    [Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                     ONE CITY, TWO LEGAL SYSTEMS: POLITICAL
           PRISONERS AND THE EROSION OF THE RULE OF LAW IN HONG KONG
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 11, 2023

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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

                                   __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    52-182 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023

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

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

          House                                       Senate

    CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey,             JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair
    Chair                                MARCO RUBIO, Florida
    JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts     STEVE DAINES, Montana
    BRIAN MAST, Florida                  TOM COTTON, Arkansas
    JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia            ANGUS KING, Maine
    MICHELLE STEEL, California           TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
    SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
    ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
    ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa
    RYAN ZINKE, Montana

                         EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

                   DANIEL K. KRITENBRINK, Department of State

                      MARISA LAGO, Department of Commerce

                       THEA MEI LEE, Department of Labor

                         UZRA ZEYA, Department of State

                     LISA JO PETERSON, Department of State

                          Piero Tozzi, Staff Director

                       Matt Squeri, Deputy Staff Director

                                      (ii)

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                   Statements

    Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from
      New Jersey; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.     1
    Statement of Hon. Andrea Salinas, a U.S. Representative from
      Oregon.........................................................     3
    Statement of Hon. Ryan Zinke, a U.S. Representative from Montana.     4
    Statement of Sebastien Lai, son of political prisoner Jimmy Lai..     7
    Statement of Brian Kern, writer, researcher, and activist........     8
    Statement of Kevin Yam, Senior Fellow, Center for Asian Law,
      Georgetown University..........................................    11
    Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon; Co-
      chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.............    12
    Statement of Anna Kwok, Executive Director, Hong Kong Democracy
      Council........................................................    14

                                    APPENDIX
                              Prepared Statements

    Lai, Sebastien...................................................    39
    Kern, Brian......................................................    43
    Yam, Kevin.......................................................    46
    Kwok, Anna.......................................................    49

    Smith, Hon. Chris................................................    53
    Merkley, Hon. Jeff...............................................    55
    McGovern, Hon. James P...........................................    55

                           Submissions for the Record

    Submission of Mark L. Clifford, President, Committee for Freedom
      in Hong Kong Foundation........................................    57
    Submission of Frances Hui, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator,
      Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation; Founder and
      Director, We The Hongkongers...................................    58
    Letter from the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation on
      behalf of 30 Hong Kong NGOs calling for passage of H.R. 1103,
      the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act......    61
    Statement of Doughty Street Chambers, legal counsel to Mr. Jimmy
      Lai and Mr. Sebastien Lai......................................    63
    Submission of Rev. Robert Sirico, President Emeritus, Acton
      Institute......................................................    76
    Submission of Sunny Cheung, Visiting Fellow, National Sun Yat-sen
      University; Non-Resident Fellow, Pacific Forum.................    77
    CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    81
    Witness Biographies..............................................    83

                                     (iii)

    ONE CITY, TWO LEGAL SYSTEMS: POLITICAL PRISONERS AND THE EROSION OF THE
                            RULE OF LAW IN HONG KONG

                                  ----------

                             THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2023

                                Congressional-Executive
                                           Commission on China,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was held from 10:03 a.m. to 12:09 p.m., in Room
    2020, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC,
    Representative Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China, presiding.
        Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair, and
    Representatives Wexton, Nunn, Zinke, Steel, and Salinas.

       STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
       JERSEY; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

        Chair Smith. This hearing of the Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China will come to order. The title is ``One
    City, Two Legal Systems: Political Prisoners and the Erosion of
    the Rule of Law in Hong Kong.'' I want to thank all of our
    distinguished witnesses for being here and for their leadership
    every single day, 24/7, 365 days a year. It inspires all of us
    to do more. So thank you, again, for that leadership.
        Let me just give a few opening comments, then yield to my
    distinguished colleagues for any comments that they would like
    to make as well. This is an important hearing focusing on
    political prisoners in Hong Kong and how the rule of law has
    eroded substantially in just the past several years,
    accelerating since the introduction of the National Security
    Law in June of 2020--a law that was introduced not by Hong
    Kong's legislature but imposed by the National People's
    Congress Standing Committee in Beijing.
        That fact tells you how false the one country, two systems
    mantra has turned out to be. For we no longer have rule of law
    in Hong Kong, but rule by law--and I would say by unjust law--
    by laws that are imposed upon the people of Hong Kong by their
    communist overlords in Beijing. Of course, as our witness Kevin
    Yam points out in his written testimony, we still see lawyers
    and judges ``decked out in their British-style wigs and
    gowns.'' But the common law inheritance--which is referenced in
    article 8 of the governing Basic Law of Hong Kong--has been
    destroyed, notwithstanding the residual pomp and ceremony.
        It is all just Gilbert-and-Sullivanesque playacting, with
    the Lord High Executioner being replaced by a modern major
    general. For now the outcome of trials for violation of the
    National Security Law is a foregone conclusion, with Secretary
    for Security Chris Tang boasting just last month of a 100
    percent conviction rate in cases concerning national security.
    And what are these violations of the National Security Law?
    Consider the case of Hong Kong university student Lui Sai-yu
    who pleaded guilty to a charge of incitement to secession for
    running an instant messaging channel that advocated Hong Kong
    independence.
        He was sentenced by District Court Judge Amanda Woodcock to
    five and a half years in prison for a violation of the NSL--
    saying that this was of a ``serious nature.'' To add insult to
    injury, Lui pled guilty to benefit from the common law practice
    of reducing a sentence by one-third if the defendant pleads
    guilty. While the judge initially sought to comply with that
    precedent, the prosecution objected, and the judge only shaved
    six months off the sentence. In other words, a five-year prison
    sentence for a university student engaging in free speech.
        Amanda Woodcock was also the trial judge who sentenced
    Jimmy Lai--whose son Sebastien we will hear from today, and
    we're honored to have you here--for inciting others, she said,
    to knowingly participate in a banned Tiananmen Square
    anniversary vigil. This, of course, is separate from the five-
    year, nine-month lawfare sentence he was already serving, which
    Sebastien can tell us more about in a few moments, or his
    upcoming trial for sedition under the National Security Law.
        There should be consequences for judges like Amanda
    Woodcock, who are complicit in the dismantling of the rule of
    law in Hong Kong and who bow to the dictates of the Chinese
    Communist Party. In tandem with this hearing, our staff has
    produced an excellent report on the role played by Hong Kong
    judges in rights violations under the National Security Law,
    which I encourage everyone to read. Just as we have sanctioned
    so-called judges in Venezuela and Iran for their undermining of
    constitutional government and participating in show trials, so
    too should someone like Amanda Woodcock, who is a judge in name
    only, be sanctioned for undermining the rule of law and,
    indeed, the judiciary.
        Another judge who should be sanctioned, in my opinion, is
    District Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin. Judge Kwok was the judge who
    sentenced five speech therapists to 19 months in prison for
    publishing three allegorical children's books about sheep being
    harmed by wolves. And that was with ``seditious intent.'' This
    is shocking. There is actually one item in the judge's sentence
    that I actually agree with, however. When the defendants sought
    to argue that one country, two systems meant that a distinction
    exists between the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong,
    Judge Kwok berated them, saying it's morally wrong to say that
    Hong Kong and the PRC are separate. In this, Judge Kwok was
    correct. The distinction between the PRC and Hong Kong has been
    obliterated.
        This is the reason why I've introduced in the House--along
    with Ranking Member McGovern, and Senator Rubio and Senator
    Merkley, our co-chair of this commission and the two ranking
    members as well--the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office
    Certification Act, or H.R. 1103. I see no reason why the
    Chinese Communist Party and Communist China should have three
    additional consular outposts in the United States, as Hong Kong
    no longer is distinct from the mainland. Indeed, as our witness
    Anna Kwok will testify, these Economic and Trade Offices are
    collecting information about members of her group, the Hong
    Kong Democracy Council, and other democracy activists. Thus, I
    call on my colleagues to join as cosponsors of H.R. 1103, and I
    ask that a letter from the various Hong Kong NGOs calling for
    markup and passage of H.R. 1103 be entered into the record at
    this point. Without objection, so ordered.
        Finally, I would note that American businesses have now
    been put on notice that the rule of law in Hong Kong is dead.
    Just as mainland China has political prisoners such as Guo
    Feixiong--who incidentally is facing a sham trial for
    subversion of state power--Ding Jiaxi and Gao Zhisheng--and
    I've chaired three hearings, one with Gao's daughter, Grace,
    and two with this wife. The way that man has been maltreated as
    a defense attorney is an abomination to all things good and
    honorable, and brings dishonor to the Chinese Communist Party,
    as so many of their actions do. But that one is, in particular,
    especially egregious. And of course, we are speaking out as
    strongly and as consistently, in a totally bipartisan way, for
    heroic political prisoners like Jimmy Lai, Gwyneth Ho, and Chow
    Hang-tung.
        And if you think businesses in China are not the next
    target, just look across the border and see what happened two
    weeks ago to Bain & Company, whose offices were raided by
    Chinese authorities in Shanghai. We too are going to look
    closely at the actions of American companies like PayPal and
    Stripe which, as one of our witnesses will testify, are
    terminating services to pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong. We
    want to ask them why. And we are also going to look at the role
    played by TikTok in interfering with the advertising and
    playing of the documentary ``The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai's
    Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom.''
        This episode was detailed in a written statement submitted
    by Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute, a man I've
    known for about 30 years who is also a great, great leader for
    human rights. And I ask that it be entered into the record,
    along with a submission by Sunny Cheung, one of the members of
    the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, and also one
    by the lawyers for Jimmy Lai.
        So again, I want to thank my colleagues for being here. And
    I want to especially thank our witnesses. And I'd like to yield
    to Ms. Salinas for any opening comments.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANDREA SALINAS,
                   A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM OREGON

        Representative Salinas. Thank you, Chairman Smith, and Co-
    chair Merkley. I'm honored to be appointed to the
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China for the 118th
    Congress. And I really do look forward to this opportunity to
    work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on
    comprehensive whole-of-government approaches to support global
    cooperation while defending fundamental human rights and
    democracy. I am deeply concerned by the ongoing attacks on free
    speech and democracy in Hong Kong. The government's practice of
    bringing false and politically motivated charges against Hong
    Kong residents is an appalling subversion of international
    legal standards. And I thank the witnesses here today for
    coming before the Commission to share their experiences to help
    us consider effective measures to counter threats to the rule
    of law in Hong Kong.
        Sadly, I will not be able to stay for the entire hearing. I
    have to leave for a markup in another committee. But I have
    already read your statements; I will go back and actually watch
    the hearing testimony. So I would appreciate if one or more of
    the witnesses might reflect on and consider how recent U.S.
    competitiveness policies might relate to human rights in Hong
    Kong. As you all likely know, Congress recently passed
    substantial investments in domestic technology and green energy
    manufacturing, many of which are aimed at actually bringing
    industrial capacity back to the U.S. and reducing economic
    dependence, and that might factor into our efforts to continue
    to champion political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong.
        Once again, I am so grateful to be serving on the
    Commission, and I look forward to working closely with my
    colleagues to defend human rights and democracy. I thank you.
        Chair Smith. Commissioner Salinas, we're just so happy to
    have you on the Commission, and I look forward to working with
    you. Thank you.
        I'd now like to yield to a distinguished man who served as
    Cabinet member for the Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke.
    So glad to have you here.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. RYAN K. ZINKE,
                   A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MONTANA

        Representative Zinke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I
    think we recognize China for what it is. You know, we can take
    any avenue. If we want to take on the Pacific, as a former
    Secretary, just on the egregious pollution aspect of it,
    they're the world's largest emitter of pollution. Ninety
    percent of the world's plastics come from four rivers in China.
    They're the world's largest violator of fishing rights. And any
    country that promotes human trafficking and organ harvesting is
    evil. I don't know what other term you can say. But I think
    these committee hearings are important, a lot of it to expose.
    And you have personal stories. And I'm very interested in
    hearing your remarks on a personal level, because this is what
    the House does, along with the Senate. It has hearings for it
    and then thinks about what action we need to take as a
    Congress. And we can take action. The House has the power of
    the purse, and to a degree the power of the purse dictates
    action in our government. So together, this is a bipartisan
    issue. I'm proud to be a part of this Commission because I
    think it's an important topic. China is fast becoming our
    adversary. I don't think we're quite there yet, but the road
    and consequences of global adversaries of this scale is far
    reaching.
        And the core of it is freedom. We should never forget why
    we're here. It is about freedom. It is about democracy. And
    I'll go back to one of our greatest presidents, I would say,
    John F. Kennedy, and his remarkable statements that we will pay
    any price, we will bear any cost, to ensure the survival and
    success of liberty and our freedom. And that extends to our
    allies and friends. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I'm interested
    to hear the witnesses' statements.
        Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Commissioner Zinke.
        I just would note that Daniel Suidani from the Solomon
    Islands has just come in, and welcome. He briefed the CECC a
    couple weeks ago on the long arm of China's transnational
    repression in his Pacific island nation. Disturbingly, his
    GoFundMe account to pay for his trip to warn Congress and the
    American people was blocked until word got out that he would be
    appearing before the CECC. Nonetheless, we are going to look at
    why GoFundMe would freeze his account, hopefully without having
    to use our subpoena authority, which we will use if they don't
    cooperate. So welcome. Thank you for being here.
        I'd now like to introduce our very distinguished witnesses.
    Let me note parenthetically that Co-chair Merkley is on his
    way. Over on the Senate side they had some pressing business
    that he had to attend to, but he will be here. He's ever
    faithful and a great leader. He will be here momentarily.
        I would like to welcome our panelists for today's very
    important hearing. Let me begin by introducing Sebastien Lai.
    He is--living martyr Jimmy Lai--this is his son. Someone who is
    more than just a very, very great son to his dad, but a man who
    has been exceptionally articulate in advocating on behalf not
    only of his father, but on behalf of all the people of Hong
    Kong. He is truly remarkable. He is leading the international
    Free Jimmy Lai Campaign to secure his father's release. Like
    his media entrepreneur father who founded Next Digital, and
    Apple Daily, the popular independent Chinese language newspaper
    in Hong Kong which was forcibly shut down by the Hong Kong
    authorities in 2021, Sebastien has become an advocate for civil
    liberty in general and freedom of the press in particular.
        In December 2021, Sebastien accepted the 2021 WAN-IFRA
    Golden Pen of Freedom award on behalf of his father and the
    newsroom staff of the Apple Daily Hong Kong. On receiving the
    award he said, ``less and less people are shining a light in
    these dark corners,'' given Apple Daily's shutdown and the
    ongoing crackdown on journalism in the region. Sebastien is
    here with us today to shine that light brightly. We welcome
    him. Your father is in our prayers. He could have left Hong
    Kong at any time, but so loyal was he to the people of Hong
    Kong and to the cause of freedom, and press freedom in
    particular, that he just stayed, knowing that there was a very
    potentially ominous future facing him.
        Next is Brian Kern, welcome . . . who is an American
    citizen and a Hong Kong permanent resident. He has been
    involved in the Hong Kong democracy movement for 15 years and
    has written three books about its history over the past decade.
    One was about the Umbrella Movement, one about the period from
    2014 to 2018, and the most recent about the 2019 to 2020
    protests. He and his family left Hong Kong in 2020 and moved
    back to the United States. He now works with various Hong Kong
    pro-democracy groups in the diaspora. He has monitored
    politically motivated arrests, prosecutions, and imprisonments
    in Hong Kong since the summer of 2019. He was the lead
    researcher on Hong Kong Democracy Council's June 2022 report on
    political prisoners in Hong Kong, which has been a very, very
    useful tool for us on this Commission. So thank you for
    providing us with that kind of very actionable and credible
    information. Really appreciate it, Brian.
        And then we'll hear from Kevin Yam, who's a senior fellow
    at the Georgetown University Center for Asian Law. He will be
    joining us remotely from Australia. Kevin was born in Hong
    Kong, raised in Australia, and spent nearly two decades working
    in Hong Kong. Before his return to Australia in 2022, he was a
    lawyer with international firms and worked on white-collar
    crime, financial regulatory investigations, and commercial
    litigation. Beyond his day job, Kevin was a rule-of-law and
    democracy activist serving variously as a member of the Hong
    Kong Law Society's Constitutional Affairs and Human Rights
    Committee, and a founding co-convener of the now-defunct Hong
    Kong Progressive Lawyers Group.
        Since returning to Australia, he has resumed his Hong Kong
    advocacy efforts, meeting with various members of the
    Australian parliament and the current Australian foreign
    minister. He is a regular interviewee with Australian
    international media outlets in Hong Kong on China issues in
    Hong Kong, including commenting on the ongoing political
    prosecutions in Hong Kong. Over the years, Kevin has published
    commentaries with outlets such as The Economist, ABC Australia,
    Apple Daily--the latter obviously being the paper run by Jimmy
    Lai.
        Finally, we'll hear from Anna Kwok, who is executive
    director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a leading
    nonpartisan nonprofit organization for Hong Kong's pro-
    democracy movement and Hong Kongers in the United States. Under
    Anna's leadership, HKDC advances Hong Kongers' fight for basic
    human rights through policy advocacy, diaspora empowerment, and
    research and education. And again, we rely on your input and
    information. It is just extraordinary. HKDC actively monitors
    and documents the plight of political prisoners, as well as the
    Hong Kong government's attempts to influence American
    businesses and foreign policy. The organization is sanctioned
    and censored by the PRC. And we--welcome to the club--thank you
    that you are doing such a tremendous job.
        During Hong Kong's 2019 protests, Anna was an activist
    behind major international campaigns, from publicly pleading
    with global leaders to stand with Hong Kong at the G-20 summit
    to broadcasting real-time police locations for on-the-ground
    protesters. Anna helped actualize a decentralized grassroots
    movement that continues to this day. In 2022, two years after
    the enactment of the National Security Law, Anna decided to
    publicize her identity and personal story in defiance of the
    widespread fear gripping Hong Kongers abroad. Again, may your
    courage inspire others, Anna, and thank you for being here.
        I'd now like to recognize, for such time as he may consume,
    Sebastien Lai.

                      STATEMENT OF SEBASTIEN LAI,
                  SON OF POLITICAL PRISONER JIMMY LAI

        Mr. Lai. My name is Sebastien Lai, and my father is Jimmy
    Lai, the media and publisher-writer and pro-democracy
    campaigner. My father faces life in prison for publishing the
    truth and he is a prisoner of conscience. Thank you very much
    for the strong statements and inspirational work that you and
    all of you sirs and madams have been doing and that this
    Commission has been doing. I also want to thank the
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China for nominating my
    father and five others for the Nobel Peace Prize. This
    nomination has touched me deeply and my family is very grateful
    for it.
        A brief word on my father's background. He was born in
    1948--his family lost everything when the Communists took
    power. As a child of 12, he fled China for a better life in
    Hong Kong. He started out as a manual laborer, but went on to
    own his own clothing firm, Giordano, and saw global success as
    a result. My father became one of Hong Kong's most successful
    entrepreneurs. My father is a proud British citizen. He is also
    a Christian, a devout Catholic, and his faith gives him
    strength. He deeply believes in freedom, civil liberties, and
    human rights. It was these values that inspired him to start
    the newspaper Apple Daily because, he said, without free and
    independent information there is no freedom.
        Apple Daily quickly grew to be the largest and most popular
    Chinese language newspaper in Hong Kong. It was known for its
    independent journalism and its anti-corruption and pro-
    democracy stance. At its peak, it had 8 million unique
    pageviews a day and 4,000 employees. As soon as my father began
    in media, he stood up to China. And China's leaders targeted
    him for it.
        First, he was effectively forced to sell Giordano after the
    CCP threatened to close down all the stores in mainland China.
    Then his business and our family home were firebombed. He was
    spied on, and he and our family were followed. His advertisers
    were targeted and he was threatened financially. But their
    tactics did not work, and Apple Daily kept publishing. And then
    it got worse. As the pro-democracy protests swept Hong Kong,
    the authorities crushed my father's business and put him in
    prison. Soon after, Apple Daily was raided by 500 police
    officers and has since been forced to close. His assets were
    frozen. His employees lost their jobs. And his business was
    destroyed.
        My father is in prison for telling the truth. He has faced
    what can only be described as lawfare. He was first sentenced
    to prison for lighting a candle at a vigil to commemorate the
    Tiananmen Square massacre. Then he faced spurious fraud charges
    over alleged breach of office. He was sentenced to five years
    and nine months in prison, when any jail time is unheard of in
    a commercial lease matter. This should send a chill down the
    spine of any business owner in Hong Kong. Now he faces life in
    prison for alleged crimes of sedition and crimes under the
    controversial National Security Law. These ludicrous charges
    are based on his writing and other material published in Apple
    Daily.
        For this, he faces life in prison. His trial is in
    September, but the outcome is a foregone conclusion. The
    security minister boasts that they have a 100 percent
    conviction rate in these cases. We expect he will face a
    lengthy sentence and possibly life imprisonment. This could
    mean I never see my father again. Because I speak out for my
    father, I can't return to Hong Kong to visit him in prison. He
    is 75 years old, so a long sentence will see him die behind
    bars. The authorities are cracking down hard on my father to
    send a message to him and others--dissent will not be
    tolerated. There is no freedom of the press. There's no rule of
    law.
        The case against my father symbolizes just how broken the
    legal system is in Hong Kong. And it should be a warning to all
    businesspeople that it is not business as usual in Hong Kong.
    We have started the Free Jimmy Lai Campaign to call for his
    immediate release and freedom. We need your help, and we need
    the help of the U.K. and U.S. governments. I thank the
    Commission for condemning the unlawful actions against my
    father. I also thank the United States Government for the
    strong stance it has taken against my father's ongoing
    persecution.
        I am, however, disappointed that our own country, the
    United Kingdom, has not taken a stronger stance. To this day,
    the U.K. government has not condemned what happened to my
    father, or even called for his release. I am alarmed by this.
    My father is a British citizen. I am a British citizen. Why
    won't the British government call for his release? I implore
    the U.S. and U.K. governments to support my campaign to free my
    father.
        In conclusion, I am proud that my father stood up to China
    and stood up for democracy in Hong Kong. I ask that the United
    States Government continue to do all it can to secure my
    father's freedom and to hold the CCP and the Hong Kong
    authorities accountable for his ongoing persecution. Thank you
    very much.
        Chair Smith. Mr. Lai, thank you so very much for your very
    eloquent and strong statement. I'd now like to yield to Mr.
    Kern for such time as he may consume.

