[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE PRC'S UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW AND
THE REAL STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
IN CHINA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 1, 2024
__________
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
54-891 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House Senate
CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Chair JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts STEVE DAINES, Montana
BRIAN MAST, Florida MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia TOM COTTON, Arkansas
MICHELLE STEEL, California ANGUS KING, Maine
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
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
ERIN BARCLAY, Department of State
Piero Tozzi, Staff Director
Todd Stein, 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. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon; Co-
chair,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 3
Statement of Hon. Andrea Salinas, a U.S. Representative from
Oregon......................................................... 5
Statement of Hon. Michelle Steel, a U.S. Representative from
California..................................................... 5
Statement of Rana Siu Inboden. senior fellow, Robert Strauss
Center for International Security and Law, University of Texas
at Austin...................................................... 7
Statement of Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chief executive of
Hong Kong Watch................................................ 9
Statement of Sophie Luo, wife of detained Chinese human rights
lawyer Ding Jiaxi.............................................. 11
Statement of Emile Dirks, research associate at The Citizen Lab,
Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.................. 12
Statement of Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director,
Campaign for Uyghurs........................................... 14
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statements
Inboden, Rana Siu................................................ 37
Rogers, Benedict................................................. 44
Dirks, Emile..................................................... 52
Luo, Sophie...................................................... 58
Abbas, Rushan.................................................... 61
Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 63
Merkley, Hon. Jeff............................................... 65
McGovern, Hon. James P........................................... 65
Submissions for the Record
Stakeholder Submission by Campaign for Uyghurs to the Human
Rights Council in Advance of the Fourth Universal Periodic
Review of the People's Republic of China, submitted by Rushan
Abbas.......................................................... 69
Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review--China, 22
January-2 February 2024, Compilation of Information Prepared by
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
submitted by Rushan Abbas, Campaign for Uyghurs, and at the
request of Representative McGovern............................. 77
`` `Sell Out My Soul': The Impending Threats to Freedom of
Religion or Belief in Hong Kong,'' November 7, 2022, Hong Kong
Watch, submitted by Benedict Rogers............................ 91
Statement of the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders....... 127
Statement of Enghebatu Togochog, Director of Southern Mongolian
Human Rights Information Center................................ 133
Statement of the International Campaign for Tibet................ 139
Statement of Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, Transitional Justice Working
Group.......................................................... 147
Statement of Ma Ju, human rights advocate........................ 151
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form.......................... 153
Witness Biographies.............................................. 155
(iii)
THE PRC'S UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW
AND THE REAL STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
IN CHINA
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2024
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was held from 10:18 a.m. to 12:24 p.m., in Room
2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Representative Chris
Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China,
presiding.
Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair, and
Representatives Zinke, Steel, Salinas, and Nunn.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
JERSEY; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chair Smith. This hearing will come to order. And welcome
to everybody. The distinguished Senator Merkley, who's the co-
chair of our Commission--and I will both give opening comments,
and Ms. Salinas might want to give opening remarks as well.
Jennifer Wexton will do it remotely, I believe, and some of the
other members might be coming.
Thank you for being here. We're a little late starting. We
had a vote on the floor and there were some disturbances
outside the building that caused some of us to get there even
later than we wanted to. Today's hearing, ``The PRC's Universal
Periodic Review and the Real State of Human Rights in China,''
will come to order. Last week at the Universal Periodic Review
of the People's Republic of China at the United Nations, the
Chinese Communist Party thought that it could drown out the
truth of its shameful human rights record, enlisting its allies
to offer pampering praise instead of probing questions, while
giving a platform to party-controlled civil society groups over
independent nongovernmental organizations, something that is
covered in a stand-alone special CECC report that was released
just yesterday. I invite you to take a copy and read it. Our
staff did a wonderful job in putting this together. I commend
it to you.
But even Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party, and the
PRC's massive 60-person delegation could not make a lie true.
It is indeed a bald-faced lie that the Chinese Communist Party
respects, honors, or abides by international human rights
norms. The truth is that Xi Jinping intends to rewrite and
reshape these norms to manipulate even international bodies
dedicated to protecting human rights, to serve his agenda. The
truth on stark display at last week's UPR is that Xi Jinping
and the Chinese Communist Party constitute a systemic challenge
to the international rules-based order and reject the very
concept of universal human rights. In its sham submission to
the Universal Periodic Review, the PRC claims that it protects
freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and looks out
for workers' rights, women, and ethnic minorities, all who are
vulnerable. And they assert just the opposite. It's an
Orwellian view of the world, and hopefully people will not
accept it, even the most gullible.
In reality Xi Jinping poses an existential threat to these
and other rights essential for human flourishing. He tells
journalists that they must be so loyal to the Chinese Communist
party that ``party'' becomes their last name. He tells leaders
of religions whose roots in China date back to the middle of
the first millennium that they must sinicize, which means
putting allegiance to the party and to Xi himself before their
faith and their God. He claims that women's equality is a state
policy while the Chinese Communist Party decides how many
children a woman should have. And, of course, the infamous one-
child-per-couple policy has led to massive numbers of sex-
selection abortions directed at girls, and they're missing tens
of millions of girls particularly--because of this policy.
Of course, there's still the terrible reality in Uyghur and
ethnic minority communities, even as restrictions have been
eased on Han women, of blatantly eugenic policies. So they're
using it as a terrible tool--a repressive tool of genocide.
Despite Xi's best efforts, China has not succeeded in
silencing those courageous men and women who insist on telling
the truth about the real state of human rights in China, often
at great cost to themselves; some have paid with their very
lives. Today we will hear from some of those courageous men and
women. Rana Siu Inboden has devoted her distinguished academic
and professional career to exposing the PRC's insidious
attempts to undermine human rights in international
organizations. Ben Rogers has been a passionate and effective
advocate for religious freedom in China and for democracy and
human rights in Hong Kong, for which he has been denied entry
to Hong Kong, threatened with prison, and repeatedly harassed.
I know I read his reports all the time. He is a truth teller
and has made such a difference in making sure everyone who has
ears knows the truth of what they're doing, in Hong Kong
especially.
Emile Dirks has conducted groundbreaking research exposing
China's totalitarian surveillance and censorship regimes,
documenting the PRC's use of dystopian technology to target
ethnic and religious groups for biometric monitoring and data
collection, and scrubbing China's internet to create
alternative realities.
We are particularly honored to have with us today two women
who have taken extraordinary risks for the cause of human
rights, fighting on behalf of their family members who are
imprisoned by the CCP--Rushan Abbas, a powerful advocate for
the Uyghur people, whose sister was abducted by the Chinese
government in retaliation for Rushan's activism, and Sophie
Luo, wife of imprisoned rights defender Ding Jiaxi, who is
herself a dedicated advocate for victims and their families,
all while working by day as an accomplished engineer.
Ms. Luo, it is my privilege to share with you that the CECC
has nominated your husband for the Nobel Peace Prize for his
tremendous service to the dream of a democratic China. We've
also nominated his ally and close collaborator, Xu Zhiyong, and
democracy campaigner and free speech champion Jimmy Lai. I
would remind everyone that we in this Commission had the
privilege and honor of hearing his son Sebastien give very
passionate, strong, and principled testimony on behalf of his
dad and all the others. We're very thankful for that.
Today I am keenly aware of those who are not here, whose
voices can no longer be heard--especially the voice of Cao
Shunli, who died in 2014 at the hands of the Chinese Communist
Party precisely because of her work to amplify the voices of
independent civil society as part of China's Universal Periodic
Review--the very process we're here to talk about. She was
taken into custody on her way to Geneva in 2013, where she was
to participate in a training on human rights for the UPR. The
Chinese Communist Party cruelly objected to even a moment of
silence for her at the U.N. Human Rights Council per the
hearing I held on the Commission after her death. She is
exactly the type of person the Chinese government should
embrace, not jail, discredit, and leave to die.
She is not here, but her voice is not silent. She speaks
along with Liu Xiaobo, who also died in PRC custody and who
wrote from jail--of their hopes for a democratic China. They
made enormous sacrifices to tell the truth about the real state
of human rights in China because they believed in and fought
for a better China. And someday, when China is free and
democratic, these will be the heroes that everybody in a free
China will honor and revere. There are many, but it's just
amazing how many people have sacrificed so much. I urge my
colleagues and all those joining us today to insist that the
United Nations and its member states demand the truth about the
PRC's human rights violations and hold Xi Jinping--a man who's
committing genocide as we meet--and demand the truth about his
record, and to hold them to account.
With that, I'd like to yield to my very good friend and
colleague, co-chair of our Commission, Senator Merkley.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A SENATOR FROM
OREGON; CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for
convening this particular hearing. The topic's appropriate for
our first period in 2024, because it covers a spectrum of human
rights challenges in China. Both this Commission and the
Universal Periodic Review serve as mechanisms to review China's
compliance with international human rights standards, in their
own ways. The review of China, the fourth since the creation of
the UPR process, gives us an opportunity to assess its outcomes
and help us prioritize our work, while it informs the
recommendations we make to Congress and the administration.
Members of the Commission will find the issues raised at
the UPR very familiar. We have documented in our annual reports
and explored in our hearings genocide against Uyghurs, the
decimation of freedom in Hong Kong, colonial boarding schools
of Tibet, and China's pervasive surveillance state, among other
brutal behavior. These are facts--facts this Commission has
reported, facts that member states raised in their UPR
questions, facts submitted by the U.N. and the stakeholder
nongovernmental groups to the review session. The Chinese
government is obligated by international law to address these
matters and put itself in compliance with the law.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how
these issues were discussed in Geneva and recommendations on
next steps in terms of holding the Chinese government
accountable for its numerous violations of law. We also hope to
hear about the methods the Chinese government employs to avoid
facing these facts. As one NGO put it, the Chinese Communist
Party ``gaslights'' the world on its record by self-servingly
redefining concepts and recruiting allies to deflect attention
away from its actual conduct; and that conduct is, in fact,
atrocious.
