draconian 
Internet Bill,'' Human Rights Watch, 17 Mar. 2022.
    \37\ ``Iran Plans to Work With China On Technology To Further 
Restrict Internet,'' Iran International, 3 Feb. 2022.
    \38\ Tate Ryan-Mosley, ``This Huge Chinese Company Is Selling Video 
Surveillance Systems to Iran,'' MIT Technology Review, December 15, 
2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Third, the Xi regime's use of digital surveillance for religiously 
motivated repression has normalized the practice globally. Consider 
Saudi Arabia. As with China, the Saudi government has leveraged zero-
day exploits to surveil and target dissident communities abroad.\39\ It 
has also carried out mass surveillance of internet communications and 
social media within the country, with one key advisor--who was also 
involved with the killing of Jamal Khashoggi--publicly crowdsourcing a 
list of dissidents to target using a Twitter hashtag.\40\ Even though 
the Saudi regime has used Israeli rather than Chinese surveillance 
tech, and leveraged American rather than Saudi digital platforms, 
China's surveillance apparatus has helped to normalize its repression. 
Not surprisingly, Saudi officials have publicly acknowledged studying 
Beijing's technology development and deployment, claiming that ``there 
is a lot to learn from China.'' \41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \39\ Bill Marczak, et al., ``The Kingdom Came to Canada: How Saudi-
Linked Digital Espionage Reached Canadian Soil,'' Citizen Lab Research 
Report No. 115, University of Toronto, 1 Oct. 2018.
    \40\ Katie Benner, et al., ``Saudis' Image Makers: A Troll Army and 
a Twitter Insider,'' The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2018.
    \41\ Andrew England and Simeon Kerr, ```More of China, Less of 
America': How Superpower Fight Is Squeezing the Gulf,'' Financial 
Times, 20 Sept. 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                  How the United States Should Respond

    As the international community has awoken to the threats posed by 
China's model of digital authoritarianism, the United States and its 
allies and partners have started to respond forcefully. The U.S. Entity 
List is now far more comprehensive, export controls have been expanded, 
and new sanctions have been put in place on officials and firms 
responsible for the worst human rights abuses within China.\42\ 
Although the full effect of these and related efforts will take time to 
play out, the era in which Chinese firms were able to easily and openly 
develop and export repressive censorship and surveillance technology is 
drawing to a close--and rightfully so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \42\ Edward Wong and Ana Swanson, ``U.S. Aims to Expand Export Bans 
on China Over Security and Human Rights,'' The New York Times, 5 July 
2022.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    However, where the application of China's surveillance and 
censorship technology to religious freedom is specifically concerned, 
there is still far more that can be done. In particular:

      Establish a temporary, independent commission on digital 
authoritarianism. Addressing the challenge that digital 
authoritarianism poses to freedom of religion will not be possible 
without a consensus understanding of the threat it poses to the United 
States and democratic societies more broadly. A new bipartisan 
commission could carry out a full review of the challenge posed by 
digital authoritarianism, especially to religious freedom, and offer a 
consensus set of recommendations for how the United States should 
respond.

      Re-organize for the long term. With digital surveillance 
and high-tech competition set to be a defining challenge in the years 
and decades to come, the U.S. government has taken early steps to adapt 
its bureaucracy for the long-term nature of that challenge. Now that 
new bodies like the Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy in the 
State Department have gotten off the ground, there should be an inter-
agency review of how the offices set up to address digital policy and 
security liaise with and inform offices dedicated to religious freedom 
globally, and vice versa. This may result in more staff in the CDP or 
EAP bureaus having online religious freedom as part of their portfolio, 
and/or more staff in USCIRF and elsewhere with tech and digital policy 
as part of theirs. Regardless of the outcome, however, the Biden 
administration should mandate a review of how best to organize 
effectively against digital authoritarianism and religious repression.

      Create an open-source monitoring function. Crafting 
effective policy is difficult without reliable information and 
analysis, yet right now there is no consistent source of digital 
surveillance and censorship, much less its impact on religious 
repression, across the U.S. government. In light of the recommendation 
above, there should be an office dedicated to regularly providing the 
public with open-source information about how political regimes are 
deploying surveillance and censorship technology and what impact it is 
having on human rights, including the freedom of religion. By reliably 
producing this information, the United States will also be better 
positioned to build momentum for global efforts to counter digital 
authoritarianism in China, Iran, and elsewhere.

