[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                    
          
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              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.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 ______
                                 

                 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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                          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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