I commend the attention of commissioners and the public to
our new staff report, which hopefully you all have copies of or
will soon get, on the prevalence of PRC-sympathetic groups at
the UPR, and how they distort the process. My appreciation to
our staff for working so hard to put this excellent piece
together. The UPR remains a valuable platform for the
international community to assess the human rights record of
China and of every country, including our own.
It's far from perfect, and we will hear criticism of the
process and how the PRC manipulates it. But we must also take
care not to let such criticism erode support for the U.N.
system. Its treaty bodies and instruments are the places where
international human rights law is defined. It's where it's
adjudicated. These universal standards are those that this
Commission is mandated to assess the PRC's conduct against. Let
us not undermine that work.
Last, let us remember our most essential role, to help give
voice to those who cannot freely express themselves, who
languish unjustly in jail, who suffer repression. Earlier this
month I joined Senators Rubio, Kaine, and Blackburn on a letter
asking the State Department to raise specific names of
political prisoners at the UPR of China. Chairman Smith and
Commissioner Wexton led a similar letter on the House side, and
thank you so much for doing so. I hope our witnesses will
update us on cases of concern.
I also note that the Chair and I have nominated our
witness's husband, Ms. Luo's husband, as well as Jimmy Lai, Xu
Zhiyong, and Ilham Tohti for the Nobel Peace Prize. And thank
you, Chairman, for mentioning that as well because it's another
way that we seek to shine a light on prisoners of conscience.
Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today, bringing your
expertise to bear--your courageous expertise. I look forward to
your testimony and insight.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Chairman Merkley.
I'd now like to yield to Commissioner Salinas.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANDREA SALINAS,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM OREGON
Representative Salinas. Thank you to our co-chairs,
Representative Smith and Senator Merkley, for holding this
important hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for taking
the time to be with us today. Recently, this Commission looked
at China's human rights violations on the high seas and deep in
the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but this
is an opportunity to align our work with that of the United
Nations to peek behind the curtain and evaluate China's human
rights abuse domestically.
With that, I must also thank Ambassador Michele Taylor, the
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations High Human
Rights Council, for questioning China on their surveillance and
harassment of citizens in the Xinjiang region and Hong Kong, as
well as their mistreatment of Tibetans. In her allotted 45
seconds during the U.N. Universal Periodic Review of China, she
also managed to question China on forced assimilation
activities, forced labor, family separation, and sterilization
in Xinjiang, and their repressive laws against other
marginalized groups in China.
Fortunately for this Commission and our esteemed witnesses
who have taken the time to be with us today, we have more than
45 seconds to evaluate China's human rights record. I look
forward to robust discussion from my colleagues and our
witnesses today. So thank you.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much.
We are joined by Commissioner Michelle Steel, remotely.
She'll be getting on right now, I hope.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHELLE STEEL,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA
Representative Steel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having
this important meeting. I'm so grateful for that. From the
mining of critical minerals to manufacturing, the human rights
abuses happening at the hands of the CCP should horrify every
one of us. We have to let the whole world know. That's what
this Commission has been doing. I'm so grateful to the members
and all the witnesses coming out, with their courage. These
abuses are happening all over the world, including Vietnam. I
have a big Vietnamese constituency, and I've been hearing from
them all the time saying, what's going on with that country?
I'm glad that we're having this meeting to discuss the
continued attempts by the CCP to subvert the U.N. human rights
system. The U.N. has to work harder than ever on this. In 2021,
Congress worked together to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor
Prevention Act. I'm glad this Commission continues to review
implementation and we are working to shine a light on all CCP
human rights abuses.
Thank you to the witnesses for sharing with us your
expertise on further congressional oversight and other changes
needed to improve on this key issue. Thank you very much.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Commissioner Steel.
One of our commissioners couldn't be here today, but she
asked that I read her statement. It's the very distinguished
Member of Congress, Jennifer Wexton, who is one of our
commissioners. And these are her words.
The latest UPR review marked the fourth time that China's
human rights record has been examined at the U.N. Since the
first review in 2009, the deterioration of human rights for
Chinese citizens in its autonomous regions has been deeply
concerning to the world. After Chinese President Xi Jinping
came to power in November 2012, all aspects of human rights--
from Tibet to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, to Hong
Kong, to Chinese civil society--have been in a downward spiral,
causing more than 160 countries to address the 2024 hearings in
Geneva.
Among them, more than 50 states made targeted and detailed
recommendations to Beijing on urgent issues. On January 18th,
along with Chair Smith and 12 others, we sent a bipartisan
letter to the State Department--the distinguished Co-chair
mentioned a moment ago that they did the same on the Senate
side--calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to raise the
ongoing atrocities and human rights violations committed by the
People's Republic of China, during the UPR. We highlighted
specific cases of imprisoned Uyghurs, persecuted Hong Kongers
and Tibetans, and silenced human rights defenders, and
condemned the Chinese government's transnational repression of
outspoken critics of the regime residing in the United States
and in other countries.
I'm glad to see that in the advance questions submitted by
the U.S. Government, several individuals mentioned in our
letter were highlighted, including Uyghur scholars Ilham Tohti,
Rahile Dawut, and retired Uyghur medical doctor Gulshan Abbas,
whose sister, Rushan Abbas, is in attendance today. Hong Kong
activists Chow Hang-tung and Jimmy Lai, as well as prominent
Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng, were mentioned as well. Although
they represent only a small fraction of all the arbitrarily
detained in China, the list will help ensure that Beijing faces
scrutiny at the largest international organization.
During the review, dozens of member states zeroed in on
issues related to atrocity crimes in the Xinjiang area,
including mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, the
destruction of--and the marginalization of--cultural heritage,
religious persecution, coercive family planning policies, and
reprisals against human rights defenders and civil society.
Eighteen countries made recommendations related to human rights
violations in Hong Kong, while six called for the repeal of
Hong Kong's draconian national security law. At the last China
UPR in 2018, only six countries mentioned Hong Kong in their
statements. It goes without saying that Hong Kong's worsening
human rights after 2019 pushed more member states to take
action.
The same can be said for Tibet, as China faced an
unprecedented challenge to its human rights violations there,
with a total of 20 member states making 24 recommendations and
3 mentions at the UPR. Yet the Chinese government continues to
deny the scope and scale of violations of human rights
documented in U.N. reports, while offering up its anti-human
rights approach as a model for other countries. On the same day
as the UPR, the Chinese government released a white paper
titled ``China's Legal Framework and Measures for
Counterterrorism,'' justifying its policies in Xinjiang as
anti-terrorism responses.
Beijing argues that ``as a victim of terrorism, [our]
counter-
terrorism efforts have brought security and stability to the
region.'' In all future engagements, I urge--this is, again,
Commissioner Jennifer Wexton--I urge the U.S. Government to
hold the Chinese government accountable and ask it to end its
ongoing gross human rights violations toward its own people,
and respect its human rights obligations through meaningful
cooperation with the U.N. system. China has yet to implement
key recommendations from U.N. bodies, including the OHCHR's
Xinjiang report and findings by committees on racial
discrimination, women's rights, economic, social, and cultural
rights.
China has not accepted the numerous pending requests for
visits by U.N. special procedures experts. We need to be firm
and consistent in our response as we work in tandem with civil
society and the many courageous activists present today, to
ensure that China acts responsibly toward its citizens and to
the world. Thank you.
I want to thank Commissioner Wexton for an excellent
statement that just summarized it all so very well, and for her
leadership on this Commission.
I'd now like to recognize our first witness, please.
STATEMENT OF RANA SIU INBODEN, FELLOW, ROBERT STRAUSS CENTER
FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND LAW, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN
Ms. Inboden. Distinguished commissioners, it is an honor to
be part of today's hearing. My remarks will focus on the
Chinese government's actions to manipulate the Universal
Periodic Review. My written statement expands on other ways the
PRC is undermining the U.N. human rights system. I commend it
to you.
China's manipulation of the UPR is occurring in tandem with
repression that includes persecution of Uyghurs, a crackdown on
dissent in Hong Kong, suppression in Tibet, and an onslaught on
human rights defenders. The PRC's efforts to undermine scrutiny
is intended to conceal its violations, including the
politically motivated detention of individuals such as Chinese
Pastor Wang Yi; Uyghurs Ilham Tohti and Rahile Dawut; Tibetan
Yeshe Choedron; human rights defenders Xu Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi,
and Gao Zhisheng; and the trial of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong.
The UPR was intended to ensure that every nation underwent
routine scrutiny. It includes a dialog where government
representatives make a presentation and where other nations put
forward questions and recommendations. It also relies on
written documentation submitted by the government, the United
Nations, and civil society. The procedure was developed with a
vision of vigorous scrutiny, yet the PRC has tried to render it
a meaningless exercise and whitewash its violations. One of
China's strategies is soliciting soft comments from other
nations in order to flood the proceedings with weak
recommendations and perfunctory remarks.
In the lead-up to China's UPR last week, the PRC mission
circulated a letter to other nations encouraging them to make
supportive comments. As a result, during China's UPR 163
nations had signed up to speak, which meant that each country
only had 45 seconds to deliver their remarks. Thus, many of the
statements merely congratulated the PRC, including mentioning
its ability to lift 100 million people out of poverty and reach
U.N. Sustainable Development Goals ahead of schedule, without
mentioning the use of torture, arbitrary detention, and forced
disappearance. In exchange, Beijing makes similar statements
for other governments, such as Belarus, stating that ``it
supported the achievements of Belarus in protecting human
rights and its efforts to maintain its independence and
sovereignty.''
