[Senate Hearing 117-356]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                        S. Hrg. 117-356
 
                        THE ASSAULT ON FREEDOM 
                         OF EXPRESSION IN ASIA

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

                                HEARING


                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA,
                     THE PACIFIC, AND INTERNATIONAL
                          CYBERSECURITY POLICY


                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE



                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS



                             SECOND SESSION



                               __________

                               MARCH 30, 2022

                               __________



       Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
       
       
       
       
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]       


                  Available via http://www.govinfo.gov
                  
                  
                  
                             ______                       


             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 48-425PDF           WASHINGTON : 2022                 
                  


                 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS        

             ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey, Chairman        
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire        MARCO RUBIO, Florida
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      MITT ROMNEY, Utah
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 TODD YOUNG, Indiana
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 TED CRUZ, Texas
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
                                     BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
                 Damian Murphy, Staff Director        
        Christopher M. Socha, Republican Staff Director        
                    John Dutton, Chief Clerk        



            SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA, THE PACIFIC,        
             AND INTERNATIONAL CYBERSECURITY POLICY        

           EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman        
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       MITT ROMNEY, Utah
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      TED CRUZ, Texas
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
                                     BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee

                              (ii)        

  


                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Markey, Hon. Edward J., U.S. Senator From Massachusetts..........     1

Romney, Hon. Mitt, U.S. Senator From Utah........................    14
    Prepared Statement...........................................    14

Ressa, Maria, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Co-Founder of 
  Rappler, 
  Manila, the Philippines........................................     3
    Prepared Statement...........................................     6

Siu, Joey, Policy Advisor, Hong Kong Watch, Washington, DC.......     9
    Prepared Statement...........................................    11

Cook, Sarah, Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, 
  Freedom House, Washington, DC..................................    15
    Prepared Statement...........................................    17

                                 (iii)

  


                        THE ASSAULT ON FREEDOM 
                         OF EXPRESSION IN ASIA

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2022

                           U.S. Senate,    
Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and
                International Cybersecurity Policy,
                            Committee on Foreign Relations,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in 
room SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Edward J. 
Markey presiding.
    Present: Senators Markey [presiding] and Romney.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY, 
                U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS

    Senator Markey. It is a pleasure to chair this hearing on 
freedom of expression under assault in Asia. I want to thank 
Senator Romney for his cooperation on this hearing and the 
great work we have done together over the past year on this 
subcommittee.
    I want to thank each of the witnesses for appearing today. 
I look forward to hearing your testimony.
    Around the world, freedom of expression, one of the 
underpinnings of democracy, is under attack. We have seen that 
countries throughout the Asia Pacific region have become models 
for repression and censorship.
    In Cambodia, Burma, Philippines, Hong Kong, and China, 
authoritarian leaders seek to cement their power at the expense 
of the people, relentlessly crushing dissent and silencing 
opposition.
    They have weaponized laws to bring those who speak out to 
heel, to inspire self-censorship, to sow fear and discord, 
often under the veneer of the legal system. We cannot protect 
democracy at home or abroad if we do not protect the right to 
nonviolent self-expression and freedom of the press.
    Unfortunately, today, the Asia Pacific region is leading 
the world in efforts to restrict freedom of expression. China, 
Burma, and Vietnam were among the top five worst jailers of 
journalists globally last year, according to the Committee to 
Protect Journalists.
    In Cambodia, Hun Sen and his cronies continue to backslide 
into authoritarianism by using the COVID-19 pandemic as 
justification to crack down on journalists and opposition 
figures.
    Journalism can be a deadly business even in democracies. 
Just 36 hours before Maria Ressa accepted her Nobel Peace 
Prize, one of her colleagues was shot and killed in the 
Philippines, and Maria has risked her own freedom to protect 
the universal bedrock principles of a free press and rule of 
law.
    Sarah Cook of Freedom House, a stalwart, has spent her 
career shining a light on abuses against these very freedoms. 
As Hong Kong authorities have wielded a new National Security 
Law to clamp down on political activity, grassroots activists 
like Joey Siu are on the front lines of defending freedom for 
Hong Kongers.
    We need journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens to 
continue to speak truth to power and to shine a light on 
government abuses, from genocide in Burma and to Xinjiang to 
politically motivated detentions in the Philippines.
    The People's Republic of China has made its authoritarian 
campaign of repression a key export to other countries. In 
2016, Xi Jinping told state media, ``Wherever the readers are, 
wherever the viewers are, that is where propaganda reports must 
extend their tentacles.''
    Those tentacles have permeated Taiwan, where PRC 
disinformation and media influence operations have increased in 
the past several years.
    Taiwan is the subject to more disinformation from Beijing 
and other governments than any other place in the world, 
including in the run up to Taiwan's 2020 presidential election.
    The PRC is spending billions to expand the global reach of 
its state-run media outlets exporting its authoritarian model. 
This is why I worked with my colleagues to secure the single 
greatest increase in funding in Radio Free Asia's 25-year 
history in the Senate-passed Innovation and Competition Act.
    Additionally, my Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, which 
former chair of this subcommittee, Cory Gardner, and I 
championed together, authorized more than $1 billion over 5 
years to support democracy, human rights, and the rule of law 
in the Indo-Pacific.
    The United States must do more to push back against the 
authoritarian playbook of repression and hold up these values 
as a focal point of American foreign policy.
    I look forward to hearing the recommendations from the 
witnesses on how the United States can better support freedom 
of expression and push back against the assault that is 
underway in Asia.
    We are going to be hearing from Senator Romney in just a 
bit. He has been delayed. He does believe this is just a very, 
very important hearing to shine a spotlight on these human 
rights abuses.
    So joining us, after arriving from the Philippines earlier 
this week, is Ms. Maria Ressa. Ms. Ressa is 2021 Nobel Peace 
Prize Laureate, co-founder of the online news publication 
Rappler, and has worked as a journalist in Asia for more than 
three decades.
    Ms. Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian 
journalist Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard 
freedom of expression.
    Ms. Ressa is a fearless champion of freedom of expression 
and has used her voice to expose the abuses of the regime of 
President Duterte.
    We welcome you, Ms. Ressa, and I would ask for you to begin 
your presentation and then I will introduce the other witnesses 
as you complete your testimony.
    So we welcome you, and we congratulate you on your well-
deserved victory of the Nobel Peace Prize of 2021. You are just 
a beacon of hope and the whole rest of the world really, really 
owes you a debt of gratitude.
    So whenever you feel comfortable, please begin.

 STATEMENT OF MARIA RESSA, 2021 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE, CO-
          FOUNDER OF RAPPLER, MANILA, THE PHILIPPINES

    Ms. Ressa. Thank you. Thank you so much, Senator Markey. 
Thank you for inviting me to speak today.
    I really would like to share only three points, first, to 
tell you what we are living through as journalists, as human 
rights defenders in the Philippines; second, how technology for 
profit has become an insidious tool for tyranny globally and 
what you can do; and finally, what we are doing to help 
safeguard our elections in exactly 40 days. This is--I call it 
an ``avengers assemble'' moment in my nation's battle for 
facts.
    I have been a journalist for more than 36 years, so I am 
old. In 2016, Rappler came under intense online attack because 
we exposed the brutal drug war and the propaganda machine that 
was attacking journalists, news organizations, human rights 
defenders, and opposition politicians.
    The weaponization of social media you referenced, well, we 
lived through it, but that was followed by lawfare, the 
weaponization of the law, twisting the law to target us.
    In 2018, the Philippine Government tried to revoke 
Rappler's license to operate, and while we continue to fight it 
legally, within 4 months we lost 49 percent of our advertising 
revenue. In less than 2 years my government filed 10 arrest 
warrants against me.
    In order to travel, I am--you never realize how wonderful 
that freedom to travel is until it is taken away--I have to ask 
permission from the courts. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I do 
not.
    One of the times my travel was denied at the last minute 
was when my aging parents in Florida, both ill, had asked me to 
come because my mom was getting an operation. It was--I got a 
``no'' from the last court at the last minute.
    Shortly after the Nobel Peace Prize, Rappler has received 
22 new complaints, potential new legal cases. Last Friday, we 
received eight in one day--eight subpoenas.
    We must be doing something right because not only did a 
sitting cabinet secretary sue seven news organizations, 
including Rappler, but another is a petition at the Supreme 
Court by the solicitor general alleging ridiculous conspiracy 
theories against Rappler.
    I wish it was true, but it was not. No, I do not wish it 
was true. That is a joke.
    The majority of these other complaints are connected to 
President Duterte's pastor. His name is Apollo Quiboloy. He is 
wanted by the FBI. His company, leading the attack against 
journalists and human rights activists, it was just awarded a 
television franchise.
    All told, I could go to jail for the rest of my life 
because I refuse to stop doing my job as a journalist, because 
Rappler holds the line and continues to protect the public 
sphere.
    I am lucky. Remember, Senator Leila de Lima, a former 
justice secretary and head of the Commission on Human Rights 
last month, began her sixth year in prison. Amnesty 
International calls her a prisoner of conscience.
    Or young journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, who spent her last 
two birthdays in prison. Or my former colleague, Jess Malabanan 
you referenced. He was killed by a bullet to his head. He 
worked on Reuter's Drug War series that won a Pulitzer Prize.
    Or ABS-CBN, the largest broadcaster in the Philippines, a 
newsroom I headed for 6 years, which in 2020 lost its franchise 
to operate. The last time that happened was when Ferdinand 
Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
    For the people who defend us, our lawyers, there are costs. 
More lawyers than journalists have been killed under the 
Duterte administration. Hundreds of human rights activists are 
dead and the numbers killed in our brutal drug war--this--from 
thousands, the tens of thousands, who really knows--that is the 
first casualty in the Philippines battle for facts.
    This brings us to my second point, how technology has 
degraded facts and broken our societies. Like the age of 
industrialization, there is a new economic model that has 
brought new harms, a model Shoshana Zuboff called surveillance 
capitalism.
    When our atomized personal experiences are collected by 
machine learning, organized by artificial intelligence, 
extracting our private lives for outsized corporate gain, 
highly profitable micro-targeting operations are engineered to 
structurally undermine human will.
    It is a behavior modification system in which we are 
Pavlov's dogs, experimented on in real time, with disastrous 
consequences.
    This is happening to you, to all of us around the world. 
Engagement-based metrics of these American technology companies 
mean that the incentive structure of the algorithms, which is 
really just their opinion in code, implemented at a scale that 
we could never have imagined, is insidiously shaping our future 
by encouraging the worst of human behavior. It is also choosing 
what journalism survives.
    Studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate 
spread faster and further than facts, and these next sentences 
I have said repeatedly for the last 6 years. Without facts, you 
cannot have truth. Without truth, you cannot have trust. 
Without trust, we have no shared reality, no rule of law, no 
democracy.
    Now these networks form a global nervous system of toxic 
sludge fueled by geopolitical power play. In 2018, after the 
senate released the data from the IRA, the GRU, we connected 
the information operations in the Philippines with Russian 
disinformation networks.
    In 2020, Facebook took down information operations from 
China that were then creating fake accounts for the U.S. 
presidential elections. Simultaneously, in the Philippines it 
was polishing the image of the Marcoses.
    It was campaigning for China, campaigning for the daughter 
of President Duterte, and attacking me and Rappler. These are 
multi-purpose networks.
    In 2021, the U.S. and the EU called out China and Russia 
for COVID-19 disinformation. We are all connected. Surveillance 
capitalism is where all our problems connect--safety, privacy, 
antitrust, and content moderation. They are not separate 
issues.
    The platforms wanted to debate content moderation down here 
because if you are stuck down here they can make more money. So 
we need to move further upstream to the algorithms, the 
operating system of this information ecosystem, the algorithms 
of amplification, and then we go further upstream to the root 
cause, surveillance capitalism.
    On Thursday, March 24--last week--the European Union 
hammered out the last details of the Market Services Act to be 
followed by the Digital Services Act. It is the most 
comprehensive legislation to put guard rails around tech, but 
these will take time.
    Right now, I appeal to U.S. legislators to reform or revoke 
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because we, at 
the frontlines, need immediate help. We cannot solve the global 
existential problems if we do not win the battle for facts and 
we cannot have integrity of elections if we do not have 
integrity of facts.
    In exactly 40 days, the Philippines will vote in what is an 
existential moment for our democracy. The front runner for 
president is Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., whose family was ousted by 
a people power revolt 36 years ago.
    He is back, partly because history was revised in plain 
view with networks of misinformation on American social media 
platforms, which we, at Rappler, exposed and we released that 
data publicly.
    I have submitted to you and the members of this--the Senate 
in this hearing the whole-of-society approach that we are 
trying to use to protect the facts, a four-layer pyramid we 
call #FactsFirstPH. I can answer any questions you may have 
about that.
    Since it is succeeding, we have these new legal challenges 
and our news sites--there are 16 news groups cooperating 
together in this--we have come under expanded DDoS attacks that 
are meant to take us down.
    These exponential lies on social media are like DDoS 
attacks on our brains, attacking our biology, leaving 
journalists, human rights activists, opposition politicians 
defenseless.
    The platforms and the autocrats that exploit them must be 
held accountable and democratic governments must move faster. 
In that sense, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has galvanized 
action and is forcing solutions.
    For countries like the Philippines, please consider the 
Magnitsky sanctions. Democratic nations must stand together for 
democratic values. The solution is three pronged and remains 
the core pillars of Rappler: technology, journalism, community.
    First, put guardrails around tech, build better tech; 
second, strengthen journalism and help fund independent news, 
part of the reason I agreed to co-chair the International Fund 
for Public Interest Media; third, build communities of action 
that stand by these democratic values.
    I could go to jail for the rest of my life just because I 
am a journalist. What I do now will determine whether that will 
happen.
    Thank you for your support. Thank you for your help. Now 
action is up to you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ressa follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Ms. Maria Ressa

    Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. My name is Maria 
Ressa. I would like to share three points with you: first, what we are 
living through as journalists and human rights defenders in the 
Philippines; second, how technology for profit has become an insidious 
tool for tyranny globally; and finally, what we are doing to help 
safeguard our elections in 40 days. This is an Avengers, Assemble 
moment in our nation's battle for facts.
                                lawfare
    I've been a journalist for more than 36 years. I am a co-founder of 
Rappler in the Philippines. In 2016, we came under intense online 
attack because we exposed the brutal drug war and the propaganda 
machine that was attacking journalists, news organizations, human 
rights defenders, and opposition politicians. The weaponization of 
social media was followed by lawfare, twisting the law to target those 
same groups. In 2018, the Philippine Government tried to revoke 
Rappler's license to operate, and while we continued to fight it 
legally, within 4 months, we lost 49 percent of our advertising 
revenue. In less than 2 years, my government filed 10 arrest warrants 
against me. In order to travel, I have to ask for permission from the 
courts. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I don't. One of the times my 
travel was denied at the last minute was when my aging parents, both 
ill, had asked me to come because my mom was getting an operation.
    In the past few months, we've had 22 new complaints, potential new 
legal cases, filed against us. Last Friday, we received 8 in one day. 
We must be doing something right because not only did a sitting cabinet 
secretary \1\ sue 7 news organizations, but another is a petition at 
the Supreme Court \2\ by the Solicitor General alleging unfounded 
conspiracy theories against Rappler. The majority of these complaints 
\3\ are connected to President Duterte's pastor, Apollo Quiboloy, 
wanted \4\ by the FBI, whose company leading the attack against 
journalists and human rights activists \5\ was recently awarded a 
television franchise.\6\ Last week, I testified in court in a case 
where the alleged tax we owed--P200,000 was far less than the P1.2 
million I had posted in that court in bail and bonds to stay free and 
keep working.
    All told, I could go to jail for the rest of my life. Because I 
refuse to stop doing my job as a journalist. Because Rappler holds the 
line and continues to protect the public sphere.
    It feels like we're living in an alternative universe, and the 
Queen is shouting, ``off with her head!''
    But I'm lucky.
                        violence, jail, shutdown
    Remember Senator Leila de Lima, a former justice secretary and head 
of the Commission on Human Rights, last month began her sixth year in 
prison. Amnesty International calls her a prisoner of conscience.
    Or young journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, who spent her last two 
birthdays in prison.
    Or former colleague Jess Malabanan, killed by a bullet to his head. 
He worked on Reuters' drug war series that won a Pulitzer Prize.
    Or ABS-CBN, the largest broadcaster in the Philippines--a newsroom 
I headed for 6 years, which in 2020 lost its franchise to operate. The 
last time that happened was when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law 
in 1972.
    For the people who defend us, there are costs. More lawyers have 
been killed \7\ than journalists under the Duterte administration: at 
least 66 compared to at least 22. And the toll for human rights 
activists \8\ as of August last year hit at least 421 dead. Last year 
on March 7, nine trade union leaders and human rights activists were 
killed \9\ in simultaneous early morning police raids--now known as 
Bloody Sunday. And the numbers killed in our brutal drug war--from 
thousands to tens of thousands--is the first casualty in our battle for 
facts.
      surveillance capitalism's harms and the destruction of trust
    That brings us to my second point: how technology has degraded 
facts and broken our societies. I became a journalist because I believe 
that information is power--it's how we get justice. The death of 
democracy began when journalists lost our gatekeeping powers to the 
technology platforms that not only abdicated responsibility for 
protecting us . . . but also destroyed democracy by destroying the 
facts . . . for immense profit.
    Like the age of industrialization, there's a new economic model 
that brought new harms, a model Shoshana Zuboff called surveillance 
capitalism--when our atomized personal experiences are collected by 
machine learning, organized by artificial intelligence--extracting our 
private lives for outsized corporate gain. Highly profitable micro-
targeting operations are engineered to structurally undermine human 
will--a behavior modification system in which we are Pavlov's dogs, 
experimented on in real time with disastrous consequences. This is 
happening to you--to all of us around the world.
    Engagement based metrics of these American tech companies mean that 
the incentive structure of the algorithms, which is just their opinion 
in code implemented at a scale that we could never have imagined, is 
insidiously shaping our future by encouraging the worst of human 
behavior. Studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate spread 
faster and further than facts.
    Without facts, you can't have truth. Without truth, you can't have 
trust. Without these, we have no shared reality, no rule of law, no 
democracy.
    In my upcoming book, the prologue I submitted last year began with 
the splintering of reality in Crimea in 2014. I had to revise that when 
Russia invaded Ukraine using the same narratives seeded then. Would 
that have happened if the platforms had acted 8 years ago? That is the 
true cost for the world.
    Now these networks form a global nervous system of toxic sludge 
partly fueled by geopolitical power play. In 2018, we connected the 
information operations in the Philippines with Russian disinformation 
networks through websites in Canada. In 2020, Facebook took down 
information operations from China that were creating fake accounts for 
the U.S. elections, polishing the image of the Marcoses, campaigning 
for Duterte's daughter, and attacking me and Rappler. In 2021, the U.S. 
and the EU called out China and Russia for Covid-19 disinformation.
    We are all connected.
                              legislation
    How will we deal with surveillance capitalism today? That's where 
all our problems connect: safety, privacy, antitrust, and content 
moderation. They're not separate issues.
    The platforms want you to debate content moderation because if 
you're stuck there, they can make more money. So move further upstream 
to algorithmic amplification, its operating system, and go further 
upstream to its root cause: surveillance capitalism.
    On Thursday, March 24, 2022, the European Union hammered out the 
last details of the Market Services Act, to be followed by the Digital 
Services Act, the most comprehensive legislation to put guardrails 
around tech. These will take time. Right now, I appeal to U.S. 
legislators to reform or revoke section 230 of the Communications 
Decency Act because we at the front lines need immediate help.
                            battle for facts
    We cannot solve the global existential problems if we don't win the 
battle for facts. And we cannot have integrity of elections if we don't 
have integrity of facts.
    In 40 days, the Philippines will vote in an existential moment for 
our democracy. The frontrunner for president is Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., 
whose family was ousted by a people power revolt 36 years ago. He's 
back partly because history was revised in plain view, with networks of 
disinformation, which we at Rappler exposed, releasing the data 
publicly.
    So we decided to collaborate to find a solution. Here's one way 
media, civil society, the academe, and the law can work together to 
deal with the viral speed of lies and the preferential distribution of 
anger and hate.
    This is the pyramid we built.
    This is #FactsFirstPH:
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    


    It begins with our communities--individuals reporting lies to our 
tiplines, the data layer that unites the pyramid. For the first time, 
at least 16 news groups are working together in the foundational layer. 
Once the fact checks are done, it moves to the mesh layer, civil 
society groups, non-governmental organizations, schools, business 
groups, and the Church joining together to mount their own campaigns 
for facts, creating a mesh of distribution. That data then travels to 
the third layer, the disinformation research groups finally working 
together, which weekly releases research to tell Filipinos exactly how 
we're being manipulated and by whom. Finally, the layer that's long 
been needed: the law--legal groups across the spectrum focused on 
filing tactical and strategic litigation.
    Until legislation--guard rails for tech--are put in place, 
communities must find a way to collaborate and to use technology and 
data against this global behavior modification system that has become 
the preferred tools for autocrats, not because they're so good, but 
because the platforms are so bad.
    It's been only a few weeks, but all news groups have been under new 
sustained DDoS attacks to take us all down, and we have a petition at 
the Supreme Court by the Solicitor General saying that fact-checking is 
prior restraint. So it's working.
                           stop the impunity
    Eight years after the annexation of Crimea, elections are 
existential globally--even as the global landscape is being reshaped 
with ``Autocrats Inc'' emerging stronger. If lies win in the 
Philippines, we again become the first domino to fall in the global 
descent to tyranny. As news groups in the Philippines now face renewed 
and expanded DDoS attacks against our sites meant to take us down, 
these exponential lies are like DDoS attacks on our brains, attacking 
our biology, leaving us defenseless.
    The platforms--and the autocrats that exploit them--must be held 
accountable, and governments doing this must move at a faster pace. In 
that sense, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought nations together 
and may bring solutions for the continued impunity of platforms. For 
countries like the Philippines, consider Magnitsky sanctions.
    Democratic nations must stand together for democratic values. The 
solution is three-pronged, and remain the core pillars of Rappler: 
technology, journalism, community. First: Put guardrails around the 
tech; build better tech. Second: strengthen journalism, and help fund 
independent news--part of the reason I agreed to co-chair the 
International Fund for Public Interest Media. Third, build communities 
of action that stand by these democratic values.
    I could go to jail for the rest of my life. Just because I'm a 
journalist. But what I do now will determine whether that will happen. 
So I pledge to #HoldTheLine. These times demand more, and journalists 
have met--and will meet those demands.
    Now it's up to you.

----------------
Notes

    \1\ Cusi sues Rappler, 6 other news orgs for libel over Malampaya-
Dennis Uy reports, Journalist groups decry Cusi and Uy's libel suits 
over Malampaya deal reports, Philstar.com, and Cusi libel complaints an 
``embarrassment' for PH--Maria Ressa's lawyers
    \2\ Calida to SC: Void Rappler-Comelec fact-check deal for 
violating free speech and Marcos and Calida in sync anew, this time vs 
Rappler's Comelec deal
    \3\ Quiboloy workers file a dozen cyber libel complaints vs Rappler 
and Rappler answers a dozen cyber libel complaints from Quiboloy 
workers
    \4\ Quiboloy, 2 associates on FBI's most wanted list
    \5\ Quiboloy's SMNI fuels disinformation, online attacks on gov't 
critics
    \6\ Channel 43, used by ABS-CBN, goes to Quiboloy's SMNI
    \7\ On last day of 2021, Cavite prosecutor becomes 66th lawyer 
killed under Duterte
    \8\ In 2021, activists, human rights defenders fight to survive 
under Duterte and A bloody trail: People we lost under Duterte
    \9\ UN slams Philippine police for killing nine activists, News, 
DW, 09.03.2021

    Senator Markey. Thank you so much and, again, it is just an 
honor to have you here before the committee--the risks that you 
have taken, the sacrifice that you have made. The leadership 
that you have provided, not just for the Philippines, but for 
the whole world is absolutely immeasurable. So thank you.
    Next, we are going to hear from Ms. Joey Siu, who, again, 
is a student activist, a policy advisor at Hong Kong Watch, and 
advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
    She participated actively in Hong Kong's pro-democracy 
movement by organizing local grassroots campaigns and 
international advocacy for Hong Kong.
    Her focus is on human rights in Hong Kong, East Turkestan, 
Tibet, and other regions in China, and she writes on U.S.-China 
relations and Hong Kong politics.
    We welcome you, Ms. Siu.
    Whenever you are ready, please begin.