                        STATEMENT OF BRIAN KERN,
                    WRITER, RESEARCHER, AND ACTIVIST

        Mr. Kern. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I appear before you
    today as both a citizen of the United States and a permanent
    resident of Hong Kong. I express my deep appreciation for the
    CECC's consistent work on Hong Kong over the years. So many
    Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, as well as the
    administration, are important allies in the Hong Kong people's
    struggle for freedom and democracy, and that is most
    heartening.
        I am here to speak with you about the crisis of mass
    political imprisonment in Hong Kong. It is an essential part of
    the overall ongoing crackdown, the systematic suppression of
    human rights, and the Chinese Communist Party's transformation
    of Hong Kong into an authoritarian society. Over the years, I
    worked for many pro-democracy civil society groups and
    political parties in Hong Kong. All of them have been shut down
    and their leaders are now in prison. Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-
    tung, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Benny Tai, Joshua Wong, Eddie
    Chu, Jeremy Tam, Kwok Ka-ki, and Alvin Yeung. Three of them, as
    the Chair noted, Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, and Joshua
    Wong, have deservedly been nominated for this year's Nobel
    Peace Prize, along with Jimmy Lai, Gwyneth Ho, and Cardinal
    Zen.
        In all, more than 80 groups associated with the pro-
    democracy movement have been forced to close, 188 pro-democracy
    leaders have been arrested, 109 convicted, and 46 imprisoned.
    Dozens are in long-term pretrial detention. You have to look
    hard around the world to find countries where the political
    opposition has been so systematically and drastically targeted
    for elimination as Hong Kong.
        But it's not just leaders of the pro-democracy movement who
    are in prison. In fact, they make up a minority. Most political
    prisoners are ordinary Hong Kongers--university and high school
    students, medical workers, emergency first-aiders, lawyers,
    teachers, businesspeople, journalists, people from across the
    pro-democracy spectrum, from the most moderate to the most
    radical. The oldest political prisoner is Jimmy Lai at 75 years
    old. The youngest is 13. He was just convicted last week.
        Mass political imprisonment affects virtually every sector
    of Hong Kong society, every community, every neighborhood. Most
    everyone in Hong Kong knows someone imprisoned for political
    reasons. Just this year, my neighbor, a young devout Christian
    musician, was sentenced to more than four years in prison for
    taking part in a protest in 2019. I was at that protest. I was
    about 200 yards away from him when he got arrested. Millions of
    us stood up for freedom and democracy, but some are paying for
    that much more heavily than others.
        In 2020, on the eve of the imposition of the draconian
    National Security Law, my own family decided to leave Hong Kong
    while we believed we still could. Refuge in this country has
    afforded me the opportunity to fight on for Hong Kong. Being
    free myself, I have a special responsibility to all those who
    are not free, and above all to political prisoners. I think I
    speak for most Hong Kongers when I say we have a strong
    awareness that it could just as easily be any one of us in
    prison. The people who are there are serving time on our
    behalf. We have great gratitude for and solidarity with them,
    and we will fight until every political prisoner is free,
    however long that may be.
        I started monitoring political arrests a few weeks after
    the beginning of the protests in 2019, as it became clear that
    the regime would employ mass arrests as a tactic to crush the
    protests, and I've continued to do so ever since. From June
    2019 until now, there have been 10,615 political arrests in
    Hong Kong. I was the lead researcher on Hong Kong Democracy
    Council's report on political prisoners, which came out in June
    2022, just a little bit more than a year ago. It's based on a
    complete database which is continually updated.
        One of our main motivations in publishing the report was to
    emphasize the very large number of political prisoners. The
    international media has done a pretty good job of covering the
    trials of high-profile figures such as Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong,
    and some others, but there's been little reporting on this
    pattern of mass political imprisonment. The report's cut-off
    date was May 11, 2022, exactly one year ago today. At that
    time, there were 1,014 political prisoners in Hong Kong. Now,
    one year later, the number has risen to 1,459. That's 445 new
    political prisoners in one year--an increase close to 50
    percent. Let me put that in global perspective. The only
    countries incarcerating political prisoners at rates faster
    than Hong Kong's over the past three years are Burma and
    Belarus, hardly beacons of the rule of law.
        This is what makes what's happening in Hong Kong all the
    more extraordinary. Unlike Belarus and Burma, up until 2019--
    despite its lack of democracy--Hong Kong had fairly robust rule
    of law. There are few better indicators of its deterioration of
    the rule of law and the erosion of the independence of the
    judiciary than the huge increase in the number of political
    prisoners. Political imprisonment per se isn't an entirely new
    phenomenon in Hong Kong, but mass political imprisonment is. At
    the start of the protests in June 2019, there were 26 political
    prisoners. We've gone from 26 then to 1,014 in May 2022, to
    1,459 today.
        Who are these political prisoners? There are basically
    three categories. One, protesters from the 2019-2020 protests.
    Two, those remanded and imprisoned on National Security Law
    charges. And three, those remanded and imprisoned on sedition
    charges. Of those three groups, by far the largest is
    protesters. About 1,300 people have been imprisoned on protest-
    related charges versus 116 on National Security Law and
    sedition charges. Young people have been particularly targeted.
    One hundred fifty-nine political prisoners are minors. That's
    about 10 percent of the overall total. Seventy percent of
    political prisoners are under the age of 30. I call the young
    people of Hong Kong today the prison generation. Oppression is
    one of their most defining experiences.
        We expect the number of political prisoners to continue to
    rise for some time to come. There are around 500 whose trials
    have not concluded or even begun. On top of that, there are new
    arrests happening all the time. A conservative estimate is that
    the number of political prisoners will plateau at around 2,000
    sometime next year. That's assuming there are no new waves of
    mass arrests.
        What can the United States do? At this point I'm cognizant
    of the time. I have some remarks prepared in response to that
    question, but perhaps it's best for me to pause here and if
    you'd like to hear them I'd be happy to share them during the
    question-and-answer portion of the session. They can also be
    found in my written testimony. Thank you, Commissioners, for
    your support of the Hong Kong people's ongoing struggle for
    freedom and democracy.
        Chair Smith. Mr. Kern, thank you very much for not just
    your testimony but, above all, for the work you're doing. You
    know, I have many heroes in the human rights movement, and
    certainly Jimmy Lai is one of them and Joshua Wong and so many
    others. But in the Soviet Union it was Natan Sharansky. And he
    said, famously--and I actually went to the camp where he was in
    the 1980s, Perm Camp 35. And he said, if you don't chronicle,
    you can't fight it. And you're doing a great job for all of us
    in chronicling these abuses so we really know the parameters
    and how many. And, you know, the idea of a prison generation is
    just appalling. It brings dishonor, frankly, to Xi Jinping and
    his leaders.
        I'd now like to introduce Kevin Yam, who's coming to us
    remotely from Australia.

                 STATEMENT OF KEVIN YAM, SENIOR FELLOW,
              CENTER FOR ASIAN LAW, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

        Mr. Yam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, all the
    Commissioners present today. This is a great opportunity for us
    to be able to talk about what is going on in Hong Kong. Now,
    the reality is this: There are other lawyers around that are
    probably much more qualified than I am to talk about what is
    going on in Hong Kong, and the situation with political
    prisoners, and so on. Unfortunately, a lot of them are
    currently in jail. And of those who are not in jail or exile,
    they're too afraid to speak. They have family in Hong Kong.
    They have other connections in Hong Kong. And in that sense,
    I'm a little bit different because I've got no close family in
    Hong Kong anymore. I even brought my mum's ashes back from Hong
    Kong when I left the city and went back to Australia. So from
    that angle, I guess I'm fairly qualified in that I have done
    some criminal law. I've done a lot of activism over the years.
    But at the same time, I'm the most available.
        So look, I've prepared a fairly mild written submission for
    the Commission to consider, but I think the most important
    thing is this. If you go around and ask the various judges in
    Hong Kong, they'll think that they're behaving in a way that is
    completely independent. They think that no one's tapping them
    on the shoulder or anything like that. If you go and watch
    trials in Hong Kong, you'll see all of them still in their wigs
    and gowns. You'll see all the legal jargon being used, lots of
    drawn-out trials. It's easy to hoodwink people who want to
    believe that Hong Kong is well when it comes to the rule of
    law, but actually everything's really rotten to the core and
    actually these judges do not live in a vacuum.
        They can see that their chief justice is no longer willing
    to publicly defend the separation of powers, that the chief
    justice has reinstated Judge Kwok, whom Mr. Chairman talked
    about earlier, who's actually a disgraced judge. But he's
    reinstated him. And they've seen the chief justice turn up at
    party political events like Communist Party 100th anniversary
    commemorations. And worse still, what they've really seen is
    that whenever they show a little bit of backbone, they'll be
    rounded on by pro-Beijing forces and even by pro-Beijing
    officials themselves.
        So we've heard Sebastien Lai's testimony and what happened
    with Jimmy Lai. The thing is, Jimmy Lai tried to get a foreign
    lawyer into Hong Kong to represent him, because there are very
    few local lawyers available, willing, and able to do that. In
    fact, the Hong Kong courts tried to show a little bit of
    backbone on that case by letting that foreign lawyer in. But
    then what happened? The chief executive immediately went to
    Beijing--immediately went to Beijing and sought a
    reinterpretation. And at the same time, all these Beijing
    officials rounded on the judges for adopting so-called
    international values, ones that all of us would take for
    granted.
        And then when the interpretation came, and the judges were
    being overridden, the judiciary actually had to humiliate
    itself once more by issuing a further statement saying, oh, we
    really respect what the National People's Congress has done.
    Now, that's like essentially being punched in the gut and then
    you still have to smile along and thank the thugs who are
    punching you. So the judges are not living in a vacuum. They
    know who's buttering their bread. They know that by obeying
    they're going to have better survival and promotion prospects.
    So even when they convince themselves that they're operating
    completely independently, in practice the results can pretty
    much only go one way. And that is against all the political
    defendants.
        And in a way, that actually makes things worse than
    mainland China because at least in mainland China there's no
    pretense. You get these brutally short trials, and then no
    justice at all, and everyone can see that or actually be hidden
    from it. But in Hong Kong, they go through this whole drawn-out
    pretense, long trials that go on half a year, a year, and
    there's just even more pain for the political prisoners
    concerned.
        Now, I'd just like to go very quickly to the question of
    prosecutors. Look, sometimes there are arguments that when
    prosecutors in political cases are doing these things, they are
    just doing their jobs, that they are just feeding family,
    getting paid, going through the motions. Unfortunately, that's
    not what they're doing. What they're really doing--they're not
    prosecuting. They're persecuting. They've breached all the
    international and local standards of prosecutorial fairness.
    They would indiscriminately go against the bail applications of
    any political defendants. They would go after juveniles. You
    know, they even, like, with pro-Beijing figures, talk about
    possibly bringing Jimmy Lai over to China for trial.
        Now, what I would say is this. I mean, when it comes to
    things like, what should we do with these people, it's not
    easy. But I would invite the Commission to ask this question:
    Do you think their conduct makes you puke? And I use this word
    not lightly, because it actually came from Oliver Wendell
    Holmes, who said that you should uphold laws unless those laws
    make you puke. Now, I would say that people of conscience would
    find that those operating as prosecutors, as well as some of
    the judges, are behaving in
    biased and unfair ways that should make everyone puke.
        And with that, I would happily take questions on
    recommendations and other issues about the rule of law,
    especially in the business sector. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Thank you so very much, Mr. Yam. I deeply
    appreciate your testimony and for coming to us.
        Before going to Anna, I'd like to recognize and welcome--
    because I know he is very busy over at the United States
    Senate--our co-chair, Senator Merkley.

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

        Co-chair Merkley. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And do we have time for me to give opening remarks? I'll do so.
    Thank you. I just came from testifying on a bill on the Senate
    side. So I'm sorry I wasn't able to join you at the start.
        In just a few years, Hong Kong has gone from a relatively
    free and open city to a shadow of its former self. This
    transformation has not been an accident but rather the result
    of the ruthless assault on Hong Kong's spirit by the Chinese
    Communist Party and its shameless enablers in the Hong Kong
    government. At every step, this Commission has documented that
    assault, shining a light on the draconian National Security
    Law, chronicling the crushing of civil society, and now today
    releasing a report detailing the erosion of Hong Kong's rule of
    law.
        Nowhere is the crisis in Hong Kong's rule of law more vivid
    and heartbreaking than in the explosion in the number of
    political prisoners. The Commission's Political Prisoner
    Database, which has long focused on the many thousands of cases
    in mainland China, has expanded in recent years to now also
    include cases in Hong Kong. We've had no choice but to do so.
    We've had a responsibility to do so. As one of our witnesses
    today informs us, in the last four years there have been 10,615
    political arrests in Hong Kong. What had been a relatively free
    and open city locked up thousands of political prisoners with
    dizzying speed. That includes icons of free speech like Jimmy
    Lai and Joshua Wong.
        But the jailers didn't stop after they made examples of
    prominent advocates for freedom and democracy. As we'll hear
    today, this is a story of mass political imprisonment. Hong
    Kong's rulers want to send that message that nobody who speaks
    truth to power--protesters, politicians, journalists, or
    anybody else--is safe. This is devastating for all of us who
    love Hong Kong. I will never forget Thanksgiving Day 2019. The
    day after the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the
    bill banning the export of crowd control equipment to the Hong
    Kong police were signed into law, 100,000 Hong Kongers held a
    rally to thank the United States for standing with Hong Kong.
    They thanked us, these defenders of the soul of Hong Kong, the
    freedom of Hong Kong, the political rights of Hong Kong, who
    were putting so much on the line in the face of determined
    repression.
        I had the privilege of addressing that crowd via video that
    day and remain proud of the work this Commission did--on a
    bipartisan, bicameral basis to get those bills signed into law.
    But what we did was from the safety of the United States,
    unlike the huge challenge on the ground in Hong Kong. If Hong
    Kong's freedom fighters can no longer feel safe in Hong Kong,
    the least we can do--the very least--is make them feel safe
    here in the United States. It's disgraceful that we have not
    done more to open up humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers to
    the United States of America.
        Whether it's Priority 2 refugee protections in the Hong
    Kong Safe Harbor Act Senator Rubio introduced last Congress
    with my support, or other pathways, it's long past time to act.
    We've shown there's bipartisan support for this cause,
    bicameral support. We can't let the politics or the objections
    of a few stop us from doing what's right. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Co-chair Merkley. Again,
    thank you for your leadership on these initiatives. I'd like to
    now yield to Anna Kwok for such time as she may consume.

              STATEMENT OF ANNA KWOK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
                      HONG KONG DEMOCRACY COUNCIL