China also appeals to Global South solidarity to protect
itself, framing scrutiny of its record as unfair treatment of
developing countries. As part of this effort. China is fueling
a grievance culture in the Council and sowing north-south
divisions that are harmful to U.S. interests.
The PRC government claims to meet the guideline of
involving civil society in developing its report, but it only
consults with government-affiliated organizations.
Consequently, China's report was full of propaganda, including
claiming that it was one of the safest countries in the world.
The PRC also stated that the imposition of the National
Security Law in Hong Kong meant that the days of ``social
disturbance and fear are over, and that stability and order are
restored.''
These claims about safety and stability are inexcusable
given the persecution of Uyghurs and the bounties that it's
placed on individuals who seek exile abroad. Instead, it is
actively sowing fear.
China's machinations have also resulted in the U.N.'s
compilation to the UPR omitting the finding in the report by
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the
PRC's actions in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against
humanity. China further attempts to crowd out independent civil
society and has also used GONGOs to intimidate and harass human
rights defenders at the U.N.
As a result, I recommend the following:
Commit to continued participation in the U.N. The
U.S. can have greater impact if it remains in the Council. For
example, American diplomats did a laudable job by putting
forward 15 very well-stated questions in advance of China's
UPR.
Support human rights defenders as much as we can,
both inside and outside the country, including those who have
fled to the United States in exile.
Counter the PRC's efforts to sow north-south
divisions in the Council and find ways to puncture the false
narrative that developing countries are not supported by the
West.
Expand cooperation with non-Western nations.
Brazil, Chile, and the Marshall Islands actually delivered
relatively good remarks during China's UPR, and Somalia voted
for the Xinjiang resolution. So there are opportunities outside
of Western Europe and North America.
Support creative advocacy. The U.S. mission in
Geneva could host the performance ``Everybody Is Gone.'' It is
an immersive performance that portrays the detention camps that
Uyghurs are sent to.
You asked about the case of people in detention.
I do pro bono advocacy for Wang Yi. Nobody has been able to
verify his health, his mental status, in 3 years. His wife has
not been allowed to visit him. I encourage the United States to
run a thematic resolution at the Human Rights Council on access
to prisoners and prisoner rights. This would also help ease
some of the repression that Uyghurs are suffering, especially
Rahile Dawut and Ilham Tohti.
I also would encourage the U.S. to bolster
resources for the U.S. mission in Geneva. (The PRC mission in
Geneva is twice the size of the United States mission.) This
would allow the U.S. to hold more side events. It would be
ideal to have a U.N. side event on China during every single
session. Thank you.
Chair Smith. Ms. Inboden, thank you very much for your
testimony and your recommendations. I really appreciate it.
I'd now like to recognize Mr. Rogers.
STATEMENT OF BENEDICT ROGERS,
CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE,
HONG KONG WATCH
Mr. Rogers. Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, distinguished
commissioners, it's a great privilege to testify before your
Commission. And I thank you for the opportunity and for your
leadership. I've been asked to focus on the real state of
religious freedom in China and also in Hong Kong. I've been
involved with human rights in China for over 30 years and have
myself experienced, to some degree, transnational repression.
I've received, for example, dozens of anonymous threatening
letters at my home, in a suburb of London--not an address that
I make public--and even my mother has received letters telling
her to tell her son to stop doing what he's doing. This is
detailed further in my written testimony and also in my book,
``The China Nexus.''
Religious freedom has always been suppressed by the Chinese
Communist Party regime, but under Xi Jinping's rule, it has
intensified. Responsibility for religious affairs has been
centralized. Xi has introduced a campaign of sinicization of
religion aimed at the co-optation and control of religion. New
regulations strengthen state control over religion.
Unregistered house churches have been outlawed and ordered to
join the government-controlled church system. Many Christians
have been imprisoned, such as Pastor Wang Yi of the Early Rain
Church, whose case has already been mentioned, who was
sentenced in 2019 to 9 years.
In July last year, leaders of Linfen Covenant Church were
accused of forming ``a criminal clique.'' On January 2nd of
this year, the Catholic bishop of Wenzhou, Bishop Peter Shao
Zhumin, was arrested yet again. At least 20 Catholic priests
were arrested in China last year alone. Hundreds of churches
have been destroyed, crosses dismantled, portraits of Xi
displayed in churches, and surveillance cameras installed. The
persecution of Falun Gong and forced organ harvesting
continues. In 2019, an independent tribunal chaired by the
British lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice KC concluded that this is
indeed a crime against humanity.
In Tibet, atrocities continue with religious practice
restricted, including through colonial boarding schools in
which a million Tibetan children who have been coercively
separated from their families and indoctrinated into Chinese
language, culture, and CCP ideology, are cut off from their
Buddhist religion and their Tibetan culture. The predominantly
Muslim Uyghurs face genocide, as recognized by both the
previous U.S. administration and the current administration, by
several parliaments around the world, and by the independent
Uyghur tribunal. Forced abortions, forced sterilization, forced
labor, torture, and incarceration have accompanied widespread
violations of religious freedom against the Uyghurs.
The crackdown on Muslims now goes further than the Uyghurs.
Human Rights Watch has recently reported that in other
provinces ``Chinese authorities have decommissioned, closed
down, and demolished mosques.'' So whether you are a Christian,
a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Falun Gong practitioner, or you follow
another belief, in China today it is incredibly dangerous to
practice your faith. In 2019, the then Ambassador-at-large for
international religious freedom, Ambassador Sam Brownback, said
in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong,
at a time when it was possible to make such speeches in Hong
Kong, that ``The Chinese government is at war with faith.''
In the recent UPR, as has already been mentioned, 18 U.N.
member states raised recommendations on Hong Kong. Over the
past decade, and especially since the imposition of the
National Security Law, the Chinese Communist Party has totally
dismantled Hong Kong's freedom, the rule of law, and autonomy,
in total breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. And the
announcement this week that the Hong Kong government will bring
forth legislation on Article 23, a further security law, will
only intensify and worsen the situation. Freedom of expression,
assembly, and association, and democratic participation have
been destroyed. Over 1,000 political prisoners are in jail in
Hong Kong today, and over 68 civil society organizations were
forced to close.
In addition, as Hong Kong Watch documents in its new report
titled `` `Sell Out My Soul': The Impending Threats to Freedom
of Religion or Belief in Hong Kong,'' religious freedom in Hong
Kong is being undermined in insidious ways. If I may, Mr.
Chairman, request that this report, ``Sell Out My Soul,'' be
entered into the record, I'd be very grateful.
Chair Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. The international community must
monitor the situation of religious freedom in Hong Kong very
closely. The new repressive laws under Article 23 and other
laws expected should be closely watched and analyzed for their
impact on religious freedom. Hong Kong's plight is illustrated
most starkly with the current trial of Jimmy Lai, the 76-year-
old entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist. He's a British
citizen, and I'm privileged to call him a friend. He has spent
the last 3 years of his life in prison, and he may well remain
there until he dies.
He's accused of conspiring to collude with foreign forces,
but the reality is, as the head of his international legal
team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, so aptly puts it--the real
charge against him is conspiracy to commit journalism,
conspiracy to talk about politics with politicians, and
conspiracy to raise human rights concerns with human rights
organizations. I, along with several other foreigners,
including some American citizens and British nationals, have
been named in Jimmy Lai's trial as collaborators. I woke up on
January 2d of this year to find that our headshots were
displayed in court.
The outrageous imprisonment of Jimmy Lai is emblematic of
the CCP's assault on human rights, including religious freedom,
because he is a Catholic motivated by his faith to fight for
freedom. We must stand by him. We must call out this gross
injustice. And we must demand his immediate and unconditional
release. Thank you.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Ben.
I'd now like to recognize Sophie Luo.
STATEMENT OF SOPHIE LUO,
WIFE OF DETAINED HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER DING JIAXI
Ms. Luo. Mr. Smith, Senator Merkley, and distinguished
members of the Commission, thank you so much for holding this
hearing and for inviting me to testify. Today's hearing is so
important to me, as the wife of imprisoned Chinese human rights
lawyer Ding Jiaxi, and as the director of advocacy for the NGO
Humanitarian China. That is an organization that pays attention
to political prisoners. We must continue to speak out about the
horrific human rights violations committed by the Chinese
government. This is all the more important in the wake of the
Chinese official delegation's denials about its human rights
abuses and the Chinese government's allies' empty praise of
poverty alleviation and the so-called rights safeguards, at
China's Universal Periodic Review in Geneva last Tuesday.
First, I want to thank the Commission for tweeting the
cases of political prisoners before the UPR. That is so
important and highlights the problem. I would also like to
thank the U.S. Government for the robust statement it made
during the UPR and for its advance questions, including the
focus on political prisoners and human rights defenders
arbitrarily detained by the Chinese government.
Since my testimony at CECC 2 years ago, at the time of the
Beijing Winter Olympics, I've spoken at length about the case
of my husband, Ding Jiaxi, and the legal scholar Xu Zhiyong.
Chinese authorities secretly tried them and sentenced them to
12 and 14 years in prison, respectively. To date, no verdict
has been issued to the families. After the Shandong High
People's Court rejected their appeals, authorities sent Ding
Jiaxi to a prison in Hubei province and Xu Zhiyong to a prison
in Shandong province. Actually, yesterday Xu Zhiyong's sister
tried to go see him but was warned not to talk with me and was
threatened with jail.
In April 2023, following the announcement of the verdicts
of Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, I had the honor of testifying
before Chairman Smith at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee. We discussed how Chinese authorities persecute human
rights defenders through forced disappearance, secret
detention, torture, coerced confession, fabrication of criminal
evidence, and closed-door trials and sentencing, highlighting
that the Chinese government has absolutely no respect for any
law.