            STATEMENT OF JOEY SIU, POLICY ADVISOR, 
                HONG KONG WATCH, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Siu. Good afternoon and thank you, Chairman Markey, and 
thank you, Maria, and also Sarah for their very outstanding 
work in defending human rights and also, most importantly, 
freedom of expression.
    So my name is Joey Siu. I am the policy advisor to Hong 
Kong Watch. I was born in North Carolina and moved to Hong Kong 
when I was seven.
    I became an activist, and in September 2020 I was forced to 
flee Hong Kong, to leave my family and friends, and come back 
to the States under the risk of political persecution with the 
National Security Law implemented by the Chinese Government in 
Hong Kong.
    From crackdowns on social movements in Hong Kong, Thailand, 
and Myanmar to the tightening control over Tibet and East 
Turkestan, we are seeing governments resorting to every 
conceivable measure to limit the people's right to freedom of 
expression across Asia.
    Today, I will be highlighting the situations in Hong Kong, 
Tibet, and East Turkestan.
    In Hong Kong, protestor Tong Ying-kit became the first 
person to become be convicted under the National Security Law 
that came into effect in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. He was 
sentenced to 9 years in jail for ``inciting secession'' and 
``terrorism'' under the National Security Law.
    In the verdict passed down it was made clear that the 
protest slogans on the banner he held ``Liberate Hong Kong; 
Revolution of Our Times'' was weighed heavily in the 
determining of his sentencing, meaning that expression of 
support to all pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong is becoming 
considered criminal.
    British colonial laws and the widely criticized public 
order ordinance were also used against human rights defenders 
in Hong Kong. Rallies and assemblies, including the city's 
annual June 4th Tiananmen massacre commemoration events, were 
banned in Hong Kong.
    Organizers, including Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan, and also 
Chow Hang-tung, they were arrested and convicted for 
``participating in the inciting and unauthorized assembly'' 
under the public order ordinance.
    COVID-19 restrictions were also manipulated by the Hong 
Kong Government to repress activities that do not align with 
the Chinese Communist regime's political stances.
    As we, people across the world, stand in solidarity with 
Ukraine against Russia's invasion, we are seeing people in Hong 
Kong participating in peaceful pro-Ukraine demonstrations being 
fined, being warned by the Hong Kong Government for what they 
say are a violation of relevant COVID rules.
    Free press is also quickly vanishing in Hong Kong. At least 
18 journalists have been arrested since 2019 since our pro-
democracy movement broke out, and 12 remain in jail while 
waiting for trial, including our very prominent, very leading 
pro-democracy figure, our media tycoon Jimmy Lai, and under 
mounting political pressure almost all of these independent 
pro-democracy media outlets in Hong Kong are forcibly shut 
down. Fearing date-back charges with the National Security Law, 
they have to delta previous articles and reportings as they 
cease operations. An increasing number of reporters and also 
journalists in Hong Kong are now forced to leave the city.
    Online expression and also internet access are also under 
tighter restrictions. Since May 2021, access to several pro-
democracy websites were found blocked and our organization, 
Hong Kong Watch's, website is among one of them.
    Free expression is also seriously encroaching in Tibet and 
East Turkestan. According to Freedom House ``Freedom in the 
World'' 2022 report, Tibet was ranked again for the second year 
in a row the least free country worldwide.
    It is one of the most restricted and strictly monitored 
regions across the globe with heavy police presence and also 
surveillance that has created an almost complete information 
blackout in Tibet.
    Last month, a popular young Tibetan singer, Tsewang Norbu, 
self-immolated in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. The 
Chinese Government very quickly took control over the scene and 
restricted information from being reported and circulated.
    It took Tibetans in exile and also other human rights 
organizations almost a month just to confirm the news that it 
really happened. Because Beijing does not allow any foreign 
media presence in Tibet, it is incredibly hard and time-
consuming for people outside to obtain first hand information.
    The escalating restrictions on freedom of expression, 
including censorship and also the cutting off of internet and 
mobile communications, this is so impossible for the Tibetan 
people inside of the region to relay information to the outside 
world or even to circulate news among themselves.
    The Chinese Communist regime's ``anti-extremism'' policies 
in the Uighur region is yet another example illustrating the 
horrific assault on freedom of expression. With all-around 
surveillance systems installed across the region, Uighurs 
cannot express their opinions, faith, or culture freely.
    At least 1.5 million Uighurs were arrested for irrelevant 
reasons and are now detained in camps experiencing political 
indoctrination, horrendous physical and sexual abuses, with 
absolutely no room for free expression.
    As freedom of expression continues to be under assault 
across Asia, it is important that the United States continue to 
fulfill our obligations and demonstrate leadership in defending 
our shared beliefs and also values.
    First of all, it is so crucial that we offer necessary 
humanitarian relocation channels for all those who have well 
founded fear of persecution, especially politically exposed 
journalists, activists, and protesters.
    Secondly, I believe that we should continue to enhance our 
support to assisting government-funded media services, 
including, as Chairman Markey had mentioned, Radio Free Asia 
and Voice of America.
    I think it would also be considerable that we extend our 
support to media agencies proximate to the oppressed regions in 
Asia in democratic countries like Taiwan and Japan to ensure 
the continuous and timely coverage of developments.
    Last, but not least, beyond individual actions, it is also 
essential that we continue to work with like-minded partners 
and to lead a multilateral alliance to defend free expression 
against encroachment from authoritarian regimes.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Siu follows:]

                   Prepared Statement of Ms. Joey Siu

    My name is Joey Siu, the policy advisor to Hong Kong Watch. I was 
born in North Carolina and moved to Hong Kong when I was 7-years-old. I 
became a student activist and served as the Vice President at City 
University of Hong Kong's Student Union. In September 2020, I was 
forced to flee the city under risks of persecution with the National 
Security Law.
          increasing threats to freedom of expression in asia
    As democracy movements ignite across Asia, we are witnessing an 
escalation of assault on free expression in the region. From the 
crackdowns on social movements in Hong Kong, Thailand and Myanmar, to 
the tightening control over Tibet, East Turkestan and mainland China, 
governments have been resorting to every conceivable means to limit the 
people's right to free speech, assembly and expression, by enacting 
draconian laws and policies, persecuting journalists and human rights 
advocates, prohibiting assemblies and media.
    I will be highlighting the situations in Hong Kong, Tibet and East 
Turkestan.
             freedom of expression dismantled in hong kong
    The National Security Law was passed by China's National People's 
Congress and came into force in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. As stated in 
the legislation, any permanent resident of the Hong Kong Special 
Administrative Region or any foreign person who are convicted under 
offenses of ``secession,'' ``subversion,'' ``terrorism'' or ``collusion 
with foreign forces'' would face up to life-time imprisonment.
    Making use of the draconian legislation together with old colonial 
laws, widely-criticized ordinances, police aggression and COVID-19 
restrictions, the Hong Kong Government is in the process of dismantling 
freedom of expression in the city.
Free Speech and Assembly
    Under the National Security Law, pro-democracy rallies, protest 
slogans and symbols, and anti-government criticisms are strictly 
proscribed. On July 31, 2021, protester TONG Ying-kit became the first 
person to be convicted under the National Security Law and was 
sentenced to 9 years of imprisonment for ``inciting session'' and 
``terrorism.'' In verdicts passed down, the prosecutors made clear that 
the protest slogan on the banner he held, ``Liberate Hong Kong; 
Revolution of Our Times,'' weighed heavily in determining his 
sentencing, meaning that his expression of support for the protests was 
now considered criminal. Hundreds more face similar sentencing under 
the National Security Law which is now having a profound chilling 
effect on free expression.
    Aside from offenses under the National Security Law, activists 
continue to face trumped-up charges under colonial-era laws. Earlier 
this month, prominent pro-democracy figure TAM Tak-chi was convicted of 
``seditious speech'' under British colonial-era laws, for organizing 
street booths and chanting anti-Hong Kong police slogans. The Hong Kong 
Government has only begun to use this archaic colonial legislation in 
the last 2 years. Alongside the National Security Law it represents a 
significant blow to free expression.
    Pro-democracy assemblies, including the city's annual June 4th 
Tiananmen Massacre commemoration are also banned. Albert HO, LEE Cheuk-
yan and CHOW Hang-tung, Hong Kong's prominent democracy figures and 
core members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic 
Democratic Movements of China were arrested and convicted with 
``inciting and participating in an unauthorized assembly'' under the 
widely-criticized Public Order Ordinance for organizing the June 4th 
Candlelight Vigil back in 2020.
    COVID-19 restrictions are also used to repress political activities 
that do not align with the government's stances. As the world stands in 
solidarity with Ukraine against Russia's invasion, three people were 
fined by the Hong Kong police for participating in an absolutely 
peaceful small-scale pro-Ukraine demonstration.
Free Press
    Since the beginning of the pro-democracy movement in 2019, 
journalists have been heavily exposed to danger. According to a survey 
conducted by the Hong Kong Journalists' Association, of the 222 
journalists who responded, only 28 said they had not been treated 
violently by the Hong Kong Police Force while covering the movement. 
Not only did reporters encounter frequent attacks and harassment from 
the police force, they were also threatened by government-backed pro-
Beijing gangs. On July 21, 2019, former journalist Gwyneth HO was 
injured while live-streaming coverage of the pro-Beijing gangs' 
indiscriminate attack against civilians at Hong Kong's Yuen Long 
station. She was struck and knocked to the ground and had to receive 
stitches for her wounds. Later on, television producer and journalist 
CHOY Yuk-ling, who investigated the Yuen Long incident and exposed 
police failures, was convicted and fined.
    Starting from 2019, at least 18 journalists have been arrested 
while 12 remain in jail awaiting trial. Hong Kong's leading pro-
democracy figure and media tycoon Jimmy LAI is one of them. On August 
10, 2020, over 100 police officers raided the office of Apple Daily, 
Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy paper and arrested Jimmy LAI, his 
sons and numerous senior executives on suspicion of ``colluding with 
foreign forces'' under the National Security Law. He was granted bail 
and again detained on December 21, 2020. With senior executives jailed 
and assets frozen, Apple Daily was forced to close on June 23, 2021.
    Following Apple Daily's closure, under mounting political pressure 
and continuous assault from the government, almost all independent pro-
democracy media outlets in Hong Kong have been forcibly shut-down. An 
increasing number of reporters are fleeing the city.
Access to Internet and Censorship
    Online expression and internet access are also under tightening 
restrictions. In May 2021, access to several anti-government websites 
were found blocked in Hong Kong. Last month, the same happened to our 
organization and later on this month, we received a letter from the 
city's Police Force, requesting contents related to our ``Free 
Political Prisoners'' and ``International Lifeboat'' campaigns to be 
removed from the website. With an accusation from the National Security 
Bureau of ``colluding with foreign forces to endanger national 
security,'' we became the first overseas group to be targeted under the 
National Security Law, but we will not be the last.
    Fearing date-back charges with the National Security Law, most 
independent pro-democracy media outlets have to delta their previous 
articles and reportings as they shut down. The only remaining media 
outlets have no choice, but to heavily censor themselves to lower the 
risks of being targeted and persecuted.
    Censorship fears have also foreshadowed the cultural industry. 
Tiananmen Massacre themed artwork created by the famous dissident 
artist Aiweiwei was taken down and exhibitions were canceled for 
obvious political reasons. Last year, the Academy Award ceremony was 
banned in Hong Kong as the documentary ``Do Not Split'' which I took 
part in was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Short Subject. Earlier 
this year, the documentary ``Revolution of Our Times'' came out and 
unfortunately, it is also completely inaccessible in Hong Kong.
         tibetans and uyghurs' freedom of expression taken away
    Although we hear almost nothing in the news about the situation 
inside Tibet, according to Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2022 
report, Tibet was just ranked--for the second year in a row--as the 
least-free country in the world, in a tie with South Sudan and Syria. 
This is because Tibet is one of the most strictly-monitored regions in 
the world with heavy police presence and surveillance that has created 
an almost complete information blackout.
    Sadly, we can see how effective this blackout is after a popular 
25-year-old Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu self-immolated in front of the 
Potala Palace in Lhasa last month. The Chinese Government quickly took 
control of the scene and restricted information from being reported and 
circulated. It took Tibetans in exile and human rights groups over 3 
weeks to confirm the news and up until now, no photos or videos or any 
additional information have been released.
    In January, the prominent Tibetan language-rights activist Tashi 
Wangchuk--who had just recently been released from 6-years of 
imprisonment for speaking out against Beijing's discriminatory language 
policies--again courageously spoke out for his people and has been 
facing another arrest.
    Because Beijing does not allow any foreign media presence in Tibet, 
it is incredibly hard and time-consuming for people outside the region 
to obtain first-hand information on what is going on there. The 
escalating restrictions on freedom of expression, including heavy 
censorship and cutting-off the Internet and mobile communications, 
makes it almost impossible for the Tibetan people inside Tibet to relay 
information to the outside world or even to circulate news among 
themselves.
    The Chinese Communist regime's ``anti-extremism'' policies in the 
Uyghur region is yet another example illustrating the horrific assault 
of freedom of expression. With all-round surveillance systems installed 
across the region, not only do Uyghurs in the region cannot express 
their opinions freely, they cannot express their faith or culture as 
well.
    Over 1.5 million Uyghurs were arrested for reasons including 
practicing their faith, engaging in cultural events, and expressing in 
their own Uyghur language, and detained in internment camps, 
experiencing political indoctrination, horrendous sexual and physical 
abuses, with absolutely no room for free expression.
    Prior to his disappearance, Professor Ilham Tohti was a prominent 
academic at Beijing's Minzu University. He founded the website Uyghur 
Online in 2006 to promote discourse between Han people and the minority 
groups in China. He wrote about culture, politics and socioeconomics 
and used his platforms to highlight the Uyghurs' plights and to call 
for the public's attention to the Chinese Government's systematic 
persecution of his people. However, despite the fact that he never 
advocated for independence of the Uyghur region or similar ideas, he 
was still disappeared by the Chinese Government in 2017 and have been 
incommunicado since.
                            recommendations
    As freedom of expression continues to be under assault across Asia, 
it is important that the United States fulfill our obligations and 
demonstrate leadership in defending our shared beliefs.
Provide Necessary Humanitarian Relocation Channels
    As assaults on freedom of expression escalate, it is crucial that 
the United States offer necessary humanitarian relocation channels for 
people with well-founded fears of persecution, especially the 
politically-exposed journalists, activists and protesters.
Enhance Support to Media
    The United States should enhance its support to our government-
funded media services, for example, Radio Free Asia with reasonable 
resources and increasing fundings to ensure the continuous coverage of 
developments in relevant regions. The government should also consider 
supporting media agencies proximate to oppressed regions in democratic 
countries in Asia, including Taiwan and Japan.
Construct Global Alliance to Defend Free Expression
    Beyond individual actions, it is also crucial that the United 
States continue to work with like-minded partners and to lead a 
multilateral coalition of allies to defend free expression against the 
encroachment of authoritarian regimes in a collective manner.