        Ms. Kwok. Chairman Smith, Co-chairman Merkley, and members
    of the Commission, thank you for inviting me to today's hearing
    to testify. I was born in Hong Kong in 1997, the year when its
    sovereignty was handed over from the United Kingdom to China
    under the promise of basic liberties and a high level of
    autonomy. I am now 26 and currently in exile. In less than a
    quarter century, Hong Kong descended from a beacon of hope for
    freedom to the product of yet another failed international
    treaty negotiated with the Chinese Communist Party. Through the
    years, Hong Kongers did absolutely everything we could--at the
    ballot, on the streets, in the courts--to defy the odds stacked
    against us.
        By June 2020, decades of civil organizing and months of a
    decentralized protest movement ended with Beijing's decisive
    gavel, the imposition of the National Security Law. Soon after,
    the city turned into a surveillance state, just like China. My
    friends who are supposedly anonymous ended up in prison one by
    one. Since 2020, both the Trump and Biden administrations have
    repeatedly acknowledged Hong Kong's loss of its promised
    autonomy. We must know that the international treaty failed at
    the cost of an ever-rising number of political prisoners, with
    1,459 political prisoners and counting. How high does the
    number have to get for the world to actively hold the Chinese
    Communist Party accountable, and accountable for its breach of
    international treaties?
        Sure, we are of course not ending the dictatorship right
    here, right now. But we can, and we should, at least slow down
    the oppression and reduce the number of people impacted. Demand
    the release of Hong Kong political prisoners. Offer
    humanitarian pathways to the politically persecuted. In the
    past two Congresses, various Hong Kong-related pathway bills
    have sprung up, but none has passed. Every delayed action is a
    missed opportunity to embrace allies for a global
    antiauthoritarian alliance. Therefore, I urge you to work
    across the aisle to reintroduce a new unified bill that offers
    humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers as soon as possible.
        A Priority 2 refugee destination, as Chairman Merkley
    mentioned, should be considered so Hong Kongers can seek long-
    term resettlement in the U.S. as a third country, where vetting
    procedures can be implemented for security concerns. To
    strengthen Hong Kongers' activism in the U.S., the current
    deferred enforced departure program should be upgraded to
    temporary protected status. Both of these will protect Hong
    Kong's strongest advocates and demonstrate America's commitment
    to democratic values around the world.
        Besides, the Biden administration should further utilize
    the sanctioning tools in the Hong Kong Human Rights and
    Democracy Act of 2019 and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act of 2020,
    as endorsed and highlighted by the Commission this morning
    again and supported by other advocacy groups, including the
    Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong and Stand with Hong Kong.
    This November, U.S.-sanctioned Chief Executive of Hong Kong
    John Lee will appear in San Francisco for the APEC summit. The
    White House should carefully plan its approach in handling this
    issue.
        Here in the U.S., we must also work together to counter
    foreign influence from the Hong Kong government on American
    soil and on American entities. The three Hong Kong Economic and
    Trade Offices in D.C. right here, in New York, and San
    Francisco have long enjoyed the same level of privilege as do
    the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. They
    exploit their presence and privilege to counterlobby against
    pro-democracy legislation right here on Capitol Hill and gather
    intelligence on team members of the Hong Kong Democracy
    Council. As someone on the receiving end of transnational
    repression, I applaud this Commission for taking the lead on
    the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act.
        Last but not least, three other pieces of important
    legislation merit our attention. The Hong Kong Business
    Integrity and Transparency Act recently reintroduced by
    Congressman Curtis and Congressman Peters monitors possible
    human rights abuses facilitated by American corporates that
    operate in Hong Kong. The Safeguarding Internet Freedom in Hong
    Kong Act helps Hong Kongers remain connected to the world amid
    online censorship and control. And a permanent reauthorization
    of the PROTECT Hong Kong Act of 2019 ensures that American
    weapons don't end up in the hands of the Hong Kong police
    without it being tied up with the annual NDAA process.
        Despite the grave dangers posed by the NSL, I decided to
    reveal my previously anonymous identity and commit to the cause
    of freedom in Hong Kong. There are many courageous Hong Kongers
    who refuse to back down despite the risks involved, including
    those who are in the room today. We persist because we believe
    human rights and democratic values will ultimately prevail. At
    a time of rising global authoritarianism, the international
    community must see the inherent value of a free and democratic
    Hong Kong. Thank you, Commissioners, for all your continued
    support. I hope Hong Kongers can count on your allyship as we
    move forward on our path to freedom and democracy. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Miss Kwok. Co-chairman
    Merkley has to get back to the Senate for some votes, so I'm
    very happy to yield to him for any questions he has.
        Co-chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Kern, in your testimony you call for the United States
    to provide special immigration pathways for Hong Kongers. It's
    been a major priority for members of this Commission, but
    frankly, we haven't been making much progress in Congress as a
    whole. What message does it send if we welcome to our shores
    the heroes of Hong Kong who are fleeing persecution? And what
    message does it send if we fail to welcome them?
        Mr. Kern. Well, you may know that up to now probably
    something like over 200,000 Hong Kongers have left Hong Kong
    and gone elsewhere since the imposition of the National
    Security Law in 2020. And you've probably heard that the United
    Kingdom government has started this BNO visa scheme, according
    to which Hong Kongers who have British National Overseas
    passports, or are eligible for them, can apply to go to the
    U.K. And for that reason, somewhere around 150,000 Hong Kongers
    have done that.
        But there are still just so many situations we find where
    Hong Kongers, who are persecuted directly, are having
    difficulty leaving Hong Kong and finding somewhere where they
    can go where they are free. Initially, Taiwan appeared quite
    receptive to Hong Kongers at risk of persecution, and they seem
    to have become less so. Hong Kongers who are in Taiwan report
    frequently that they don't feel very comfortable there. Taiwan
    is worried about infiltration. It's worried about unnecessarily
    provoking the PRC, and so on. So that's not a very possible
    route these days.
        Some Hong Kongers have gone to Canada. Some have gone to
    Australia. But I think it would send a huge message if the
    United States offered humanitarian pathways to persecuted Hong
    Kongers. Relatively few Hong Kongers have found themselves in
    the U.S. since 2020 because it's so hard to get in. My family
    and I were able to come because of my U.S. passport. And I'll
    just say that when I arrived in the U.S. in 2020--you know,
    there are a lot of cliches about freedom. There is a lot of
    misuse of the word ``freedom.'' But I have never felt so free
    and safe in my life as when I arrived in the U.S. And that was
    thanks to my U.S. passport.
        I would like that opportunity to be available to the
    relatively limited number of Hong Kongers who really need to
    get out and feel safe. You know, I mentioned that there are
    nearly 1,500--1,459 political prisoners in Hong Kong. Those
    people will be getting out of prison eventually. And they too
    will need somewhere to go. I think it's something very useful
    that the U.S. Government can do. I know lots of Congresspeople
    have been working to make that happen. And I really hope that
    this will be the congressional session where Congress and the
    administration can work together to make it a reality.
        Co-chair Merkley. Thank you. I hope so, too. And I'm
    certainly working towards that goal.
        Mr. Lai, you talked about the values that made Hong Kong a
    success--rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom to do
    business. As these values get picked apart, eroded one by one,
    what kind of Hong Kong does this leave us going forward? If
    businesses can no longer rely on robust rule of law and instead
    are vulnerable to government sanction, theft of their assets--
    like Apple Daily, like your father experienced--shouldn't
    businesses be rethinking doing business in Hong Kong?
        Mr. Lai. Thank you for your question, sir. The cost of
    business in Hong Kong has gone up significantly as a result of
    these institutions being broken down. Yesterday I had a
    question from Bloomberg. And they asked me what I thought about
    doing business in Hong Kong. And I pointed out that if you
    google ``Apple Daily rate,'' I think it gives a very good idea
    to anybody--a very good visual indication to anybody who's
    thinking of starting a business in Hong Kong of what can happen
    at the flip of a switch.
        Co-chair Merkley. Thank you.
        And, Ms. Kwok, I have two minutes left, so this will be my
    last question. I have many more that I'll submit for the
    record. But legislative options for opening up humanitarian
    pathways through Congress right now are not moving forward
    quickly. It's a big challenge. What can the Biden
    administration do under its own authority to step up and do
    more to assist Hong Kongers fleeing persecution?
        Ms. Kwok. Thank you for the question. In Congress, of
    course, as I said, designating it a Priority 2 refugee program
    is definitely a must. But at the same time, the Biden
    administration does have the executive authority to upgrade the
    current DED program, deferred enforced departure program, to
    temporary protected status. And what that would mean would be
    another layer of protection for Hong Kongers who are already
    present in the United States, because as it stands now, the DED
    does not really give legal status to any Hong Kongers who stay
    here. It's merely an executive means to not deport any Hong
    Kongers, even if they overstay their permitted period.
        And what that means is sometimes when Hong Kongers are
    here, they cannot work. They struggle. They have to wait for
    months for the USCIS to give a Federal Register Notice for them
    to be able to work. But then there are a lot of Hong Kongers
    who are committed in the fight against the regime and want to
    continue their fight in international institutions, in think
    tanks, in INGOs, and the civil society. And if they can be
    granted TPS, temporary protected status, they would have a much
    smoother process, enabling them to work in the United States
    and also offering them more opportunities to speak up for
    themselves, as they will feel more protected.
        And on the other hand, in fact, the Biden administration
    also has the executive power to upgrade the DED status to P-2.
    And Congress can also legislate for that to happen. And P-2 is
    very important and crucial for Hong Kongers who are still in
    Hong Kong, because sometimes when they do try to flee to other
    countries there might be police in the Hong Kong airport
    stopping them, especially if they see that the destination is
    the United States. And that's why the asylum route may not be
    the most useful for a lot of Hong Kongers who struggle to come
    to the U.S. directly. And that's why both the TPS and P-2
    program would be great and significant for Hong Kongers, both
    those still inside Hong Kong and those in the United States.
        Co-chair Merkley. Thank you. You mentioned that you decided
    to step out of anonymity in order to be a public voice. To each
    of you, thank you for your courage, for your fight for freedom,
    for the rights of Hong Kongers. We stand with you and applaud
    you. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Co-chair Merkley.
        I have a number of questions. And I'll ask a few of them
    and then yield to my good friend and colleague, Miss Wexton,
    for any questions she has. You know, some bad news just came
    in. It's reported in The Guardian that Hong Kong has passed a
    law to limit the work of foreign lawyers amid the ongoing Jimmy
    Lai case. You probably are aware of that, but it's--you know,
    it's to try to block a Tim Owen and any others. It gives
    authority to the executive there to block that kind of
    participation, that kind of representation. So I think that
    again betrays a weakness on the part of their ability to
    sustain their views in open court, even though it's not an open
    court, but in a court. So I just would reveal that--some of you
    probably already knew that. But it's very, very discouraging on
    the part of the Chinese.
        Sebastien Lai, you had said how disappointed you are about
    the government of the U.K. not speaking out. You know, I have
    many good friends in the Commons as well as in the House of
    Lords. And I know David Alton frequently speaks out on behalf
    of Jimmy Lai. He's tenacious. Ben Rogers does an amazing job as
    well. While he's not in the legislature, he's certainly someone
    that we look to and rely on for good information and for
    leadership. I will tell you that we'll initiate a letter today
    and as Commissioners if they would like to cosign, to the prime
    minister and to high officials--but especially the prime
    minister--appealing for a full-fledged effort to help your dad,
    Jimmy Lai.
        I also think they should join us, and join us robustly, in
    asking that he and the other five, six total, be named--
    including Joshua Wong--be named by the Nobel Peace Prize
    Committee to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, back in
    2010 I very aggressively promoted that Chen Guangcheng, Gao
    Zhisheng, and Liu Xiaobo all be named by the Nobel Prize
    Committee. And people around the world were pushing Liu Xiaobo
    as well, including Vaclav Havel. And that concerted effort
    resulted in a 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. And as we all remember,
    the Chinese government was so insecure they wouldn't even let
    him out of prison to attend, or his wife to attend.
        But I think that has to be done again. I mean, there's no
    more egregious violator of human rights today than Xi Jinping.
    And, of course, that long arm has now completely been
    outreached to the great people of Hong Kong. So we'll ask the
    U.K. as well, and others who are doing it already, to join us
    and others, you, in naming these wonderful, wonderful, heroic
    men and women to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. It's got to be
    done. You know, there's human rights violations all over the
    world, but these are the most egregious. And it's a place where
    we could make a difference. So we will do that letter today, or
    put it together and try to get the Commissioners--and I know
    they'll join us--in asking that the U.K. boldly speak out on
    behalf of your dad and join us in this effort.
        Let me also speak to the issue of implementation of the
    Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. I would just say in
    2014 that whole concept was hatched in my office. And the guy
    that did it is sitting right there. Scott Flipse came up with
    this idea for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. We
    put it all together. He worked on it. It was a great effort by
    the Commission. And everyone told me on the Foreign Affairs
    Committee, it's a solution in search of a problem. You know,
    don't worry. Hong Kong will never matriculate from an island--
    or, an oasis of democracy to a dictatorship. And we said--you
    know, it's almost like what Gretzky said. You may not be that
    aware of his quotes. But he says, always go where the puck's
    going--not where it is, but where it's going.
        We've got to think ahead. And thank you, Scott. He thought
    ahead. And we put the bill in. And I couldn't get it passed for
    four years. I tried my darndest. And finally, and I do thank
    Speaker Pelosi, she helped us get that bill passed. It went
    over to the Senate. They passed the identical companion bill.
    It came over again to us and we sent it down to the President.
    It's got great things in it. But it has to be implemented. So
    if I could ask all of you--and, Anna, you might want to start--
    whether or not you think the Biden administration--because you
    did say--I implore the administration--implore. You're not just
    asking, you're imploring the administration to sanction
    National Security Law judges and persecutors--prosecutors, I
    would say, as well. And that the U.S. Government should respond
    clearly with designated sanctions.
        Are we doing enough at the executive branch level? And if
    President Biden were sitting right here, what would you say to
    him and to our Secretary of State? Because, again, we're on the
    same team, but we need to do more, in my humble opinion. Your
    thoughts?
        Ms. Kwok. For sure. I think the entire Hong Kong Committee,
    or the majority of the Hong Kong Committee, would agree that
    sanctions are not utilized enough, to the extent that actually
    the Hong Kong government officials are not so scared of
    sanctions anymore. They think, oh, perhaps the bills or the
    Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act is just here for show.
    And that is why I implore the administration to really utilize
    tools that were hard fought by advocates in 2019 and 2020, with
    hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers going to the street just
    to thank the U.S. Congress for passing the bill and having
    sanctioning policies in place.
        So right now as we speak, it is actually the 57th day of
    the largest National Security Law trial that involves more than
    40 pro-democracy leaders in Hong Kong right now. If we do not
    impose sanctions, targeted sanctions, against prosecutors,
    against judges handpicked by Beijing before the trial ends, we
    can perhaps expect to see potential life sentencing on some of
    the most familiar names we have been seeing for the last
    decade. And that is why I think we are actually really battling
    and competing with time right now. If we don't do it early
    enough, soon, there won't be any momentum anymore and it will
    be a train that we'll miss forever. And that's why I really
    implore President Biden, the administration, and also Congress
    to exert more pressure on the administration for further
    sanctions to being placed.
        Mr. Lai. On a personal level, in my father's case, the
    Biden administration, the White House, has spoken--has been a
    lot more vocal than Downing Street. So thank you very much
    for--I think the letter would be absolutely incredible help in
    raising my father's case to the U.K.
        I also just want the White House to know that we're
    incredibly grateful for this. And it does show that the ideas
    of freedom of speech and all these institutions are much more
    sacred in the United States than in countries where people
    don't speak up for their own citizens. In terms of what I'd
    asked the Biden administration, to do more is to continue to
    speak out for what's happening to the people of Hong Kong and
    to my father, as in Hong Kong they no longer have a voice,
    sadly. And to actively seek my father's and other political
    prisoners' release, because it's the just and fair thing to do.
    They have not committed any crimes. Thank you.
        Mr. Kern. First, perhaps first I should say that I consider
    the U.S. Government to be one of the actors that's been the
    best when it comes to Hong Kong, compared to its Western
    allies. I give it a lot of credit for that. And I'm not just
    talking about the current administration. The previous one as
    well, as well as many people in Congress on both sides of the
    aisle. As I said in my opening statement, that's incredibly
    heartening. I'm sure you all know that when the U.S. speaks,
    the world listens. And any leadership that the administration
    can take is important.
        My main message is, hold the line. Right now, we're seeing
    signs of slippage from some European countries. You know, I was
    really hoping that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that
    would be a big wakeup call. And Western democracies would say,
    look, it's not a good idea to be economically dependent on
    ideological adversaries, dictatorships as powerful as the
    Communist Party. I'm not sure that that awareness has really
    been transformed into China policy in some countries in Europe.
    So the U.S. really needs to keep showing leadership on that. I
    think one of the very positive things about this administration
    is they've tried to improve alliances with their allies, and
    that's extremely important, to act together. But I think it's
    an area where the U.S. will have to show leadership.
        Anna, especially, has a lot of excellent specific policy
    recommendations and things that can be done. But one thing I
    should say is that both the previous administration and the
    current one have sanctioned various Communist Party and Hong
    Kong government officials, and top Hong Kong police officers.
    Make those sanctions stick. We've heard rumors that the
    administration may actually be considering allowing Chief
    Executive John Lee to attend the APEC summit in November, even
    though he is sanctioned by the U.S. Government. That absolutely
    should not happen. If it does, it will send a terrible message.
    It will basically mean sanctions mean nothing.
        So that's why I say hold the line, no backsliding. Anything
    you can do to lead a coalition of Western democracies that will
    take a strong stance on China, that will be very important. But
    at this specific time, I really think it's an area where the
    U.S. has to follow through.
        Chair Smith. Thank you.
        Kevin, did you want to say anything, our man in Australia?
        Mr. Yam. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The thing is, look,
    as a Hong Kong lawyer, it's never easy to say that you should
    sanction a fellow professional, whether in the form of a
    prosecutor or a judge. And if those guys were doing nothing
    more than going through the motions, I probably would have gone
    through with that reluctance. But the reality is, whether we're
    talking about certain of the national security judges or some
    of the prosecutors in political cases, we're talking about
    people who have gone above and beyond to persecute, to uphold a
    political line. We're talking about people who have been
    fabulously rewarded with promotions, with orders of merit, with
    chief executive commendations, you name it.
        So if that's the case, why should the United States allow
    these people to have access to the global financial system? Why
    should the United States allow these people's children to come
    and enjoy the best of free world education, when young men and
    women in Hong Kong are being put through reeducation, through
    patriotic education, through imprisonment, and so on? So with
    some reluctance, I would say that, you know, let's do it.
        And I absolutely also echo what Brian had said in relation
    to John Lee. It would send a terrible message if the United
    States lifts sanctions against him and lets him into San
    Francisco come November for APEC. So I take the view that the
    conduct of these judges and prosecutors--Hong Kong made them,
    just as they made me, right? The rule of law made our careers.
    But they are destroying the very thing that made our careers.
    And therefore, I don't see why they shouldn't be sanctioned.
        Chair Smith. You know, because of your suggestions we will
    follow that up with the administration and ask that they not
    provide that. You know, lessons learned. I've been in Congress
    now 43 years. And human rights laws often are a nuisance to any
    administration, Republican or Democrat. I wrote the Belarus
    Democracy Act that was enacted into law in 2004. Lukashenko, a
    dictator, horrible, put all these people in prison, tortured
    them horribly in Belarus. We got the bill passed, some of the
    prisoners got out. And then all of a sudden there was a sense--
    and this is during the Bush administration--well, we made our
    point, now we can move on and go back to business as usual.
        So I did a 2006 iteration of the act. I did it again in
    2012 and then again a couple of years ago. There's always that
    sense that we made our point. But until these great people are
    free, and human rights are respected, we have not made our
    point. We've just made a downpayment on getting there. So thank
    you all for making that very important point. We can't get
    human rights fatigue and say, now let's go back to business as
    usual. And I'm always worried. I see it all the time no matter
    who's in the White House. So we, this Commission in a
    bipartisan way, will try to stand up.
        One final question--we'll have a few more in the second
    round, but to Sebastien Lai. What is an average day for your
    father? How does he get through it? Is it his faith that helps
    buoy his persistence and his courage? How does he do it?
        Mr. Lai. Because of the National Security Law, I haven't
    seen him since the end of 2020, unfortunately. From my
    understanding, my father knows he's doing the right thing. He's
    a deeply religious man. And I think he's keeping strong.
        Chair Smith. I'd like to yield to Jennifer Wexton.
    Commissioner.
        Representative Wexton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
    want to thank the witnesses for being here too. I know that is
    really hard for you. I know that your families are probably
    facing a lot of trouble as a result of your testimony here
    today. So thank you so much for all your work that you've been
    doing.
        Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you so much for your long
    history with human rights here in Congress. I know that we kind
    of think of you as the iron man of human rights in the House of
    Representatives. I'm glad you could continue to do it, because
    somebody needs to hold these administrations accountable. And
    you just have that institutional memory, and I'm so glad you're
    here and that you have it. I know that you worked a lot with my
    predecessor, Representative Wolf, on these issues. I'm very
    proud to continue his story. It's great to be here.
        I again want to thank everybody for coming, and I have some
    questions for you. I was a lawyer before I came here. I was
    also a prosecutor in Loudoun County. I was also a judge for a
    while. So seeing what's happening in Hong Kong is very
    frightening to me, as somebody who grew up here, in the
    principles of constitutional law, the rule of law, and just
    seeing the basic inalienable rights that we have here in this
    country, things like the right to free speech, right to
    assembly, things like that which just are nonexistent for the
    Hong Kongers now. It is scary to see that this happened right
    before our eyes over the past several years. So I feel for you.
    I feel for you. And I feel for you that you can't go back to
    your country and just enjoy your life as a free person. So I
    feel really bad about that.
        But I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to ask
    some questions about that. So my first question is--you know,
    one of the things that I find most frightening about this new--
    this new security law is that they have this whole idea of
    extraterritorial jurisdiction, where they can come after people
    and prosecute them for things that they do in other places--in
    places that aren't China, aren't Hong Kong, and aren't, you
    know, their own country, for the things that they do here in
    the U.S. or in the U.K. Do you have any instances of people
    being actually brought back to China or being prosecuted in
    Hong Kong for things that they did when they weren't in Hong
    Kong? Any instances of that, or is it more just a threat that
    they have?
        Ms. Kwok. Recently, there was a Hong Konger student who
    used to study in Japan, and she wanted to go back to Hong Kong
    to renew her passport. And once she stepped onto the soil of
    Hong Kong, she got arrested for something she did and she said
    in Japan, which was simply organizing, to talk about Hong Kong,
    and to advocate for the stories and freedoms for Hong Kong. So
    that's been happening, I think, in many instances. And usually
    anonymous protesters, or organizers who do not really have a
    high public profile, are the most susceptible to this kind of
    persecution and arrest, because a lot of the time they try to
    be helpful when they're outside.
        And it's very difficult to gauge where the red line is. You
    never know, you know, what the bottom line is when you're being
    monitored or surveilled by the Hong Kong offices, especially
    when they're in countries with HKETOs, the Hong Kong Economic
    and Trade Offices. And that is why it's not only about the NSL,
    actually. It's not only the National Security Law, but all the
    other--you know, freedom of speech, freedom of expression have
    been greatly limited because of how the Hong Kong government
    actually tries to monitor Hong Kongers overseas. But I guess
    perhaps Brian and Sebastien may have other cases that you would
    want to bring forward as well.
        Representative Wexton. Any other cases, Sebastien? Any
    other examples?
        Mr. Lai. Yes. The case about the Hong Kong student, I
    think, in Japan is the one that happened most recently, and
    really the boldest one, so to speak, because it was just a few
    social media posts that she liked. Another thing I wanted to
    point out about the National Security Law--just to add to
    this--is that the National Security Law--when it was first
    introduced, wasn't meant to be retroactive. What happened
    before the National Security Law wasn't meant to be something
    that you get charged for. And obviously, that is not the case.
    So you have this incredibly broad law that covers the world,
    and time, which makes it so much more poisonous.
        Representative Wexton. That's very frightening. Yes, it is
    absolutely very scary.
        Mr. Lai. Yes.
        Representative Wexton. Brian.
        Mr. Kern. I think the thing I'd like to stress is that the
    way authoritarian regimes operate is largely through threat. If
    they're successful, they'll threaten much more than they'll
    follow through on it. So what happens with something like this
    is it conditions people's behavior. Obviously, that's the case
    for people who are trapped in Hong Kong. We often say Hong Kong
    is one big prison. There are the 1,459 political prisoners
    actually sitting in prison, then they're the ones in Hong Kong,
    which is a pretty small territory. But it affects people beyond
    that as well.
        You know, Anna pointed out that she made a decision at one
    point to cease to be anonymous. You know, for people sitting on
    this panel, they're not going to go back to Hong Kong unless
    they want to go to prison. That's the position that every
    single Hong Kong person living outside of Hong Kong finds
    themselves in. Do I allow my face to be shown? Do I show up in
    public? Do I go to protests? Do I talk to the papers? Because
    if I do, then I better not go back to Hong Kong. I want to see
    my family in Hong Kong. Am I really going to take that risk? So
    that's what I mean. As much as, like, specific instances like
    the Hong Kong student in Japan, it's the way it affects Hong
    Kong people living abroad.
        And of course, that is by design. It's by intention. I
    often think of the National Security Law as not so much a law
    as a blueprint for control. It's meant to control people. It's
    meant to control their behavior. We see that, I think,
    throughout the diaspora. Everyone goes through those kinds of
    calculations when they think about what role they're going to
    play and whether or not they can appear publicly.
        Representative Wexton. This is the same thing that they've
    done with Uyghurs and with the Tibetans as well, the exact same
    thing. And I know because I have a lot of Uyghur constituents
    in my district who have told me about instances where they've
    gotten a call and they said, you know, we've got grandma here
    and she'd love to talk to you via WhatsApp, would you like to
    talk to her? And then they'll talk to her, and there'll be
    somebody from the PRC sitting right next to her on the sofa,
    you know, and she's like, Everything's fine here. It's really
    scary, because everybody still has family in Hong Kong, I would
    imagine, so that's really frightening. And I just feel really
    bad for you.
        So, in your view, have the U.S. Government sanctions
    actually worked? Have they actually worked at all? Government
    sanctions, have they worked at all? Mr. Kern, I know you said
    something about them.
        Mr. Kern. It depends on what you mean by ``work.'' I often
    hear people complain and say, oh, the sanctions aren't working.
    And when they say that, what they seem to mean is that they
    have not changed the behavior of the people sanctioned.
    Obviously, that's one way of figuring out whether sanctions are
    working. But I can say with 100 percent certainty, sanctions
    have a hugely positive effect symbolically. And you might say
    symbols don't mean anything, and I would disagree. They have a
    huge effect. It heartens Hong Kong people in Hong Kong to see
    that the U.S. Government recognizes what these people in Hong
    Kong and the Communist Party are doing to them.
        Not only that, but as a campaigner or as an activist, it's
    very powerful to be able to say, you should not be associating
    with this guy, John Lee. He is sanctioned by the U.S.
    Government. That sort of thing really matters. And in that
    sense, I think sanctions are very important and quite
    effective, whether or not they directly affect the behavior of
    the individuals sanctioned. And that's why it's so important
    once you sanction somebody to hold the line and be firm on
    that. And I totally agree with everyone else on this panel who
    says that the U.S. should consider further sanctions,
    especially on National Security Law prosecutors and judges, as
    well as prosecutors and judges involved in other political
    trials in Hong Kong.
        Representative Wexton. Thank you very much. And you kind of
    anticipated one of my other questions, which was, Are other
    Western countries helping out with this at all? Other Western
    countries helping out with allowing in more refugees and stuff
    like that from Hong Kong, or anybody?
        Mr. Kern. You're not just talking about sanctions; you're
    also talking about other----
        Representative Wexton. No, sanctions and everything. Are
    they helping us to show that this security law is bad, and
    that--you know, that they will stand with the Hong Kongers? Is
    there any other Western country that's helping us, besides the
    U.K.?
        Mr. Kern. Well, I think that we were just mentioning before
    you came in, that the United Kingdom government has started
    this new British National Overseas visa scheme, which allows
    Hong Kongers who have a British National Overseas passport or
    are eligible for it, to come to the U.K. on a five-year plan
    that can lead to permanent residency. And 150,000 Hong Kongers
    have availed themselves of that. That's a very concrete and
    important measure that the U.K.----
        Representative Wexton. So those people who were living in
    Hong Kong at the time of the switchover?
        Mr. Kern. Yes. Since the imposition of the National
    Security Law, you know, the U.K. government said that the
    Chinese government has violated the joint Sino-British
    Declaration, and therefore we're enacting this visa scheme.
    That's a very concrete measure. I think a lot of Western
    governments have said the right things. And it's important for
    them to say the right things. Canada and Australia have enacted
    certain pathways to make it easier for some Hong Kongers to go
    to those places. That's useful. But I was also saying that I am
    afraid that there's a bit of a sea change happening, where some
    Western governments are going back to the bad old days where
    trade pretty much dictates China policy.
        I think the U.S. was caught in that trap for decades,
    actually. And I'm very encouraged by the changes in U.S. China
    policy over the last few years. And I mentioned that I think
    the U.S. needs to continue to play a leading role in that
    policy and work with its allies on that. I think the U.S. can
    have a very positive influence on some of its Western allies as
    regards China policy, Hong Kong policy.
        Representative Wexton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've
    definitely overstayed my welcome here. I'll come back for the
    second round. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. I'd now like to yield to Commissioner Nunn.
        Representative Nunn. Mr. Chair, thank you very much. And I
    appreciate this committee coming together to have what is a
    very important conversation on the Chinese Communist Party's
    not only takeover but crackdown with this National Security Law
    that they've placed in Hong Kong.
        First of all, Mr. Lai, thank you so much for spending time
    with us today, for the sacrifice that your family has made,
    including the imprisonment of your father. For speaking, for
    being a voice for the people of Hong Kong, for practicing his
    faith, he now--as you highlighted--is interned with very little
    judicial capability to be able to appeal this. We here in the
    United States stand with you in unwavering support. Of the rule
    of law, of the right to free expression, and of democracy in
    the face of adversity.
        I'm from the small state of Iowa. And if we were to look at
    what Hong Kong went through in almost an overnight experience--
    the capturing of 7 million lives and taking away those
    fundamental things that here in America Jefferson highlighted
    as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--and muzzled in
    an instant. It would be the equivalent of Iowa, Nebraska, South
    Dakota, North Dakota, all in the course of an evening being
    transitioned from being a bastion of hope, a place that Asia
    could look to for freedom, for a voice, for the rule of law
    both in its judges but also in an exemplary police force, and
    that has now been used as a baton to crack down on individuals
    who have stood up.
        I mention those states in the heart of the heartland
    because, as Mr. Kern just highlighted, they were the states to
    help stand up and fight back against China's repression. When
    we took a personal hit in Iowa by doing trade negotiations, it
    meant that our farmers didn't get to sell pork and soybeans to
    a very lucrative market. But it was far more important that we
    stood up to China now than afford them the ability to bully not
    just their neighbors, but the entire world. The people of Hong
    Kong are proven friends, and it's clear today, with so many of
    you here, how important this is to your families and to the
    future of your families.
        As trade partners, as allies with the United States, you
    deserve to enjoy this fundamental right that we've experienced
    here in the West. But what the Chinese Communist Party has done
    by implementing its National Security Law in Hong Kong is
    effectively crush not just the freedom, but it's punished
    individual expression, it's destroyed civil liberties, and it's
    taken away the promise that was made that these individuals
    would have the opportunity to have a fair and autonomous life.
    Overnight, the CCP betrayed not just the people of Hong Kong,
    but it lied baldfaced to the rest of the world in its ambition.
        It is difficult to work with partners who we want to find
    an on-ramp with, like China. But when they tell the United
    States to our face that they're not flying surveillance
    balloons over the West Coast, they're not actively looking to
    harm, they're not intrinsically suppressing their own people, I
    can only imagine the difficulty for those in Hong Kong today to
    be able to trust their own government. So, with that, Mr. Lai,
    I'd like to begin with you.
        Due to the mass crackdown of civil liberties and the people
    of Hong Kong who are fleeing their home country today, as many
    we see in this room, in what ways can the United States create
    really a more welcoming place for these individuals to call
    home? We've learned not just that sanctions are effective, but
    that there can be a carrot in this opportunity. Maybe what was
    highlighted from the British visa plan, to help those--
    particularly those intellectuals who want to leave Hong Kong,
    find a new home in America.
        Mr. Lai. Thank you, sir. The people of Hong Kong are an
    incredibly well-educated, bilingual or trilingual labor force.
    So, really, they are an asset to any country that can get
    enough of them. And so I think, as you alluded to, an easier
    visa requirement. Now, it's not my area of expertise, but an
    easier visa requirement, especially for those who are
    politically persecuted, for all those who want to leave for the
    U.S. And many of them want to move to the U.S. because of, I
    think fundamentally, how the U.S. has treated this case; there
    is much love for the U.S. in Hong Kong, especially among those
    who love freedom, which is, I think, most people. So that's all
    I know to say on this. But thank you.
        Representative Nunn. And Mr. Lai, I think one of the key
    aspects of this, for those who have made it to the West, is
    continuing to be a voice for those who remain behind. To be a
    clear channel of information and being able to describe what's
    happening in Hong Kong today under this national security
    apparatus that's really enslaving its own community.
        Ms. Kwok, I would like to speak to you on this--call it
    propaganda, call it dangerous doublespeak--coming out of China
    today. The reality is, as a military member who served
    counterintelligence operations inside China, I see a difference
    between what is said to the West and then what is done inside
    China. Specifically, the CCP has become a master of rhetorical
    influence. And they're doing this in a variety of mediums. Can
    you please share with us from your experience some of the ways
    the Communist Party has really promoted a pro-authoritarian
    narrative that's influencing even some within Hong Kong to be
    subverted to Beijing and willfully give up their own rights?
        Ms. Kwok. Thank you for the question. I think you're right
    that the Chinese Communist Party is certainly expert in really
    melding people's minds and creating different languages to
    cater to different audiences. And from my time in the United
    States, I've observed that the CCP has done so on American soil
    as well. For example, firstly through the Hong Kong Economic
    and Trade Offices, which have offices in D.C., New York City,
    and San Francisco.
        They consistently organize events with civil society
    partners, art galleries, you know, film festivals to talk about
    the story of Hong Kong. Well, of course, the kind of story
    they're talking about is a prosperous Hong Kong that never had
    any human rights abuses. And we know it's not true. But for
    some American members of the public who just want to watch a
    film, they would not understand, you know, the very complex
    dynamics behind it and they would easily absorb the rhetoric
    that Hong Kong is back to business, while in fact it is not.
        And, secondly, I think one thing that has been getting more
    traction in Congress and in cthe general public is about
    TikTok. TikTok has been proven to have a way for people--for
    staff members in mainland China--to access and also manipulate
    the algorithm for the version in the United States. And that is
    definitely something to look at, because that is what the CCP
    thrives on, having all these subtle traces and subtle ways to
    really plant ideas into people's minds that are used for or
    manipulated enough to support the regime.
        And that has been happening in Hong Kong for the past 26
    years, with national education, patriotic education. A lot of
    propaganda materials have been used in kindergarten and primary
    schools to kids to tell them to love China. I exactly went
    through that sort of education, but not as much, or as serious,
    or as intense as kids in Hong Kong right now. And that is why
    it's also important to keep free internet open--access open in
    Hong Kong. Even though right now there's virtually a firewall
    inside of Hong Kong--for example, HKDC's website is blocked in
    Hong Kong and censored.
        But still, I think the Hong Kong government does not dare
    to really have a full firewall built up, as it is in mainland
    China right now. But even with that, they're blocking websites
    arbitrarily, one by one, every day. And what we can do--the
    previous leader had a bill in Congress on keeping Hong Kong's
    internet freedom safe and free for Hong Kongers to access. And
    I urge the Congress to reconsider that kind of legislation and
    see how we can keep internet access open in Hong Kong. And that
    is the only space Hong Kongers have right now to continue
    engaging in a discussion on freedom and democracy.
        Representative Nunn. Thank you, Ms. Kwok. And thank you for
    your advocacy on this very, very important issue.
        Mr. Kern, I'm going to turn to you briefly here. You know,
    we look at what's going on in the rest of the world right now.
    We see crackdowns in Iran. We see a repressive state not just
    in Russia but in Eastern Europe. These have been very in your
    face, physical, military operations almost. And China, they're
    approaching it in a different path, but clearly with very
    similar effect. Hong Kong, the perfect example. The threat to
    Taiwan, very obvious to anyone who's watching right now. Could
    you deep dive with us briefly on the things that Beijing has
    done to effectively subjugate Hong Kong in such a short period
    of time that have really ripped away some of these fundamental
    freedoms that were enjoyed for decades prior to this with
    really not a shot even being fired, but almost more effective
    than we're seeing in other repressive regimes?
        Mr. Kern. When you need to shoot your own people, it's a
    sign you failed. That, I think, is a Communist Party dictate.
    You know, one of the things about the Communist Party is that
    it's so strong that it doesn't often need to go out in the
    streets and shoot its own people. The last time it did that in
    very large numbers was 1989 at the Tiananmen massacre. And I
    think that was one of the things the Party learned, is do
    everything you can so as to not have to resort to that.
        So what you see in Hong Kong is that they turn the screws
    as they need to. They imposed the National Security Law. They
    arrested a lot of people. They waited to see what followed.
    They were disappointed that not enough Hong Kong people stopped
    speaking, stopped saying what they didn't want to hear. And so
    they dragged out this old, from the U.K. colonial period,
    sedition law. Now, I don't know what sedition means to you, but
    in Hong Kong it's basically a speech crime.
        There was reference made today to these five young trade
    unionists who published three allegorical children's books
    about sheep. They were arrested and tried under sedition and
    sentenced to 19 months in prison each. There have been 77
    arrests on sedition charges now. Jimmy Lai is also going to be
    tried on sedition, as well as under the National Security Law.
    And for virtually all of these people, it's because they were
    journalists. There are two editors from a very respected
    publication that also has been forced to close, like Apple
    Daily, called Stand News. They're both on trial for sedition.
        Many people who are on trial for sedition, it's for online
    comments they've made on social media. So that's what I mean.
    They turn that screw, and they look around and say, have enough
    people been silenced? Are we satisfied? If not, then they find
    other screws to turn. And their objective is to silence people,
    because propaganda really isn't very effective unless it's
    accompanied by censorship. If people have the right to say what
    they think, you've got competing voices and it's very hard for
    propaganda to win out at the end of the day.
        In China, they've really perfected that combination of
    propaganda and censorship. And in Hong Kong, they're trying to
    find exactly what the right mix is so that essentially they can
    turn it into China.
        Representative Nunn. Imagine a situation in which George
    Orwell is arrested for writing ``Animal Farm.'' Unfortunately,
    it sounds like in Hong Kong today, fiction is now fact. And
    that's exactly what we see. These individuals who were trying
    to illustrate the challenge are now becoming the victim of a
    police state. I want to thank you all very much for your
    testimony today. And know you have a strong ally on a
    bipartisan, bicameral effort to be able to stand with Hong Kong
    and the work you're trying to do to stand up to the CCP.
        Mr. Chair, I cannot thank you enough for leading this
    effort. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Commissioner Nunn. And
    thank you for the background you bring to this, which is extra-
    ordinary and unique.
        Just a couple other questions and then I'll yield to my
    colleagues if they have any further questions. First of all,
    you know, I was just thinking, in a follow-up to this hearing,
    we're going to put together a resolution asking the Nobel Peace
    Prize Committee to--we will appeal to them, they can't be told
    what to do, and that's the way it should be--to award it to the
    six people, beginning with Jimmy Lai, that are on the list that
    this Commission has recommended, the co-chairs, the ranking
    members. We've asked them to do that.
        Back in 2010, I did the same thing with Liu Xiaobo, and
    Chen Guangcheng, and Gao Zhisheng. Liu Xiaobo did get it--I'll
    never forget sitting there where they had the empty seat. It
    just spoke volumes--and then they wouldn't even let his wife
    attend as well. But I think this is the most opportune time to
    reassert this. So we'll do a House resolution on this and begin
    drafting it today.
        Secondly, Mr. Kern, you talked briefly about the issue of
    trade. And as an exporting country, we know that China is
    absolutely reliant on trade to sustain its military, the
    Chinese Communist Party. And, you know, there's a whole lesson
    that was not learned back when after Tiananmen Square--and I
    would fault George Herbert Walker Bush and then Bill Clinton
    for their appeal to China to say, nothing to see here. Brent
    Scowcroft, as we all know, made an infamous trip over to
    reassure them post-Tiananmen Square.
        And then Bill Clinton got it right at first, and even
    accused Bush of coddling dictatorship. And then he coddled like
    no one else. You know, on May 26th, 1994, he de-linked human
    rights and trade. I actually went to Beijing with a letter in
    hand signed by 100 Members--bipartisan Members. I met with the
    Foreign Ministry. And they told me--it would be January before
    they would be up for the renew period for MFN de-linkage. And
    they said, We're getting it. You know, I said, Well, we've got
    names here.
        And I called Warren Christopher as soon as I got back, who
    was the secretary of state. And I said, They think you're
    bluffing. And we were. And we lost such leverage. You know, I
    think we would have a different China today--if not for what
    happened on May 26th, 1994, on a Friday afternoon when
    everybody had left this place to go back to their districts, as
    they should. I was still here lingering. I went over and did a
    press conference that C-SPAN carried. It's still on their
    website, if you ever want to check it out. And it was, like,
    oh, how could we have given up that leverage?
        But we need to regain it. I've introduced a bill that would
    re-link MFN with trade, the PNTR, as they call it now, with a
    number of categories, including political prisoners. And my
    hope is, and I've met with the chairman of the Ways and Means
    Committee, and I've talked to others. I'm not sure we'll get it
    passed, or whether or not it would ever be signed. We need to
    be moving in that direction. You know, we need conditionality
    and not trade in an un-
    fettered way that enables a dictatorship to just absolutely
    maltreat its own people. Like your dad.
        So we're pursuing that. I appreciate, Mr. Kern, that you
    brought that up--I remember meeting with the Chamber of
    Commerce in Beijing on one of the many trips. And some of those
    were taken with your predecessor, Frank Wolf, who was a great,
    great champion of human rights. And, you know, there was one
    foreign service officer from the State Department sitting there
    who was very junior grade. They had all these commercial
    experts in our embassy flocking around. You know, and a lot of
    people from the Chamber of Commerce.
        And they all said: We trade--my words, paraphrase--and they
    matriculate from dictatorship to democracy. And I said, nothing
    could be further from the truth. They'll get more powerful and
    more dictatorial, and they'll have the means to carry it out
    with more impunity and more effectiveness. So hopefully we've
    learned that lesson. I'm not sure we have. But we need to keep
    trying. And this panel certainly helps. Your leadership, all of
    you, helps really significantly.
        Mr. Kern, you mentioned that 13-year-old. What was he or
    she charged with? Do you remember?
        Mr. Kern. It was a very complicated case. There was an
    incident in which--it was during the protests. And plainclothes
    police officers saw that some protesters were blocking a road.
    And the protesters noticed them. And this was--actually a lot
    of flashpoints during the protests happened because of
    plainclothes police officers, who would often dash out and grab
    people, and wrestle them to the ground, and beat them. And so
    protesters were very much on guard against this sort of thing.
        And a couple of the plainclothes police officers were
    surrounded by some protesters. And the protesters were
    haranguing them and saying: You're cops. You shouldn't be here.
    That sort of thing. So he, and I want to say five others, were
    on trial for false imprisonment. The idea was that they had
    essentially imprisoned these police officers because they
    weren't allowing them to go. And then I think a couple of them
    were charged with assaulting the police officers. I think there
    was a skirmish between them.
        So that boy, upon conviction, was remanded into custody.
    And his sentencing, along with that of the others, will be in a
    week to ten days. And he will most likely--there are three
    types of juvenile detention in Hong Kong. And for children that
    young, he'll get some kind of juvenile detention sentence,
    which can last up to three years.
        Chair Smith. Can I just ask if any of you would like to
    speak to the issue of how the prisoners are treated? Do they
    have access, particularly if they're American or U.K., to
    consular affairs personnel to do a welfare visit, to make sure
    they're being treated, you know, well? Which is probably an
    oxymoron. But do they have that kind of access?
        And if I could also ask, Ms. Kwok, especially you, we know
    that transnational repression is on the rise. And we're working
    on legislation to try to address it. I think the
    administration's very well aware of it, and they're speaking
    out as well. How are your leaders, how are you treated when it
    comes to this surveillance state that comes here and then they
    look to intimidate and harass?
        Ms. Kwok. Some personal anecdotes that I can provide would
    include, for example, when the Hong Kong Democracy Council, or
    DC4HK, other Hong Kongers in the DMV area tried to organize
    protests, sometimes we would find cameras pointed at us. And of
    course, there's no way we can verify who these people were, but
    they would refuse to speak to us and sometimes they actually
    walked directly from the HKETO offices. So we can tell very
    clearly that they belong to the HKETOs. And, separately, it's
    about HKETO officers asking Hong Kongers in the DMV area for
    personal information about members of my team.
        And of course, that would constitute transnational
    repression because they're trying to spread fear and trying to
    get personal information that they do not necessarily need just
    to, you know, intimidate activists and advocates working on
    this issue. And previously there were other Hong Kong community
    members in Boston and in the Cornell area in New York State,
    who have been beaten or intimidated by various--we don't know
    who they are. But, for example, the DOJ actually released some
    report just a few days ago about one of them actually being a
    spy for the Chinese Community Party, who was intentionally
    intimidating one of the activists, I believe who is here with
    us today.
        So there are many instances of transnational repression.
    But because it's not been a very known or openly discussed
    subject in the past, I think we're still discovering and
    finding cases of transnational repression. And in order to help
    Hong Kongers in the U.S. continue their advocacy, I really
    suggest having faster humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers so
    that they can feel safer, and even expediting asylum cases,
    especially for individuals who have been intimidated,
    threatened, or injured by transnational repression. And, on the
    other hand, again, I would have to emphasize the need for the
    HKETO Certification Act, which would really have to evaluate
    the presence, and the status, and privileges of the HKETOs, as
    well as what they have been doing here in the United States.
        Mr. Lai. Just to add to that, the transnational repression
    isn't necessarily a new thing for Hong Kong and China. And it's
    especially not just limited to the people of Hong Kong. An
    example of this is the secret police stations that are dotted
    all across the world. Another more perverse example is with
    students at universities--at Western universities, being spied
    on by fellow students. And they report back to the embassy. And
    a lot of those students end up having issues back in their
    country.
        Mr. Yam. Perhaps I can take the question on consular access
    for prisoners. I know of a number of cases in Hong Kong,
    including parochially one Australian citizen in the 47-
    political-activist case that is currently in trial--that
    China's view is that a lot of these guys, because they have
    both Hong Kong residency as well as foreign citizenship, that
    they deem these people as Chinese nationals, and therefore
    they're not entitled to consular access. So I know that there
    are a number of those cases where political prisoners, people
    in remand, are denied access to their home country's consular
    officials.
        Chair Smith. Mr. Kern, thank you.
        Mr. Kern. Yes, in regard to that, with U.S. citizens who
    are political prisoners in Hong Kong, the U.S. Consulate in
    Hong Kong typically says that these are private matters, and so
    we know very little about this. I'm not aware of any particular
    cases. There are some where it's a little bit uncertain whether
    the individual in question is a U.S. citizen. I do not know the
    extent to which the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong is following up
    on that. The families of these individuals have also chosen not
    to speak out. And so none of these cases has really become
    public knowledge.
        You also asked about the prisons. And the thing to keep in
    mind about Hong Kong is it's in transition from a liberal to an
    authoritarian society. And when it is, a lot of elements are
    kind of up in the air. So with the Hong Kong police, for
    example, it's perfectly clear that they've essentially been
    transformed into a militia to enforce the will of the Communist
    Party. And there's this huge new National Security Department
    within the Hong Kong Police Force. There are Chinese secret
    police now operating in Hong Kong because of the National
    Security Law. It's entirely secret. We don't know how they're
    cooperating with the Hong Kong Police, and so on.
        The prisons are not run by the police. They're run by the
    Correctional Services Department, which, like so many civil
    services in Hong Kong, have through the years functioned fairly
    well and fairly efficiently. The kinds of abuses you see in
    many authoritarian countries, like Belarus where people are
    horribly tortured and even killed in prison, you do not see in
    Hong Kong. There have been some questions on the issue of
    solitary confinement of political prisoners. And it's been very
    difficult to get good information about that. The CSD said in
    those cases that those prisoners have voluntarily decided to
    confine themselves solitarily. And we're not sure about that.
        So we're keeping an eye on what's happening in the prisons.
    We don't have a good monitoring system to find out whether all
    political prisoners are getting out when their sentences have
    expired. So there's a lot of gray areas in Hong Kong now that
    have become more difficult to monitor because of the situation
    there.
        Chair Smith. Mr. Kern, has the ICRC, the International
    Committee of the Red Cross, tried to get into the prisons?
        Mr. Kern. Not that I know of.
        Ms. Kwok. I also want to add one more thing to the
    discussion, and that is that Sammy Bickett, who's sitting
    behind me, was actually in Hong Kong's prison two times, and
    for a few weeks. And he's a United States citizen who was
    working in Hong Kong as a lawyer at the time. And during his
    time in prison, he said that he did get some consular visits,
    and more often than perhaps other people. And of course, it's
    great that he's back in the U.S. safely. But, of course, I
    think the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong is also navigating,
    honestly, in this muddy water. And I would also suggest that
    the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong increase communication with
    American businesses in Hong Kong, as sometimes they are
    complicit in human rights abuses. And that can be monitored
    through the Hong Kong Business Integrity and Transparency Act.
        Chair Smith. Anna, do you know if they allow ministers to
    come in, like religious leaders, to visit and tend to the
    spiritual needs?
        Ms. Kwok. I'm not aware of these visits.
        Mr. Kern. They have this category called justice of the
    peace. And many high-profile citizens can become justices of
    the peace. Cardinal Zen, who you nominated for the Nobel Peace
    Prize, very deservedly, has been one of the people who very
    consistently goes and visits a very wide range of political
    prisoners, from the very well known to some of these kids who
    get very little attention. So there are people like him who are
    still doing that, yes.
        Chair Smith. Commissioner Wexton.
        Representative Wexton. Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman. And,
    you know, when you're telling us about what happened in 1994,
    it definitely calls to mind just how good it is to have you on
    this committee, because having you here as the chairman is--you
    have this institutional knowledge like nobody else. It's great
    to have you here.
        I've got to say, I agree with you that giving repressive
    regimes more power and more ability to interact with the world
    does not make them any less repressive. In fact, it makes them
    more repressive. We've seen that happening here in China.
    They've certainly raised repression to an art form here, where
    they can--where they can not only repress Taiwan and Tibet, and
    everybody. I feel that it's just really, really bad. And I just
    feel like they started with Tibet, and then they moved on to
    Xinjiang, and then to Hong Kong.
        And now Taiwan is next on the list--the next and last,
    hopefully, on their agenda. So we just need to do what we can
    to stop it, because it doesn't seem to be stopping. So I think
    it would be good to get conditionality back into the trade
    piece. To that point, Mr. Chairman, I do feel that the horse
    has left the barn. At this point, it's a lot harder to get the
    horse back in the barn. So it's going to be a lot harder. I
    agree with you that we need to do something, because we can't
    just stand by and let this happen.
        I'm relatively new to Congress. This is my fifth year here.
    Sometimes I don't understand why we can't do things that make
    so much sense. I know there's a lot of reasons. I know there's
    a lot of moving parts and everything. And maybe, Mr. Chairman,
    you can elucidate why we can't do relatively quick fixes, like
    change the status to TPS. Because, I mean, I can't think of a
    better time to do it than now, because people who definitely
    can't go home--I mean, they can't go home, they might as well
    be able to work here and stay here as long as they can be
    protected. It's not good that they could be kicked out at any
    moment. It's scary.
        But when I think about why that is, I just try to think
    about why there's a lot of moving parts here. I think a big
    part of it is China's power, particularly its economic power. I
    guess we are addicted to these cheap goods, right? You see
    every day--everything is like Shein, Shein coming into the
    picture now. You can buy boxes and boxes of clothes for, like,
    10 and 20 bucks. You buy these disposable clothes. And the
    reason that they are able to buy them for so cheap is because
    they're made with forced labor, made with exploited resources.
    You know, that's why they're able to undercut the rest of the
    world. We just eat it up. We just can't get enough of it, and
    this is really a problem.
        Now we have TikTok, which is even worse. You know, TikTok
    is even scarier to me, because that is something where they
    really have a conduit for propaganda. They also have about a
    billion people who are giving them all their data. So then they
    have a conduit for their propaganda, they have a bunch of data
    about Americans. They know our whereabouts, what we do. They
    know what we like, what we don't like, what our bank accounts
    are, everything--I mean, you name it, all the information. So
    it's a really big problem. I think we've got to do something
    about that as well.
        But you know, Energy and Commerce had hearings about
    TikTok. You would have thought that we said we were saying we
    were going to sacrifice a bunch of kittens and puppies on the
    steps of the Capitol the way people reacted. It was insane.
    People were, like, don't take away our TikTok. Insane. We got
    threats and all kinds of horrible, horrible things. So it's
    very, very frightening what they've done. We need to see what
    we can do to make it better.
        One of the questions I have for you is, what do you
    consider the ``new normal'' in Hong Kong? I know that they had
    mass crackdowns about things like the Umbrella Movement and
    things like that. They had mass crackdowns over time as people
    were protesting in public. Do you feel that those mass protests
    will return again, that people will be able to protest in a
    massive way and that they'll have more mass detention? Do you
    think the new normal is just surveilling people mercilessly and
    then picking up people one at a time? What is the new normal
    going to be in Hong Kong? And I'll start with you. Sebastien,
    why don't you go ahead?
        Mr. Lai. Yes. I think the Hong Kong government and, indeed,
    the Chinese government has really gone on a war with
    information. So I think, regarding mass protests in Hong Kong,
    if you lock down the system, just communicating with others,
    and you have surveillance over that, then it's very hard to
    gather any idea of a mass protest, from our understanding. So I
    think at some point the Hong Kong government realized that
    actually the loudest sound of oppression isn't tear gas, guns,
    batons. It's silence. And I think that's where we are in Hong
    Kong right now--silence.
        Ms. Kwok. I also want to echo something that you said
    earlier about how it happened to Tibetans, to Uyghurs, and now
    to Hong Kongers and next, perhaps, we're worried about
    Taiwanese democracy. I think in the past two years Congress has
    actually taken a pretty constructive approach by increasing
    America's competitiveness, and also how America can limit the
    supply chain so that America can continue a sort of allyship
    with democratic countries like Taiwan.
        And I know there is currently talk of another round of
    perhaps something to follow up on USICA and the COMPETES Act
    from last year, which became the CHIPS and Science Act in the
    end. And actually, in last year's conferencing there were
    extensive provisions for Hong Kongers, Tibetans, and Uyghurs,
    and also concerning humanitarian pathways as well, because in
    certain provisions and drafts of the bill it was understood
    that perhaps having more freedom fighters who fought with the
    regime would actually increase some sort of competitiveness
    here domestically in the U.S.
        And I would urge that if this package is going into
    discussion again this year, I hope that there can be provisions
    attached with regard to protecting Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Hong
    Kongers in the United States, as well as increasing a sort of
    competitiveness together with Taiwan. And hopefully that can
    eventually help us dilute the human rights abuses happening in
    Hong Kong.
        Representative Wexton. Anyone else have anything else that
    they want to add?
        Mr. Yam. I think there's a lot of talk about, especially in
    the Western world foreign policy establishment, national
    security establishment, that Hong Kong is a lost cause and that
    everyone should move to the next line of defense of Taiwan.
    Now, obviously, there are measures that are specific in
    relation to Taiwan that Western governments, including the
    United States, should be taking.
        But on the other hand, given that Hong Kong's one country,
    two systems model was set up as an example to be applied on
    Taiwan, if the Western world decides that they're going to
    abandon Hong Kong and think that, Oh, if we abandon Hong Kong
    we can just put all our efforts into Taiwan, then that actually
    emboldens China to think that they can get away with
    repression, that they can get away with doing whatever they
    want, and that far from helping the Western world in focusing
    on Taiwan, giving up on Hong Kong is actually going to embolden
    China to take a more aggressive line in relation to Taiwan and
    make it much more difficult for the Western world to hold the
    line.
        Representative Wexton. Thank you very much. That's great
    advice, and I agree. Thank you so much. I thank the witnesses
    for being here today. This is really fascinating. I'm sorry
    that you guys have to go through this, but hopefully we can
    help in some way. Thank you so much. Take care.
        Chair Smith. I do want to thank our very distinguished
    witnesses for your leadership each and every day. You help us.
    We work together, but you are really guiding lights for this
    Commission as to our next steps and what we need to do. So
    thank you so very, very much. The hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
    =======================================================================