      Link religious freedom with freedom of expression online. 
In response to the growing calls for national internets like China's 
Great Firewall or Iran's ``Halal web,'' the Biden administration 
rightly reiterated the need for an open and free internet earlier this 
year with its ``Declaration for the Future of the Internet.'' \43\ Yet 
religion was referenced only once in passing in the declaration, and is 
often downplayed in broader policy discussions around freedom of 
expression online--despite the role that religious repression often 
plays in motivating mass digital surveillance. As the United States 
advocates for greater internet freedom around the world, its messaging 
should emphasize that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go 
hand-in-hand.

    \43\ ``A Declaration for the Future of the Internet,'' White House, 
May 2022.

      Leverage privacy-enhancing technologies. As the scale of 
government and commercial surveillance has grown, privacy-enhancing 
technologies hold enormous promise for advancing and protecting 
democratic values and norms--yet they are often absent from discussions 
about how to push back on the high-tech surveillance of religion in 
China and elsewhere.\44\ The U.S. should not only continue to invest 
more in privacy-enhancing technology, but they should also invest in 
efforts to educate religious minorities about how to use them. Virtual 
private networks (VPNs) are particularly valuable here, especially in 
states--like Saudi Arabia--that seek to emulate China's surveillance 
system but do not yet have the technical competence to do so 
effectively.\45\ With many religious activities shifting online, the 
need for end-to-end encrypted group videoconference and streaming will 
be increasingly vital. Although early options like Jitsi and Signal 
exist, privacy-preserving group video platforms will require far more 
investment to become easily accessible and usable by religious 
communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \44\ Andrew Imbrie, et al., ``Privacy Is Power,'' Foreign Affairs, 
16 Feb. 2022.
    \45\ ``A Seven-Nation Survey,'' Northwestern University in Qatar, 
2018.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                 Prepared Statement of Senator Merkley

    Good morning. Today's hearing of the Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China entitled ``Control of Religion in China through 
Digital Authoritarianism'' will come to order.
    Before we turn to the subject of this hearing, I'd like to take a 
moment to acknowledge and thank President Biden for his recent 
appointment of five executive branch commissioners to this Commission. 
This marks the first time in nearly six years that the Commission 
includes executive branch commissioners. Their appointment will bolster 
our ability to bring the expertise and perspective of the various 
branches of government in our work monitoring human rights and the rule 
of law in China. As we develop recommendations for legislative, 
executive, and international action, dialogue to coordinate our efforts 
will be critical, as it has been in recent years in implementing 
legislation this Commission spearheaded such as the Uyghur Forced Labor 
Prevention Act, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, the Hong Kong Human 
Rights and Democracy Act, and more.
     I look forward to working closely with our new commissioners. 
Those commissioners are Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and 
Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, Under Secretary of Commerce for 
International Trade Marisa Lago, Undersecretary of Labor for 
International Affairs Thea Lee, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary 
for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Lisa Peterson, and 
Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human 
Rights Uzra Zeya.
    Welcome to our new commissioners. We are absolutely delighted to 
have you.
    Today, our hearing focuses on freedom of religion, particularly 
recent developments in Chinese authorities' use of technology to crack 
down on the free exercise of religion. While many of our hearings 
explore violations of religious freedom--in Xinjiang, Tibet, and 
elsewhere--this is our first hearing dedicated to this topic since 
2018.
    Recent Chinese Communist Party steps to use digital repression to 
strengthen control of religion make this an especially timely hearing. 
As more religious activity and resources move online, especially in 
response to COVID, Chinese officials have expanded use of digital tools 
to surveil and suppress online religious expression. Invasive 
surveillance technologies and mass biometric data collection track and 
monitor religious groups that authorities deem to be a threat. In March 
of this year, new Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious 
Information Services went into effect, which require a government-
issued permit to post religious content online and ban the online 
broadcasting of religious ceremonies, rites, and services, among a host 
of other restrictions infringing on Chinese citizens' freedom of 
religion.
    These measures control how individuals and communities worship, 
with the aim of ``sinicizing'' religion to conform with Party 
priorities. As we will hear today, those priorities are political and 
social control. To achieve that control, Chinese authorities cite 
objectives like combating control and countering so-called ``religious 
extremism'' as they undermine fundamental human rights. The recent UN 
High Commissioner for Human Rights Xinjiang report calls this what it 
is: a pretext that conflates personal religious choice with extremism 
and leads to severe human rights abuses.
    Our first witness today is one of the most powerful voices in the 
world when it comes to exposing these abuses and advocating for those 
who simply wish to exercise their basic rights, and so I'm honored that 
Nury Turkel is here with us. After we hear his perspective, our second 
panel of eminent experts will help us understand the tools of digital 
surveillance and repression, the risks of this model of authoritarian 
management of religion spreading to other countries, and 
recommendations for how defenders of religious freedom can respond. I 
look forward to our witnesses' testimony.
                                 ______
                                 