Today, I am holding up an image that shows many current
political prisoners in China. My heart aches terribly every
time I see this picture. But I put it on my desk at home, and I
look at it every day, because I know I must let the world know
about human rights abuse in China and call for the release, and
fight for the rights, of all political prisoners. In my written
testimony, I highlight the many unlawful tactics used against
human rights defenders by Chinese authorities, with specific
examples which include forced disappearance, torture, lengthy
pretrial detention, lack of access to medical treatment, heavy
prison sentences, and restrictions on the rights of defense
lawyers, or the imposition of officially assigned lawyers.
Other human rights abuses inflicted on rights defenders
include forced labor in prison and randomly depriving political
prisoners of their right to be visited by family members. Right
now, actually this morning, my friends were highlighting for me
that torture usually starts before--and during--the
investigation. But some are tortured in prison also. Actually,
to not allow family members to visit them is already mental
torture for the prisoners. And also, after they are released,
the government often still keeps them under surveillance. That
is what we call non-release release.
There is also the persecution or harassment of the families
of human rights defenders, which includes imprisoning their
wives or loved ones and depriving their children of the right
to attend school, as well as the imposition of travel bans and
the forced deprivation of their livelihood. I deeply appreciate
the countries in addition to the U.S. that specifically asked
the Chinese government to end arbitrary detention and forced
disappearance, and its abusive treatment of human rights
defenders, during the UPR. And I look forward to your continued
support for the families of human rights defenders as we fight
for their basic rights and seek the unconditional release of
political prisoners. Thank you very much.
Chair Smith. Ms. Luo, thank you so much for your testimony.
I don't think you will mind me mentioning that you were
baptized in December, and that has given you an enormous amount
of strength and encouragement. Thank you for what you are doing
in bearing witness to the ugly truth of what the PRC is doing
to your family, and to everyone else. Thank you.
I would now like to recognize Emile Dirks, who's coming to
us via--he's in Toronto. So he'll be coming in through Zoom.
STATEMENT OF EMILE DIRKS, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE AT THE CITIZEN
LAB, MUNK SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS & PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY
OF TORONTO
Mr. Dirks. Thank you, distinguished members of the
Commission, for holding this important hearing on the state of
human rights in China, and for the opportunity to testify
today. My name is Emile Dirks, and I am a research associate at
The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
Today I will discuss three aspects of Chinese state-backed
online censorship. One, online censorship profoundly impacts
Chinese citizens' freedom of opinion and expression. Two, both
Chinese and U.S. companies contribute to online censorship. And
three, censorship is linked to repression in and outside China.
I'll conclude with recommendations for how the U.S. Government
can demand accountability from perpetrators and provide
assistance to victims.
First, the Chinese government severely restricts Chinese
citizens' freedom of opinion and expression through online
censorship. Inside China, authorities block access to thousands
of websites, including foreign media, human rights
organizations, and the website of this very Commission. One of
the clearest measurements of state-mandated censorship comes
from Great Firewall Watch, a platform created by researchers at
Stony Brook, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, UC
Berkeley, and The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
Since its inception in March 2020, GFWatch.org has discovered
more than 640,000 blocked domains.
Now censorship is pervasive even on platforms accessible in
China. Yet while authorities stipulate what content is
prohibited, it is tech companies themselves that are
responsible for day-to-day censorship. Citizen Lab researchers
have discovered over 60,000 censorship rules on eight China-
accessible search platforms--rules that fully or partially
censor search results for key terms, including references to
human rights abuse and criticism of the Communist Party.
Citizen Lab researchers have also detailed how platforms censor
discussion of political events, including activism in Hong
Kong, crackdowns on human rights lawyers, and the COVID-19
pandemic.
Second, it is not only Chinese companies that are
responsible for censorship. Citizen Lab research shows that the
Chinese version of Microsoft Bing, the only major non-Chinese
search engine accessible in China, engages in extensive
censorship. In China, Bing only displays censored search
results for authorized websites. Bing targets political
material related to Xi Jinping and religious material related
to banned spiritual movements. Furthermore, Citizen Lab
researchers found that Bing's censorship of search suggestions,
though not search results, was applied to users in the United
States and other countries for at least 8 months from October
2021 to May 2022. Bing's extensive censorship shows that U.S.
tech companies cannot introduce services in China without
integrating restrictions on expression, and that these
restrictions will be applied to users outside of China.
Third, online censorship is linked to offline harm. As
detailed by Citizen Lab researchers, a 2019 to 2021 harassment
campaign used Chinese social media to distribute personal
information about Hong Kong activists. Victims are also outside
China. This Commission has previously discussed the Chinese
government's silencing of overseas critics through
transnational repression. On Chinese and U.S. social media,
state-backed proxies and online nationalists harass Chinese,
Hong Kong, Tibetan, Uyghur, and other diaspora members. Since
2009, Citizen Lab researchers have investigated digital attacks
and espionage against Tibetan diaspora communities.
Some of the most vicious instances of digital transnational
repression are directed at women. As Citizen Lab researchers
have documented, Chinese and Hong Kong women activists in
Canada have suffered online threats of physical and sexual
violence. Diaspora women in the United States, Australia, and
other liberal democracies have also been attacked online, due
to their criticism of the Chinese government. Now, through
online censorship, the cooperation of technology companies, and
digital transnational repression, the Chinese State severely
restricts the freedom of opinion and expression of people in
and outside China. Addressing this problem requires holding
companies responsible for their role in online censorship and
supporting victims of digital harassment and intimidation.
Therefore, I recommend that the U.S. Government do three
things: One, publicly request that Microsoft and other U.S.
companies like Apple explain how they implement political and
religious censorship on their platforms in China. Two, publicly
request that Microsoft explain how political and religious
censorship was applied to the search suggestions of users
outside China and what safeguards will ensure that this will
not reoccur. And three, train U.S. Government officials--
including law enforcement and immigration authorities--to
recognize digital transnational repression and properly assist
victims and their families.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to your questions and comments.
Chair Smith. Mr. Dirks, thank you so much for your
testimony and your recommendations. We will follow up.
I'd now like to recognize Rushan Abbas.
STATMENT OF RUSHAN ABBAS,
FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CAMPAIGN FOR UYGHURS
Ms. Abbas. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Chairman Merkley,
members of the Commission and the staff. Thank you for this
opportunity to testify. Today I stand before you to speak about
my experience and observations during the PRC's fourth
Universal Periodic Review held in Geneva last week. UPRs are
intended to provide genuine exchange within the U.N. framework.
This one, however, occurred amid an ongoing Uyghur genocide. It
underscored the difficulty in holding China accountable for its
human rights atrocities against the Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong
Kongers, Southern Mongolians, and Chinese dissidents. China's
genocidal policies include forced sterilization, forced
abortions, institutionalized mass rape, forced marriages, child
abduction, modern-day slavery, organ harvesting, and crematoria
for a culture that doesn't practice cremation.
Twelve countries and parliaments, including the United
States, recognize these atrocities as genocide. I would like to
underline by providing a telling example that the U.N. system
is under immense pressure by the People's Republic of China.
The main takeaways of the August 2022 report by the Office of
the High Commissioner for Human Rights was that Beijing's
actions in the Uyghur region could constitute crimes against
humanity. This is a grave allegation that the U.N. could not
and did not raise without compelling evidence. However, it was
disheartening to see that the U.N.'s official compilation of
its own reports as a part of the UPR process conspicuously left
this conclusion out.
As much as Campaign for Uyghurs was relieved to see that
this damning conclusion of the report by the U.N. itself was at
least mentioned through our organization in the summary of the
civil society reporting produced by the United Nations, the
fact that the U.N. is debilitated to the point of not being
able to refer to its own reporting without hiding behind a
civil society organization shows the level of China's undue
pressure under which the U.N. system currently operates.
In the lead-up to the UPR session, Campaign for Uyghurs
filed with the U.N. its stakeholder submission, which was
referenced extensively in the U.N. Summary of Stakeholders'
Submissions, shedding a light on China's atrocities. We seek
your permission, Mr. Chairman, to enter this document into the
record as well.
Chair Smith. Without objection.
Ms. Abbas. Thank you. In Geneva, I witnessed how a
totalitarian state aiming to silence dissent and legitimize its
oppression worldwide, works to exploit this U.N. mechanism to
receive an international seal of endorsement. I was there last
week with my team and my niece Ziba to attend the UPR. It was
heartbreaking to see her sitting in the room with the very
people that put her innocent mother in jail, and who
continuously whitewash their crimes against humanity. Before
the session began, pro-CCP students and the Chinese government-
organized NGOs were sent to overcrowd the venue, restricting
access to authentic human rights defenders. They attempted to
limit civil society participation. And it took our persistent
efforts with the U.N. Secretariat to secure access to a hall
that clearly had more available space.
Defying the U.N. rules, pro-China individuals spent hours
in the upstairs gallery photographing member-state delegates
and activists from Uyghur, Tibetan, and other Chinese dissident
groups, including myself. Another pro-China attendee was taking
pictures of Tibetan and Uyghur rights defenders as we were
standing in line to enter the hall. Unfortunately, it took
repeated demands from the activists to get U.N. security to
stop this individual. I saw a pro-Chinese attendee jotting down
notes on his phone while looking over at a Uyghur activist's
computer. This deliberate surveillance occurred inside the
United Nations, a space meant for secure and open discussion on
human rights.
These are common tactics used by the CCP to intimidate and
monitor human rights advocates in international forums,
especially those dedicated to unveiling the true state of human
rights in China. One hundred sixty-three countries requested to
speak. Each was granted just 45 seconds to provide
recommendations. Over 120 countries either ignored China's dark
record or commended its so-called progress. This included
nations that by their own account should stand against the
repression and not endorse it. It was jarring how sharply this
orchestrated praise contradicted the realities of PRC rule that
subjects marginalized groups to indefensible persecution.