                                A P P E N D I X

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

                              Prepared Statements

                                    ------

                      Prepared Statement of Sabastien Lai

                                  Introduction

        I am Sebastien Lai, son of Jimmy Lai, the media owner, publisher,
    writer, and pro-democracy campaigner. My father has been imprisoned
    since December 2020, and he is now Hong Kong's highest profile
    political prisoner. He is also a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned for
    his work.
        My father was also the founder and owner of Next Digital Ltd and
    its newspaper Apple Daily, which was closed down in June 2021 as a
    result of actions taken by the Hong Kong authorities against the paper.
        At the outset I would like to thank the members of the
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China for their nomination of my
    father, together with five other Hong Kongers--Cardinal Zen, Tonyee
    Chow Hang-tung, Gwyneth Ho, Lee Cheuk-Yan, and Joshua Wong--for the
    Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of my father's advocacy for peaceful
    protest, for the right to freedom of expression and an independent and
    free press, and for democracy in Hong Kong. This nomination has touched
    me deeply and I am very grateful for it.

                       My Father's Background in Summary

        My father was born in mainland China's Guangdong province in 1947.
    He was born into a wealthy family, but they lost it all when the
    communists took power in 1949.
        When he was only 12 years old, my father fled China and traveled to
    Hong Kong as a stowaway on a fishing boat. He immediately had to work
    when he arrived in Hong Kong, despite his young age: he had to work to
    pay back the cost of his passage. He worked as a child laborer in a
    garment factory, in a sweatshop.
        He is an entirely self-made businessman and a huge Hong Kong
    success story. From the shop floor of the textiles industry he rose
    through the ranks and eventually started his own clothing firm,
    Giordano, that saw global success.
        My father gained his full British citizenship in 1992. He has
    always been very proud to be British, and very proud of his Hong Kong
    roots. The values that made Hong Kong such a success as a place--the
    rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom to do business--are also values
    very dear to my father and which fueled his own success.
        My father is also a deeply Christian man, a devout Catholic. His
    faith is in no small part a driver of his belief in freedom and human
    rights.

                                      1989

        Until 1989, my father concentrated on his business interests,
    particularly growing his clothing business, Giordano.
        However, the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 was a wake-up call
    for him. My father then resolved to direct his energy to supporting the
    fight for democracy and holding the powerful in Beijing to account,
    whatever the personal cost to him.
        He did so first through Giordano. In the face of the crackdown on
    pro-democracy protesters in 1989, his company, Giordano, distributed t-
    shirts emblazoned with pro-democracy messages.
        Soon after, in 1990, he entered into the publishing industry, and
    established Next Media (later to become Next Digital Ltd). His first
    publication, Next Magazine, was a Chinese-language weekly magazine that
    covered current affairs and business news. He established Next
    Magazine's sister newspaper, Apple Daily, in 1995.
        Apple Daily, and its parent company, Next Digital Ltd, were born
    out of this resolve to promote freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, and
    in China. My father was quick to realise that without free and
    independent information, there is no freedom. Apple Daily was named
    after the forbidden fruit: if Adam and Eve did not eat it, there would
    be no evil, and there would be no news.
        Apple Daily quickly grew to be the largest and most popular
    Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong. It was known for its
    independent journalism, and its anti-corruption and pro-democracy
    stance.

          Targeting of My Father by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

        Right from the start of his media career in 1990, my father stood
    up to China. He criticized China's leaders, and they hated him for it.
        That is why the authorities quickly began to target him--in order
    to try to silence him. Ever since my father entered the publishing
    industry, his businesses have been subjected to harassment and
    targeting by the CCP because of the perceived threat that he posed to
    this authoritarian regime. He was effectively forced to sell Giordano
    after the CCP threatened to close down all the stores in mainland
    China. His business and our family home have been fire-bombed. He was
    subjected to long-
    running surveillance, and he and other members of our family were
    regularly followed. Seeing surveillance vans and cameramen outside our
    home when I was growing up was an everyday occurrence. His advertisers
    were targeted and he was threatened financially.
        My father's Catholic faith is also relevant to the way in which the
    CCP targeted him, for many years. His close relationship with Cardinal
    Zen and other human rights defenders and activists in Hong Kong who
    draw strength from their religion has become a focal point of the CCP
    repression upon him.
        But none of these tactics by the CCP worked. My father is a man of
    strong principle and a man of deep faith. He was standing up to the CCP
    because it was the right thing to do. He refused to be intimidated.
        The actions now taken against my father, that have resulted in his
    imprisonment and the destruction of his business, Next Digital Ltd, are
    the culmination of years of harassment and targeting of my father and
    his businesses by the CPP. What seems to have led to the authorities
    stepping up their actions against him and using the law to attempt to
    crush his business, and his spirit, was the 2019-2020 democracy
    movement and the protests which swept Hong Kong.
        My father supported the democracy movement, and personally
    participated in some of the protests and vigils. As the authorities
    began to crack down on dissent, he knew he was a prime target for them
    and that they may try to imprison him. In an interview in 2020 with
    AFP, shortly before the National Security Law (NSL) was enacted, he
    said he had no plans to leave Hong Kong despite his wealth and the
    risks he faced:

            ``I came here with nothing, the freedom of this place has given
            me everything. Maybe it's time I paid back for that freedom by
            fighting for it . . .

            I'm prepared for prison. If it comes, I will have the
            opportunity to read books I haven't read. The only thing I can
            do is to be positive.''