    Senator Markey. Excellent, and thank you for all of your 
great leadership as well.
    We are joined now by Senator Romney, and I do not know if 
you would like to make an opening statement right now, Senator.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MITT ROMNEY, 
                     U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH

    Senator Romney. I will ask that my comments be submitted to 
the record. I will not have to read them for this group. I am 
so late. I apologize for being late and you know what I was up 
to, and so I appreciate being able to hear from those that are 
testifying today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Senator Romney follows:]

               Prepared Statement of Senator Mitt Romney

    Thank you all for your willingness to testify to this committee 
today.
    The topic that we are discussing today is of great significance to 
each of us in this room and to people around the world. That is the 
freedom of expression--including the freedom of speech, press, 
religion, assembly, and association.
    From the beginning of humanity, history was characterized by strong 
men assembling the muscle from collaborators to dominate, rule, and 
oppress others. They were the feudal lord, Tzar, Caesar, warlord, 
Emperor, or king. All were authoritarians, and most of them were 
tyrants.
    I have a chart in my office that traces the military and economic 
might of civilizations from 2,000 BC until today. In the over 4,000 
years of human history, dominating civilizations have come and gone. 
Only a few short-lived periods of democracy interrupt a virtually 
uninterrupted course of authoritarian domination. Authoritarianism is 
the default setting of world history, and of the authoritarian regimes 
that have prevailed through history one of longest surviving is China.
    China, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, does not 
embrace the rules of the global order, including of freedom of 
expression and respect for human rights. It has rejected them and done 
the opposite--imprisoning a million Uyghurs in concentration camps; 
brutally repressing dissent; censoring the media and Internet; 
suppressing the expression of faith and the practice of religion.
    And the CCP does not keep within the confines of China's borders. 
It obliterated the guarantees it gave to Hong Kong to uphold the one 
country, two systems--suppressing democracy and the freedom of the Hong 
Kong people. And I fear that Xi Jinping will take a page from Putin's 
playbook for conquest to try to invade and exert dominance over the 
independent, sovereign nation of Taiwan. I hope that Xi learns from 
Ukraine that a free people will not go easily into the night.
    We recognize also that China is not the only country where we see 
the crackdown on the freedom of expression in Asia, or around the world 
generally. The Freedom House assessed that 2020 marked ``the 15th 
consecutive year of decline in global freedom'' and that ``nearly 75 
percent of the world's population'' live in a country where freedom is 
deteriorating.
    When America is involved in the world, the world is a safer, freer, 
and more prosperous place. We have a responsibility to push back 
against the crackdowns on freedom around the world, not only to stand 
with those people currently being subjugated but to protect those who 
will in the future suffer repression from the Chinese Communist Party 
and other authoritarian regimes.
    I want to thank our panelists for the time you have taken to be 
with us today and for your commitment to freedom and democracy. We look 
forward to hearing from you on the issues I have just outlined.

    Senator Markey. Excellent, and I thank the senator from 
Utah.
    Finally, we are going to hear from Ms. Sarah Cook. She is 
Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom 
House. At Freedom House she directs the China Media Bulletin, a 
monthly digest in English and Chinese providing news and 
analysis on media freedom developments related to China.
    Her comments and writings have appeared on CNN, Wall Street 
Journal, foreign policy, and U.S. Congressional Executive 
Commission on China.
    So we welcome you, Ms. Cook, and whenever you are ready and 
interconnected to the committee we welcome your remarks.

  STATEMENT OF SARAH COOK, RESEARCH DIRECTOR FOR CHINA, HONG 
        KONG, AND TAIWAN, FREEDOM HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Cook. Senator Markey, Senator Romney, thank you very 
much for the opportunity to testify. I do apologize that I am 
unable to join you in person.
    Given the title of this hearing, it will not come as a 
surprise that the most notable trend related to freedom of 
expression in Asia is how much it is declining.
    Data from Freedom House shows this shrinking space is not 
limited to a small number of countries or only part of the 
region. It cuts across subregions and across different forms of 
expression, affecting press freedom, internet freedom, academic 
freedom, and religious freedom in both democracies and 
authoritarian regimes.
    Over the past 5 years, 12 out of 15 countries in Asia 
assessed in our ``Freedom on the Net'' report experienced 
declines in internet freedom.
    Other notable trends are, one, the adoption and enforcement 
of new restrictive legislation, including in China, India, 
Myanmar, and, as Maria mentioned, the Philippines; two, severe 
legal penalties for online and offline expression, including 
prison terms of 15, 43 years, or even life imprisonment in 
Vietnam, Thailand, and China; and three, the disproportionate 
impact on ethnic and religious communities, who are often more 
severely punished or censored than the country's broader 
population.
    In China, for example, alongside Uighurs and Tibetans, 
Inner Mongolians, Christians, and practitioners of Falun Gong 
often face greater censorship and harsher legal penalties than 
other citizens.
    So what is driving these declines? First, the COVID-19 
pandemic has played a vital role as governments across the 
democratic spectrum in Asia have resorted to excessive 
surveillance and used duress to crackdown on free speech during 
COVID.
    COVID is only one factor. Other contributing factors will 
actually extend long beyond the pandemic. First, elections and 
other political leadership transitions tend to invite increased 
restrictions on speech both online and offline.
    Second, locations that have faced the greatest declines in 
recent years had experienced mass protest movements pushing 
back against repression, which were then cracked down upon, 
including in Myanmar and Hong Kong.
    Third, more sophisticated and pervasive surveillance 
technologies facilitate identification and prosecution of 
political opponents and ordinary citizens who share disfavored 
information on various topics.
    So what has been the role of China in all of this? As the 
world's largest authoritarian regime and a major economic 
power, the Chinese Communist Party's ability to itself 
construct the world's most sophisticated and multi-layered 
apparatus of information control has demonstrated that such a 
project is possible and it has played a role in normalizing 
digital repression.
    More directly, Beijing's own media influence include 
exercising control over diaspora media, engaging in 
disinformation campaigns in Taiwan, but also the Philippines, 
and using control over digital television networks built by 
Chinese firms in Cambodia to provide advantageous access to 
Chinese state television.
    As China-based social media platforms and news aggregators 
grow in popularity in the region, the vulnerability of users to 
manipulation from Beijing intensifies.
    In addition, a recent study found that at least 11 
countries in Asia had signed ``smart city'' or ``safe city'' 
project agreements with Chinese vendors in 2013. Almost all are 
rated partly free or not free by Freedom House, heightening the 
likelihood that such surveillance technology could be used 
against local opponents and civic activists.
    Still, when considering Beijing's influence on human rights 
and freedom of expression in Asia, in many instances the most 
pernicious effects can be how PRC-based actors strengthen local 
illiberal actors, pressing on the scales to tilt the balance in 
a more authoritarian direction.
    The news is not all bad and the future of freedom of 
expression in Asia is very much contested. Alongside the worst 
abusers of media and internet freedom, Asia is also home to 
some of the world's freest press and internet freedom 
landscapes, including Japan and Taiwan.
    Moreover, throughout the region, journalists, independent 
news outlets, civil society groups, and also judges are playing 
a critical role in defending free expression.
    Looking ahead, politically sensitive contexts could trigger 
new threats, domestic and foreign, including elections in the 
Philippines and local elections in Taiwan, and, of course, 
China's own 20th Party Congress in November where Xi Jinping 
will seek a controversial third term.
    Russia's invasion of Ukraine will also have reverberations. 
Even indirect effects due to problems in the global economy 
could drive street protests and, in response, government 
crackdowns.
    In China, although the regime has superficially claimed 
neutrality, its state media have been feeding local audiences 
pro-Russian propaganda and disinformation, including virulently 
anti-American narratives, while aggressively censoring content 
departing from the official party line.
    In terms of recommendations, the U.S. Government should, 
one, consistently address threats to free expression and urge 
release of imprisoned journalists as part of high-level 
bilateral engagement, including in democracies and with allies.
    Two, focus funding for free expression on efforts that will 
sustain operations, evade censorship, support legal advocacy, 
and address political crises.
    Three, Congress should reauthorize the Global Magnitsky Act 
with language that codifies the serious human rights abuse 
standards. Congress should also adopt legislation creating an 
emergency visa for journalists, as bills like the International 
Press Freedom Act would do.
    In our work at Freedom House we see firsthand how steps 
like these can have real-world impact.
    I would like to conclude with a comment that actually one 
of our readers of the China Media Bulletin inside China shared 
in a survey.

        ``I am a lower class worker in Chinese society and I do 
        not speak English. An independent Chinese media like 
        you that does in-depth reports about the situation in 
        China gives me a better understanding of China's 
        current situation and future developments.

        ``China is the largest authoritarian country in the 
        world. The Chinese Communist Party oppresses its 
        citizens, blocks information flows, and also threatens 
        the existing world order. I think the flow of 
        information and freedom of speech are very important to 
        China's future development.

        ``Birds in cages long to fly. Even if we cannot fly out 
        now, hearing the chirping of birds outside can still 
        give us hope and faith,''

    Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Cook follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Ms. Sarah Cook

                              introduction
    Senator Markey, Senator Romney, and members of the Subcommittee, 
thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you on this topic 
that affects billions of people and with such incredible co-panelists. 
I apologize for being unable to join you in person.
    In this testimony, I plan to address six dimensions of today's 
topic, specifically:

  1.  Key trends for freedom of expression in Asia

  2.  COVID-19 and other factors driving declines

  3.  The role of China

  4.  The bright spots

  5.  What to watch for in the coming year

  6.  Recommendations for U.S. policy
              key trends for freedom of expression in asia
    Given the title of this hearing, it will not be a surprise that the 
most notable trend related to freedom of expression in Asia is how much 
it is declining. This shrinking space is not limited to a small number 
of countries or only part of the region. It cuts across subregions, 
across regime types, and across different forms of expression, 
affecting press freedom, internet freedom, academic freedom, religious 
freedom, private discussion, and freedom of assembly in both 
democracies and authoritarian regimes. Data from Freedom House's 
Freedom in World and Freedom on the Net reports confirm what many 
observers sense intuitively:

   In the 2022 edition of Freedom in the World 5 out of 29 
        countries and territories in Asia experienced a decline on free 
        expression-related indicators, none showed improvement. These 
        locations were Myanmar, Afghanistan, the Philippines, 
        Singapore, and Hong Kong.

   In the 2021 edition of Freedom on the Net 6 out of 16 
        countries assessed in Asia experienced a decline in internet 
        freedom: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and 
        Sri Lanka (Afghanistan and Hong Kong are not assessed in 
        Freedom on the Net)

   These declines are not limited to 1 year, looking at the 
        past 5 years--12 out of 15 countries in the region scored lower 
        in 2021 than they did in the 2016 edition of Freedom of the 
        Net.
    The assault on freedom of expression in the region has taken 
numerous forms, but three dynamics stand out as having occurred in 
multiple countries across the region, and indeed, around the globe:

  1.  Adoption and enforcement of new restrictive legislation: 
        Governments in 7 out of the 16 Asian countries assessed in 
        Freedom on the Net pursued new rules for tech companies on 
        content, data, and competition between June 2020 and May 2021. 
        While some of these pieces of legislation aimed to better 
        protect users, many of them--like those in China, India, 
        Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines--increased censorship 
        or punishment of users for online expression. In Hong Kong, 
        which is not independently assessed in Freedom on the Net, the 
        new National Security Law forced on the territory by Beijing in 
        June 2020 increased criminalization of political speech and 
        independent reporting dramatically, resulting in dozens of 
        prosecutions, shuttered news outlets, and fleeing journalists.

  2.  Severe legal penalties for online and offline expression: These 
        new laws and pre-existing regulations have been deployed to 
        punish a wide range of expression online and offline. This 
        includes posts, videos, and publications related to electoral 
        campaigns, political protests, or criticism of top leaders, but 
        also about topics like public health, religious faith, and 
        mundane daily communications. The lengths of sentences handed 
        down in some cases is striking, exceeding 10 years. Many of 
        those sentences subsequently suffer bodily harm in custody due 
        to torture, poor conditions, or denial of medical treatment, 
        sometimes resulting in death. For example:

      a.  Authorities in Thailand sentenced a former revenue officer to 
            a staggering 43 years in prison. She was convicted of 
            violating the country's draconian lese-majeste laws by 
            criticizing the monarchy in social media posts.

      b.  In Vietnam, a journalist for an online news outlet was 
            sentenced to 15 years in jail. The government charged him 
            with disseminating anti-state propaganda in his articles.

      c.  In China, in July 2020, property tycoon and CCP member Ren 
            Zhiqiang was sentenced to 18 years in prison after 
            publishing an online critique of Xi Jinping's response to 
            the pandemic.