As Representative Salinas did in her opening remarks, I
also want to applaud U.S. Ambassador Michele Taylor for her
resolute stance among the 28 countries that spoke against the
human rights atrocities. In just 45 seconds, Ambassador Taylor
delivered eight recommendations on the ongoing Uyghur genocide,
and the violations in Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland
China. As Chairman Smith mentioned, while the session was
underway, China released a white paper on counterterrorism,
trying to distort the facts and spread misinformation about the
Uyghurs. This move aimed to divert attention from the ongoing
genocide and shape a narrative more favorable to China's
interests.
Despite conclusive research, survivor testimony, and
witness accounts, as well as several leaked documents from the
CCP itself, side events organized by the Chinese government and
government-sponsored NGOs presented propaganda to cast doubt on
the established evidence, which I've discussed further in my
written testimony. China's manipulation of the U.N. and blatant
abuse of the international system undermines the principles of
justice, human rights, and fair representation. Their maneuvers
compromise the U.N.'s integrity and pose a direct threat to
global stability and human dignity.
In my opinion, China's calculated attempts were indeed
successful in shielding its egregious crimes from scrutiny and
eroded the U.N.'s founding principles and purpose. The
international community must unite against such tactics to
preserve the U.N. as a beacon of peace--free from exploitation.
Mr. Chairman, what transpired in Geneva last week was not an
isolated case, but a symptom of a much larger issue. The PRC's
conduct at the UPR and the permissive attitude in that room
serve as a microcosm of China's broader disregard for
international norms, human rights, and the dignity of the
Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, and other persecuted
communities.
I am defending human rights at the cost of my own sister's
freedom as a result of China's transnational repression against
American citizens living on American soil. Exercising my
freedom of speech put her in jail. It's clear that in Geneva
the PRC operates with an audacious sense of impunity, treating
the U.N. as if it were their own playground, and getting what
they want. The United States must recognize the gravity of the
situation and the urgency with which it demands a response.
It's high time nations stood firm against such bold affronts,
ensuring that the U.N. remains true to the vision of Eleanor
Roosevelt rather than becoming a rubber stamp for a global
offense on freedom. Thank you so much.
Chair Smith. Thank you so very much. Thank you for your
courage. And your sister, she's in my prayers, believe me, and
we will continue to raise her case as well. You know, one of
the things I learned about political prisoners was learned from
dissidents and prisoners themselves. One of them was Wei
Jingsheng in 1994. I went to Beijing to raise the issue that
they should not get the 2000 Olympics unless they released
political prisoners. And he told me something. He was out of
jail. He had been beaten senseless by the Chinese Communist
Party, and then when they didn't get the Olympics, they
rearrested him and hurt him severely again. He is a great human
rights activist, as you know, and defender.
But he told me something I'll never forget. He said--very
politely--``You people in the West don't understand. When you
kowtow, when you try to curry favor with the Chinese Communist
Party, when you fail to mention the names, by name, of
prisoners, they beat us more in prison. When you're strong,
assertive, and you don't give up, they beat us less.'' I've
heard that from others, but he said it so powerfully. They knew
when we were raising issues because even the warden would be
well aware that the world was watching. So we need to
accelerate that very, very significantly.
To your point, Ms. Inboden, and others, we just have to
continue. Our data base is second to none. And we need--every
delegation that goes or anyone--interlocutors with Chinese
officials on any issue, from environmental to trade, especially
trade, who has a list of prisoners--raise them by name. Why is
this person being tortured? You know, Manfred Nowak, special
rapporteur for torture for the United Nations, did a scathing
report on China, the pervasive use of torture. And, you know,
it was all denied. The Chinese Communist Party just said, Nope,
doesn't happen. And then accused us, the United States, of
practicing torture. It was just--it's Orwellian and it's never
ending.
And 45 seconds to make presentations--I mean, that's
absurd. There should have been an attempt to turn the clock off
and say, You've got as much time--even if it goes for a day or
two or more. How dare they, on the worst violator of human
rights on the planet, let them get away with a review--with
good content coming from the United States and others--but it
doesn't get the airing that it deserves. On the prisoners, we
all need to double down on that and make sure that every
parliamentarian, every government official--when people from
the Commerce Department meet, they have to bring it up.
I brought it up with John Kerry once and he said, Well, I
want to keep it on the Green New Deal and things like that. I
said, please, you know how bad it is. Please raise it in all of
those venues as well, because every time you do you might be
saving the life of one or of many. Someday we will see
democracy and freedom there and it will come out, because we
have a new bill we're working on right now, the Gao Zhisheng
bill. I'm going to introduce it very shortly. I'm looking for
co-sponsors, and I want to thank Bob Fu, who's been just never
ending. Pastor Fu runs ChinaAid. He was a Tiananmen Square
activist and was imprisoned. He has been a light to all of us.
So has Gao Zhisheng; his wife and daughter, who are here, have
both testified in the past. So we really need to elevate his
case and the others who are political prisoners. If anyone
wants to come in on any of that with the prisoners, please do.
The National Security Law is one of the worst laws ever.
Jimmy Lai and so many other great people, the best and the
bravest and the brightest of Hong Kong, are being prosecuted
and the key thrown away, as they go to prison. You know, the
Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and all the other
levers we have, need to be more robustly applied--both the
United States, the U.K., and everyone else wherever we have
those kinds of laws. The Global Magnitsky Act is a great tool
as well. So I do hope we will redouble our efforts there. And
this Commission did a great job, I think, in trying to rally
people there--we met with a lot of those who are harassed by
the Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks, to use an old Soviet
expression.
And, you know, there's our businessmen paying tens of
thousands of dollars to sit with Xi Jinping, to curry favor
with him while he should be at The Hague for crimes against
humanity and for genocide, being prosecuted. You mentioned--and
maybe you might want to speak further on this--that yesterday
our great Speaker strongly raised, at the Religious Freedom
summit, the issue of forced organ harvesting. I've had two
hearings on it, one here at the Commission. We have a great
bipartisan bill. It passed the House almost a year ago with
only two people voting no. You never get that, right?
Especially in recent times.
It was totally bipartisan because everybody realizes that
there are tens of thousands of Uyghurs, Falun Gong
practitioners, and other people of faith who are targeted--
Christians, Tibetan Buddhists--but especially the first two,
Uyghurs and Falun Gong practitioners. Tens of thousands a year
who are killed, murdered for their organs, two to three per
person. That's something that Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor,
would love. We have a bill that would go after that. It would
criminalize those who, with knowledge, procure those organs. To
just put it in neon lights: Stop this horrendous, horrific
human rights abuse, and stop it now, or we'll do everything we
can legally to come after you.
It's sitting in the Senate. It's H.R. 1154. I ask the
Senate, again, to please mark it up and let's get it down to
the President. We worked with the State Department. They had
some initial concerns--I've been pushing it for 3 years. We met
those concerns, and now we have a bill that I believe, based on
their input, will be signed. So, you know, forced organ
harvesting--I can't even think how horrible that is for someone
as they are being strapped down and a doctor is coming over--
some don't even get anesthesia. One of the doctors who
testified said somebody was in shock and that person, as his
organs were being taken out, started moving around because he
was feeling the knife. I mean, it's barbaric, so we've got to
get that bill passed.
So if any of you want to comment on any of that--yes, Ms.
Inboden.
Ms. Inboden. Thank you. I would like to comment on access
to prisoners and prisoner rights. First, I would love to see a
bi-
partisan CECC letter to the executive branch asking
specifically for the president, the secretary of state, and the
national security adviser and other Cabinet-level officials to
be mentioning these cases specifically in their in-person
meetings. I think that conveys a very strong message and it is
something that our Nation has not done consistently.
I would also encourage the U.S. to push for the
International Committee of the Red Cross, for U.N. special
rapporteurs who have relevant expertise, such as those on
arbitrary detention, torture, and forced disappearance, to be
allowed access to China, even though China is very manipulative
during those visits. As you mentioned, Special Rapporteur Nowak
had a very powerful report. That report is almost 20 years old.
We need access again.
There is another instrument that China has not signed,
which is called the Optional Protocol to the Convention against
Torture. It allows for a rotating visiting monitoring process
to investigate prisons and other places where people are
detained. I think these are all very concrete steps. I would
also encourage the United States to work with Latin American
countries. That region's own experience with the dirty wars and
forced disappearances may make them very sympathetic allies in
this battle.
Chair Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. And could I, first of all, very
enthusiastically and passionately applaud and endorse
everything that you said and all the initiatives that you and
the Commission are taking. I'd like to comment just briefly on
Hong Kong specifically. First of all, I would really welcome
scrutiny of the implementation of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act
and the various sanctions and measures that are in that. The
legislation is there, thanks to your leadership. To what extent
is the administration actually implementing it? That would be
one point.
The existence of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices
(HKETOs). I know there's an initiative on this which we really
welcome, because they are now functioning not as they were
originally intended to, as representatives of an autonomous
Hong Kong, but rather as a second Chinese Communist Party
embassy. And so I welcome efforts to look at that. We are doing
everything we can to push the British government to implement
sanctions, which it has not yet done. The United States has.
The U.K. has not. Obviously, the U.K. has a particular
responsibility to Hong Kong. Anything that the U.S. can do to
encourage my own friends in my own country, in the U.K., to
move on sanctions, would be appreciated.
And then last, I agree 100 percent with your point about
naming political prisoners. I spoke about Jimmy Lai in my
testimony, and it's really important that we keep the spotlight
on his case. But naming, for example, Chow Hang-tung, the Hong
Kong barrister who has now spent several years in prison simply
for organizing a commemoration of the Tiananmen Square
massacre--she's a brave lawyer in jail in Hong Kong--keeping
her profile named. The 47 former legislators and pro-democracy
activists who've now spent the last 3 years in prison awaiting
trial--they haven't even been sentenced yet. They've been
denied bail. They were elected legislators. Their only crime
was holding a primary election, something perfectly normal in
this country and elsewhere. They've been imprisoned for that.