             Prepared Statement of Representative McGovern

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our witnesses.
    Religious freedom has been at the core of the Commission's work 
since its founding. I appreciate your scheduling this hearing on this 
important topic.
    The Chinese government's record on religious freedom is as 
atrocious as it is well documented, including by this Commission and by 
the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose chair we 
are honored to have as a witness today.
    In our thoughts today are the prisoners of conscience who have had 
their religious liberty violated by the Chinese government. It is our 
moral responsibility to help them tell their stories, and those of the 
people whose voices do not reach us.
    Today's hearing will focus on new and insidious methods authorities 
are using to exert control over religious practice, including online 
regulation and digital surveillance technologies.
    The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief last 
year reported that the Chinese government reportedly uses ``biometrics, 
digital surveillance and personal data for behavioral analysis for 
identifying `extremist' or `unhealthy thought.' '' He notes that such 
technologies used in ``counter-terrorism'' contexts threaten freedom of 
thought.
    This aligns with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' recent 
report on Xinjiang which explained how Chinese officials misused 
``counter-terrorism'' policy to brutally repress Uyghurs and other 
Turkic Muslims and deny their ability to practice their religion and 
cultural heritage.
    This shows how the right to freedom of religion intersects with 
other fundamental rights--the freedoms of speech and association, equal 
protection, due process, presumption of innocence--all of which are 
protected under international human rights law. In this light, I hope 
the witnesses will expand on the meaning of ``Sinicization'' of 
religion--a process to coerce religious believers' allegiance to the 
state and the Party.
    We also want to understand how ``Sinicization'' manipulates the 
teaching of religious principles to imply that they support the Party's 
ideology. It appears the Party is exploiting religion as a means to 
impose social control.
    Last month, a group of UN experts, including the special rapporteur 
on freedom of religion or belief, issued a statement against the 
``cynical abuse of religion or belief as a tool of discrimination, 
hostility and violence,'' and noted that ``[i]nternational law rejects 
any attempt to call on either religion or belief, or freedom of 
religion or belief, as justification for the destruction of the rights 
and freedoms of others.''
    USCIRF shows that the United States seeks to be a leader in 
promoting international religious freedom. To be effective, however, we 
must live up to the standards we demand of other countries. We lack 
credibility in criticizing China for using religion as a pretext to 
restrict other liberties if our own governments, including at the state 
level, engage in the same behavior.
    Two final points. One, while China officially recognizes only five 
religions, our analysis and advocacy must recognize that there is a 
stunningly wide array of religious beliefs, and non-belief, in the 
country. PRC regulation harms not only religious freedom but its 
diversity, too.
    Lastly, as China suffers from a devastating heat wave, I am 
interested in how restrictions on religion undermine the cause of 
environmental protection, given the links between spirituality and 
nature within Buddhism and Daoism, for example.
    Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the testimony.
                       Submissions for the Record