      Although these are some of the most egregious examples, the 
        problem is regionwide. In 15 out of 16 Asian countries assessed 
        in Freedom on the Net 2021, an internet user was sentenced to 
        prison for political or social content. In 10 countries, a 
        blogger or internet user was physically attacked or killed, 
        including in custody. Even in more democratic settings, 
        citizens face legal reprisals for their activism. An 
        environmental activist in India was arrested for sedition in 
        February 2021 because she shared a Google Doc on social media 
        on how to support a protest movement for farmers' rights, a 
        crime that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

  3.  Disproportionate impact on ethnic and religious communities: In 
        many countries in the region, even as crackdowns have occurred 
        that affect the entire population, measures taken to restrict 
        and punish expression often targets marginalized ethnic and 
        religious communities more severely.

      a.  In China, censorship and surveillance is more stringent in 
            ethnic minority regions like Xinjiang and Tibet, while 
            content about these and banned religious groups like Falun 
            Gong that departs from the official narrative is 
            consistently and systematically censored throughout China. 
            Over the past year, app stores have tightened restrictions 
            on Tibetan and Uyghur languages, as well as ones with 
            content from the Bible. New regulations that went into 
            effect on March 1 ban the transmission of religious content 
            online without a government licenses. Legal penalties are 
            also especially harsh. Many of the over 1 million Uyghurs 
            held in mass detention or forced labor facilities were 
            detained due to their online activities, including being 
            sentenced to over 15 years in prison for simply 
            communicating with Uyghurs outside the country. In February 
            2021, Tibetan Kunchok Jinpa died in a Lhasa hospital while 
            serving a 21-year prison sentence for ``leaking state 
            secrets'' after being detained in 2013 for providing 
            information to overseas websites about protests in Tibet. 
            Numerous Falun Gong practitioners throughout China have 
            been jailed in recent years for up to 12 years for posting 
            messages about the spiritual group or human rights abuses 
            on social media, accessing banned websites, possessing or 
            sharing prohibited VPN technology, or simply speaking to 
            fellow citizens in public places.

      b.  Prior to the coup in Myanmar, the government had imposed one 
            of the world's longest internet disruptions at a 
            subnational level. Between June 2019 and February 2021, the 
            authorities cut off mobile internet for over a million 
            people in parts of Rakhine State and Chin State--areas 
            where the military has conducted crackdowns, first against 
            the Rohingya, and more recently against the Rakhine ethnic 
            group. The government had also launched a campaign of 
            censorship and surveillance targeting activists and 
            journalist who covered the Rohingya crisis.

      c.  The Indian Government frequently restricts internet access in 
            Jammu and Kashmir. For example, between August 2019 and 
            January 2020, the state administration ordered the longest 
            internet shutdown in India--a total of 213 days. This 
            followed the Indian Government's abrogation of Article 370 
            of the Indian Constitution, which provides special status 
            to the state.

      d.  In Indonesia, internet disruptions in the Papua region were 
            reported on three separate occasions that coincided with 
            events related to Papuan independence in 2020 and 2021. 
            Members of civil society suspect that these disruptions may 
            have been deliberate and ordered by the government, though 
            the government or telecommunication providers have not 
            confirmed this.
                   notable declines in key countries
    Although declines in free expression have occurred in multiple 
countries in Asia, four stand out for the scale and significance of 
deterioration:

    China, including Hong Kong: China is home to the most sophisticated 
and multi-layered apparatus of information control in the world. In the 
latest addition of Freedom on the Net, the government was the worst 
abuser of internet freedom for the seventh consecutive year. China's 
own score has declined from 17 to only 10 out of 100 points over the 
past decade, reflecting how much more repressive and restrictive 
China's authoritarian regime has become in recent years. The ruling 
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tightened its control over the state 
bureaucracy, the media, online speech, religious groups, universities, 
businesses, and civil society associations, and it has undermined its 
own already modest rule-of-law reforms. 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. Authorities have also yielded their 
immense power over the tech industry through new legislation, 
regulatory investigations, and administrative fines for alleged misuse 
of data or insufficient enforcement of censorship protocols. The 
closure of space for independent media and free expression has been 
much more dramatic in Hong Kong, where journalists and internet users 
had previously enjoyed a significantly greater degree of freedom than 
their Mainland counterparts. The implementation of the National 
Security Law (NSL) since its adoption in 2020 has amounted to a 
multifront attack on Hong Kong's previous autonomy and fundamental 
freedoms. The territory's most prominent prodemocracy figures have been 
arrested under its provisions, and NSL charges or the threat of charges 
have resulted in the closure of dozens of political parties, major 
independent news outlets, peaceful nongovernmental organizations 
(NGOs), and unions. The territory's score on Freedom in the World has 
dropped 12 points (falling from a 55/100 to 43/100) over the 2 years 
since the NSL was adopted.

    India: Although India is a multiparty democracy--the world's 
largest--the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his 
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has presided over 
discriminatory policies and a rise in persecution affecting the Muslim 
population. The constitution guarantees civil liberties including 
freedom of expression and freedom of religion, but harassment of 
journalists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other government 
critics has increased significantly under Modi, who assumed the 
premiership in 2014. Internet controls have also increased. Internet 
access was cut off repeatedly throughout January and February 2021 as 
farmers took to the streets to express their opposition to agricultural 
reform bills. One shutdown in Delhi affected more than 50 million 
mobile subscribers. A new law adopted in February 2021 requires major 
social media platforms to comply with takedown orders about a broad 
array of content from a court or government authority within 36 hours 
or face criminal liability. The law also requires major social media 
platforms to use AI-based moderation tools to monitor users' posts and 
appoint three in-country representatives. In the 2021 edition of 
Freedom in the World, India's status declined from Free to Partly Free 
as a result of changes to the legal framework that increased 
punishments for citizens engaging in critical discussion online.

    Myanmar: After years of improvements and cautious hope, the 
February 2021 coup brought the junta and its abuses back in full force. 
Internet freedom plummeted by 14 points in Myanmar--the largest 1-year 
decline ever recorded in Freedom on the Net--after the military refused 
to accept the results of the November 2020 general elections and 
launched a deadly coup in February 2021. Internet connectivity was cut 
off every night from then until April. Mobile services were suspended 
entirely beginning in March, leaving only fixed-line and wireless 
broadband services available to users during the day. After opposition 
to the coup gathered force online and overflowed into the streets, the 
junta also blocked social media, stripped the licenses of independent 
online news outlets, forced service providers to hand over personal 
data, and seized control of the telecommunications infrastructure. 
Protesters and ordinary users alike suffered physical assaults and 
enforced disappearances in retaliation for their online activities.

    Afghanistan: Afghanistan's elected government, which had been 
undermined by an insurgency waged by the Taliban as well as violence, 
corruption, and flawed electoral processes, nevertheless offered a wide 
range of individual rights. However, it collapsed in August 2021 as the 
United States withdrew its military presence in the country and the 
Taliban overthrew the elected government. Since taking power, the 
Taliban has closed the country's political space and opposition to its 
rule is not tolerated. In September, it reconstituted a Ministry of 
Vice and Virtue (MVV), which had enforced their interpretation of 
Sharia (Islamic law) under their previous regime. The new regime has 
also violently suppressed demonstrations, restricted private discussion 
perceived as critical of its rule, limited educational opportunities 
for female students, and targeted supporters of the former government. 
Its score on Freedom in the World dropped 7 points (from 17/100 to 10/
100) in 2021.
              covid-19 and other factors driving declines
    What is driving these declines? Given what has occurred around the 
world over the past 2 years, it is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic 
has played a vital role.
    As COVID-19 spread globally throughout 2020 and 2021, governments 
across the democratic spectrum in Asia and elsewhere repeatedly 
resorted to excessive surveillance, discriminatory restrictions on 
freedoms like movement and assembly, and arbitrary or violent 
enforcement of such restrictions by police and nonstate actors. 
Governments throughout the region increasingly used arrests to crack 
down on free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indirectly, the 
pandemic allowed authoritarian forces to further consolidate their 
control of government institutions, setting the stage for these forces 
to more easily restrict expression, speech, and assembly in the future:

   In India, the government's response to COVID-19 included 
        encouraging the scapegoating of Muslims, who were 
        disproportionately blamed for the spread of the virus and faced 
        attacks by vigilante mobs.

   In the Philippines, amidst of a heavy-handed lockdown in 
        2021, the authorities stepped up harassment and arrests of 
        social media users, including those who criticized the 
        government's pandemic response.

   Cambodia's authoritarian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, presided 
        over the arrests of numerous people for allegedly spreading 
        false information linked to the virus and criticizing the 
        state's performance.

   In Indonesia, military figures were appointed to leading 
        positions on the country's COVID-19 task force, and the armed 
        services provided essential support in developing emergency 
        hospitals and securing medical supplies. In recent years, 
        observers have raised concerns about the military's growing 
        influence over civilian governance, and its heavy involvement 
        in the health crisis threatened to accelerate this trend.

   In Sri Lanka, the government of Prime Minister Mahinda 
        Rajapaksa stepped up efforts to control independent reporting 
        and unfavorable speech by ordering the arrest of anyone who 
        criticizes or contradicts the official line on the coronavirus.

   In China, alongside broad censorship and intensified 
        surveillance, hundreds of people were arrested for speech 
        relating to COVID-19. For instance, a Shanghai court sentenced 
        lawyer turned citizen journalist Zhang Zhan in December 2020 to 
        4 years in prison for ``picking quarrels and provoking 
        trouble.'' Zhang had covered the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan. 
        She had uploaded more than 120 videos to YouTube prior to her 
        arrest in May 2020. Jailings linked to COVID-19 have continued 
        into 2022. Xu Na, a Falun Gong practitioner and artist whose 
        husband was killed in police custody in 2008, was sentenced to 
        8 years in prison in January for sharing information about the 
        state of the pandemic in Beijing in the run-up to the Winter 
        Olympics.

    Beyond COVID-19, three other factors have also contributed to the 
decline in meaningful ways, all of which will extend beyond the 
pandemic:

  1.  Elections and other political leadership transitions: Freedom 
        House's research has repeatedly found that restrictions on 
        speech--both online and offline--tend to escalate before and 
        during crucial moments of political crises, including pivotal 
        electoral contests and authoritarian leadership transitions. 
        These include intensified arrests of political and civic 
        activists, blocked websites, internet shutdowns, cyberattacks, 
        and both domestic and cross-border disinformation campaigns. A 
        Freedom on the Net analysis of elections held between June 2018 
        and May 2020 found that among countries in Asia, domestic 
        digital interference in elections had occurred in Bangladesh, 
        Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri 
        Lanka, and Thailand. There is a long track-record in China of 
        internet controls intensifying around sensitive political 
        anniversaries or leadership transitions, such as the 5-year 
        party congresses. Even after electoral or other factional 
        contests end, as leaders consolidate their political power--
        including with strong parliamentary majorities in democratic 
        settings--they may be emboldened by the reduced risk of 
        pushback for cracking down on dissent and wish to take 
        advantage of the opportunity before the next moment of 
        political contestation.

  2.  Repressive responses to mass protest movements: Several of the 
        locations that have faced the greatest pressure on free 
        expression in recent years had experienced mass protest 
        movements calling for political change or challenging proposed 
        or enacted repressive policies. These include more closed 
        political regimes like in Thailand and Myanmar, mid-range 
        performers like Hong Kong, and democracies like India and 
        Indonesia.

  3.  Increasing surveillance facilitating prosecutions: As more 
        sophisticated and pervasive surveillance technologies 
        proliferate in the region, this facilitates crackdowns on 
        dissent. Political opponents, activists and ordinary citizens 
        who share disfavored news or commentary on political, social, 
        and religious topics are more likely to be identified and 
        prosecuted than previously. What could have slipped through the 
        cracks before, no longer does, making it easier for security 
        forces and prosecutors to detain, arrest, and sentence citizens 
        for non-conforming speech that previously would have escaped 
        punishment. This is evident from the details of individual 
        cases, including court verdicts that cite private online 
        communications or video surveillance in public places as 
        evidence used for convictions.
                           the role of china
    As noted above, many of the factors driving declines in the region 
relate to broader domestic or even global dynamics. Nevertheless, as 
the world's largest authoritarian regime and a major economic power in 
the region, the Chinese party-state and related actors do have an 
impact on free expression beyond China's borders and throughout the 
region. This is evident in several ways:

   Beijing's own media influence activities abroad: In January 
        2020, Freedom House published a report entitled Beijing's 
        Global Megaphone, which outlined the toolbox deployed by the 
        CCP, state media, and various proxies to influence news 
        reporting around the world via propaganda, disinformation, 
        censorship, and control over content dissemination 
        infrastructure. The study found that hundreds of millions of 
        people around the world and in multiple languages are consuming 
        news influenced by CCP narratives and direction, often without 
        being aware of the party-state origins. There are numerous 
        cases from across Asia that illustrate this phenomenon and how 
        it affects news consumed by residents: Xinhua content-sharing 
        agreements in multiple countries, strong influence over 
        Chinese-language media serving the diaspora, CCP anti-poverty 
        propaganda placements appearing in Indonesia, a dismantled 
        Facebook disinformation campaign in the Philippines that 
        promoted politicians favorable to China, multiple sophisticated 
        disinformation campaigns targeting Taiwan (including ones 
        attempting to influence electoral outcomes), prosecution in 
        Thailand of a man for aiding uncensored radio broadcasts into 
        China, and advantageous access to Chinese state television 
        stations on digital television networks built by Chinese firms 
        in Cambodia. Freedom House is currently working on a new 
        project to map Beijing's global media influence and local 
        resilience in 30 countries, including six in Asia. The report, 
        with accompanying scores and in-depth country case studies will 
        be published in September 2022.