Highlighting the trial of the 47 and keeping the spotlight on
that would be really important.
Chair Smith. I have many questions, but I would like to
yield to my distinguished commissioners and then come back for
a second round.
Representative Salinas. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Inboden, I want to thank you so much for your testimony
and for providing suggestions for how the United States can
continue to engage in a meaningful way with the U.N. Human
Rights Council. You listed several actions that the United
States can take with the U.N. structure. What else can Congress
do to bolster this effort?
Ms. Inboden. Well, Congress does control the budget, and
so, as I mentioned, the U.S. mission needs to have more
staffing, better training. I also, having started my career at
the State Department, know that your letters are powerful, so I
would also be making several specific ``asks.'' Obviously, your
letter on naming individuals was very important.
Chair Smith. We'll do that, thank you. We'll do the letter.
Thank you. Great idea.
Ms. Inboden. Thank you for that. But the U.S. needs to be
doing more to defend the U.N. human rights system. Not just the
UPR, but the appointment of the independent experts who serve
in the special procedure system, as well as the experts who
help implement the human rights treaty body system. Having
individuals with the relevant expertise, integrity, and who are
proponents of vigorous scrutiny, no matter which country, is
very important. The U.S. State Department should be monitoring
all of those vacancies, being ready to support candidates with
strong records, even candidates who are not Americans. Those
are some very specific things that I would love to see the
administration do.
Representative Salinas. Well, thank you. And following up
on that, you also mentioned that China's not only trying to
manipulate the periodic review system and deliberately suppress
reporting on its human rights record, but it's now challenging
the universality of human rights altogether. As you
specifically mentioned, it appears that they're doing this by
creating a north-south divide and asserting that human rights
are contingent on economic development. In your suggestions,
you said the U.S. needs to find creative ways to poke holes in
this false narrative and support developing countries. Can you
just elaborate on how to best counteract these efforts by
China?
Ms. Inboden. The PRC Ambassador will make a very big effort
to meet with smaller countries in Geneva. The U.S. needs to do
the same, needs to lavish diplomatic attention on them. Our
people need to be going on a listening tour, listening to what
is important to these countries, and finding some common areas
to push forward. I think also, as I mentioned, some creative
diplomacy or advocacy by the U.S. mission could include a film
festival featuring films from Uyghur artists, Hong Kongers, and
Tibetans. As well as--I can't emphasize how powerful this
``Everybody Is Gone'' immersive performance is. You actually
experience what it's like to enter a detention camp.
So I think these are all things that could really raise
awareness. In Geneva, doing those things could make it more
difficult for some of those countries who have gone along with
China so that maybe instead they will just not speak up during
China's UPR and won't make the weak recommendations, just
abstain--even if China threatens to withdraw your aid.
Representative Salinas. Thank you. One more question, if I
may. Thank you. Ms. Luo, thank you so much for being here today
and for your sincere and heartfelt story. I want to offer my
sympathy for what you're going through and what you've done to
endure all of this. While all your testimony about the
treatment of political prisoners is shocking, I was really
struck by the lack of communication and access that family
members and attorneys have to these individuals. Is this the
norm for all court proceedings in China? Or do you--and I'm a
new commissioner, so forgive me--or do you think this is an
additional scare tactic imposed on people like your husband who
dare to speak out?
Ms. Luo. Excuse me. You are asking, is it a norm? What do
you mean?
Representative Salinas. Yes.
Ms. Luo. Normally, it is a right that family members, by
law, are allowed to meet the prisoner. At least they can
communicate by letter. And also, the prisoner can call the
family at home, paid for by the family. But this is happening
less and less. In past years, as Rana just mentioned, Pastor
Wang Yi's family had difficulty getting to see him. And right
now, although they are able to meet him, they are not allowed
to speak to anyone. The same as Xu Zhiyong's sister, as I just
mentioned. And right now, my husband's family dare not go see
him because the moment they do, the security person starts to
harass them and threaten them. So it's a law, but totally not
being respected in China.
Representative Salinas. Thank you. And, truly, the reason
for my question is just to highlight this duality. The out-
facing to the rest of the world, but then really how they treat
people who speak out against their practices. Thank you.
Ms. Luo. Thank you.
Chair Smith. Commissioner Zinke.
Representative Zinke. Thank you for all your testimony. It
is important.
I guess to bring it home to the University of Montana--it's
been in the news, at least in Montana recently, that there have
been exchanges funded by the China-United States Exchange
Foundation, which is currently connected to the CCP influence
entity. I was noticing that the University of Austin rejected
those similar requests and funding overtures. So could you
explain to me what the exchanges are, the purpose, in your
opinion, and why you rejected them?
Ms. Inboden. Sir, that's an excellent question. I think
that there are many reasons to be worried about CCP-backed
programs like the Confucius Institutes and others. The
Confucius Institutes are only part of the broader effort that
the PRC is making in terms of propaganda in the academies. In
all honesty, it was my husband, Professor William Inboden, who
was deeply involved in speaking with university leadership and
making them aware of some of those dangers. I'm very proud of
his work on that, but I need to give credit that it was that
Inboden that took on that battle.
Representative Zinke. And do you have any advice for the
University of Montana?
Ms. Inboden. Why don't you have me come and talk to them
about some of the dangers of CCP propaganda and the CCP's
vision for world order?
[Applause.]
Representative Zinke. Thank you so much. The president is a
personal friend of mine and a Special Forces individual. I'll
reach out, and I'd love to see that.
Shifting to TikTok, it seems to me TikTok is an influencer
that is emanating from--or at least controlled in the data base
by--China. It seems that influencers and those that participate
in the platform are young, largely. The demographic would point
to the X generation, and the influencers in that. And we've
seen a recent influence on LNG, probably as a trial as we go
forward in the election. I would imagine there's going to be
others, to either try to manipulate popular opinion, etc.,
targeted on certain objectives.
I guess my comment is for those of us that perhaps are a
little past the X generation. I guess, Dr. Dirks, you seem to
be the youngest participant. Is there some advice as to what
language our generation can use to talk to the younger
generation about some of the dangers involved in broad
participation and utilization of TikTok as a platform of
preference?
Mr. Dirks. Well, thank you for your question. And thank you
for acknowledging me as maybe the youngest person here. I don't
know if that's true. But what I would recommend--The Citizen
Lab has produced a short document, which looks at the
comparison of TikTok with its Chinese counterpart, Douyin. I
believe that would be the best resource for looking at the
particular privacy concerns that surround both platforms.
I'll note that in the analysis that Citizen Lab researchers
have done on TikTok, they've found that TikTok collects similar
kinds of data to other social media platforms, such as
Facebook. A lot of this is for the purpose of creating targeted
ads toward users. Now, one thing to be clear about is that our
analysis at the Lab was very explicit about our having no
visibility into what happened to user data once it was
collected and transmitted by TikTok back to its servers. It's
possible that the Chinese government may use un-
conventional ways to obtain user data, for example through
National Security Law legislation, which you could apply to
TikTok's parent company, ByteDance. This is a plausible
scenario, but it's also a speculative scenario.
However, again, the focus of that research was looking at
comparing TikTok and Douyin. Researchers found no particular
evidence that the Chinese government was using any measures to
pressure ByteDance. What I will say as well is that it also
seems perhaps unlikely that TikTok is spreading views which are
overly favorable of the Chinese government on its own platform.
What's more, I think that if we're looking at general privacy
concerns or content concerns on TikTok, I think what this
really highlights is the need for a broader discussion about
data privacy and content moderation, not just on TikTok but on
a variety of social media platforms--be it Facebook, be it X,
Instagram, or anything else.
Representative Zinke. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I
appreciate what you do. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Commissioner Zinke.
Commissioner Nunn.
Representative Nunn. First of all, well said, Commissioner
Zinke.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the bipartisan members of
this Commission. And most important, thank you to the panel
here today. This is just very powerful testimony that you've
shared, not just in this committee room but the rest of the
world is watching. As we look at the lies and deception that
are being facilitated by the Chinese Communist Party, this is
not new to the realm of China. I'm a military officer, you
know, and one of the first things we read here is
``Unrestricted Warfare.'' The idea here is that China is going
to use every method to its ends to advance the goals of
Beijing--not just on the battlefield, but right in its social
media, in how it engineers its economy, and, painfully, as
you've highlighted, how it exploits its own people to achieve
political goals, most notably, retaining power within China and
expanding that power across the world.
Whether it be by, most recently, falsifying COVID
statistics that leaves the rest of the world unprepared for a
vicious pandemic, telling the world that it's not interested in
territorial expansion, while it gobbles up islands, or simply
downplaying their military buildup in the Pacific, China has
become known as infamous when providing for the West false
information. It's truly broken down a trust that could have
been established between Beijing and for the rest of the world.
Now on the world stage, the United Nations Human Rights
Council, China has fudged the numbers once again. However, the
falsification here of human rights violations reported by the
CCP not only shows they are lying, it indicates that those that
are vulnerable populations, that they're not even worth
accounting in their statistics internally to China.
The Chinese Communist Party continues to lie about human
rights violations that they themselves not only are allowing to
happen but are actually the director of the infliction of pain
that's incurred on it, as we just saw, Ms. Luo, from your
testimony. So I want to applaud Chairman Smith and my fellow
commissioners for their continued efforts to hold Beijing's
feet to the fire, not just in these committee hearings but in
the important legislation that has been moving forward on this
that's now on the President's desk. This truly must be a
comprehensive approach, not just from the United States but
with our allies as well. So the bottom line is that if China
wishes to amend its rocky relationship, not just with the West
but with the entire world, it needs to start by telling the
truth and being transparent in that truth.