        My father was arrested first in August 2020, and has been in prison
    continuously since December 2020. The arrests were designed to be
    humiliating and to send a message to all Apple Daily staff, and to any
    other journalists watching. The Apple Daily offices were raided by
    hundreds of police officers in a show of extreme force, and my father
    was placed in handcuffs and paraded around his offices. This was all
    designed to try to crush his spirit and to frighten his staff and
    colleagues.

                         The Charges Against My Father

        The international legal team for me and my father explains the
    charges he has faced in more detail in their written submissions, but
    in summary he has already been prosecuted, convicted, and served
    lengthy prison sentences for exercising his right to peaceful protest.
    They have sought to discredit him and smear his reputation through
    allegations of ``fraud,'' said to be based on a breach of the Next
    Digital office lease. He has now been sentenced to 5 years and 9 months
    imprisonment on that charge. This is unheard of for a commercial
    matter, and it should send a chill down the spine of any business owner
    in Hong Kong.
        The Hong Kong authorities now accuse my father of crimes of
    sedition and crimes under the controversial NSL. These are charges
    based on his writings and other material published in Apple Daily, and
    meetings with various people. These are criminal charges for
    journalism. And criminal charges for discussing democracy and human
    rights with international figures. These are ludicrous charges which
    symbolize just how damaged the legal system in Hong Kong now is. There
    is no freedom of the press. There is no rule of law.
        My father's NSL and sedition trial is due to take place later this
    year, starting on September 25th, 2023. But I know the outcome is a
    foregone conclusion. The Security Minister has recently boasted of
    having a 100% conviction rate in national security cases, and the NSL
    itself is designed to criminalize all dissent, all criticism of the
    authorities. The maximum sentence under the NSL is life imprisonment. I
    know that the authorities intend to crack down heavily upon my father,
    to send a message to him and others, and so I expect him to receive a
    lengthy sentence, and possibly a life sentence. He is already 75 years
    old so any long sentence could see him die behind bars.
        My father has never advocated for violence. He is a man of peace.
    His only so-called ``crime'' is to disagree and condemn the actions of
    the CCP and the Hong Kong authorities that seek to silence critical
    voices. For that, he faces the rest of his life in prison.
        The actions taken against Apple Daily and its parent company, Next
    Digital Ltd, also resulted in the newspaper itself being destroyed. It
    ceased operating in 2021, as there was no other option: my father and
    other executives had been arrested and its assets frozen. On January
    12th, 2023, we saw the de-listing of this once thriving business from
    the Hong Kong stock exchange and the auctioning of its remaining assets
    in a fire sale. This was a CCP theft and CCP destruction of a very
    successful media company.

                           The #FreeJimmyLai Campaign

        My father is a victim of an autocratic state which will not
    tolerate dissent or criticism. It is clear that there is no longer
    ``One Country, Two Systems'' but that Beijing is now controlling Hong
    Kong. The NSL spells that out. His treatment is grossly unfair.
        As my lawyers explain in their submission, this unfairness has been
    recognized by many powerful voices, including the United States
    Government State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
    and this Commission. What has happened to my father has also been
    condemned and criticized by United Nations officials, the European
    Union (both through its External Action Service and the European
    Parliament), many other countries and civil society groups such as
    Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect
    Journalists, PEN International, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
    The United Kingdom has also made clear that the authorities in Hong
    Kong are in breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an
    international treaty in place since the handover.
        I would like to thank the Commission for its condemnation of the
    actions taken against my father, including his imprisonment for
    peaceful protest in 2021, and for its statement on World Press Freedom
    Day this year calling on the United States Government to lead a global
    effort to secure the release of all those unjustly detained in Hong
    Kong, including my father.
        I would also like to thank the United States Government for the
    strong stance it has taken against my father's ongoing persecution,
    including the State Department's condemnation of his conviction on
    spurious fraud charges in October 2022, and his lengthy sentence of
    imprisonment.
        I am, however, disappointed that the United Kingdom has not taken a
    stronger stance in this shocking case. I have met with the UK's
    Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, twice,
    along with my lawyers, and they have also met with Rita French,
    Britain's Global Ambassador for Human Rights and Deputy Permanent
    Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. In private meetings
    they have said that my father's case is a very high priority for the
    UK, and that they are raising their concerns with Hong Kong and China
    at every available opportunity.
        However this is not the impression which they are giving to me, or
    to China and Hong Kong. Both the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak MP, and
    the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly MP, have refused to meet with me
    and the international legal team. The Foreign Secretary has, however,
    been willing to meet personally with senior CCP Ministers and senior
    officials. In February 2023 at the Munich Security Conference he met
    with Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and
    Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs,
    Wang Yi; and just last week he met with China's Vice-President, Han
    Zheng, the architect of the brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy
    movement in Hong Kong in 2019-2020.
        The UK Government has yet to condemn my father's treatment or call
    for his release. I am shocked by this. My father is a British citizen.
    I am a British citizen. Why is our government not supporting us fully
    and fearlessly?
        I am now leading the international campaign to free my father,
    before it is too late: the #FreeJimmyLai campaign. I am very grateful
    to the Commission for holding the upcoming evidence session on May
    11th, 2023, and giving me a platform to explain more about my father
    and what he stands for.

                       Threats to My Father's Supporters

        Because I have chosen to take a stand and advocate for my father, I
    cannot return to Hong Kong due to the risk of prosecution. This means I
    may never see or speak to my father again.
        The Hong Kong authorities have made very clear that they do not
    agree with what I am doing, or the work of the international legal
    team. In response to my calls to the United Kingdom and the
    international community to condemn the actions taken against my father
    and demand his immediate release, the Hong Kong authorities have
    accused me, my lawyers, and the UK Government, of attempting to
    undermine the rule of law in Hong Kong.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ See, for example, HKSAR press release, ``HKSAR Government
    strongly opposes interference by foreign government in court case
    involving Lai Chee-ying,'' 10th January 2023.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Two weeks ago, a committee of the UK Parliament--the All-Party
    Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong--published a report, Media Freedom in
    Hong Kong: the Case of Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily, \2\ that concluded
    that the provisions of the NSL are in violation of the International
    Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,\3\ and that the NSL and
    sedition laws have been improperly used to stifle dissent and suppress
    freedom of expression in Hong Kong.\4\ The Hong Kong authorities
    responded by declaring the report to be ``malicious slander against the
    NSL'' in an attempt to undermine the rule of law in Hong Kong.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, ``Inquiry into
    Media Freedom in Hong Kong: the case of Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily,''
    25th April 2023. Available at: https://www.hkinquiry.org/
    mediafreedominhongkongreport
        \3\ Ibid. pp. 21-24.
        \4\ Ibid. p. 23.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The Hong Kong authorities have sought to defend their actions with
    the claim that, ``Hong Kong is a society underpinned by the rule of law
    and has always adhered to the principle that `laws must be obeyed and
    lawbreakers be held accountable.' '' \5\ This description of Hong Kong
    as a society underpinned by the rule of law is a description that once
    rang true, but now belongs to the past. It is no longer correct.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \5\ HKSAR press release, ``HKSAR Government strongly opposes
    interference by foreign government in court case involving Lai Chee-
    ying,'' 10th January 2023. See also, HKSAR press release, ``HKSAR
    Government strongly disapproves of and firmly rejects report by UK All-
    Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong,'' 25th April 2023.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The actions taken against my father are not the actions of a
    government that respects the rule of law. They are the actions of a
    government that has no respect for law, and for the fundamental rights
    and freedoms of individuals in Hong Kong. As the Commission has noted
    in its October 2022 special report, Hong Kong's Civil Society: From an
    Open City to a City of Fear \6\ the provisions of the NSL have been
    used to effectively dismantle Hong Kong's once thriving civil
    society.\7\ The NSL has enabled the Hong Kong authorities to target not
    only protesters, for which it had previously used public order
    offenses, but also the organizations that once formed the core of Hong
    Kong's civil society--human rights non-governmental organizations; pro-
    democracy religious groups; trade unions; professional groups; student
    union organizations; and the independent media including Next Digital
    Ltd and Apple Daily--organizations perceived by the CCP to undermine
    China and Hong Kong's international image, and to challenge the CCP's
    legitimacy.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \6\ https://www.cecc.gov/sites/chinacommission.house.gov/files/
    documents/Hong%20Kong%20Civil%20Society%20Report.pdf
        \7\ Ibid. pp. 8-9.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   Conclusion

        What has happened to my father, to Next Digital and to Apple Daily
    should sound the alarm bells for any business operating in Hong Kong.
    What has happened to my father could happen to anyone, to any
    organization. For as long as my father remains in prison, Hong Kong is
    not a safe place to do business. For as long as the NSL and other laws
    are used to target businesses and organizations considered to undermine
    the CCP, Hong Kong is not a safe place to do business.
        I ask that the United States Government continue to do all it can
    to secure my father's freedom and to hold the CCP and the Hong Kong
    authorities accountable for their ongoing persecution of my father.
        I wish to close my written testimony by quoting Common, the hip-hop
    artist and Academy Award winner. In 2015, he wrote in TIME Magazine
    that Jimmy Lai, my father, is ``a hero in Hong Kong'' because:

            ``There are those who, when given the keys to wealth and the
            perks of the Establishment, choose not to rock the boat because
            of the backlash they might face. Jimmy Lai is not such a
            person.

            Though he went from a child laborer in a garment factory to
            owning his own clothing line and media company, he rejected
            complacency and the status quo when he chose to criticize a
            powerful government and support a primarily student-led
            democracy movement in his beloved Hong Kong.

            His courage in the face of the firebombing of his home, as well
            as his subsequent arrest for his role in challenging the ruling
            order, resonates around the world as an inspiration for those
            seeking self-determination. It was this kind of bravery that
            inspired me to mention the Hong Kong protests in my Oscar
            acceptance speech, and that reminds all of us to always strive
            to speak truth to power.'' \8\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \8\ https://time.com/collection-post/3823046/jimmy-lai-2015-time-
    100/.

        My father is in prison because he spoke truth to power for decades.
    He is still speaking truth to power and refusing to be silenced, even
    though he has lost everything and he may die in prison. I am very proud
    to be his son.
                                     ______

                        Prepared Statement of Brian Kern

        Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I appear before you today as both a
    citizen of the United States and a permanent resident of Hong Kong. I
    express my deep appreciation for the CECC's consistent work on Hong
    Kong over the years. So many members of Congress on both sides of the
    aisle as well as the administration are important allies in the Hong
    Kong people's struggle for freedom and democracy, and that is most
    heartening.
        I am here to speak to you about the crisis of mass political
    imprisonment in Hong Kong. It is an essential part of the overall
    ongoing crackdown, which includes the systematic suppression of the
    basic human rights of freedom of expression, freedom of association,
    freedom of assembly and political participation, and the Chinese
    Communist Party's transformation of Hong Kong into an authoritarian
    society.
        Over the years, I worked for many pro-democracy civil society
    groups and political parties in Hong Kong. All of them have been shut
    down, and their leaders are now in prison: Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-
    tung, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Benny Tai, Joshua Wong, Eddie Chu,
    Jeremy Tam, Kwok Ka-ki, and Alvin Yeung. (Three of them, Lee Cheuk-yan,
    Chow Hang-tung and Joshua Wong, have deservedly been nominated this
    year for the Nobel Peace Prize by some of the Commissioners before me
    now, along with Jimmy Lai, Gwyneth Ho and Cardinal Zen.) In all, more
    than 80 groups associated with the pro-democracy movement have been
    forced to close; 188 pro-democracy leaders have been arrested, 109
    convicted, and 46 imprisoned. Dozens are in long-term pre-trial
    detention. You have to look hard around the world to find countries
    where the political opposition has been so systematically and
    drastically targeted for elimination as Hong Kong.
        But it's not just people who were at the heart of the pro-democracy
    movement who are in prison. In fact, they make up a minority. Most
    political prisoners are ordinary Hong Kongers. University and high
    school students, medical workers, emergency first-aiders, lawyers,
    teachers, business people, journalists, people from across the pro-
    democracy spectrum, from the most moderate to the most radical. The
    oldest political prisoner is Jimmy Lai at 75 years old. The youngest is
    13. Mass political imprisonment affects virtually every sector of Hong
    Kong society, every community, every neighborhood. Most everyone in
    Hong Kong knows someone imprisoned for political reasons.
        Just this year, my neighbor, a young devout Christian musician, was
    sentenced to more than four years in prison for taking part in a
    protest in 2019. I was at that protest. I was about two hundred yards
    away from him when he got arrested. There but for the grace of God . .
    . Millions of us stood up for freedom and democracy, but some are
    paying for that much more heavily than others.
        In 2020, on the eve of the imposition of the draconian national
    security law, my own family decided to leave Hong Kong while we
    believed we still could. Refuge in this country has afforded me the
    opportunity to fight on for Hong Kong. Being free myself, I have a
    special responsibility to all those who are not free, and above all to
    political prisoners.
        I think I speak for most Hong Kongers when I say we have a strong
    awareness that it could just as easily be any one of us in prison. The
    people who are there, are serving time on our behalf. We have great
    gratitude for and solidarity with them, and we will fight until every
    political prisoner is free, however long that may be.
        I started monitoring political arrests a few weeks after the
    beginning of the protests in 2019, as it became clear that the regime
    would employ mass arrests as a tactic to crush the protests, and I've
    continued to do so ever since. From June 2019 up to now, there have
    been 10,615 political arrests in Hong Kong.
        I was the lead researcher on Hong Kong Democracy Council's report
    on political prisoners, which came out last June. It is based on a
    complete database which is continually updated.
        One of our main motivations in publishing the report was to
    emphasize the very large number of political prisoners. The
    international media has done a pretty good job of covering the trials
    of high-profile figures such as Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong and some others,
    but there has been little reporting on the pattern of mass political
    imprisonment.
        The report's cut-off date was May 11, 2022, exactly one year ago
    today. At that time, there were 1,014 political prisoners in Hong Kong.
    Now, one year later, the number has risen to 1,457. That's 443 new
    political prisoners in one year--an increase of close to 50 percent.
        Let me put that in global perspective. The only countries
    incarcerating political prisoners at rates faster than Hong Kong's over
    the past three years are Burma and Belarus. Hardly beacons of rule of
    law.
        This is what makes what's happening in Hong Kong all the more
    extraordinary. Unlike Belarus and Burma, up until 2019, despite its
    lack of democracy, Hong Kong had fairly robust rule of law. There are
    few better indicators of its deterioration and the erosion of the
    independence of the judiciary than the huge increase in the number of
    political prisoners. The judiciary's like a stop sign the government
    has simply steamrolled. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say, the
    judiciary's been complicit in its own steamrolling.
        Political imprisonment isn't an entirely new phenomenon in Hong
    Kong, but mass political imprisonment is: At the start of the protests
    in June 2019, there were 26 political prisoners. We've gone from 26
    then to 1,014 in May 2022 to 1,457 today.
        Who are these political prisoners? There are basically three
    categories: 1) protesters from the 2019-2020 protests; 2) those
    remanded and imprisoned on national security law charges; and 3) those
    remanded and imprisoned on sedition charges.
        (Note: Sedition is a UK-colonial-era law that had never been used
    in post-handover Hong Kong up until 2020. In all, since then, 77 people
    have been arrested for ``doing or saying acts with seditious intent''
    to incite hatred of the Chinese government, Hong Kong government and/or
    police. As the Hong Kong authorities have applied it, it is essentially
    a speech crime. Most of the people arrested for sedition have been
    tried for online speech or for their work as journalists. In the most
    infamous example, four young trade unionists were convicted of sedition
    and imprisoned for 19 months each for publishing allegorical children's
    books about sheep. While sedition is not a national security law crime,
    it is investigated by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong
    Police Force and adjudicated by judges designated by the Chief
    Executive to preside over national security law trials, and it is
    included by the Hong Kong government as a crime ``endangering national
    security.'')
        Of those three groups, by far the largest is protesters. About
    1,300 people have been imprisoned on protest-related charges versus 72
    people on national security law charges, and 44 on sedition charges.
    (Several dozen others have been imprisoned for other political crimes
    such as insulting the national flag, insulting the national anthem, and
    inciting others to not vote or to cast a blank vote.)
        Young people have been particularly targeted. One hundred fifty-
    nine political prisoners are minors--that's about 10 percent of the
    overall total. Seventy percent of political prisoners are under the age
    of thirty. I call the young people of Hong Kong today ``the prison
    generation''--oppression is one of their most defining experiences.
        We expect the number of political prisoners to continue to rise for
    some time to come. There are at least 380 people charged with crimes
    related to the 2019-2020 protests whose trials have not concluded or
    not even begun, and there are dozens more either on trial or awaiting
    trial on national security and sedition charges. On top of that, there
    are new arrests happening all the time. A conservative estimate is that
    the number of political prisoners will plateau at around 2,000 some
    time next year. That's assuming there are no new waves of mass arrests.
        What can the United States do?
        Now is a crucial moment in the world's relations with the Communist
    Party and Hong Kong government. Post-zero-Covid, both the Communist
    Party and the Hong Kong government are making a big push to reset
    relations with the rest of the world. We've already seen some Western
    countries begin to revert to the bad old days when trade almost totally
    dictated their China policy. Both Chancellor Scholz of Germany and
    President Macron of France have gone to Beijing within the past half-
    year with big business delegations in tow. The government of the United
    Kingdom has already hosted one Hong Kong government minister this year
    and says it will host three more before the end of the year. We regard
    this type of diplomacy as entirely inappropriate. Tantamount to
    appeasement, it sends the exact wrong message to the Communist Party;
    namely, as long as we can do business, we will only pay lip service to
    calling out crimes against humanity in the Uyghur region, the stripping
    of Hong Kong's autonomy and basic human rights, and threats to invade
    Taiwan. Not only that, but these leaders misconstrue current global
    power dynamics: at this point in history, the Communist Party needs the
    rest of the world more than the opposite. I had hoped that the Russian
    invasion of Ukraine would wake Western democracies up to the dangers of
    economic dependence on dictatorships hostile to their basic values, but
    it looks like we still have some way to go in convincing some countries
    of that in regard to China.
        By contrast, the U.S. has a relatively clear-eyed view of what
    China under the Communist Party is today. The current administration's
    China policy is largely fair, robust, coherent, comprehensive, and
    rational. After decades of mostly calamitously misguided China policy
    across both Democratic and Republican administrations, the U.S. is
    finally beginning to get China right. Whether or not the current
    strategy proves to be effective depends on how well and how
    consistently it is implemented. And that, in turn, depends on
    continuing consensus on China across political parties. This current
    strategy will take time and will only succeed if its general principles
    are embraced by future administrations.
        With this in mind, my message to the President and Congress is
    this: Hold the line. Continue to take a tough stand on Hong Kong, and
    let the Communist Party know that the crackdown on Hong Kong will
    continue to be an impediment to improved U.S.-China relations.
        And to show you mean business, pass the Hong Kong bills that are
    before Congress. Close Hong Kong economic and trade offices in this
    country.
        Don't allow the Hong Kong government to whitewash its image in the
    international community. Make sure the sanctions on Chinese government
    officials, Hong Kong government officials, and top Hong Kong police
    officers now in place stick, and extend them to prosecutors and judges
    in political trials. Don't allow U.S.-sanctioned Chief Executive John
    Lee to attend the APEC summit in San Francisco in November as he says
    he would like to do.
        Use your influence to persuade U.S. companies to refrain from
    showing public support for the Hong Kong government or cooperating in
    its propaganda initiatives. I keep a Corporate Bad Actors list together
    with the Hong Kong Democracy Council. It's made up of international
    companies in Hong Kong that have violated the United Nations Guiding
    Principles on Business and Human Rights. Unfortunately, it has grown
    quite long. The leaders of U.S. financial firms such as JPMorgan Chase,
    Blackrock, KKR, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Morgan Stanley, Carlyle,
    Apollo, BNY Mellon, and State Street, as well as the chair of the
    American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong have colluded with the Hong
    Kong government within the past half year. If U.S. companies decide to
    operate in Hong Kong, that's up to them, but at a bare minimum, they
    should do so without publicly supporting a government that has put so
    many political prisoners behind bars and stripped Hong Kongers of their
    basic human rights.
        And lastly, let me ask the following of you. There are a lot of
    cliches about freedom, there are a lot of misuses of the word
    ``freedom,'' but after a year of constant harassment, intimidation and
    threats in Hong Kong, I had never felt so free and safe in my life as
    when I arrived in the U.S. Protection was afforded me due to my U.S.
    passport. I hope that protection can be extended to other persecuted
    Hong Kongers. The President's Deferred Enforced Departure order for
    Hong Kongers already in the U.S. was meant as a stopgap until more
    lasting legislation providing humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers
    could be passed, much as after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. I urge
    Congress and the administration to work together to pass such
    legislation in this Congressional session.
        Thank you, Commissioners, for your support of the Hong Kong
    people's ongoing struggle for freedom and democracy.
                                     ______