   Export of surveillance equipment: Although Chinese firms 
        like Huawei, ZTE, Dahua and others sell their products, 
        including sophisticated and artificial-intelligence driven 
        surveillance technologies, to governments worldwide, they have 
        also found an eager market in Asia. A study by RWR Advisory, a 
        Washington-based advisory, whose findings were analyzed in a 
        June 2021 report published in the Financial Times found that at 
        least 11 countries in Asia had signed ``smart city'' or ``safe 
        city'' project agreements with Chinese equipment vendors since 
        2013. Other than South Korea, which is rated Free, the other 10 
        countries are rated as either Partly Free or Not Free in 
        Freedom in the World. According to the data, India had signed 
        the largest number of contracts, estimated at 10. Other 
        countries in the region with at least one contract were 
        Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, 
        the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. As noted elsewhere in 
        this testimony, many of these countries have experienced 
        increased political, media, and information restrictions in 
        recent years, heightening the likelihood that these 
        technologies could be used by political leaders to monitor, 
        identify, and punish opponents, civic activists, or other 
        government critics.

   Normalization of digital repression: By constructing the 
        world's most sophisticated and multi-layered apparatus of 
        information control, the CCP has demonstrated that such a 
        project is possible. Even as other authoritarian leaders in the 
        region and beyond may not always have the technical prowess and 
        resources to fully mirror Beijing's controls, there are 
        examples of them appearing to attempt it. This has been evident 
        in recent years in Cambodia, where the government is seeking to 
        centralize internet infrastructure in order to expand its 
        technical capacity for censorship; and in Vietnam with the 
        Cybersecurity Law and the decision of the Communist Party's 
        general secretary to pursue a third term, similar to what his 
        Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be doing this November. 
        More broadly, the 2018 edition of Freedom on the Net found that 
        in addition to Cambodia and Vietnam, five other countries in 
        the region (the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia, and 
        Thailand) had sent media elites or government officials for 
        trainings in China on new media or information management. Such 
        trainings have slowed during the pandemic but are likely to 
        pick up frequency again in the coming years.

    When considering Beijing's influence on human rights and freedom of 
expression in Asia, it is important to consider the agency and role of 
local political actors. Some actions by Beijing are direct in their 
impact on citizens of other countries. But often, the influence is 
indirect. In many instances, the most pernicious effects can be how 
PRC-based actors collaborate with or strengthen local illiberal actors 
in the political, security, or media sector, pressing on the scales to 
tilt the balance in a less democratic, more authoritarian direction. 
This dynamic and the ability of local media and civil society to push 
back against such collaboration vary in form and magnitude depending on 
a country's own level of freedom and democratic governance.
                            the bright spots
    The news is not all bad. There are several more optimistic trends 
that demonstrate the extent to which the future trajectory for free 
expression in Asia is very much contested. Four points are worth 
highlighting:

   Strong performing countries: Alongside the worst abuser of 
        media and internet freedom globally, Asia is also home to some 
        of the world's freest press and internet freedom landscapes--
        notably Japan and Taiwan, which scored 76/100 and 80/100, 
        respectively in the 2021 edition of Freedom on the Net. In both 
        democracies, there are few obstacles to internet access, a lack 
        of website blocks, and a legal framework and independent 
        judiciary that provide strong protections for various forms of 
        expression. People can freely use the internet to mobilize, and 
        netizens regularly do so. In Taiwan, civil society, the tech 
        sector, and the government have taken innovative action to 
        counteract the impact of disinformation campaigns originating 
        from China. Both did register some gaps, however, with reports 
        emerging in Japan of online harassment and intimidation, 
        particularly against women, individuals with at least one Black 
        parent, and medical personnel. In Taiwan, besides the effects 
        of information warfare from China, criminal prosecutions for 
        online activities and concerns over disproportionate 
        surveillance are viewed as potential threats to internet 
        freedom. Although rated Party Free, South Korea is another 
        regional democracy with a relatively high degree of internet 
        freedom (67/100 on Freedom on the Net 2021). Moreover, both 
        Japan and South Korea have registered a three-point score 
        improvement since 2019, despite the pressures placed on 
        internet freedom by the COVID-19 pandemic.

   Role and resilience of civil society: Journalists, 
        independent news outlets, and various civil society groups are 
        playing a critical role in defending free expression. In more 
        democratic settings, press and internet freedom NGOs, academic 
        institutions, and grassroots activists investigate and expose 
        violations of free expression, advocate for passage of 
        protective laws and against adoption of restrictive 
        legislation, and seek innovative responses to emerging threats, 
        at times collaborating effectively with the private sector as 
        well as government agencies. Even in countries led by brutal 
        regimes, citizens continue to speak out against abuses, taking 
        action to try to protect others in their society and enhance 
        freedom, often at risk to their own freedom, lives, and 
        families. In Vietnam, candidates in tightly controlled 
        elections posted videos online declaring a desire to represent 
        other citizens knowing they would be detained and likely 
        imprisoned as a result. In Myanmar, civic protest and 
        resilience have meant that the junta has been unable to fully 
        legitimize its rule and consolidate power. In China, much of 
        what is known about vital topics such as the early days of the 
        COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, the scale and nature of mass 
        internment of Uyghur, Kazakh, and other minorities in Xinjiang, 
        and ever-expanding restrictions on freedom in Hong Kong is due 
        in large part to reporting by local journalists, citizen 
        reporters, and refugees who have spoken out despite threats to 
        family still in China.

   Protection by courts: In many countries, the courts have 
        served as a bulwark to growing restrictions on freedom, 
        upholding free expression and at times, overturning repressive 
        legislation. In January 2020, India's Supreme Court ruled that 
        internet access is a human right, in an order that imposed some 
        constraints on internet shutdowns across the country but did 
        not bar them outright. In Japan, courts have upheld strict 
        criteria for delisting search results on major platforms. 
        Courts in South Korea overturned a law that required people to 
        register with their real names to comment online during 
        elections periods, affirming the importance of online 
        anonymity. Though Thailand's judiciary suffers from 
        politicization, corruption, and lack of independence, the 
        courts have rejected several government requests to block 
        content critical of the authorities, such as an online outlet 
        broadcasting footage of the youth-led antigovernment protests. 
        Several of these cases were pushed forward by civil society 
        groups working with lawyers to proactively seek legal avenues 
        to defend online rights.

   Limits of Beijing's influence: While Beijing's growing 
        investment in foreign media influence has yielded some gains, 
        the campaign has also encountered obstacles such as 
        journalistic integrity and public skepticism about state-run 
        media. In fact, the past 4 years have featured a wave of 
        pushback. In many countries, including in Asia, governmental 
        and nongovernmental actors alike have come to recognize the 
        threat that CCP media influence poses to democratic freedoms 
        and structures. Resistance has come from the media industry 
        itself, as well as policymakers, the technology sector, and 
        civil society. In terms of public opinion, surveys and academic 
        studies indicate that in the initial years of state media 
        expansion, views on China and Xi Jinping personally improved, 
        including in parts of Asia. Since 2015, however, the percentage 
        of the population expressing a favorable view of China in Pew 
        surveys has declined--sometimes precipitously--in influential 
        regional players like Indonesia, the Philippines, and India. 
        Although it is difficult to isolate the precise cause, the dip 
        has coincided with Beijing's more aggressive actions in the 
        South China Sea and its border with India, the regime's program 
        of mass detention in Xinjiang, and the PRC Government's 
        dramatic moves to curtail freedom and autonomy in Hong Kong.
                             looking ahead
    As we look ahead to the coming year and beyond, several occurrences 
could further exacerbate the pressure on media and internet freedom in 
Asia. Any actions that local authorities, civil society and foreign 
actors like businesses and democratic governments can take to pre-
emptively prepare for these would maximize protection for free 
expression and limit the effects of predictable restrictions.

   Upcoming politically sensitive contests: Several democracies 
        in the region have elections scheduled for this year that could 
        heighten domestic crackdowns and disinformation campaigns, as 
        well as potential foreign interference, including from China. 
        Events to watch for are the Philippines' elections in May over 
        who will succeed current President Rodrigo Duterte; India's 
        presidential elections in July, alongside local elections 
        throughout the year; and Taiwan's local and municipal elections 
        in November. The last set of these elections in 2018 were the 
        focus of Beijing's first aggressive, and arguably successful, 
        disinformation operation to influence electoral outcomes in 
        Taiwan. Notably, this year's polls coincide with the Communist 
        Party in China's own 20th Party Congress, where Xi Jinping will 
        seek--and barring an unexpected crisis, be approved for--a 
        controversial third term.

   Reverberations from Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Although 
        the countries of Asia are geographically far from Ukraine, 
        Russia's invasion of the country and its economic 
        reverberations are already reaching the region. Countries like 
        Bangladesh are feeling the pinch in their energy and food 
        supplies. Others are indirectly impacted by the negative 
        effects on the global economy, such as reduced exports and 
        market volatility. Should the invasion negatively affect 
        economic performance in the region or raise prices on vital 
        commodities like energy and food, this could drive public 
        outcries and street protests. As noted above, when political 
        leaders are put on the defensive by civic mobilization, some 
        have responded with stronger restrictions on assembly, 
        independent media, and internet freedom, including via 
        localized network blackouts. In China, the regime has 
        superficially claimed neutrality, but its state media have been 
        feeding local audiences pro-Russian propaganda and 
        disinformation, including virulently anti-American narratives, 
        while aggressively censoring content departing from the 
        official party line, including video broadcasts by a Chinese 
        citizen residing in Ukraine. This manipulation further 
        reinforces the information isolation of Chinese news consumers 
        relative to the rest of the world and can radicalize perception 
        of the United State and the threat it could pose to China. On 
        the other hand, Russia's invasion has offered a case study for 
        how a unified strong response from Western and some Asian 
        democracies is possible, as well as how challenging an invasion 
        of Taiwan could be militarily and economically for China.

   Beijing's influence over tech and content dissemination 
        infrastructure: China-based companies with close ties to the 
        CCP and often a track record of politicized surveillance and 
        censorship within China are playing a meaningful role in the 
        technological infrastructure of many countries in the region. 
        This spans not only telecom infrastructure, like Huawei routers 
        in 4G and 5G mobile phone networks, but also digital television 
        in countries like Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan, and East Timor. 
        Importantly, social media platforms like Tencent's WeChat and 
        Bytedance's TikTok are immensely popular, while news 
        aggregators owned by China-based companies have also gained a 
        notable footprint in countries like Indonesia. Sporadic 
        investigations in recent years have revealed that in some 
        instances at least, this infrastructural control has been used 
        to amplify pro-Beijing content or subdue disfavored voices or 
        content providers. To date, these attempts have not been 
        systematic or widespread and some have been reversed following 
        exposure. But as Beijing's footprint expands, China's regime 
        increases pressure on its own tech sector at home, and 
        authoritarian leaders in the region seek tools to suppress 
        political opposition, the control by China-based companies over 
        key nodes in the information flow could be activated to 
        threaten free expression in much broader and politically 
        significant ways.
                            recommendations
    The United States and various agencies already employ various 
diplomatic, programmatic, and other measures to support free 
expression, independent media, and internet freedom in Asia. 
Nevertheless, the scale, severity, and urgency of the problem requires 
more attention and resources, not only monetary. The enormity and 
complexity of the challenge requires strategic thinking. Authoritarian 
regimes like China's have proven adept at thinking two steps ahead, 
building structures of influence and economic leverage that can be 
activated later to serve their agenda. The United States and other 
democratic governments need to be thinking in similarly calculated 
ways, proactively responding and preparing BEFORE crises happen. The 
following are several recommendations for actions that the United 
States Government--including Congress--can take to protect and advance 
freedom of expression in Asia.