So I'd like to get to our witnesses, Mr. Chair. Mr. Rogers,
I'll begin with you. Obviously, we have seen a dramatic
transition in all of our lifetimes. One of the first things we
saw is the extrajudicial procedures that were put in place to
pull people out of Hong Kong, in violation of the commitment
that Beijing made to take them to courts outside. Can you speak
to us briefly on how that has had a chilling effect on
democracy in Hong Kong?
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Yes, the most significant
development in the last year has been the issuing of arrest
warrants and million HK dollar bounties on the heads of now 13
Hong Kong activists, including those in the United States, in
the United Kingdom, and in Australia. Certainly that has had a
chilling effect. Some of those individuals, who are courageous,
long-standing activists, have, very understandably, rethought
how public they should be, not so much for their own safety but
because their family members in Hong Kong, after the issuing of
these arrest warrants, were then called in for questioning. The
threat and the use of families of exiled activists in Hong Kong
is a really horrific tactic by the CCP.
Representative Nunn. I want to dig deeper here. Xi Jinping
has identified religious work as being a priority. Can you tell
us, in his mind, what religious work would mean, and what
impact that has had on people across China?
Mr. Rogers. Absolutely. This is his campaign of the
sinicization of religion. He's now made several unprecedented
speeches. His predecessors, leaders of the Chinese Communist
Party, seldom if ever made speeches on religion. He's now made
several. But what he means by sinicization is not inculturation
of religion. It's not about adapting religion to Chinese
culture. It's about coercing religion to the Chinese Communist
Party's propaganda, to become a tool of the United Front Work
Department, and to preach not the tenets of any particular
religion, but rather the teachings of the Chinese Communist
Party.
Representative Nunn. The religion of Xi Jinping, and Xi
Jinping alone.
Ms. Abbas, you obviously are a religious minority. You
represent the voice of so many millions who have been unheard
inside China today. Could you talk to us about both what the
Chinese say publicly--again, going back to the lies and
misdirection--about religious freedom according to the law, and
how China has used this ``according to the law'' standard to
really suppress people using that law?
Ms. Abbas. Thank you so much, Mr. Nunn.
You're absolutely right. They define in the books and the
constitution that religious beliefs are guaranteed for the
citizens, but with this recent campaign of genocidal policies
against the Uyghur ethnic group and the other Muslims in East
Turkistan, what we call Xinjiang province, the Chinese
government is criminalizing every single aspect of the
religion--like praying, or fasting during Ramadan, or even a
simple greeting of ``assalamu alaikum,'' which means ``peace be
with you.'' Those are all reasons that Uyghurs can be detained.
And they are using the pretext ``war on terror'' and
``deradicalization'' and putting everyone in jail.
We had millions of people disappeared in detention. My
husband sitting behind me right now, his entire family has been
missing since the summer of 2017--24 people. My parents-in-law,
three of my sisters-in-law, their husbands, my brother-in law
and his wife, 14 of his nieces and nephews. Then when I spoke
out about this at the Hudson Institute in September 2018, my
own sister, a retired medical doctor, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, was
taken in retaliation for my freedom of speech, as I mentioned
in my opening remarks.
When Cui Tiankai, a former Chinese Ambassador to the United
States, was questioned by one of the CNN reporters, he said
very clearly when he was asked about those detention centers.
He said, by holding those Uyghurs in so-called reeducation
centers, we are trying to make them normal persons. So imagine,
because of the language we speak, the religion we believe in,
and the beautiful culture that we represent, in the eyes of the
Chinese government we are not even normal commodities, we are
not even normal persons.
Representative Nunn. Ms. Abbas, first of all, I think we--
all the commissioners--express our empathy to you. As a fellow
person of faith, my prayers are with you and your husband's
family. I can only pray for the best. But we also have to
recognize the systematic elimination by the CCP is something
that we equally have responsibility here on Earth to address
immediately.
Dr. Dirks, I know you're remote with us, but I wanted to
see if you could chime in here to speak specifically about how
China manipulates this data when it comes to its own domestic
surveillance program. I want to bring in the fact that it's not
just the role of the United States. It's the role of the entire
world to address internationally China's growing use of digital
surveillance. We worked hard on the Huawei prevention bill and
the efforts that China is making, using technology to spy on
the West. It is probably even more invasive inside China, and
really has provided a testing ground for the CCP to hone its
ability to surveil, assess, and ultimately detain or destroy
its own population, a tactic that can quite easily be used on
operatives outside of China. Would you be able to speak to
that, Dr. Dirks?
Mr. Dirks. Certainly. I just want to say thank you to the
members of the Commission, as well as members of the Tibetan
diaspora, specifically Students for a Free Tibet, people at
Human Rights Watch, and other researchers who focused on this
specific issue--we're talking about domestic surveillance in
China--the specific issue of mass DNA collection. I wrote a
report on this in September 2022, as did Human Rights Watch,
and this led to a lot of pressure being placed on a U.S.-based
company, Thermo Fisher, which was implicated in the mass DNA
collection program in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
It was because of the public efforts of members of this
Commission, as well as Tibetan diaspora groups, that Thermo
Fisher ultimately made the decision to cease selling human
identification kits within the Tibet Autonomous Region, just as
they did in Xinjiang in 2019. What I think this highlights is
that there is a large role, an important role, to be played by
people in the public sector--in civil society, in the media,
researchers, as well as members of legislatures in liberal
democracies, to put pressure on both Chinese and non-Chinese
companies for their involvement in these kinds of programs.
Second, when we're talking about the expansion of Chinese
state surveillance, perhaps outside of its borders, I think
where we see the greatest risk is to members of diaspora
communities. These can be Chinese, Hong Kong, Uyghur, Tibetan,
or others--individuals who by citizenship are Chinese or,
because of their family ancestry, have links to China. We've
certainly seen under the Xi Jinping administration a real
increase in efforts by the Chinese government to harass,
intimidate, attack, and even forcibly return members of these
communities back to China.
So in thinking about solutions, in thinking about how to
address these problems, we really need to be thinking about
those particular diaspora communities, and vulnerable members
of those communities. There's a lot of discussion today about
political prisoners, who deserve a discussion. These are people
who are under intense surveillance, detention, abuse within
China's borders. Many of the diaspora members who are being
targeted by the Chinese government outside of China are often
quite anonymous. These are not well-known individuals.
And so I think it requires great sensitivity, a lot of
training on the part of U.S. Government officials--again
specifically, as I said in my remarks, law enforcement,
immigration--to be able to correctly recognize what
transnational repression is, including its digital component,
harassment and intimidation of people online, and how to
provide necessary and reasonable support to individuals and
their families. That will also require a lot of trust building
between law enforcement agencies, immigration, and members of
those communities and the communities at large.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Dr. Dirks. I think it's
worth noting here that the tactics that are being honed, as you
highlighted, within China's borders, have already spilled over
to the diaspora in other countries. In fact, right here in the
United States we were proud to just pass legislation shutting
down 40,000 Chinese shell companies that have set up shop. I'm
a farm kid from Iowa. It's not just the buying of farmland, it
is the wholescale establishment of a clandestine operation
working here in the United States and around the world, buying
up so that China can target its own diaspora, but also be a
collection agent for U.S. interests on our own soil. This is an
immediate national security concern. And while our hearts are
absolutely with everyone in this room, we have to recognize
that the CCP does not intend to operate only on Chinese soil
but to export that, to be able to influence activities around
the globe.
Ms. Inboden, you have some very important recommendations
here on what the United States can do. I think that it's
important, as we saw with Huawei and other companies, that in
the technology space alone it cannot be one country trying to
turn back this red tide. I'm not talking about Alabama
football. I'm talking about what's coming out of Beijing right
now. The question is--if we're going to move forward on this,
how do we get our international partners to go along with the
good recommendations you made for what we're trying to do here
in the United States?
Ms. Inboden. That's an excellent question. I have said that
transnational repression needs a transnational response. I
think that there are many countries that are starting to
understand the threat that this presents--Australia, for
example. I've also noticed a real change within Europe, where
China experts themselves have started to face some level of
transnational repression. And so I think those governments are
starting to understand the risks. I would encourage the U.S. to
pursue within the U.N. and other bodies joint resolutions,
shared initiatives to combat transnational repression, a U.N.
Human Rights Council resolution on transnational repression,
and information sharing between Federal agencies, especially
law enforcement, on transnational repression.
I would also like to see the U.S. Government taking more
steps. At the Federal level the U.S. has made great strides in
recognizing it--but I think that it needs to be much broader
and include also state-level officials being aware of
transnational repression. I would also like to see, frankly,
U.N. Security understand transnational repression, because, as
my fellow witness indicated, on U.N. grounds people feel
threatened by Chinese representatives from GONGOs, and I think
that is really not excusable. Five years ago, many of us
started making recommendations to the U.N. on what U.N.
Security could do. And I don't think that has been implemented
to date.
Representative Nunn. I want to thank each member of the
panel here, and highlight specifically, Ms. Inboden, to your
point, both what we can do at the international level, but, as
you highlighted, at the federated state levels here as well, to
have a unified front. And, Mr. Rogers, you noted earlier, those
bilateral relationships with countries that have the capacity
to stand up--Australia, the United States, Japan, Korea, Great
Britain, certainly--these are the countries that have to lead
the way.
The United States has certainly been on board with this,
but we have to stand with our neighbors and communities that
don't have the ability to stand on their own. And I look at
some of our friends in Southeast Asia and the island nations--
they need the support as well, with the large percentage of
Chinese living in those communities, that also face this direct
threat--both economically, socially, religiously, but most
importantly, politically as well.