                        Prepared Statement of Kevin Yam

        Mr. Chairman, Mr. Co-Chairman, members of the Commission, thank you
    for inviting me to testify before you today. The views expressed are my
    own and do not represent the views of any group or entity to which I
    belong.
        I begin with a confession: there are lawyers more qualified to talk
    about Hong Kong criminal law than me. Unfortunately, some of them, like
    veteran activist lawyers Albert Ho \1\ and 2023 Gwangju Prize for Human
    Rights winner Chow Hang Tung,\2\ are languishing in jail. Others are
    still in Hong Kong fighting the good fight and cannot testify before
    the Commission lest they get their clients or themselves into trouble.
    Yet others who left Hong Kong dare not speak out, fearful of what that
    might mean for their loved ones in Hong Kong.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ ``UN calls for release of ailing Hong Kong rights lawyer Albert
    Ho,'' Radio Free Asia, March 30, 2023.
        \2\ 2023 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights Winner Announcement, May 2,
    2023: http://eng.518.org/
    sub.php?PID=0301&action=Read&idx=1032&ckattempt=1.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        By contrast, I no longer have close family connections with Hong
    Kong. I even brought my mother's ashes back to Australia with me when I
    left Hong Kong in 2022. And I have practiced as a lawyer in Hong Kong
    for over 17 years, including a little bit of criminal law, as well as
    lots of rule of law and democracy activism along the way. So while I
    might not be the most qualified lawyer to testify before the
    Commission, I am the most available.
        My testimony today about Hong Kong's rule of law starts with the
    various trials against political dissidents and protesters. To a casual
    observer, one will mostly still see lawyers and judges decked out in
    their British-style wigs and gowns. The trials still follow common
    law's detailed trial procedures, with questioning of witnesses by
    lawyers and judges. Legal submissions are still full of British-style
    legal jargon. As for judges, the majority would likely have convinced
    themselves that they are still independent. They get told this in
    public all the time by the Hong Kong government.\3\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ See, e.g., Hong Kong Department of Justice, Our legal system--
    judicial system and the courts: https://www.doj.gov.hk/en/
    our_legal_system/judiciary.html.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Against this background, political trials in Hong Kong still have
    all the outward trimmings that can potentially hoodwink an
    international community which wants to believe in and get friendly with
    the Chinese Communist Party again in the post-COVID world. But this is
    precisely what makes the current situation in Hong Kong particularly
    insidious. The whole pantomime that is now played out in Hong Kong
    courts is an edifice that is decaying on the inside.
        To begin with, as much as many judges might think of themselves as
    independent, they do not live in a vacuum. They can see the tone set by
    the current Chief Justice. Unlike his predecessor,\4\ he refused to
    publicly defend separation of powers in Hong Kong after years of
    attacks against the concept by Beijing officials.\5\ He reinstated a
    judge \6\ disgraced for expressing explicit pro-Beijing political bias
    in court,\7\ and who is then promoted to hear national security
    cases.\8\ He saw fit to attend a party-political event in the form of
    the Chinese Communist Party's 100th anniversary celebrations.\9\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \4\ Rhoda Kwan, ``Explainer: Understanding Hong Kong's debate
    around the separation of powers and an executive-led system,'' Hong
    Kong Free Press, September 26, 2020: https://hongkongfp.com/2020/09/26/
    explainer-understanding-hong-kongs-debate-around-the-separation-of-
    powers-and-an-executive-led-system/.
        \5\ ``Journalist questioned why no mention of separation of powers
    in speech, Chief Justice: too politicized, not appropriate to
    comment,'' Inmedia.net, January 11, 2021 (original in Chinese): https:/
    /www.inmediahk.net/node/1080146.
        \6\ Maisy Mok, `` `Noble stabber' judge back on unrest cases,'' The
    Standard, Jul 30, 2021: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/
    section/4/232700/%27Noble-stabber%27-judge-back-on-unrest-cases.
        \7\ ``Geoffrey Ma says judges expressing political views in public
    risks compromising impartiality,'' The Standard, May 25, 2020: https://
    www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/147844/Geoffrey-Ma-says-
    judges-expressing-political-views-in-public-risks-compromising-
    impartiality.
        \8\ Lau On-kei, ``Kwok Wai-kin admits to being appointed designated
    National Security judge, had said that accused in Lennon Wall chopping
    person case had noble sentiments,'' HK01, September 16, 2021 (original
    in Chinese)[not provided herein].
        \9\ Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal and Chief Judge of
    the High Court to attend celebration activities of 100th anniversary of
    founding of Communist Party of China in Beijing,
    June 27, 2021: https://www.hkcfa.hk/filemanager/PressRelease/en/upload/
    96/press_release_
    20210627_01en.pdf.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Hong Kong judges also saw the definition of their judicial oath
    being changed on them in 2021.\10\ By having sworn to uphold Hong
    Kong's Basic Law and bear allegiance to Hong Kong, they are now deemed
    to have subscribed to a whole set of political axioms, such as
    upholding ``the national sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and
    national security of the People's Republic of China.'' This is no mere
    formality, as a judge is required ``to intend to'' and ``in words and
    deeds'' to ``genuinely and truthfully observe, support, maintain and
    embrace'' the pledge.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \10\ Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Hong Kong),
    section 3AA.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Most importantly, what is becoming ever more apparent is that
    whenever any judge or court tries to show a bit of backbone, they get
    viciously barked at by pro-Beijing media, by various Hong Kong versions
    of Benedict Arnolds who are doing Beijing's bidding, and even by
    Beijing officials. Just look at what happened when Jimmy Lai tried to
    bring in a British senior counsel for his National Security Law case in
    Hong Kong. The courts did initially let in the British senior
    counsel.\11\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \11\ Re Timothy Wynn Owen KC [2022] HKCFI 3233 (Hong Kong Court of
    First Instance); [2022] 5 HKLRD 726 (Hong Kong Court of Appeal); [2022]
    25 HKCFAR 288 (Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        But then what? Beijing officials and mouthpieces rounded on the
    judges for applying international standards.\12\ The Hong Kong Chief
    Executive ran crying to Granddaddy Xi for a re-interpretation against
    the rulings.\13\ And the Hong Kong judiciary had to put out a statement
    stating their respect for the re-interpretation, and that the courts
    would uphold the National Security Law.\14\ It is as if one gets
    punched in the gut and then still has to smile and thank the thug for
    the punch.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \12\ ``National security law for Hong Kong must be fully and
    accurately enforced,'' Global Times, November 29, 2022, https://
    www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1280719.shtml. This is an English
    translation of a summary of remarks by a spokesperson from the Hong
    Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's
    Republic of China, the Chinese original of which can found here:
    https://www.hmo.gov.cn/xwzx/xwfb/xwfb_child/202211/
    t20221128_23897.html.
        \13\ Statement by Chief Executive on submitting report to CPG on
    National Security Law and recommendation to request interpretation of
    National Security Law from NPCSC, November 28, 2022: https://
    www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202211/28/P2022112800736.htm.
        \14\ Judiciary responds to interpretation of Hong Kong National
    Security Law by Standing Committee of National People's Congress,
    December 30, 2022: https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202212/30/
    P2022123000679.htm.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        So what does this mean? It means that the judges still serving in
    Hong Kong all know which way the winds are blowing. They know that the
    safest route to survival and promotion is to obey to the hilt. It means
    that for all the long political show trials with their ostentatious
    displays of common law court procedure, they will, whether consciously
    or subconsciously, almost inevitably side with the prosecution.
        On one level, this makes things even worse in Hong Kong than in
    Mainland China. At least in Mainland China, the kangaroo court is
    brutally short, with no little pretense of trials being anything other
    than foregone conclusions. By contrast, the legal agony in Hong Kong is
    extended and expensive, but mostly with little palpable difference to
    the final result.
        Beijing's pummeling of the Hong Kong judiciary also means that
    successful Hong Kong lawyers have been so unwilling to become judges
    that even the pro-Beijing camp had publicly sounded the alarm.\15\
    Senior lawyer friends of mine who still live in Hong Kong say that this
    unwillingness extends even to pro-Beijing high-flyers in the
    profession, as they do not want to suffer reputational damage from
    being associated with an increasingly politicized judiciary.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \15\ Ambrose Lam San-keung, ``Hong Kong Courts Need Move On From
    Dino Age,'' The Standard, February 13, 2023: https://
    www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/200218/
    (Viewpoint)-Hong-Kong-Courts-Need-Move-On-From-Dino-Age.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As a result, the Hong Kong judiciary is, with very few exceptions,
    only attracting and will only continue to attract mediocrities who are
    looking for not much more than income stability and possibly a life
    pension. This will not only impact on the impartiality of a judiciary
    looking to show career-boosting obedience in political cases. It will
    also affect the quality of justice and legal reasoning being meted out
    in commercial disputes, as top talent shy away from joining the bench.
        Overall, what we have witnessed in Hong Kong is a death by a
    thousand cuts from Beijing to Hong Kong's rule of law and judicial
    independence. And the United Nations is also questioning the
    maintenance of judicial independence in Hong Kong in view of things
    such as the fact that only judges designated by the Hong Kong
    government can hear national security cases.\16\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \16\ Letter from Margaret Satterwaite, United Nations Office of the
    High Commissioner for Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on Independence
    of Judges and Lawyers to the Hong Kong Government, April 19, 2023, 2-3:
    https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoad
    PublicCommunicationFile?gId=27992.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Before concluding, I would like to turn to Hong Kong prosecutors in
    political trials. It is never easy for a lawyer to criticize fellow
    practitioners. I also appreciate that lawyers sometimes have to act on
    cases where they take positions that they do not personally believe in.
    And as someone who used to be my family's main breadwinner, I
    understand that it is sometimes not a simple case of quitting an
    unpleasant job when you have mouths to feed at home.
        I would therefore have had some sympathy for prosecutors of
    political trials if it is clear that they are doing nothing more than
    going through the motions. But at least with some of them, that is far
    from the case. Instead, they are carrying out their roles as
    persecutors and not merely prosecutors with gusto. In doing so, they
    are ignoring common law requirements of prosecutorial fairness, as well
    as Hong Kong \17\ and international \18\ guidelines of prosecutors
    requiring them to uphold human rights.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \17\ Hong Kong Department of Justice, Prosecution Code, paras 3.12-
    3.16: https://www.doj.gov.hk/en/publications/prosecution_ch3.html.
        \18\ United Nations, Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors, Adopted
    by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and
    the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, Cuba, August 27 to September 7,
    1990, para 2(b): https://www.doj.gov.hk/en/publications/prosecution_
    app1.html.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Examples of such abuses include indiscriminately opposing bail for
    defendants in national security cases,\19\ and aggressively pursuing
    draconian sentences against juveniles as young as 14 years of age or
    who otherwise have issues such as Asperger's Syndrome.\20\ There are
    also attempts to prove national security breaches with perplexingly
    childish cross-examination questions, such as whether reporting
    comments from Putin on his rationale for invading Ukraine would affect
    Ukrainian citizens' morale and thus endanger national security.\21\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \19\ See, eg, Michael Shum, ``Court battle drags on for 47
    activists, politicians,'' The Standard, March 2, 2021: https://
    www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/section/11/227977/Court-battle-
    drags-on-for-47-activists-politicians.
        \20\ Chris Lau, ``Hong Kong prosecutor who sought tougher penalties
    for protesters elevated to senior counsel,'' South China Morning Post,
    March 31, 2021: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/
    article/3127808/hong-kong-prosecutor-who-sought-tougher-penalties.
        \21\ ``Chung Pui-kuen: if bin Laden agrees to be interviewed, it
    would be published; prosecution: this affects U.S. citizens' morale and
    endangers national security,'' InMedia, February 20, 2023 (original in
    Chinese): https://www.inmediahk.net/node/1094542/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Taken together, what is clear is that some prosecutors in political
    cases are lowering their own professionalism and, by extension, the
    quality of legal processes in courts, down to the level of schoolyard
    boorishness. Not only is this grossly unjust for the defendants
    concerned, but when this is all that Hong Kong judges are facing day
    in, day out, it would in turn affect the quality of justice, legal
    reasoning and the rule of law in courts generally, even in non-
    political or commercial cases. And prosecutors who pursue political
    cases in such a poor manner are rewarded with various promotions and
    awards.\22\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \22\ See, e.g., footnote 20 above; Chris Lau, ``Hong Kong
    prosecutor leading national security law case against 47 opposition
    figures takes key justice department role,'' South China Morning Post,
    August 13, 2021: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/
    3144895/hong-kong-prosecutor-leading-national-security-law-case. Deputy
    Director of Public Prosecutions (Special Duties), Anthony Chau Tin-
    hang, was also rewarded with a Hong Kong Chief Executive's Commendation
    for Government/Public Service on 1 July 2021 ``in recognition of his
    outstanding performance in the Department of Justice''--see page 72 of
    the following: https://gia.info.gov.hk/
    general/202107/01/P2021063000579_370988_1_1625057277705.pdf.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        This then leads to the following questions for the Commission to
    consider. Should such individuals who are being rewarded and promoted
    by China for going the extra mile to take their prosecution to outright
    persecution be allowed to enjoy access to a global financial system of
    which the United States plays a key role? Should they be allowed to
    send their children to places like the United States where they would
    enjoy high living standards and an education that encourages free
    thought, while youths in Hong Kong are being force-fed Mainland China-
    style nationalist education? Should they be allowed to enjoy holidays
    in free nations such as the United States?
        To deny these Hong Kong persecutors (yes, I do mean persecutors)
    such freedoms would admittedly be draconian. In this regard, however, I
    would take the Commission to the words of former United States Supreme
    Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In a letter to the British
    political theorist Harold Laski, Justice Holmes said that judges should
    hold a statute to be unconstitutional if it makes one want to ``puke.''
    \23\ Similarly, I would invite members of the Commission to consider
    this: do the repressive actions of these Hong Kong persecutors, who
    have chosen to be important cogs in destroying Hong Kong's rule of law
    and human rights, make you want to puke?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \23\ Letter from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes to Harold J Laski,
    Oct 23, 1926, reprinted in 2 Holmes-Laski Letters 887, 888 (Mark
    DeWolfe Howe edition, 1953), as cited in Andrew B Coan, ``Well, Should
    They? A Response to If People Would be Outraged by Their Rulings,
    Should Judges Care? '' 60 Stanford Law Review 213, 227. The letter in
    question (with the ``puke'' reference found as per the letter's
    citation here) can also be seen here: https://archive.org/stream/
    holmeslaskilette017767mbp/holmeslaskilette017767mbp_djvu.txt.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        It is not for me to answer this question for the Commissioners. But
    what I would say is this: as someone who practiced law in Hong Kong for
    a long time and will forever be grateful for everything that this
    previously free city had given to me, I want to puke when thinking
    about the persecutors who went and are going extra miles in their acts
    of repression. And I believe that all good people of conscience would
    join me in wanting this Holmesian puke.
        Should members of the Commission feel the same way, then the next
    steps that should be taken in relation to these persecutors are,
    draconian as they may appear, clear.
                                     ______

                        Prepared Statement of Anna Kwok

        Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me
    to testify at this hearing.
        Hong Kong, the city with its promised autonomy under the framework
    ``One Country, Two Systems,'' (1C2S) was once the beacon of hope for
    freedom and democracy in Asia. Since 2020, both the Trump and Biden
    administrations have repeatedly acknowledged Hong Kong's loss of its
    promised autonomy. Within 25 years, Hong Kong has descended from being
    a symbol of a vibrant civil society in East Asia, to the epitome of
    another failed international deal negotiated with the People's Republic
    of China.
        I was born in 1997, the year when Hong Kong's sovereignty was
    passed from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China.
    Through my life, my yearning for democracy and freedom grew along with
    the city's desires. In the beginning, people were generally hopeful--
    perhaps we could keep protesting until we see our universal suffrage,
    perhaps we could maintain autonomy even after the 50-year term on One
    Country, Two Systems, and perhaps, even, we could democratize China and
    Asia. Years went by, this hope was proven to be just a fantasy: the
    HKSAR government started attempting to slowly replace One Country, Two
    Systems with repressive and propaganda-promoting legislation. The
    government attempted to introduce the censorship-heavy Article 23 in
    2003 and the propaganda-spreading national education curriculum in
    2012. It was then, Hong Kongers slowly came to realize the intention
    behind One Country, Two Systems--it was a tactic to buy time for the
    Chinese Communist Party to slowly boil the frog named Hong Kong. In
    2014, Hong Kongers demanded universal suffrage through the Umbrella
    Movement; the Beijing government outright denied Hong Kongers' our
    rights. Eventually, Hong Kongers understood the promised autonomy was
    nothing but a fraud to slowly rein in Hong Kongers' freedoms. The last
    wave of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong broke out in the summer
    of 2019, when the Hong Kong government attempted to pass legislation to
    allow extraditions from Hong Kong to China. Hong Kongers knew it was
    almost their last chance before a long winter and gave all they could
    to turn the tides of history. The city and the people marched in the
    millions, campaigned internationally, and even won with a landslide
    victory in the then district council elections. Hong Kongers banded
    together to show the world--we call for freedom and democracy, the
    government is working against the people. However, the years of civil
    society growth and the months of decentralized movement were ended with
    a decisive gavel: the Hong Kong government implemented the National
    Security Law in June 2020, which laid out the legal foundation for the
    government to arrest and convict Hong Kongers who have been exercising
    their human rights to advocate politically.
        One Country, Two Systems has failed Hong Kong. Some say it has
    always been a manipulated international deal with the Chinese
    government--when the system allows for one-party and one-man
    governance, the system has been doomed to fail since the very
    beginning. Given the Chinese Communist Party's bad-faith dealing record
    these days, the world would not be so surprised that Hong Kong did not
    turn out the way democratic countries imagined. However, as the Chinese
    Communist Party had appeared relatively susceptible to change years
    ago, One Country, Two Systems had the world completely fooled for
    years. I believe every foreign policy analyst and China watcher, even
    certain Commissioners present today, had hopes that one day, Hong Kong
    would be the defining city in East Asia's struggle for democracy and
    freedom. Turns out, it still is, yet it bears an opposite meaning now.

       The Cost of a Failed One Country, Two Systems: Political Prisoners

        The failure of One Country, Two Systems, which essentially promised
    Hong Kongers political rights, came with the cost of political
    prisoners in Hong Kong. According to Hong Kong Democracy Council's
    political prisoner database maintained by Brian Kern, who is also
    testifying today, by April 30, 2023, the once flourishing civil society
    has 1,453 political prisoners. Thousands more have been charged with a
    selection between or a mix of the National Security Law, the colonial-
    era sedition law, and various other protest-related offenses.
    Currently, there are around 500 cases pending for trials and
    sentencing. Convictions made on the grounds of the National Security
    Law and sedition are standing firmly at 100%. While other witnesses
    have shared experiences faced by specific political figures, such as
    Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong, and Gwyneth Ho, we must remember similar fates
    are also shared by thousands of nameless Hong Konger protesters who are
    now detained or imprisoned.
        The citywide political persecution also erased Hong Kong's space
    for political organizing and protesting. Over the past 3 years, media
    outlets, political parties, civil organizations, and unions have been
    shut down one by one. The once vibrant civil society is now a silenced,
    censored, and oppressed one. However, it must be recognized that some
    Hong Kongers on the ground are still persisting, either silently or
    discreetly. We must not forget about them.
        The freefall of freedom in Hong Kong does not only reflect the
    state of domestic affairs inside of Hong Kong, its political
    ramifications ripple through Asia. The city was once a haven for
    dissidents and marginalized groups. Tibetan, Uyghur, and Chinese
    activists were able to organize in Hong Kong, Asian human rights
    advocates relied on Hong Kong to meet with representatives from the
    international society. With Hong Kong's relative freedom eradicated,
    the state of affairs extends to curtail general democratic development
    in Asia. It also allows the CCP to heighten its regional influence and
    control in Asia.
        Since Xi Jinping came to power, the CCP has sought to intimidate,
    coerce, and bully countries in the South China Sea and beyond--the most
    notable example being Taiwan. In parallel to the explicit authoritarian
    expansion, Xi also makes his ``no limits'' partnership with Putin
    known, at a time when Russia is actively invading Ukraine. Without a
    doubt, Xi and the CCP intend to send a strong message on its commitment
    to authoritarian dictatorship not just domestically, but around the
    world.
        In light of the developing alliance between dictatorship regimes,
    the U.S. should assert its commitment to pro-democracy values and stand
    firm against dictatorship regimes. The determination to support basic
    human rights and promote democracy should be expressed through foreign
    policy legislation and execution, including offering humanitarian
    pathways to freedom fighters and sanctioning human rights abusers.
                recommendations in relation to foreign policies
    Humanitarian Pathways

        In July 2020, days after the enactment of the draconian National
    Security Law, the Trump administration determined Hong Kong was no
    longer ``sufficiently autonomous'' and should no longer enjoy certain
    differential treatment set forth in the United States-Hong Kong Policy
    Act of 1992. One year later, in August 2021, the Biden administration
    decided to defer enforced departure for Hong Kongers in the United
    States for foreign policy reasons, asserting the United States'
    commitment to unite democratic values to defend democracy and promote
    human rights around the world. It is abundantly clear that the issue of
    Hong Kong has garnered bipartisan support in the United States, and we
    are grateful for the executive decisions directed by the two
    consecutive administrations.
        While there were quick responses from both administrations to
    respond to Hong Kong's situation in 2020 and 2021, thought must be put
    into political prisoners who are currently in jail, especially those
    who may seek refuge when they are released one day. Hong Kongers have
    dedicated years of their lives in the fight for freedom and democracy
    in Hong Kong. If they can make it to the United States, they will
    undoubtedly be valuable actors and resources in the foreign policy
    network.
        Currently, while asylum application exists for people who come to
    the United States directly from Hong Kong, there are no existing
    pathways for Hong Kongers to come to the United States for humanitarian
    purposes. In the 116th and 117th Congress, various versions of
    humanitarian pathway-related legislation were introduced, but none
    managed to pass. As months become years, we are getting close to seeing
    a crisis of released individuals getting charged and arrested again in
    the endless limbo of a corrupted judiciary system.
        Therefore, I urge the Commissioners before me to exercise your
    legislative power to offer humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers as
    soon as possible, during the 118th Congress. Among the various
    measures, the Priority 2 (P-2) refugee program allows Hong Kongers to
    first travel to a third country--vetting procedures can take place to
    eliminate security concerns there--then resettle to the United States
    upon successful application. This program will be impactful for
    political prisoners who wish to continue their fight against the regime
    once they are out of jail. It will send a strong message to human
    rights advocates in Asia on the American commitment to promoting and
    protecting democracy.
        Separately, while eligible Hong Kongers who are in the United
    States currently benefit from the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED)
    program--an executive means to not deport Hong Kongers who overstay
    their permitted period--I urge the administration to upgrade the DED
    program to a longer-term solution, such as the Temporary Protection
    Status (TPS).
        The Biden administration has designated Hong Kongers the DED
    protection twice: from August 2021 to February 2023 (18 months), and
    from January 2023 to January 2025 (24 months). In the 2023
    redesignation of Hong Kongers' DED, the Presidential Memorandum only
    came one and a half weeks before the program's deadline. Hong Kongers
    in the United States had to face possible deportation, which in its
    worst-case scenario, would result in another round of mass arrests when
    protesters have no choice but to return to Hong Kong.
        In both rounds of the DED program designation, there was a
    significant wait time between the release of the Presidential
    Memorandum from the administration and the publication of the Federal
    Register Notice from the USCIS: 77 days in 2021 and 98 days in 2023.
    Without a published Federal Register Notice, Hong Kongers who are
    eligible for the DED and its related employment authorization cannot
    apply for the relevant document. Without legal work documents, some
    Hong Kongers have been terminated or fired at work, causing both
    livelihood concerns to Hong Kongers and operational difficulties to
    American employers. However, if Hong Kongers were granted TPS, a
    program directed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the wait
    time would be significantly reduced, thus reducing both the
    administrative burden of the USCIS, the livelihood anxiety of Hong
    Kongers, and the operational burden on employers. TPS also provides a
    legal status and basis for Hong Kongers to stay in the United States,
    which would provide stability for pro-democracy protesters to continue
    their grassroots efforts in fighting against the CCP. In the past year,
    there were numerous political campaigns organized by Hong Kongers to
    uncover the CCP's foreign influence through the Hong Kong government on
    American soil. As Hong Kongers are undeniably impactful and valuable
    forces in countering the CCP's authoritarian expansion abroad, I urge
    the administration to consider upgrading the current DED program to TPS
    for Hong Kongers in the United States, in order to build a stronger,
    more resistant, and more comprehensive civil society in the U.S.

    Sanctions

        In 2019 and 2020, the 116th Congress passed the Hong Kong Human
    Rights and Democracy Act and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which provided
    available policy tools and authorized the U.S. Government to impose
    sanctions on officials and entities in Hong Kong responsible for
    violating Hong Kong's promised autonomy.
        In response to the continual persecution, conviction, and
    sentencing pursued by the Hong Kong SAR government, I implore the
    administration to sanction National Security Law judges and
    persecutors. When the SAR government maximizes the potential of every
    single policy tool to abuse human rights in Hong Kong, the U.S.
    Government should respond clearly with designated sanctions. It is of
    utmost importance to hold human rights perpetrators accountable for
    their complicity in the regime's oppression.
        Thus far, sanctioning recommendations have been made by the
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), as well as two
    other Hong Kong advocacy organizations--the Committee for Freedom in
    Hong Kong (CFHK) and Stand with Hong Kong (SWHK).

              The Aftermath of a Failed One Country, Two Systems:
                           Another Proxy for the CCP

        While One Country, Two Systems is a known fraud at home, the Hong
    Kong government continues to manipulate the facade of a play-pretend
    autonomy to appeal to the international society.
        The previously recognized autonomy allows the Hong Kong government
    certain special treatment, including the existence of Hong Kong
    Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs) around the world. Currently, there
    are three HKETOs present in the United States. They are in New York
    City, San Francisco, and the country's capital--Washington, DC. In
    fact, it is just a 20-minute walk from the White House, and a 15-minute
    car ride from where we are now.
        The HKETOs are overseas representative offices of the Hong Kong
    government. Granted additional privileges, exemptions, and immunities
    by legislation and Executive Order 13052 President Clinton signed in
    June 1997, the HKETOs currently enjoy the same status as institutions
    such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund under
    the International Organizations Immunities Act (IOIA). The HKETOs were
    first set up to develop and strengthen positive trade relations between
    the United States and Hong Kong. In recent years, it was revealed by
    the Hong Kong Free Press that the HKETO in Washington, DC. gave
    instructions to lobbyists to counter the passage of the Hong Kong Human
    Rights and Democracy Act. Previously, Hong Kongers in DC have also
    received requests from HKETO officers to gather information about
    members on our team. In the past year, HKETOs have been active in
    engaging with business leaders, congressional offices, and government
    representatives at private events, including music concerts in both
    Washington, DC and New York City. These events often bear the main
    theme of promoting a prosperous Hong Kong, to whitewash the human
    rights abuses committed by the Hong Kong government. In general, the
    offices are now used by the CCP to promote pro-authoritarian narratives
    and direct influence operations in the United States.
        Aside from the U.S.-based HKETOs, the Hong Kong government has been
    tirelessly organizing global campaigns, events, and summits to appeal
    to American corporates and tourists. Last November, the government
    organized a global financial leader summit in Hong Kong, where CEOs of
    BlackRock, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs flew to Hong Kong to listen
    to the keynote speech by John Lee, the U.S.-sanctioned Chief Executive
    of Hong Kong. The participation from these financial institutions, at
    odds with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,
    took place just miles away from where political prisoners were detained
    and imprisoned. I struggle to think of other top-tier global financial
    centers where masses of citizens are put in jail for exercising their
    fundamental human rights--not in New York City, London, or Tokyo. The
    SAR government manages to leverage its previous status of being a
    global financial center to lend the reputation of American corporates
    to build their stage.
        When American corporates conduct businesses and set up headquarters
    in Hong Kong, some comply and succumb to the government's request to
    participate in suppressing and silencing certain pro-democracy
    politicians and organizers. According to HKDC's latest report,
    ``Business NOT As Usual: International Companies in the New
    Authoritarian Hong Kong,'' American corporations, such as PayPal and
    Stripe, have terminated services to Hong Kong pro-democracy parties and
    groups. Currently, people in Hong Kong cannot successfully search for
    HKDC's account on PayPal, despite it being perfectly accessible and
    available in the United States.
        Additionally, as Hong Kong's open internet access and information
    privacy is increasingly threatened, it is difficult to guarantee the
    data privacy of American corporates in Hong Kong.
        When American corporates continue to kowtow to the Hong Kong
    government and its repressive measures, there is a disorienting
    mismatch between the foreign policy direction from the U.S. Government
    and the business decisions made by American corporates.
                recommendations in relation to national security
        In response to the three HKETOs present in the U.S., Congress
    should pass the bipartisan legislation the Hong Kong Economic and Trade
    Office Certification Act, reintroduced by both the Chair and Co-chair
    of the CECC, together with Sen. Rubio and Rep. McGovern.
        Once passed, the legislation would require the President, 30 days
    after enactment, to certify whether HKETOs in the United States merit
    the extension of privileges, exemptions, and immunities that they
    currently maintain. If the President certifies that the HKETOs do not
    merit diplomatic immunity, the HKETOs will terminate their operations
    within six months. If the President determines that the HKETOs do merit
    an extension of privileges, Congress has the authority to offer a
    disapproval resolution which, if adopted, would force the
    administration to revoke the privileges enjoyed by the HKETOs. This
    determination by the President would be required yearly.
        Separately, to counter the Hong Kong government's intrusive demands
    made on American corporates, the 118th Congress should also consider
    the bipartisan Hong Kong Business Integrity and Transparency Act, which
    was recently introduced in Congress by Rep. Curtis and Rep. Peters.
        The bipartisan bill aims to monitor the business environment in
    Hong Kong in relation to American businesses. It mandates semi-annual
    reporting from the Department of Commerce on instances of demands for
    user data, assistance with law enforcement, and content takedowns by
    the Hong Kong government.
        In order to combat the increasing foreign influence conducted by
    the Beijing and Hong Kong governments through the HKETOs and to monitor
    the Hong Kong government's demands on American corporates, Congress
    should consider passing the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office
    Certification Act and the Hong Kong Business Integrity and Transparency
    Act in this Congress.