  1.  Address threats to independent media, internet freedom and free 
        expression as part of high-level bilateral engagement: U.S. 
        officials traveling to the region, should consistently raise 
        the issues of press freedom and internet freedom in public and 
        in private meetings with their counterparts, including at the 
        highest levels. In these interactions, U.S. officials should:

      a.  Urge the release of imprisoned journalists and free 
            expression activists. Even where such pressure may not 
            secure their release, it is likely to improve treatment in 
            custody and reduce the risk of torture.

      b.  Raise concerns about any pending legislation that could 
            intensify censorship, surveillance, or criminal penalties 
            for political, social, and religious topics.

      c.  Voice concerns over restrictions on free expression during 
            meetings and trips related to economic and security policy, 
            including by officials such as the Secretaries of Treasury, 
            Commerce, and Defense, addressing the financial and 
            security implications of reduced free expression.

      d.  Explore avenues for speaking to publics in Asia directly. 
            Communicate factual information and policy statements 
            directly to local audiences via social media posts, ``town 
            hall'' meetings, and embassy websites. When leaders visit 
            the region, insist on unimpeded foreign media access and 
            opportunities to speak to domestic media without filters.

  2.  Focus support for independent media and civil society on efforts 
        that will sustain operations, evade censorship, and preserve 
        the public record:

      a.  As part of the United States' Summit for Democracy 
            commitments, several promising new initiatives were 
            announced, including a multi-donor International Fund for 
            Public Interest Media and a Media Viability Accelerator. 
            These should be used, along with other available funding, 
            to scale up efforts to support independent media in Asia--
            including public-interest journalism and exile media--
            through financial assistance and innovative financing 
            models, technical support, skills training, and mentoring.

      b.  Another initiative announced at the Summit--a Multilateral 
            Surge and Sustain Fund for Anti-Censorship Technology--
            should be used to expand funding for groups that develop 
            and disseminate tools to enable uses to securely access 
            blocked websites, including from mobile phones. This fund 
            should also deploy opportunities for emergency funding to 
            civil society and media outlets for rapid activation ahead 
            of or during moments of crisis or political turmoil when 
            threats to free expression and citizen demand for credible 
            information typically spike.

      c.  Funding for media freedom should also support efforts to 
            monitor, preserve, and recirculate censored content within 
            countries that have high levels of censorship, including 
            news articles and social media posts on political, social, 
            and religious topics that have been deleted.

      d.  Funding should also include programs that provide support for 
            legal advocacy and public interest lawyering on these 
            issues, including trainings for civil society on best and 
            worst practices for online content regulation.

      e.  U.S. Government efforts should support research and 
            monitoring initiatives, including on how emerging 
            technologies are and could negatively impact freedom of 
            expression. These should also include efforts to track 
            control exercised by China-based companies over content 
            infrastructure abroad and how or if this is being used to 
            amplify or marginalize certain content or information 
            providers in alignment with CCP priorities.

  3.  Deploy targeted sanctions for egregious abuses and provide 
        funding for vetting: Utilize targeted sanctions as part of a 
        comprehensive strategy of accountability for human rights 
        abusers, including those engaged in violations against 
        journalists, internet users, and religious believers. Such 
        sanctions are not a standalone solution, but they remain a 
        powerful mechanism for deterring harmful behavior and reducing 
        impunity. Multilateral sanctions are most effective. Whenever 
        possible, the United States should coordinate its efforts and 
        jointly impose sanctions on perpetrators alongside other 
        democratic nations for maximum impact, as has been done in 
        recent cases related to Myanmar, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang.

      a.  The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (22 USC 
            2656 note), which allows for visa bans and asset freezes on 
            individuals and entities engaged in human rights abuses and 
            corruption, has been one of the United States' most 
            impactful sanctions regimes. Congress should pass S.93, 
            which eliminates the December 23, 2022, sunset and codifies 
            key portions of Executive Order 13818, which enables the 
            United States to impose sanctions for ``serious human 
            rights abuses.'' This term encompasses a greater number of 
            abuses than the more restrictive threshold of ``gross 
            violations of human rights,'' the standard included in the 
            Global Magnitsky Act in its original form.

      b.  Global Magnitsky is one of the most powerful targeted 
            sanctions options, but country-specific regimes, and visa 
            bans under section 7031(c) of the State Department 
            appropriations bill or the Immigration and Nationality Act 
            can also be impactful, as can targeted sanctions options 
            for countries designated as religious freedom violators or 
            countries of concern under the International Religious 
            Freedom Act.

      c.  The U.S. Congress and Executive Branch should work together 
            to ensure robust funding for the enforcement of targeted 
            sanctions programs. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, 
            Department of State, and Department of Justice all collect 
            information about suspected perpetrators of abuses who are 
            eligible for sanctions. Unfortunately, the number of 
            potential sanctions cases to be vetted by the U.S. 
            Government exceeds current capacity. Congress has provided 
            funding for sanctions implementation and enforcement, but 
            funding for additional staff would help reduce the backlog 
            of cases that have yet to be vetted.

  4.  Pass legislation focused on advancing press freedom globally. 
        Freedom House would particularly urge consideration of two 
        bills with broader relevance: the Global Press Freedom Act 
        (S.204) introduced by Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) with support 
        from Todd Young (R-IN) and the International Press Freedom Act 
        (S.1495), introduced by Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) with support 
        from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Both are bipartisan bills 
        that would help prioritize press freedom within U.S. foreign 
        policy, including in Asia. They would create an office focused 
        on press freedom in the Department of State, and S.1495 adds 
        special visas and funding for journalists at risk.
                               conclusion
    Despite the ever-escalating efforts to restrict journalists and 
limit citizens' access to information throughout Asia, steps like those 
cited above by the United States and other international actors can 
have a real-world impact, a dynamic Freedom House has observed 
repeatedly in our work. I have personally interviewed several prisoners 
from China who were the subject of rescue campaigns and testified to 
better treatment, less torture in custody, and sometimes early release 
thanks to international pressure.
    In addition, as part of the China Media Bulletin project, we have 
been working with organizations who run circumvention tools that garner 
millions of impressions each month and bring tens of thousands of 
readers from inside China to the bulletin. This is just one example of 
the eagerness with which a notable contingent of people in Asia--even 
in one of the region's most repressive environments--are actively 
seeking out uncensored, credible information about their country and 
the media controls in place.
    Each year, we conduct a survey among Chinese readers of the 
bulletin. I would like to conclude with a quotation from one of those 
readers as a testament to the importance of international support for 
free expression and access to information in China and other countries 
in the region.

        ``I am a lower class worker in Chinese society and I don't 
        speak English. An independent Chinese media like you, that does 
        in-depth reports about the situation in China, gives me a 
        better understanding of China's current situation and future 
        development. And it also helped my personal life and work. On a 
        macro scale, China is the largest authoritarian country in the 
        world, the Chinese Communist Party oppresses its citizens, 
        blocks information flows, and also threatens the existing world 
        order. I think the flow of information and freedom of speech 
        are very important to China's future development. Birds in 
        cages long to fly, even if we can't fly out now, hearing the 
        chirping of birds outside can still give us hope and faith!''
                                appendix
Table of Freedom in the World 2022 and Freedom on the Net 2021 ratings, 
status, and 1-year trajectories for countries and territories (marked 
with an *) in Asia

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]