                                ------                                


                 Freedom House Statement for the Record

      the people's republic of china is one of the worst violators
                   of religious freedom in the world
    Freedom House research has tracked 16 straight years of decline in 
freedom and democracy around the world, with 2021 seeing the fewest 
number of countries with net improvements during that period. Nearly 42 
percent of the world's population now lives in countries that faced a 
deterioration in rights in 2021.
    Unfortunately, worsening conditions for religious freedom are a 
component of this deepening democratic recession, with the global 
average score for our religious freedom indicator declining by 5.4 
percent over the last 16 years. State repression of religious 
minorities and attacks by nonstate actors were the most common driver 
of the decline in religious freedom, trends borne out in the types of 
attacks we see in the emergency support we provide to individuals under 
threat for their religious views.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Annie Boyajian USCIRF Testimony ``Leveraging Targeted Sanctions 
in Defense of Religious Freedom'', 10/21/2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Chinese Communist Party is one of the worst violators of 
religious freedom today. Controls over religion in China have increased 
since 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life and triggering growing 
resistance from believers. A 2017 report published by Freedom House 
found that at least 100 million people--nearly one-third of estimated 
believers in China--belonged to religious groups facing ``high'' or 
``very high'' levels of persecution (Protestant Christians, Tibetan 
Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and Falun Gong).\2\ Most of these 
communities face as bad, or worse, persecution today than they did five 
years ago. Religious believers and activists on behalf of the rights of 
ethnic minorities continue to be key targets for high-tech surveillance 
and prosecution for what they write on applications like WeChat. 
Freedom House has documented multiple cases of Tibetans, Uyghurs, and 
Falun Gong practitioners who have been sentenced to prison for writing 
about issues related to their culture or faith on that app.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Conditions for religious believers in China occur within a broader 
context of increased authoritarianism and declining freedom in China. 
Over the past decade, repression in China has gone from bad to worse. 
Since Xi Jinping took the helm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 
November 2012, the authorities have intensified many of their 
restrictions, resulting in an overall increase in religious 
persecution. In 2014, China had a Freedom in the World score of 17; by 
2022, that had dropped to nine. China ranks 193rd out of 210 countries 
and territories. Tibet ties for dead last. In 2011, China, the world's 
largest surveillance state, had a Freedom on the Net score of 17; this 
year, it's a 10, making it the lowest scoring country in our net 
freedom index for the seventh year in a row. These are dramatic rates 
of decline for that period of time--nearly 50 percent.
              china's persecution of religious communities
    Most well-known in a long list of violations are the widespread 
crimes against humanity and acts of genocide that have been committed 
against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the 
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and forced labor facilities, which 
reportedly detain more than one million men, women, and children at any 
given time. The abuses being perpetrated against the Uyghurs are, 
unfortunately, only part of the story. Some officials now working in 
the Uyghur region fine-tuned their tactics by first targeting Tibetans 
and Falun Gong practitioners,\3\ and, for decades religious believers 
including Christians have suffered torture and abuse.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ https://jamestown.org/program/the-learning-curve-how-communist-
party-officials-are-
applying-lessons-from-prior-transformation-campaigns-to-repression-in-
xinjiang/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As China experiences a spiritual revival across a wide range of 
faiths, the Chinese government's religious controls have taken 
different forms for different localities, ethnicities, and 
denominations. Over the past five years and especially during the 
pandemic, in addition to the worsening atrocities committed against 
Turkic Muslims, communities in other parts of China like Falun Gong 
practitioners, have faced intensified repression, reversing a slight 
lull in the aggressiveness of the CCP's campaign against the group in 
the early years of Xi Jinping's leadership. Falun Gong believers across 
China, including some with relatives in the United States, face large-
scale arbitrary detention, torture, and at times, death from abuse in 
custody.
    Catholics who worship outside of state-sanctioned parameters 
continue to face reprisals and pressure from Chinese security forces, 
despite a 2018 agreement on the appointment of bishops between the 
Vatican and Beijing.
    One trend that deserves greater attention is the precarious 
situation for religious freedom in Hong Kong. Following adoption of the 
National Security Law two years ago, we have seen a wide range of 
rights suppressed, resulting in dozens of prosecutions. Now and over 
the coming year, the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing may be 
turning their sights on religious communities.
 the chinese communist party's use of the internet to oppress believers
    Conditions for internet users in China remain profoundly 
oppressive, confirmed by the country's status as the world's worst 
abuser of internet freedom for the seventh consecutive year. Ordinary 
users continue to face severe legal repercussions for activities like 
sharing news stories, talking about their religious beliefs, or 