                                   Conclusion

        In light of the apparent authoritarian character expressed by the
    Hong Kong SAR government at home and abroad, it is in the foreign
    policy and national security interests of the United States to pass and
    implement the above-mentioned legislation and executive means with
    regard to paving humanitarian pathways, sanctioning, evaluating HKETOs'
    status, and monitoring the Hong Kong government's intrusion into
    American businesses in Hong Kong.
        In 2023, when more and more people are put behind bars, people may
    think Hong Kong has hit its rock bottom, and we can hardly bounce back.
    What people fail to see is: day by day, Hong Kongers at home and abroad
    continue to struggle for survival and for a chance to get our promised
    freedom and democracy. We persist because we truly believe basic human
    rights and democratic values will ultimately prevail. In the decade of
    increasing aggression expressed by authoritarian dictators, the
    international community must see the inherent value of having a
    democratic Hong Kong for the world.
        Thank you, Commissioners, for your support for Hong Kong. I hope
    Hong Kongers can continue counting on you as our dependable allies in
    our path to democracy.
                                     ______

                     Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith

        Good morning, and welcome to this important hearing focusing on
    political prisoners in Hong Kong, and how the rule of law has eroded
    substantially in just the past several years, accelerating since the
    introduction of the National Security Law in June of 2020--a law that
    was introduced not by Hong Kong's legislature, the LegCo, but imposed
    by the National People's Congress Standing Committee in Beijing.
        That fact tells you how false the ``one country, two systems''
    mantra has turned out to be. For we no longer have rule of law in Hong
    Kong, but rule by law--by laws that are imposed upon the people of Hong
    Kong by their communist overlords in Beijing.
        Of course, as our witness Kevin Yam points out in his written
    testimony, we still see lawyers and judges ``decked out in their
    British-style wigs and gowns.'' But the common law inheritance--which
    is referenced in article 8 of the governing Basic Law of Hong Kong--has
    been destroyed, notwithstanding the residual pomp and ceremony.
        It is all just Gilbert-and-Sullivanesque playacting, with the Lord
    High Executioner having been replaced by a modern Major General.
        For now the outcome of trials for violation of the National
    Security Law are a foregone conclusion, with Secretary for Security
    Chris Tang boasting just last month of a 100 percent conviction rate in
    cases concerning national security.
        And what are these violations of the National Security Law?
    Consider the case of a Hong Kong university student, Lui Sai-yu, who
    pleaded guilty to a charge of ``incitement to secession'' for running
    an instant messaging channel that advocated Hong Kong independence. He
    was sentenced by District Court Judge Amanda Woodcock to five and a
    half years in prison for the violation of the NSL being of a ``serious
    nature.''
        To add insult to injury, Lui pleaded guilty to benefit from the
    common law practice of reducing a sentence by one-third if the
    defendant pleads guilty. While the judge initially sought to comply
    with that precedent, the prosecution objected, and the judge only
    shaved six months off the sentence. In other words, a five-year prison
    sentence for a university student engaging in free speech.
        Amanda Woodcock was also the trial judge who sentenced Jimmy Lai,
    whose son Sebastien we will hear from today, for ``inciting others to
    knowingly participate'' in a banned Tiananmen Square anniversary vigil.
    This of course is separate from the five-year, nine-month ``lawfare''
    sentence he was already serving, which Sebastien can tell us more
    about, or his upcoming trial for sedition under the National Security
    Law.
        There should be consequences for judges like Amanda Woodcock who
    are complicit in the dismantling of the rule of law in Hong Kong and
    who bow to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party.
        In tandem with this hearing, our staff has produced a report on the
    role played by Hong Kong judges in rights violations under the National
    Security Law, which I would urge all of us to read.
        Just as we have sanctioned so-called judges in Venezuela and Iran
    for their undermining of constitutional government and participating in
    show trials, so too should someone like Amanda Woodcock, who is a judge
    in name only, be sanctioned for undermining the rule of law and,
    indeed, the judiciary.
        Another judge who should be sanctioned, in my opinion, is District
    Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin. Judge Kwok was the judge who sentenced five
    speech therapists to 19 months in prison for publishing three
    allegorical children's books about sheep being harmed by wolves, with
    ``seditious intent.''
        Shocking.
        There is actually one item in the judges sentence that I actually
    agree with, however: when the defendants sought to argue that ``one
    country, two systems'' meant that a distinction exists between the
    People's Republic of China and Hong Kong, Judge Kwok berated them,
    saying that it is ``morally wrong'' to say that ``Hong Kong and PRC are
    separate.''
        In this, Judge Kwok is correct: the distinction between the PRC and
    Hong Kong has been obliterated.
        That is the reason why I have introduced in the House, along with
    Ranking Member McGovern, and Senator Rubio and Senator Merkley in the
    Senate, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification, or
    HKETO, Act, H.R. 1103.
        I see no reason why Communist China should have three additional
    consular outposts in the United States, as Hong Kong no longer is
    distinct from the mainland. Indeed, as our witness Anna Kwok will
    testify, these Economic and Trade Offices are collecting information
    about members of her group, the Hong Kong Democracy Council, and other
    democracy activists. I thus call on my colleagues to join as cosponsors
    of H.R. 1103, and I ask that a letter from various Hong Kong NGOs
    calling for markup and passage of H.R. 1103 be entered into the record.
        Finally, I would note that American businesses have now been put on
    notice that the rule of law in Hong Kong is dead. Just as mainland
    China has political prisoners such as Guo Feixiong--who incidentally is
    facing a sham trial for ``subversion of state power''--Ding Jiaxi and
    Gao Zhisheng--so too does Hong Kong have political prisoners like Jimmy
    Lai, Gwyneth Ho, and Chow Hang-tung.
        And if you think businesses in Hong Kong are not the next target,
    just look across the border and see what happened two weeks ago to Bain
    & Co., whose offices were raided by Chinese authorities in Shanghai. We
    too are going to look closely at the actions of American companies like
    PayPal and Stripe, which as one of our witnesses will testify, are
    terminating services to pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong. We want to
    ask them why. And we are also going to look at the role played by
    TikTok in interfering with the advertising and playing of the
    documentary ``The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai's Extraordinary Struggle for
    Freedom.''
        This episode was detailed in a written submission by Fr. Robert
    Sirico from the Acton Institute, which I ask to be entered into the
    record, along with a submission by Sunny Cheung, one by the Committee
    for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, and one by the legal team
    representing Jimmy Lai and Sebastien Lai.
        Finally, I see that Daniel Suidani from the Solomon Islands is in
    the audience. He briefed the CECC a couple of weeks ago on the long arm
    of China's transnational repression in his Pacific island nation.
    Disturbingly, his GoFundMe account, to pay for his trip to warn
    Congress and the American people, was blocked until word got out that
    he would be appearing before the CECC. Nonetheless we are going to look
    at why GoFundMe would freeze his account, hopefully without having to
    use our subpoena authority.

                         Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley

        In just a few years, Hong Kong has gone from a relatively free and
    open city to a shadow of its former self. This transformation has not
    been an accident but rather the result of the ruthless assault on Hong
    Kong's spirit by the Chinese Communist Party and its shameless enablers
    in the Hong Kong government. At every step, this Commission has
    documented that assault, shining a light on the draconian National
    Security Law, chronicling the crushing of civil society, and now today
    releasing a report detailing the erosion of Hong Kong's rule of law.
        Nowhere is the crisis in Hong Kong's rule of law more vivid and
    heartbreaking than in the explosion in the number of political
    prisoners. The Commission's Political Prisoner Database, which has long
    focused on the many thousands of cases in mainland China, has expanded
    in recent years to now also include cases in Hong Kong. We've had no
    choice but to do so. We've had a responsibility to do so. As one of our
    witnesses today informs us, in the last four years there have been
    10,615 political arrests in Hong Kong. What had been a relatively free
    and open city locked up thousands of political prisoners with dizzying
    speed. That includes icons of free speech like Jimmy Lai and Joshua
    Wong. But the jailers didn't stop after they made examples of prominent
    advocates for freedom and democracy. As we'll hear today, this is a
    story of mass political imprisonment. Hong Kong's rulers want to send
    the message that nobody who speaks truth to power--protesters,
    politicians, journalists or anybody else--is safe.
        This is devastating for all of us who love Hong Kong. I will never
    forget Thanksgiving Day 2019. The day after the Hong Kong Human Rights
    and Democracy Act, and my bill banning the export of crowd-control
    equipment to the Hong Kong police were signed into law, a hundred
    thousand Hong Kongers held a rally to thank the United States for
    standing with Hong Kong. They thanked us, these defenders of the soul
    of Hong Kong, the freedom of Hong Kong, the political rights of Hong
    Kong, who were putting so much on the line in the face of determined
    repression. I had the privilege of addressing that crowd via video that
    day and remain proud of the work this Commission did on a bipartisan,
    bicameral basis to get those bills signed into law.
        But what we did was from the safety of the United States, unlike
    the huge challenge in Hong Kong. If Hong Kong's freedom fighters can no
    longer feel safe in Hong Kong, the least we can do--the very least--is
    make them feel safe here in the United States. It is disgraceful that
    we have not done more to open up humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers
    to the United States of America. Whether it's Priority 2 refugee
    protections in the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act that Senator Rubio
    introduced last Congress with my support or other pathways, it's long
    past time to act. We've shown there's bipartisan support for this
    cause, bicameral support. We can't let politics or the objections of a
    few stop us from doing what's right.
                                     ______

                  Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern

        Good morning. I join Chair Smith and Co-chair Merkley in welcoming
    those attending today's Congressional-Executive Commission on China
    hearing on political prisoners in Hong Kong. I regret that I am unable
    to be present due to a competing hearing in the Nutrition, Foreign
    Agriculture, and Horticulture Subcommittee, of which I am Ranking
    Member.
        I welcome our witnesses today and am deeply thankful for your
    commitment to the causes of human rights and democracy for Hong Kong.
    It is due to your efforts and those of hundreds of your colleagues that
    we know what has happened in Hong Kong and what the consequences have
    been for its people. I realize that your dedication has come at great
    cost. I can only say that what you are doing is laudable and I hope and
    believe that future generations will recognize your sacrifice and
    celebrate your contributions.
        As we will hear today, the number of political prisoners in Hong
    Kong has shot up from 26 in June 2019 to 1,014 in May 2022 to 1,457
    today. These are ordinary people from all walks of life in Hong Kong,
    and of every age--the youngest is 13 and the oldest, Jimmy Lai, whose
    son is with us today, is 75. We know some of their names, but not most.
    Each of their lives has been completely upended by a state that
    punishes the exercise of fundamental rights by using the 2020 National
    Security Law to quell dissent, limit protest, and curb criticism.
        It is critical to understand that the imprisonment of these more
    than 1,400 people is just the beginning of the story. Just as
    important, and just as intentional, is the ripple effect, first, on
    their families and loved ones, and more broadly, on the whole society--
    the businesses shut down, the jobs and livelihoods lost, the fear
    instilled, the self-censorship that results. Because it really is true,
    as one of our witnesses will say today, that ``it could just as easily
    be any one of us.''
        There should be no doubt that the huge increase in the number of
    political prisoners in Hong Kong is an indicator of the politicization
    of the judiciary and its resulting loss of independence. The effective
    exercise of human rights depends on the existence of means to protect
    and defend those rights. An impartial and independent judiciary is one
    of the most important of those means. When the actions of prosecutors
    and judges are based on ideology, when they interpret the law to favor
    a political position at the expense of protecting universal rights,
    they are acting to undermine rule of law and human rights, and they
    should be sanctioned. I take this opportunity to again endorse the
    witnesses' position that U.S. sanctions authorities should be fully
    enforced against Hong Kong prosecutors and judges implementing the
    National Security Law.
        We in Congress and on this Commission will continue to call out the
    use of the National Security Law to criminalize the exercise of rights,
    and we will continue to champion the cases of political prisoners in
    Hong Kong.
        But there is more we can do: we must pass legislation to offer
    humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers as soon as possible. I welcomed
    President Biden's decision in February to extend the Deferred Enforced
    Departure order for another 24 months as a first step. But more lasting
    solutions are needed. We tried to get this done in the 117th Congress
    but fell short. We must succeed during this Congress.
        We should also increase our engagement and improve coordination
    with the government of the United Kingdom--joint advocacy on cases may
    be more effective than going it alone.
        Finally, my message to U.S. businesses in Hong Kong is simple:
    neither the HKSAR nor the PRC can be counted on to operate in
    accordance with the rule of law, as the gutting of the commitments made
    in the Basic Law makes clear. The more than 1,400 political prisoners
    in Hong Kong are living, breathing evidence of this. You ignore this
    reality at your own risk. If you doubt me, ask for a meeting with Jimmy
    Lai.
        Thank you.

                           Submissions for the Record

                                    ------

                   Submission of Mark L. Clifford, President,
                 Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation

        Thank you for inviting me to share my perspective on the many
    political prisoners in Hong Kong. It is a subject close to my heart and
    my experience. Sadly, in the new Hong Kong, a simple ``thank you'' for
    your interest could be construed as ``collusion'' with a foreign power
    and put the speaker at risk of being charged under Hong Kong's National
    Security Law.
        Freedom of the press is no longer guaranteed in Hong Kong. The
    clampdown on media freedom, and specifically the destruction of the
    pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, show in microcosm how civil and
    political rights have been dismantled.
        I was proud to be part of Apple Daily, the flagship publication of
    the Next Digital media group and a leading voice for democracy in Hong
    Kong with some 1,000 employees in Hong Kong and Taiwan. After a
    decades-long career in Hong Kong, holding a variety of senior positions
    in journalism, I served as an independent non-
    executive director of Next Digital Ltd., Apple Daily's owner, from May
    2018 until September 2021.
        The end of press freedom in Hong Kong came in June 2021, when more
    than 500 armed police marched into the Apple Daily newsroom, jailing
    senior journalists. The company's founder and controlling shareholder,
    Jimmy Lai, had already been jailed on manufactured charges since
    December 2020. Subsequent government actions made it impossible for the
    company to pay its bills, including the salaries for our journalists.
        Jimmy Lai has been in jail since December 31, 2020. He is kept in
    solitary confinement and is ritually manacled for his court
    appearances: disgraceful treatment for a 75-year-old man who has always
    preached non-violence and whose only ``crime'' has been the thousands
    of articles he has written in defense of freedom and democracy. He
    bears his imprisonment with grace and dignity, having accepted that it
    is his fate to be held captive for his beliefs.
        As of May 2023, Hong Kong holds more than 1,400 political
    prisoners, including high-profile individuals who were active in the
    pro-democracy movement. In addition to Lai, they include Joshua Wong,
    Lee Cheuk-yan, and Gwyneth Ho. Securing the release of these and other
    political prisoners should be a top priority for both the Biden
    administration and for Congress.
        My former Apple Daily colleagues also deserve support and advocacy.
    They have been imprisoned for nearly two years. Why am I not there with
    them? I just happened to be in the U.S. visiting family when the
    arrests were made. All the directors who were in Hong Kong at the time
    were arrested. I have never been able to return to Hong Kong, my home
    for 28 years.
        Every political prisoner is an affront to decency and justice, but
    when journalists are taken away, it destroys people's ability to
    monitor the operations of their government.
        Lai, if he is convicted, faces life in prison. The other six
    journalists from Apple Daily have, under duress, expressed a
    willingness to plead guilty. But they are still being held hostage,
    presumably so they can be pressured to testify against their former
    boss, too, when his trial is held. Those six include Cheung Kim Hung,
    the former chief executive officer; editor in chief Ryan Law; Lam Man-
    chung, executive editor; Chan Pui-man, associate publisher and news
    editor; Yeung Chin-kee, editorial writer; and Fung Wai-kong, the Apple
    Daily managing editor and also an editorial writer. He had quit the
    paper but was arrested at the airport while trying to fly to London in
    June 2021.
        All of the Apple Daily journalists face life in prison on charges
    including ``conspiracy to commit collusion with a foreign country or
    with external elements'' and ``conspiracy to publish a seditious
    publication.'' These charges are obviously bogus. They were just doing
    journalism.
        Imagine if the publisher of the Washington Post and six of the
    newspaper's top journalists were jailed merely for publishing the news.
    It's the same situation.
        The arrest of journalists in Hong Kong is particularly shocking
    because the city was long a beacon for freedom. China promised in an
    international treaty (the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration) and the
    city's mini-constitution (the Basic Law) to keep Hong Kong's
    longstanding liberties intact. The city's destruction at the hands of
    the Communist Party in China should be a warning to people everywhere
    that freedom is fragile and at risk.
        I would like to suggest that the members of this Commission
    consider the following recommendations to more effectively advocate for
    the release of political prisoners in Hong Kong:

        1.  Develop a mechanism between Congress and the executive branch
    to press for the release of all political prisoners in Hong Kong.
    Congress should mandate a report from the Department of State outlining
    its actions to promote the release of political prisoners in Hong Kong.
    In addition, Congress should hold regular meetings with executive
    branch staff who can provide updates on political prisoners' well-
    being, the steps being taken to secure their release, and plans for
    future advocacy.

        2.  Encourage Members of Congress to ``adopt'' Hong Kong political
    prisoners. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
    (USCIRF), in conjunction with Amnesty International and the Tom Lantos
    Human Rights Commission, operates the ``Defending Freedoms Project,''
    which helps draw attention to human rights abuses around the world. The
    project encourages Members of Congress to advocate on behalf of
    prisoners of conscience by providing them with information about
    prisoners and their families and practical ideas for raising awareness
    in Congress, at the State Department, and with foreign governments.
    Currently there are no adopted prisoners from Hong Kong. The CECC and
    the project's organizers should encourage an increased focus on the
    more than 1,400 political prisoners being held in Hong Kong.

        3.  Strengthen and streamline the Defending Freedoms Project to
    improve outcomes in political prisoner advocacy. The Tom Lantos Human
    Rights Commission should consider recommending that congressional
    offices submit an annual report detailing the steps they took to
    support the political prisoners they adopted. They should also be
    routinely providing Members' offices with a list of political prisoners
    who are eligible for adoption. The Commission can also broaden their
    outreach by improving resources to constituents with family members or
    friends who may be eligible for adoption on how to craft effective
    applications to Members.
                                     ______

     Submission of Frances Hui, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Committee
       for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation; Founder and Director, We The
                                  Hongkongers

        Chairman Smith, Chairman Merkley, and Members of the Congressional-
    Executive Commission on China, I would like to express my sincere
    gratitude for the opportunity to provide testimony to the Commission. I
    am deeply honored to share the stories of those I know personally who
    are currently imprisoned for standing up for their basic freedoms in
    Hong Kong. Their dedication and courage in the face of adversity
    inspires me and many others to continue advocating for justice and
    democracy in Hong Kong.
        I became an activist when I was 14 years old. I joined Scholarism,
    a student organization led by middle and high school students,
    including Joshua Wong, to protest the government's national education
    proposal in 2012 and a Beijing-proposed new election method that
    sparked the Umbrella Movement in 2014. Throughout my time fighting for
    democracy in Hong Kong, I have met many like-minded, intelligent, and
    kind people whom I call friends. After the fall of our city to the
    Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) authoritarian rule, we provided support
    for one another and became important leading voices of Hong Kong's pro-
    democracy movement. But now, many of these friends are either behind
    bars or living in fear because they continue to be monitored and
    harassed by Hong Kong authorities.
        In 2020, we campaigned together for pro-democracy activists at the
    democratic primaries. I left Hong Kong soon after the election, as I
    had serious concerns for my safety under the newly implemented National
    Security Law (NSL). At that time, I was confident that the movement for
    freedom and justice would continue to thrive in Hong Kong. But who
    would have thought that all of those candidates from the democratic
    primaries would now be in prison and facing the possibility of life
    behind bars? Who would have thought that media outlets would be forced
    to shut down and journalists would be accused of publishing seditious
    materials? Who would have thought that civil society would be crushed
    and that so many people would have to flee Hong Kong, the city we have
    always called home.
        It's been two years since the Hong Kong 47 were charged under the
    NSL. I secured asylum in the United States in 2021. The words
    ``political prisoners'' and ``political asylee'' are two labels that I
    never imagined would apply to me or my friends, but today that is the
    reality.
        We cannot accept the status quo. We cannot condemn the CCP's many
    human rights abuses without rejecting what the CCP is forcing Hong
    Kongers to endure. Securing the release of political prisoners in Hong
    Kong and alleviating their suffering should be a priority for the U.S.
    and the international community. As outlined in the recommendations
    appended to this written testimony, the U.S. has few apparatuses to
    advocate for the release of political prisoners. It's important to
    encourage Members of Congress and the Administration to speak the names
    of prisoners like Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong loudly and often in an
    effort to raise their public profiles and put pressure on the CCP to
    release them.
        In addition to advocating for prisoners' release, it is important
    to remember that civil and political liberties need protection and
    monitoring for those still living in Hong Kong. These include press
    freedom, internet freedom, and religious freedom. While a limited
    degree of freedom is still available in these areas, the vaguely
    written NSL has sent a chilling effect throughout society, encouraging
    self-censorship and further limiting the space for people to exercise
    their rights. Without a concerted effort to safeguard and preserve
    these small, free spaces, the condition of Hong Kong is likely to
    worsen. Additional vigilance is necessary from the international
    community. And the U.S. should closely monitor conditions in Hong Kong
    and continue to support those who remain there.
        While many who feared persecution fled Hong Kong shortly after the
    implementation of the NSL, many others do not qualify for immigration
    programs introduced by other countries. They are in need of safe havens
    because they can be arrested at any time and become political
    prisoners. Additionally, many current political prisoners will complete
    their sentences, but they will likely be closely monitored by Hong Kong
    authorities and potentially face more persecution. It is also possible
    that we will see another large-scale crackdown on civil liberties in
    Hong Kong in the future. The U.S. should be prepared to provide
    humanitarian pathways for Hong Kongers under threat. As it stands, the
    routes for Hong Kongers to be resettled in the U.S. are limited and
    largely temporary. It is, therefore, timely for both the U.S.
    Administration and Congress to provide immediate and long-term relief
    to rectify these challenges by using the U.S. Refugee Admissions
    Program (USRAP), specifically the Priority-2 (P-2) refugee status.
        In addition to the recommendations provided in the statement by the
    CFHK Foundation's President Mark Clifford, I would like to offer some
    additional recommendations to address the pressing issues that I have
    raised above.

          1.  Press for the release of all political prisoners, including
    religious prisoners of conscience. There are hundreds of Hong Kong
    political prisoners that could be adopted by Members of Congress or
    Commissioners at the U.S. Commission on International Religious
    Freedom. These include high-profile individuals, like Jimmy Lai, Joshua
    Wong, and others.

          2.  Strengthen the CECC's Political Prisoner Database as a
    resource for Members to adopt Hong Kong political prisoners. The
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China runs a Political Prisoner
    Database which has identified at least 50 political prisoners currently
    held in Hong Kong. The database is a valuable resource for Members of
    Congress and civil society to identify both the scope and scale of the
    political prisoner crisis in Hong Kong, and also helps in identifying
    potential prisoners that could be adopted and advocated for by Members.
    The Commission can work with civil society organizations to identify
    more political prisoners in Hong Kong that have yet to be included in
    the database. In addition, the Commission should also consider working
    in tandem with the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission to nominate
    individuals in the database to the Defending Freedoms Project for
    Members of Congress to adopt their cases.