    Senator Markey. Thank you, Ms. Cook, very much. Thanks to 
each of our witnesses.
    Now we are going to move to the question period and let me 
begin by, first of all, congratulating you, Ms. Ressa, and you, 
Ms. Siu, for your courage.
    We talk a lot in this body about standing up to repression. 
That has been your lives. That is what you have been doing, and 
we very much are in awe of the lives you have lived and the 
fights that you have been willing to engage in to protect 
freedom in not just your homelands, but across the whole 
planet. So we thank you for that.
    We begin, Ms. Ressa, with the numbers. These numbers are 
staggering. We have heard the statistics about the 22 
journalists and 63 lawyers killed since President Duterte took 
office in 2016.
    Each of these numbers represents people who you have known, 
people who you have worked with, and you have lived in this 
atmosphere of intimidation that you have resisted to the extent 
to which you won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
    Can you talk about the personal impact all of these murders 
have had on you and your colleagues in trying to bring the 
truth to the Philippine people?
    Ms. Ressa. First of all, thank you, again. Thank you so 
much for listening. I think that is the first, that we are not 
alone.
    That is also something that the Nobel Committee helped 
bring not just to journalists in the Philippines, but to 
journalists all around the world because this kind of sustained 
attacks that we have gone through globally in the last decade 
is unprecedented. It is actually now 66 lawyers killed since 
last year--I mean, since under the Duterte administration, 
instead of 63.
    Senator Markey, Senator Romney, sometimes we have hit new 
lows in terms of expectations and new normals in terms of 
violence.
    In 2016, I just remember every night being shocked that 
there would be another body dumped on the sidewalk, the face 
masked in tape and it got to a point where by the end of 2016, 
moving into 2017, the Amnesty International report that came 
out that year where there was an average of 33 people killed 
every night, every day.
    Our one team was--we only had one team that would go out 
overnight and they would come back with at least eight dead 
bodies.
    That was when I began to realize something has 
fundamentally changed, and then when that became a new normal 
and by 2017 the numbers changed in plain sight, the Philippine 
police changed the almost 7,000 people killed to--back to 2,000 
in plain sight, and they just changed it and atomized it. So 
these numbers sometimes do not hold any meaning.
    I just feel, for me, it is--I am at the tail end of my 
career and I feel like this moment is extremely important. It 
is the reason why Rappler was set up. So what we did is we 
worked with our communities and we would not have been able to 
do this without our communities, both financially and spirit 
wise.
    I think that is part of the reason the solution really has 
to be with communities, how do we bring democratic norms back 
to a more robust place. It has to be with the will of the 
people, and what we have learned from our communities is that 
they want us to hold the line and they are prepared now to do 
that with us.
    Senator Markey. Great. Thank you.
    Senator Gardner and I, back 3 years ago, we were able to 
pass the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, which actually 
resulted in an appropriation of $210 million a year for 5 years 
from 2019 through 2023, to encourage democratic institutions, 
to encourage human rights, transparency, accountability in the 
private and public sectors all across Asia.
    We are right now in the process of negotiating an extension 
of that on the committee. It was about a billion dollars that 
we were able to put in back 5 years ago, and it is a way of 
thinking of Asia where we are in the game. The United States is 
helping to support those very important institutions.
    Where, in your opinion, Ms. Ressa, would the United States 
be making the best investments with those hundreds of millions 
of dollars over the next 5 years, perhaps, to support 
independent media, to support other institutions that you think 
are vital to ensuring that independent voices advocating for 
freedom are heard?
    Ms. Ressa. Thank you for asking, Senator Markey.
    The independent fund for--IFPM, the International Fund for 
Public Media, was set up precisely to try to get the 0.3 
percent of ODA assistance up to at least 1 percent and to get 
some of that for independent media.
    Part of the problem that we have is that the business model 
of journalism has collapsed. Advertising is, essentially, dead, 
and the platforms that have been used to attack the credibility 
of traditional news groups, news groups that stand by, that 
have processes editorially, that stick to the facts, these news 
groups now are under attack, and no place knows this better 
than the Global South--than Asia.
    So that is part of our goal. I do believe--I see this now--
independent media needs help to survive this time period. Hand-
in-hand with that as well is putting guardrails on technology 
because it is impossible for us to do our jobs if we cannot 
even get the news distributed to our consumers.
    Other things are institutions. The institutions in 
Southeast Asia, for example, that have--in the Philippines 
within 6 months of the new administration--of the Duterte 
administration--we watched many institutions fold. Some very, 
very strong executives--how do we revitalize that?
    Senator Markey. Can you talk a little bit about Facebook in 
the Philippines?
    Ms. Ressa. Yes, sir.
    Up until January this year, the Philippines--for 6 years in 
a row Filipinos spent the most time online and on social media 
globally. This is from Hootsuite and We Are Social, that 
statistic.
    For many, many years, even during the time of Yahoo, any 
new digital product was first tested in the Philippines, 
products that are meant for the West. In 2018, when I 
interviewed the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Christopher 
Wylie, he called the Philippines the ``petri dish'' because he 
said this is where Cambridge Analytica and its parent partner, 
SCL, tested these tactics of mass manipulation, and if they 
worked in the Philippines then they would--the word he used was 
``port'' these tactics over to you.
    So we were the guinea pigs. You were the targets. Social 
media is, I think, an extension of how our institutions are 
weaker and so what wound up happening is it has to be someone 
you know to get things done.
    Before we were the social media capital of the world, we 
were the texting--the SMS capital of the world. It helped in 
protests that were organized against President Arroyo in--when 
she had taken office, right. Texting capital of the world.
    This social networking can be a boon and can be a curse, 
and for a period of time it was a blessing. This is why I 
started Rappler on Facebook.
    At a certain point, by 2015, when Instant Articles was 
introduced, the same algorithms of amplification were not 
changed and news went into this--its system where you cannot--
the system actually does not distinguish between fact and 
fiction and it literally rewards lies laced with anger and hate 
over facts.
    So that is our biggest problem right now as journalists.
    Senator Markey. Thank you.
    Senator Romney.
    Senator Romney. Thank you so much. I appreciate the chance 
to hear from you and your testimony is quite moving and 
disturbing. I will not be able to stay with you long. I came 
late and I have to leave early. I do want to ask you a couple 
of questions.
    First, I will ask Ms. Siu, could you give me a sense of to 
what extent do the people of Hong Kong understand what is 
happening among them, what is happening in Hong Kong? Do they 
have access to truth or has that been cut off for them in the 
same way it has been cut off in the rest of China?
    Ms. Siu. Thank you, Senator Romney, for your questions.
    So as I have mentioned in my testimony, the National 
Security Law was passed by the Chinese Government and it came 
into effect in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, and that really 
changed the lives of Hong Kong people and that really imposed 
very, very tight restrictions in terms of our access to 
internet information and that imposed a very tight restriction 
in regards to our freedom of expression.
    So under the National Security Law, any permanent Hong Kong 
resident or actually any foreign persons who are considered to 
have committed crimes under the names of subversion, secession, 
terrorism, and collusional foreign forces could face up to a 
lifetime imprisonment in Hong Kong.
    Since the implementation of the National Security Law, we 
have saw that over 150 people in Hong Kong have been arrested 
and that includes not just pro-democracy activists or high-
profile politicians, but then, really, journalists, media 
persons, as well as academics and also students or speech 
therapists who have been participating in our pro-democracy 
movement. This implementation----
    Senator Romney. Do the people of Hong Kong, do they still 
have access to information and to truth or is it really--by 
virtue of these changes you have described--has it really been 
shut off? Do they no longer have access to information?
    Ms. Siu. Our access is very limited right now. So since the 
implementation of the National Security Law, we have saw that 
almost all of our independent pro-democracy media outlets in 
Hong Kong, including Apple Daily, Stand News, have been 
forcibly shut down, and as I have mentioned that fearing the 
date-back charges, all these media when they are shutting down 
they have to erase their online presence.
    They have to delete their previous articles and reportings 
that they have made or else they will be--they will still be 
put at the risk of being charged under the National Security 
Law.
    Aside from that, we are also finding that the access to 
internet and also online information is going to be very 
limited in Hong Kong.
    So since May 2021, we have found that several pro-democracy 
websites are being blocked in Hong Kong and last month our 
organization's website was also being blocked in Hong Kong.
    On top of that, we have received a letter from the Hong 
Kong police department asking us to remove our content 
regarding our campaigns on free political prisoners and asking 
for international sanctions against Chinese and also Hong Kong 
officials to be removed. So that really illustrates the 
picture.
    Senator Romney. Thank you.
    Ms. Ressa, thank you for your participation and your 
courage, and I am interested in the same question, which is to 
what extent do the people of the Philippines understand what is 
going on?
    Are they angry at the repression of the media they are 
seeing? Do they have access to truth or are they blindly going 
along with what is happening and not paying much attention to 
it?
    Ms. Ressa. Thank you, Senator Romney.
    I think in the beginning, in 2016, what we saw was a 
gradual polarization of our society and it was a very simple 
thing because we spend so much time on Facebook, right? What 
happened was that one algorithm--how you grow your network, 
friends of friends--that algorithm essentially meant that in 
2016, while we all agreed on the facts, if you were pro-Duterte 
you moved further right, and then if you are anti-Duterte, 
friend to friend, meant you moved further left 2017, 2018, 
2019, 2020.
    So this is where we are. Our society has been polarized, 
and in the beginning in 2016 up until, I would say, this year, 
fear played a factor, the kind of exponential where free speech 
was being used to stifle free speech, attacking exponentially 
somebody who would criticize the drug war, for example. Those 
were the first citizens attacked on social media.
    They became--people were afraid and they became silent, and 
then we went through 6 years. Now we are right before 
elections, 40 days before elections, and it is extremely 
chaotic in the Philippines. People are finding their voices. I 
think this is why it is leading to an existential moment.
    Do people know what is happening? Yes. The battle for 
democracy can be won in our country and I have not stopped 
speaking. We have not--our communities have moved forward.
    Again, until we can have--until we can actually reach 
people, until the lies--the virus of lies--this is what I 
started calling it before the pandemic began--if this virus of 
lies infects real people and it is much harder to cure real 
people than it is to actually stop the infection.
    Senator Romney. Thank you very much.
    Finally, Ms. Cook, I am interested in your perception on 
how effective we can be in getting truth to some of these 
people in these nations.
    When I hear Radio Free Europe, I think, do people still 
listen to the radio anymore? Do we have better techniques? Your 
suggestion--your first suggestion, which is that in our 
discussions with other nations that in addition to the human 
rights on our agenda we should talk about communication rights 
and information rights as a vital human right.
    I wonder, do we need to change the way we are communicating 
with the world and change the way we are trying to get truth to 
the people of the world where there is repression of their 
vehicles of expression?
    Ms. Cook. I think in a lot of ways Radio Free Asia and 
Radio Free Europe are no longer just on the radio and I think 
you do see some really critical ways, especially using 
circumvention tool technologies and other avenues, to get 
information to people inside China.
    Even in places like China there are actually a lot of 
people with illegal satellite dishes that will listen to 
dissident satellite TV stations, will try to access BBC in 
Chinese.
    I think we do see situations where people are able to 
access uncensored news. It is just very hard, and so I think 
they need more and more. There is just many more barriers.
    You do see that supply still does--sorry, demand, I think, 
outstrips supply and so especially in terms of on the 
technological side trying to find ways to help people in places 
where information is blocked get access to that.
    Honestly, there is also all kinds of other avenues of 
supporting, for example, Hong Kong media to preserve and revive 
the content that they have had to delete in Hong Kong in some 
of the states. Can they revive it outside so people can access 
it?
    Because in Hong Kong, for example, there is not a full 
grade firewall just yet. We are starting to see inklings of it, 
but it is not to the level of mainland China. So I think that 
is so vitally important.
    I think we just should not underestimate the demand for 
information in different countries as well as the creativity 
that people have--civil society groups, digital activists, even 
traditional media--and using a variety of platforms to reach 
users.
    On the other hand, we should not underestimate how creative 
the Chinese Communist Party state media can be as well because 
they are becoming more effective at using global social media 
platforms as well to manipulate those.
    So it is definitely a two-sided battle there.
    Senator Romney [presiding]. Thank you much.
    Senator Markey and I both have to go vote and so we are 
going to take a recess for a moment. As soon as he gets back--
and he has already gone--he will come back and I will run off 
and vote now. He will be back and continue the conversation.
    So you all can take a break for a moment here and we will 
resume in just a moment. Thank you.

    [Recess.]

    Senator Markey [presiding]. We will come to order. We 
apologize. A roll call went off while we are in the middle of 
the hearing, which required Senator Romney and I to go over to 
cast our vote.
    Let me continue. Ms. Ressa, voting is a vital way to hold 
government accountable. As you know, I have personally been 
banned from the Philippines for speaking out in support of 
those who have shone a light on the Duterte government abuses, 
like you and Senator De Lima, who is still unjustly detained.
    As you mentioned in your testimony, the Philippines has 
elections for president and vice president in May. What are the 
prospects for a return by the new Philippines Government to a 
respect for human rights and freedom of expression post 
election?
    Ms. Ressa. Senator Markey, you know firsthand the cost of 
free speech. So it is hard to respond to that question because 
it is unclear exactly what kind of president the front runner 
would be. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., he is the front runner in 
statistical surveys.
    What is also unclear is whether that will translate to real 
votes. What we do know so far is that he has refused to do any 
of the debates that are--with traditional news organizations.
    We have seen the growth of SMNI, which is a group that is 
connected with Pastor Quiboloy, the one that just got a 
franchise I referenced, and Leni Robredo, the second--the woman 
who is--it is almost like we are back in 1986. We have a Marcos 
against a widow.
    Vice President Leni Robredo comes up as the--is right 
behind, but very far behind in the statistical survey. So 
Filipinos, I believe, are hoping for a return to that. We are 
at a point where the millions of--tens of millions who have 
lost their jobs, the COVID responses that have not gotten 
vaccines to every Filipino. We are talking about a 60 percent 
plus vaccination rate in the Philippines. So there is still a 
lot of work to be done.
    Literally, we do not know what will happen next. I think 
what I am trying to say is that I still have significant hope 
that we will be able to go back to a robust democratic system 
if the right steps are taken now.
    Senator Markey. Ms. Ressa, you have spoken about the 
Duterte government's use of lawfare to target you and other 
journalists in the Philippines. Around the region, are you 
seeing an increase in government's attempts to use the legal 
system to stifle free speech and the media?
    Ms. Ressa. Yes, absolutely. You are seeing the number of 
people arrested. Myanmar, for example, we are watching very 
closely with great alarm, and I think part of the reason we use 
the phrase ``hold the line'' is that you do not want to step 
off the line because the minute you do states come in and take 
your freedoms away.
    Senator Markey, if I could just add something on the role 
of disinformation in all of this. This lays the groundwork for 
lawfare. Senator Romney earlier asked do people know what is 
happening.
    They do, to a degree, but the way they interpret what is 
happening is dependent on the disinformation or the lack of 
it--the echo chambers. It is not a robust democracy in the 
sense that you do not have--you cannot have the public debate 
that is necessary for a democracy because we have been so 
polarized.
    So I go back to how can we do it. I think we are still at a 
point where we can restore that public sphere, but it requires 
your help. Thank you.
    Senator Markey. Okay. Thank you.
    Ms. Cook, in your 2021 report published by the National 
Endowment for Democracy you found that Taiwan had reduced its 
vulnerability to PRC state-linked disinformation campaigns 
during Taiwan's January 2020 general elections.
    How was Taiwan able to successfully counter PRC 
disinformation efforts? Learning from Taiwan's example, what 
can the United States do to help counter disinformation from 
China throughout the remainder of Asia?
    Ms. Cook. It is really so encouraging and incredible to see 
what came together in Taiwan and it was very much a multi-
sector and multi-stakeholder effort.
    So you had the government, on the one hand, trying to put 
out certain information, but absolutely civil society and also 
the technology sector as well.
    So you have had increased monitoring and some really 
sophisticated use of detection and machine learning by civil 
society groups to identify these kind of telltale signs of 
particular narratives, differences in character, other ties 
back to China, content farms in Malaysia as well, and then even 
working with technology companies, not only American ones, but 
for example, Line, which is widely used, and creating a feature 
where people could actually enter into their conversations a 
little fact checking bot, so kind of using bots for good, that 
would tie to a fact-checking civil society group.
    So I think it was very much a multi-layered effort and very 
strategic in terms of really getting into those avenues in the 
information nodes where the disinformation was spreading.
    It was also media literacy, and I think what was really 
important is that it has been media literacy not only targeted 
at children, because we see that in a lot of countries in terms 
of through the educational system and that is obviously very 
important, but also to the older generation, so trying to find 
ways of reaching member--more older members of society who are 
maybe not as digitally literate and giving them a better 
awareness of disinformation and how these things work.
    So I think that was a lot of it, and there is a lot that 
others in Asia can learn from Taiwan.
    Senator Markey. Thank you. I appreciate it.
    Ms. Siu, Taiwan--can you talk about that for a second and 
what should the United States be doing in order to ensure that 
there is full and fair dissemination of information in Taiwan, 
given what the PRC might attempt to do?
    Ms. Siu. Thank you, Senator Markey, for the question.
    So I think from seeing how the PRC Government has 
transformed Hong Kong as the international financial center 
with a rather independent judiciary system and also the basic 
protections of freedom and also rights with our people's access 
to free information and internet, I think we have witnessed how 
capable the PRC Government is into turning a rather democratic 
place, a democratic city or region, into a country or a region 
controlled completely by the PRC.
    I think it is a very important lesson to be learned from 
the experience of Hong Kong that the United States and other 
democratic governments have to take steps right now and to take 
concrete steps into protecting the freedom of expression in 
countries like Taiwan and Japan and then to provide assistance, 
to extend our support, to the media agencies in these relevant 
countries and regions to also cover--to provide and ensure a 
continuous and timely coverage of incidents and developments in 
oppressed regions like Hong Kong, Tibet, and East Turkestan.
    Senator Markey. Thank you and, again, thank you for your 
great answers.
    Thank you to each and every one of you for your tremendous 
work in this area. This subcommittee is going to continue to 
work to shine a spotlight, but using your lives, using your 
work, in order to accomplish that goal so that repression, the 
compromise of freedom, of free speech, of the press wherever it 
may exist will receive the attention of this subcommittee. So 
we thank you for that.
    If there are no more questions, I will close today's 
hearing, and to our witnesses, thank you for your testimony.
    To the members of the committee, the record will stay open 
and you will have until the close of business on Friday, April 
1, to revise and extend your remarks and submit questions for 
the record to our witnesses, and we would ask our witnesses to 
respond to those questions in a timely fashion.
    So this hearing of the Asia Subcommittee is now completed 
and with that, we stand in adjournment.
    [Whereupon, at 3:14 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]