communicating with family members and others overseas. The CCP has 
tightened its control over the state bureaucracy, the media, online 
speech, religious groups, and civil society associations.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2021/global-drive-
control-big-tech
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The regime frequently censors cultural and religious content that 
it deems undesirable. Content related to marginalized ethnic, 
religious, and linguistic groups is restricted. Keywords related to 
Falun Gong consistently appear on leaked lists of prohibited terms. 
Reference to the banned Church of the Almighty God are also reportedly 
marked as politically sensitive by censors employed by mobile phone 
services, with users facing account deactivation for sharing religious 
information. Following the coronavirus outbreak in January 2020, 
reports emerged of Christian congregations being prevented from 
conducting live-streamed meetings and of individual parishioners being 
compelled to delete religious imagery from their social media accounts. 
However, censorship is not reciprocal. Amid the human rights crisis in 
Xinjiang, Uyghur-language content and relevant news reporting have been 
heavily censored and many ordinary Uyghur users detained, while 
Islamophobic commentary is permitted to circulate widely.
    In March 2020, new rules called the Provisions on the Governance of 
the Online Information Content Ecosystem came into effect. These 
provisions place online content in three categories: encouraged 
positive content, discouraged negative content, and illegal content. 
The illegal category includes terrorist and obscene content, as well as 
information ``harming the nation's honor and interests,'' 
``subverting'' the CCP regime, or challenging the government's social, 
ethnic, religious, or economic policies. New regulations jointly 
released by five state organs on December 21 banned the transmission of 
religious content online in China without a government license. 
Authorities in Qinghai province (where a fifth of the population is 
Tibetan) have banned Tibetan social media groups tied to religion. The 
new regulations call for the ``Sinicization'' of religion, in which the 
Party leads all religious communities and controls religious-based 
content.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ https://freedomhouse.org/report/china-media-bulletin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Members of persecuted religious and ethnic minority groups also 
tend to face especially harsh punishment for their online activities. 
Prominent rights defenders and members of ethnic minorities or banned 
religious groups have received the longest sentences, often exceeding 
10 years. A leaked Chinese government document with details of dozens 
of Uyghurs and other Muslims jailed or taken away for reeducation in 
Xinjiang that was made public in February 2020 included in its list 
someone who was friends on WeChat with a Uyghur in Turkey, an 
individual who accidentally clicked on an overseas website on their 
phone, and a woman sentenced in August 2017 to 15 years in prison for 
making contact online with Uyghurs outside the country. Also that 
month, four Tibetan monks \6\ were sentenced to up to 20 years in 
prison after police discovered a phone containing records of 
communication with fellow monks in Nepal and donations for earthquake 
relief. These are harsher punishments than a defendant might receive 
for violent crimes like sexual assault or manslaughter in some 
countries.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/06/china-tibetan-monks-
harshly-sentenced
    \7\ https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    These prosecutions are facilitated by the Chinese regime's 
extensive and sophisticated surveillance systems. Direct surveillance 
of internet and mobile phone communications is pervasive, and privacy 
protections under Chinese law are minimal. In recent years, the Chinese 
government has increasingly moved toward big-data integration with the 
help of private companies, essentially consolidating in various 
databases a wide array of information on individuals, including their 
internet and mobile phone activities, with known members of ethnic and 
religious minorities being a high priority target.\8\ Residents of 
Xinjiang are subject to severely invasive surveillance tactics and both 
Uyghurs and Tibetans face heightened monitoring even when traveling in 
other parts of China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/21/china-xinjiang-
surveillance-state-police-targets/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
          china's role in suppressing religious freedom abroad
    The Chinese government's violations of religious freedom are also 
not contained within its borders. According to Freedom House's 
research, the authoritarian regime in China conducts the world's most 
sophisticated, comprehensive, and far-reaching campaign of 
transnational repression in the world.\9\ It was responsible for 229 of 
the 735 incidents of physical transnational repression that Freedom 
House recorded between 2014 and 2021, targeting people on every 
inhabited continent and in at least 36 countries. Mirroring the 
patterns of its repression at home, the CCP has targeted individual 
dissidents, their family members, and entire ethnic and religious 
groups, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongolians, and Falun Gong 
practitioners. The CCP has also abused Interpol's systems to have false 
notices issued for believers, resulting in their detention or even 
deportation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/
united-states
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            recommendations
    As democracies around the world, including the United States, 
grapple with how to address the threats and challenges undemocratic 
rulers pose to global rights and freedoms, it is important that 
attention be given to how to better protect freedom of religion or 
belief. Steps to better protect against China's repression of religious 
freedom, both at home and abroad include:

    1.  In all meetings with Chinese officials, raise human rights and 
religious freedom issues, including the names of political and 
religious prisoners. Request information or specific action related to 
their medical condition and treatment. This should include both 
prisoners who are a priority nationally, as well as prisoners detained 
within the geographic boundaries or for subjects that fall within the 
thematic responsibility of the Chinese official with whom you are 
meeting. This is especially relevant on travel to China, when dealing 
with state or CCP officials at the provincial or municipal level or 
those in policy areas like education or ethnic minorities. Make this 
routine practice for STAFFDELS and CODELS, and press the executive 
branch to have U.S. officials across all agencies at all levels raise 
these issues, including the president.

    2.  Strategically expand targeted sanctions geographically and 
higher up the CCP hierarchy, including on officials who have committed 
or been complicit in the abuse, torture, or persecution of religious 
believers. Freedom House commends the U.S. government for the targeted 
sanctions applied to Chinese and Hong Kong officials to date. 
Penalizing violators of human rights and religious freedom through the 
blocking of visas and freezing of U.S.-based assets is an effective way 
to deter future abuses and ensure that these individuals face some 
measure of justice. Targeted sanctions should be applied to violators 
of religious freedom as impactfully as possible and should be part of a 
robust, comprehensive strategy that employs a full range of coordinated 
diplomatic and policy actions. As part of this comprehensive strategy, 
policymakers should seek to avoid unintended consequences for religious 
minorities in the implementation of foreign policy initiatives.

    3.  Ensure robust implementation and enforcement of the Uyghur 
Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and urge other countries to adopt 
similar measures. The UFLPA prohibited the importation of products made 
in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region--where forced labor is 
notorious and rampant--unless the importer can prove that forced labor 
was not used in the creation of their products. It also required the 
imposition of sanctions on those involved in human rights abuses 
related to forced labor and the creation of a strategy to ensure that 
goods made with forced labor in China do not enter the United States. 
Congress should work with the executive branch to ensure sufficient 
funding for these efforts, timely creation and implementation of the 
strategy, and robust enforcement of the provisions related to sanctions 
and import bans.
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                          Witness Biographies

    Nury Turkel, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International 
Religious Freedom

    Nury Turkel is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur-American lawyer, 
foreign policy expert, and human rights advocate. He was born in a re-
education camp at the height of China's tumultuous Cultural Revolution 
and spent the first several months of his life in detention with his 
mother. He came to the United States in 1995 as a student and was later 
granted asylum by the U.S. Government. Since June 2022, Nury has served 
as the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, 
having been reappointed by Speaker of the House of Representatives 
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in May of 2022 for a two-year term. He is a Senior 
Fellow at the Hudson Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign 
Relations. He serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Uyghur Human 
Rights Project, which he co-founded in 2003. Previously, he served as 
the president of the Uyghur American Association, where he led efforts 
to raise the profile of the Uyghur people in the United States.

    Karrie Koesel, Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame

    Karrie J. Koesel is an associate professor of political science at 
the University of Notre Dame where she specializes in the study of 
contemporary Chinese and Russian politics, authoritarianism, and 
religion and politics. She is the author of Religion and 
Authoritarianism: Cooperation, Conflict and the Consequences (Cambridge 
University Press, 2014) and co-editor of Citizens & the State in 
Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing China & Russia (Oxford University 
Press, 2021). Professor Koesel is a Fellow in the Public Intellectuals 
Program at the National Committee on US-China Relations. She served as 
a member of the International Diffusion and Cooperation of 
Authoritarian Regimes (IDCAR) research network; an associate scholar of 
the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace 
and World Affairs at Georgetown University; and a researcher for the 
Under Caesar's Sword project at the University of Notre Dame. Before 
joining the ND faculty, she taught at the University of Oregon.

    Chris Meserole, Director of Research, Artificial Intelligence and 
Emerging Technology Initiative, Brookings Institution

    Chris Meserole is Research Director of the Brookings Institution's 
Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative and a Fellow 
in the Brookings Foreign Policy program. Meserole is an expert on 
artificial intelligence, emerging technology, and global security. His 
research is currently focused on the increasing exploitation of digital 
technology by authoritarian regimes and violent non-state actors. He is 
the co-author of an early report on how Russia and China are exporting 
digital authoritarianism and has testified before the U.S. Commission 
on International Religious Freedom on the digital repression of 
religious minorities in China. He also co-led the inaugural working 
group on recommendation algorithms and violent extremism for the Global 
Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and has served on the independent 
advisory council of the Christchurch Call. Meserole has an academic 
background in interpretable machine learning and computational social 
science. His work has appeared or been featured in The New Yorker, New 
York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Wired, and other 
publications.

    Emile Dirks, Postdoctoral Fellow, Citizen Lab

    Emile Dirks is a postdoctoral fellow at The Citizen Lab at the 
University of Toronto. His research focuses on the policing of so-
called ``target people,'' Chinese citizens whom the Ministry of Public 
Security views as threats to social stability and national security, as 
well as police-led mass DNA collection and surveillance programs 
implemented under the Xi Jinping administration. Two of his most recent 
publications concern a national program to collect DNA samples from 
tens of millions of Chinese men and boys, and a mass DNA collection 
program targeting men, women, and children across the Tibet Autonomous 
Region.

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