          3.  Broaden multilateral cooperation among allies on Hong Kong.
    Allies and partners should coordinate sanctions efforts, refugee
    relief, and political prisoner advocacy to achieve a stronger and more
    comprehensive response to the challenges facing Hong Kong. The U.S. and
    the U.K. share common foreign policy priorities, making it advantageous
    for them to work together in securing the release of several British
    National Overseas citizens (BNOs) currently imprisoned in Hong Kong,
    identifying sanctions targets where the U.S. already has access to the
    necessary financial information, and drawing lessons from the U.K.'s
    early resettlement of Hong Kongers. Other allies, including EU member
    states, Japan, and Australia, could also play a crucial role in
    supporting U.S. efforts to hold the CCP and Hong Kong authorities
    accountable.

          4.  Issue grants to support organizations that promote
    information access in Hong Kong. Programs that apply new and emerging
    technology and make use of older forms of technology (like radio news
    programming) serve valuable purposes for Hong Kongers who seek
    information about the government and international events. Grant-making
    authority ought to flow from a larger U.S. government initiative to
    support information access in Hong Kong.

          5.  Convene a dialogue between the U.S. government and tech
    companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others to discuss best
    practices for maintaining a free and open internet in Hong Kong. The
    government can lead a working group to better coordinate efforts to
    stand against actions from the CCP and Hong Kong authorities that
    threaten the safety and security of Hong Kongers. Doing so would
    encourage U.S. tech firms to resist demands from the CCP that violate
    users' rights, and it would allow better insight into the scope and
    scale of the CCP's privacy infringements.

          6.  Discourage the Vatican from expanding its 2018 deal with
    Beijing. The U.S. should oppose any expansion of the Sino-Vatican deal
    in the strongest terms and continue diplomatic discussions with the
    Vatican to urge the repeal of the 2018 deal, which has already been
    renewed twice.

          7.  Press for the release of all political prisoners, including
    religious prisoners of conscience. There are hundreds of Hong Kong
    political prisoners that could be adopted by Members of Congress or
    Commissioners at the U.S. Commission on International Religious
    Freedom. These include high-profile individuals like Jimmy Lai, Joshua
    Wong, and others.

          8.  Monitor deterioration in religious freedom in Hong Kong. The
    U.S. should monitor the state of religious persecution in Hong Kong,
    including the plight of 90-year-old Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen,
    who filed an appeal to his conviction last year for failing to register
    a relief fund with the local authorities during the 2019 protests. The
    U.S. should also assist in establishing safe and secure channels to
    communicate with the underground church in the PRC and religious
    societies in Hong Kong.

          9.  Partner with other persecuted groups in China to advance U.S.
    policy toward China. The development of more regularized and systematic
    mechanisms can help facilitate coordination with and between affected
    communities, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, and other persons
    of faith.

        10.  Grant Priority-2 (P-2) refugee status to Hong Kongers and
    other persecuted minorities in China. This can be accomplished by
    Congress or the Administration and has already been demonstrated by the
    extension of P-2 status to Afghans following the U.S. withdrawal from
    Afghanistan. The Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act, among other legislative
    efforts in Congress, aims to do the same for Hong Kongers. Doing so
    would provide Hong Kongers with an expedited means of resettlement and
    the opportunity to seek permanent refuge within U.S. borders that
    rightly recognizes the permanence of the changes in the city-state.

        Once again, thank you for providing me with a platform to share my
    perspective and to share with you the voices of my friends who continue
    to stand for freedom behind bars. I hope that this hearing will serve
    as a vital step toward promoting support for political prisoners and
    the persecuted people of Hong Kong. It's my wish that the international
    community does not forget the suffering of the people of Hong Kong, who
    have stood on the front line in defending the freedom of the world, and
    will tirelessly explore ways to support them.
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                                     ______

                     Submission of Reverend Robert Sirico,
                      President Emeritus, Acton Institute

        Chairman Smith, Chairman Merkley, and members of the Joint House
    and Senate Commission on China, I appreciate the opportunity to address
    the urgent topic of human rights in Hong Kong and in particular the
    situation of my friend Jimmy Lai Chee-ying.
        I have known Mr. Lai for the past 25 years in personal, pastoral,
    and professional capacities. In my judgment, he is a man of high
    principles and spirituality and a highly skilled entrepreneur, as his
    success in business attests. I know his family as well and have
    traveled with them on vacation and dined in their homes on numerous
    occasions. Mr. Lai sees his business and social commitments as
    extensions of his faith life, and even now, while in prison and
    awaiting trial for what could be a severe sentence, he maintains his
    Christian hope that freedom may one day come to his homeland through
    his free and voluntary witness. What is being done to this man and
    people like him both in Hong Kong and on the mainland of China is
    morally deplorable and requires a bold and nonpartisan response from
    all leaders concerned with freedom of the press, freedom of assembly,
    freedom of enterprise, and freedom of religion.
        Hong Kong has long epitomized the essence of the human spirit. It
    has been creative, alive, energetic, and free. This spirit, coupled
    with decades of freedom under British colonial rule, has provided
    economic prosperity and served as a beacon of hope for Chinese
    suffering under an oppressive communist regime. Thousands of mainland
    Chinese have fled the Maoist regime to Hong Kong--among them Jimmy Lai,
    who escaped to Hong Kong as a stowaway at age 12. Beginning a new life
    as a simple textile laborer in Hong Kong, he eventually built a
    phenomenally successful clothing retail business. His first clash with
    the Chinese Communist Party came after the Tiananmen Square Massacre,
    when Jimmy's public criticism of CCP leadership resulted in the threat
    of closing his shops in China. CCP pressure eventually forced Jimmy to
    sell his clothing business entirely. Undeterred, Jimmy harnessed his
    entrepreneurial talent to build Hong Kong's most successful newspaper
    in its history: the pro-democracy Apple Daily. As custodian of freedom
    of speech and freedom of the press, Apple Daily gave voice to Hong
    Kong's democratic advocates following its 1997 transition from British
    colonial rule to China's control.
        At the handover, there were reasons for hope. Jimmy's native China
    was in the midst of an enormously successful economic liberalization:
    it permitted local family businesses, was open to global trade, and
    promoted advanced education for its citizens. Those internal economic
    reforms and integration into the global marketplace lifted hundreds of
    millions of Chinese citizens out of poverty. This demonstrated that
    what had happened in Hong Kong could also happen in the Motherland. Yet
    a palpable shift has occurred under the leadership of Chinese president
    Xi Jinping. This shift has seen the suppression of Hong Kongers'
    democratic aspirations and the evisceration of the rule of law. The
    Beijing-imposed National Security Law, and its proscription of an
    undefined ``sedition,'' undermined Hong Kong's Basic Law and made it
    impossible for Jimmy to operate a free press. The National Security Law
    even threatens freedom globally, as its claims to extraterritorial
    jurisdiction prevents advocates of authentic Hong Kong democracy like
    me from ever returning to Hong Kong without risking arrest. Hong Kong
    was supposed to retain its ``One Country, Two Systems'' status until
    2047, but Beijing's grip is coming at an enormous human cost, not the
    least of which is the imprisonment of Hong Kong's advocates for
    democracy and freedom.
        Jimmy's life is a song of freedom and faith. Although Jimmy became
    a fabulously successful entrepreneur through sheer inspiration and
    grit, business success is not what drives this man. Rather, it is his
    capacity for love and sacrifice. Although he could have fled Hong Kong
    long ago, he chose to stay to give voice to the rightful aspirations
    and hopes of his fellow Hong Kongers. Jimmy is willing to make this
    sacrifice because, as he explains, he owes freedom his life. However,
    it is also a sacrifice that neither he, nor any other human being,
    should have to make.
        All of this prompted me to produce the film The Hong Konger: Jimmy
    Lai's Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom (available at
    www.freejimmylai.com) in order to spread Jimmy's story around the
    globe, because Jimmy's story is in many ways the human story. The Acton
    Institute publicly released this documentary on April 18.
    Unfortunately, Acton's efforts to promote the film on TikTok have not
    proceeded unperturbed. First, TikTok removed a video clip from our
    account on April 21 for containing ``violent and graphic content'' of
    Hong Kong police beating and teargassing protesters in Hong Kong in
    2019. TikTok subsequently restored that content. Then around noon
    eastern time on Tuesday, May 2, Acton's TikTok account was suspended.
    Acton received no explanation for the suspension. We were unable to log
    in to the account and thus could not submit any kind of an appeal of
    our suspension. We submitted requests for an explanation and account
    restoration via TikTok's online feedback form. After multiple media
    reported the suspension, TikTok restored our account around 8:45 p.m.
    eastern time on May 3. However, two videos on the account were removed
    for violating TikTok's ``community guidelines,'' without any
    information on how the videos violated those guidelines. TikTok
    subsequently restored that content. Then on May 5, a TikTok
    representative spoke to Acton's director of marketing and
    communications to explain that the account was suspended in error due
    to automated systems, which detected unusual activity on the account.
    It is ironic that content promoting The Hong Konger on TikTok would
    generate account disruptions and a temporary suspension, particularly
    when TikTok insists it does not cater to the Chinese Communist Party in
    adjudication of content. The Acton Institute will continue to promote
    The Hong Konger because Jimmy's voice must be heard. He is a symbol of
    the very human quest for freedom. Jimmy is a modern-day Aleksandr
    Solzhenitsyn and Nelson Mandela.
        I am deeply grateful to Representative Smith and to Senator
    Merkley, the chair and co-chair of this commission, as well as to its
    former chairs, Representative James McGovern and Senator Marco Rubio,
    for nominating Jimmy Lai and five fellow Hong Kongers for the Nobel
    Peace Prize. Jimmy and his colleagues are supremely worthy of such
    recognition. But even more important is that Jimmy and all Hong
    Kongers, indeed all Chinese, have a right to be free. Thank you for the
    opportunity to submit this testimony.
                                     ______

                  Submission of Sunny Cheung, Visiting Fellow,
      National Sun Yat-sen University; Non-resident Fellow, Pacific Forum

                                  Introduction

        Thank you, Chairman Smith, Co-chairman Merkley, and distinguished
    members. It is an honor for me to submit my testimony to this
    committee. I want to start by thanking this committee. In the first
    several months of the 118th Congress, the CECC timely shedding light on
    the political prisoners and erosion of rule of law in Hong Kong helps
    send a powerful signal to this administration and the world.
        I am also grateful for Congress's previous bipartisan passing of
    the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Hong Kong Autonomy Act,
    and PROTECT Hong Kong Act. Many of these great bills could not be
    ratified without help from this commission, a commission that has shown
    unyielding support for Hongkongers for over two decades since its first
    establishment.
        Two years ago, once I fled Hong Kong and came to the U.S., I was
    invited to testify before this commission to address the daunting human
    rights situation in Hong Kong and offer policy recommendations for
    Congress and the executive branch to establish humanitarian pathways
    for Hongkongers.
        Today, unfortunately, Congress and the administration can still
    barely remove the hurdle and respond to the political crackdown in Hong
    Kong effectively. Despite the efforts made by President Biden in
    announcing and prolonging the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for
    Hongkongers, people who are in need can hardly find ways to stay in
    this country with permanent status. Given this, it creates a
    significant gap between the U.S. commitment to deter Chinese
    authoritarianism and its ability to assist victims of political
    persecution under the Chinese Communist Party. This gap highlights the
    urgent need for more proactive and effective measures to address the
    issue.
        Worse still, the situation in Hong Kong continues to deteriorate,
    further widening the gap. The most significant National Security Law
    case, involving 47 individuals, is now being tried. As a nominee in the
    2020 pro-democracy camp primaries, I was fortunate enough to avoid the
    crackdown. However, all of my politically active friends have been
    imprisoned and charged with state subversion due to their involvement
    in the primaries and commitment to fighting for democracy within the
    legislature. The case of the 47 exposes the harsh reality that the
    overwhelming majority of political opposition is being eliminated.
    High-profile political prisoners like them are likely to face
    retribution from the regime if they persist in voicing their concerns
    to the outside world. Rights violations within the prison system can be
    invasive, designed to weaken and wear down one's resolve and
    determination. Isolating prisoners in individual cells, limiting their
    freedom, seizing their daily necessities, denying them legal rights,
    and preventing them from visiting critically ill family members--these
    incidents only represent a fraction of what is currently happening in
    Hong Kong. The challenges faced by lesser-known activists can only be
    imagined if such prominent political prisoners face such difficulties.
        Despite the conditions in prison, an even greater issue is that
    political prisoners rarely find themselves in a fair or favorable
    courtroom environment. In the case of the 47, dozens of political
    leaders, many of whom are professionals, have been detained for two
    years without solid evidence from the prosecution. Last year, the
    United Nations issued a report sharply condemning the bail conditions
    under the National Security Law, which fundamentally altered the
    ``presumption of bail'' principle. Presently, under the National
    Security Law, defendants are ``presumed not to be bailable,'' and
    granting bail is a rare exception. It is worth noting that when the
    trial finally begins, prosecutors often maintain that they are still
    gathering evidence, deciding on legal principles and precedents to use,
    and refuse to disclose critical information about the basis for the
    charges, creating an extremely unfair situation for the defendants.
    Politically appointed National Security Law judges tend to interfere,
    if not assume the role of the prosecutor, by questioning defendants and
    presuming their guilt. This has become the ``new normal'' in the
    judicial sphere under the National Security Law.
        In summary, the treatment of prisoners is deteriorating, with
    constant surveillance, silencing, and intimidation even behind bars.
    Furthermore, the burden of proof has been reversed; instead of
    requiring the prosecution to present a solid case, judges often assert
    that defendants have failed to prove their innocence.

                            Taiwan as a Safe Harbor

        In 2020, in response to the changes brought about by the Chinese
    Communist Party's imposition of the National Security Law, the ``Hong
    Kong Humanitarian Assistance and Care Action Plan'' was planned under
    the instructions of President Tsai Ing-wen. The ``Taiwan-Hong Kong
    Service Exchange Office'' was also established under the Mainland
    Affairs Council to handle Hong Kong people's humanitarian assistance
    and care matters based on its existing legal norms and public-private
    cooperation while ensuring national security. While there is no
    official number of Hong Kong protesters who go for this route, groups
    in Taiwanese civil society estimate the number reached over a thousand
    within the past two years.
        Regrettably, Taiwan currently lacks a refugee law, which means that
    the administration and the Mainland Affairs Council lack experience in
    dealing with a large volume of asylum applications. Additionally, due
    to concerns about infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party in Hong
    Kong, there is no established mechanism for thoroughly and
    systematically vetting applicants.
        Furthermore, recent statistics from Taiwan's Ministry of the
    Interior indicate a record-breaking increase in the number of Hong Kong
    individuals granted residence and permanent resident permits. As the
    number of applications continues to rise, the Taiwan administration
    must find ways to expedite the processing of applications and
    effectively screen applicants. Currently, the administration relies
    heavily on public-private collaboration to verify the identity and
    information of applicants, with each application handled on a case-by-
    case basis. The administration first seeks consultation from trusted
    partners, such as Hong Kong dissidents or Taiwanese individuals
    familiar with Hong Kong, to confirm an applicant's identity and
    involvement in the movement. If an applicant's identity or
    participation cannot be confirmed by anyone, the authority is likely to
    deny the application. While outsourcing the screening duty to trusted
    partners may help to alleviate the burden on the authority, it also
    poses the risk of compromising the screening system if these civil
    partners lack comprehensive knowledge of the screening process.
    Therefore, it is essential to increase the manpower and seek assistance
    from external sources to ensure that the screening process is carried
    out effectively and efficiently.
        I have come to know that many young asylum seekers are eager to
    join the military as soon as their asylum applications are approved.
    One of them told me that, after Hong Kong has fallen, Taiwan will be
    the next target. He wants to serve in the military and defend Taiwan
    from intimidation and authoritarian expansion. Hence, I believe that
    aiding more Hongkongers to settle down in Taiwan can be advantageous to
    Taiwan's national interests and security, and meet tomorrow's needs.

                             U.S. as a Safe Harbor

        As mentioned earlier, there is a discrepancy between the U.S.
    commitment to defending democracy and its actual policy implementation
    to assist freedom fighters. This gap manifests in two primary ways,
    exposing the inadequacy and inconsistency of the administration's
    strategies.
        In recent years, this Commission and numerous other federal
    agencies have become aware of the threat posed by transnational
    repression and its impact on intimidating dissidents on American soil.
    In the past, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) apprehended
    several CCP spies suspected of harassing and assaulting Chinese and
    Hongkonger dissidents. For instance, I was one of those who assisted by
    providing information to the FBI director's office based on my
    experiences. The FBI also established a website and hotline to gather
    information to combat this growing threat. Since the government
    recognizes that transnational repression by the CCP is pervasive, it
    should develop policies to assist dissidents in danger consistently.
    More importantly, it would be logical to create a mechanism that
    facilitates cross-agency cooperation for helping people in need. Once
    refugees are confirmed by law enforcement as victims of transnational
    repression on American soil, the USCIS should have no reason to further
    delay their asylum applications. Nonetheless, such collaboration is
    currently missing. People who are in most imminent danger are not the
    ones being recognized and expedited in the system.
        Moreover, the administration has shown excessive neutrality in
    facilitating the acceleration of asylum applications for people.
    Political refugees are aware that the State Department and other
    agencies have consistently upheld the policy and narrative of not
    interfering with USCIS operations. Indeed, there are compelling reasons
    for supporting this practice. However, I would argue that a more
    collaborative approach between agencies is necessary.
        For years, the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong, the State Department's
    Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the Bureau of Democracy,
    Human Rights and Labor Affairs have been gathering information and
    intelligence. Their extensive experience stems from their interactions
    with individuals and organizations in Hong Kong. It would be reasonable
    for them to communicate with USCIS and recommend an expedition for
    groups and individuals with whom they are familiar. Of note, it is not
    proposed that other agencies can override the interview process or
    directly approve applications; such authority should remain within the
    purview of USCIS. However, these agencies could potentially assist
    political refugees in securing an opportunity to meet with an asylum
    officer as soon as possible. This is particularly relevant considering
    that many Hong Kong refugees are stuck waiting for years to meet an
    asylum officer at a USCIS asylum office or field office.

                     Conclusion and Policy Recommendations

        After years of waiting, a brutal fact is that the imperfect U.S.
    refugee policy for Hongkongers has aided the Chinese Communist Party's
    cognitive operations. Since the historic 2019 Anti-extradition Bill
    Movement, Beijing has aimed to sway Hong Kong and even Taiwanese
    citizens through the United Front Bureau and official media channels.
    The objective is to incite conflict among protesters and undermine
    public confidence in the U.S. as a dependable ally and global power.
    For instance, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Chinese
    counterparts have criticized the moral authority, political
    determination, and capability of the U.S. In Hong Kong's context,
    Beijing has asserted that Hong Kong protesters were forsaken by the
    U.S. after initially receiving support in 2019, insinuating that the
    U.S. is an unreliable global player.
        It is essential to recognize that the existing refugee policy and
    USCIS issues also contribute to other complexities, and the
    difficulties are faced not just by Hongkongers but many others.
        However, the longer these democracy-seeking protesters experience
    mismanagement and mistreatment within the system, the easier it is for
    Beijing to disseminate propaganda and misinformation. From Beijing's
    viewpoint, the U.S. commitment to aiding freedom fighters is nothing
    more than an empty gesture, with the U.S. often retracting support
    after urging individuals to make sacrifices for democracy and human
    rights. This narrative has gained traction in Hong Kong, and even
    Taiwan.
        Apart from that, the policy itself also fails to respond to the
    deteriorating human rights situation in Hong Kong. Therefore, stronger
    coordination among agencies in the administration should be embraced,
    and a transnational effort led by the U.S. is very much necessary.

        Policy recommendations are as follows:

        1. Congress can pass legislation to ease entry into the U.S. for
    Hongkongers who are targeted for their involvement in activism and the
    pro-democratic movement. Bills intended precisely for this purpose
    already exist in the form of the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act and the Hong
    Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act.
        2. The administration can consult with the FBI and other relevant
    law enforcement agencies to help victims of transnational repression
    expedite their asylum applications.
        3. The administration can establish a mechanism which State
    Department and other relevant agencies can recommend to individuals to
    secure an interview opportunity with the USCIS as soon as possible.
        4. The administration has the opportunity to collaborate with the
    Taiwanese government and the American Institute in Taiwan to provide
    humanitarian aid, such as addressing visa issues and providing material
    and emotional support to relocate political refugees and assist them in
    settling down.
        5. The administration can consider instructing the intelligence
    community to provide additional assistance in assessing the backgrounds
    of asylum applicants. This information could be shared and used to
    assist the USCIS, or broadly, the Department of Homeland Security, in
    expediting certain cases. If the Taiwanese government requires U.S.
    assistance in screening the backgrounds of Hongkongers, this model
    could also be applied in Taiwan.
        6. The administration can actively work with NGOs, charities,
    religious groups, the private sector, etc. in the civil society to help
    Hong Kong asylum seekers accommodate their needs and resettle in the
    U.S., such as providing language courses and job opportunities. It is
    essential to expand community involvement in assisting political
    refugees through public-private collaboration to alleviate the
    administrative burden. The sooner they settle in, the sooner they can
    give back to the U.S.
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                                   INTENTIONALLY BLANK

                              Witness Biographies

        Sebastien Lai, son of political prisoner Jimmy Lai

        Sebastien Lai is Jimmy Lai's son. Sebastien is leading the
    international #FreeJimmyLai campaign to secure his father's release.
    Jimmy Lai is a renowned media entrepreneur, writer, and pro-democracy
    campaigner, who founded Next Digital and Apple Daily, the popular
    independent Chinese language newspaper in Hong Kong which was forcibly
    shut down by the Hong Kong authorities in 2021. Jimmy Lai has been
    imprisoned in Hong Kong since December 2020 and now awaits trial in
    September 2023 which could lead to him spending the rest of his life
    behind bars.
        In December 2021 Sebastien accepted the 2021 WAN-IFRA Golden Pen of
    Freedom award on behalf of his father and the newsroom staff of Apple
    Daily Hong Kong. On receiving the award he said there will be ``less
    and less people shining light in these dark corners'' given Apple
    Daily's shutdown and the ongoing crackdown on journalism in the region.

        Brian Kern, writer, researcher, and activist

        Brian Kern is a citizen of the United States and a Hong Kong
    permanent resident. He has been involved in the Hong Kong pro-democracy
    movement for fifteen years, working with many different groups, and has
    written three books about its history over the past decade: one about
    the Umbrella Movement, one about the period from 2014 to 2018, and the
    most recent about the 2019-2020 protests. He and his family left Hong
    Kong in 2020 and moved to the United States. He now works with various
    Hong Kong pro-democracy groups in the diaspora. He documented the 2019-
    2020 protests in extensive detail and has monitored politically
    motivated arrests, prosecutions, and imprisonments in Hong Kong since
    summer 2019. He was the lead researcher on Hong Kong Democracy
    Council's June 2022 report on political prisoners in Hong Kong.

        Kevin Yam, Senior Fellow, Center for Asian Law, Georgetown
    University

        Kevin is currently a Senior Fellow with the Georgetown University
    Center for Asian Law. He was born in Hong Kong, raised in Australia,
    and spent nearly two decades working in Hong Kong. Before his return to
    Australia in 2022, he was a lawyer with international firms and worked
    on white collar crimes, financial regulatory investigations, and
    commercial litigation. Outside of work, Kevin was a rule-of-law and
    democracy activist, serving variously as a member of the Hong Kong Law
    Society's Constitutional Affairs and Human Rights Committee, and as a
    founding co-convenor of the now defunct Hong Kong Progressive Lawyers
    Group.
        Since returning to Australia, he has resumed his Hong Kong advocacy
    efforts, meeting with various members of the Australian parliament and
    the current Australian Foreign Minister. He is a regular interviewee
    with Australian and international media outlets on Hong Kong and China
    issues, which included commenting on ongoing political prosecutions in
    Hong Kong, and over the years has published commentaries with outlets
    such as The Economist, Quartz, The Australian, ABC Australia, Crikey,
    Apple Daily, and Stand News.

        Anna Kwok, Executive Director, Hong Kong Democracy Council

        Anna Kwok is the Executive Director of Hong Kong Democracy Council
    (HKDC), a leading Hong Konger advocacy organization in Washington, DC.
    Under Kwok's leadership, HKDC reimagines a holistic organizing
    approach, with the combination of policy advocacy, research
    initiatives, and diaspora empowerment, to advance Hong Kongers' fight
    for freedom. The organization is now actively monitoring and
    documenting the rise in the number of political prisoners, as well as
    the Hong Kong government's attempts to influence American businesses
    and foreign policy.
        During Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy movement, Kwok was an
    activist behind major international campaigns. They include the global
    call for country leaders to ``Stand With Hong Kong'' at the G20 Summit.
    Anonymously organizing netizens, she also broadcast real-time police
    locations to Hong Kongers, in order to assist their on-the-ground
    protests. Kwok's story epitomizes the grassroots forces of global Hong
    Kongers in the decentralized movement.
        In 2022, two years after the enactment of the National Security
    Law, Kwok decided to publicize her identity and personal story online.
    Her action affirms Hong Kongers' determination to fight for freedom and
    democracy.

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