Thank you very much, Commissioners. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Smith. Commissioner Nunn, thank you very much, as
always, for your incisive questioning.
Let me just ask some additional questions, and then
anything else you would like to say to us, to the Commission
today, as well. You know, on transnational repression, I've
introduced the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Act, which is going
after those three outposts. It's a natural follow-up to the
Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and it has passed in
committee. It'll be on the floor shortly. It empowers the White
House, the Secretary of State, to end it, to get them out of
here. They're a malign influence. We saw it at the APEC summit,
when they were coordinating the efforts to suppress especially
Uyghurs and others, who were all demonstrating. I mean, it was
horrible to see.
I spent the better part of five, six hours reading every
one of their websites, for all three of them. And there they
were, defending aggressively, Ben Rogers, the National Security
Law in Hong Kong, how great it is. And you know, they're
supposed to be the teller of truth for economic transparency
for the Chinese Communist Party. It couldn't be further from
the truth. So that's one way. Senator Merkley has an excellent
bill on the Senate side. We have the companion bill here on the
House side on transitional repression. Again, they're both
bipartisan. We're hoping to get that legislation passed. His
bill number is S. 831. Mine is H.R. 3654.
And it protects targeted individuals, trains law
enforcement so that they're more equipped and aware of what to
look for. Because sometimes--we've seen this with other human
rights abuses, like trafficking--it could be standing right in
front of you and you don't really understand--you know--they
don't know. There just needs to be a very significant training
capacity for each of those. There are also other aspects to it,
but they're both great bills. They're identical. We're hoping
to get those passed as well. It's got to be done. I've heard
from so many in the diaspora on how they're surveilled--worse,
they're threatened. And Bob Fu went through it. He had to move
out of his home because of what these Chinese Communist Party
apparatchiks were doing to him. And he got through it.
Let me just say too, you know, I am requesting again
today--we're going to do another letter. I've done several.
After we got the forced organ harvesting bill passed, the
Chinese embassy here went into overdrive, saying how untrue it
all is, which is par for the course. They were also making
comments about how anybody can go to Xinjiang. They have
nothing to hide. So we put together a letter immediately and
said: I'd like to lead a congressional delegation to go there,
to go to the camps, to spend a week or two there. And we still
haven't heard back. We've done several follow-ups. From this
podium, I'm asking that the Chinese Communist Party allow me,
and other members, to come. You have nothing to hide? We want
to come. You know, we've done it before, Frank Wolf and I, back
in the 1980's, went to Perm Camp 35 in the Ural Mountains,
where all the political prisoners were, and the religious
prisoners, under the Soviet Union. Not all of them, but some of
the best of the best, like Natan Sharansky and others.
It took 2 years, but we got there. And we interviewed and
talked to every one of those prisoners, and we worked to get
them out. It was such an eye opener. The warden couldn't
believe it when we walked in the doors, even though he knew we
were coming. He goes, How did you get here? Well, China has
made that bold statement about Xinjiang, and we're following it
up. We want to go. The sooner the better. So I again make that
request.
Dr. Dirks, thank you for your great testimony and your
leadership. Back in 2006 I had a hearing--it was the longest
hearing I've ever chaired. It was 8 hours long. We had
Microsoft, Google, Cisco, and Yahoo, their top people, all
testify because of their work to enable the Chinese Communist
Party to surveil and to censor all things from the dissident
community, religious community. And one of the most telling
things that we got from them--because I asked them all, swore
them all in and asked them: Why are you doing it? They said,
Well, when a police request is made, we honor it. They give out
personal, identifying information. They just fork it all over
to people who then go round up human rights activists and put
them in prison. There was one particular person that Yahoo gave
all the information on, and they arrested him. Shi Tao. We had
his mother at a subsequent hearing. And here, an NGO in New
York City is being told what you can and can't do when the
Tiananmen Square time comes around, you know, to remember it
and to focus on it.
He got 10 years in prison. And Yahoo facilitated the entire
thing. They did say they were going to move that kind of
information offsite, but who knows how well or poorly that has
been done. Google may be one of the worst. And Microsoft! When
I saw the former leader of Microsoft kowtowing to Xi Jinping
last June in Beijing, it made my heart sick. Why didn't he have
a prisoner list with him? Not only do we ask every government
official, every lawmaker, to raise names--you know, this
Commission has got the best list imaginable, and very
accurate--we've got to get our people in the private sector,
especially big tech, with that prisoner list, and stop looking
the other way, because they are enabling the cruelty of
cruelties, like against your sister, Rushan, when they're
silent.
Silence means you're okay with it. You've got to speak up.
So we're going to make that request again of the private sector
as well in the letter, like you have asked for, Rana. We will
do that immediately. Maybe, Mr. Dirks, you might want to speak
about this. I think Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Cisco and the
others have to own up to the complicity and the conveyance of
high tech that they have now given to the Chinese. Now when
they take it over, they might even make it more efficient. But
it's all used for repression. Why don't they know that? Where's
the apology from Google?
I was at an internet cafe in Beijing on one of my many
trips there. I'm now barred from going. Hopefully, I'll get to
go to Xinjiang with a delegation. But I went to an internet
cafe. I typed in ``torture,'' because I was looking for Manfred
Nowak's report. And I got Gitmo in Cuba. I got this harsh
attack. You know, everything else I couldn't get--you know, I
pushed the hyperlink, couldn't get to any of it. I put my name
in. That wasn't good. I put in the Dalai Lama. That was even
worse--far worse. It just tells you--all of that was enabled by
high-tech companies in the United States of America, and that
is outrageous.
Anyway, at that hearing I started off--I'd just read a book
about IBM and the Holocaust, an excellent book, well footnoted.
And it talked about how the Gestapo always had these great
lists, particularly of Jews, whom they hunted down and put into
concentration camps and killed. And how did they always have
those? IBM was a major reason. And I said, past is prologue.
They are now enabling the Chinese Communist Party to repress in
the cruelest of fashions these wonderful people.
So, Mr. Dirks, do you want to speak to that? Why don't
these companies ever come clean? We had hearings leading up to
the last Olympics. And we had some of the companies, Coca-Cola
and the others--they're not high tech, but they certainly are a
very big company--just to say, what about the genocide that's
going on in Xinjiang? Will you speak out against that? And it
was like, Hmm . . ., one of them did but all the others
wouldn't say a word. If anyone wants to respond to any of that,
I would appreciate it.
Mr. Dirks, why don't these companies ever come clean? You
know, it's just troubling beyond words and it also has military
implications, as we all know. That came out in our hearing with
Cisco--and the others, but especially Cisco. You know, they had
a control capability they sold called Police Net. Now the
Chinese Communist Party police could better track down and
share with each other the dissident community, and the human
rights activists, and religious freedom people. You might want
to speak to that, Dr. Dirks.
And let me just say to all of you--maybe you want to
respond to this--what happens now? Yes, there will be a
response period pursuant to the Periodic Review. But this
should be the beginning of a new focus, a pivot to a new focus,
not a one-and-done. Some report shows up on a bureaucrat's desk
and he goes, Oh, look at this--and throws it into the shredder.
There's got to be real follow-up. I'm glad that so many did
raise, including our government, very serious questions. I
mean, that is--you know, we've got to take this to a new level.
That's why we're having this hearing, so I would ask you as
well if you could speak to what's next.
Mr. Dirks. Well, thank you for your question. In terms of
tech companies, you mentioned Microsoft and Apple. As I stated
in my recommendations at the end of my prepared remarks, I
would encourage the U.S. Government to publicly request that
Microsoft and other U.S. companies operating within the
People's Republic of China and Hong Kong, to publicly explain
how they're implementing or why they're implementing political
and religious censorship on their platforms in China. Often
these companies are not transparent about what particular
content moderation or censorship practices they're putting in
place. That would be a major step that the U.S. Government
could take, simply demanding that these companies actually
explain how they're implementing content censorship on their
Chinese-based platforms.
More broadly, I think this raises the question of what the
ethical commitments are of any company that is engaging with
Chinese state actors, and in particular the Ministry of Public
Security. So this was an issue, again, that was raised in the
discussions around mass DNA collection in the Tibet Autonomous
Region; and previous to that, in Xinjiang, specifically as it
related to the involvement of Thermo Fisher in selling human
identification kits in those regions. Within the Ministry of
Public Security, China's state security apparatus, there's a
long, well-documented history of human rights abuses there,
documented by researchers, advocacy organizations, journalists,
and members of this Commission.
It is not conceivable that corporate entities that are
engaging or pursuing a commercial relationship with state
actors, specifically the police in China, are unaware of this
history of human rights abuse by the Ministry of Public
Security, by Chinese state security agencies. So I think it's
incumbent on those companies to be able to publicly explain to
governments, to the public, to journalists, to shareholders,
why they feel comfortable engaging in commercial relationships
with a state entity that is known to commit human rights abuses
against Chinese citizens within its borders, and who are
potentially implicated in human rights abuses against diaspora
members outside Chinese borders.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Dr. Dirks.
Ms. Abbas.
Ms. Abbas. It's extremely important for our administration
to take some necessary tangible steps, especially at the U.S.
mission in Geneva. They should be provided with enough
resources and the capability to push back China's influence in
the U.S. So whatever we can do to provide the resources, the
staff, and the funding. They cannot do their job while the
Chinese government has 100 times more money and resources. The
U.S. mission in Geneva is at the forefront of this. Our
administration really needs to take seriously, as you
mentioned, Chairman Smith, at the beginning, any kind of
kowtowing or leaning into the engaging and dialogue with the
Chinese government. They take it as a sign of being weak, and
it will embolden them, empower them more. So if we want to hold
the Chinese government accountable, we really need to take real
tangible steps. Thank you.
Ms. Luo. Sorry, because my English is not very good, and
also I don't quite understand the rule. When Ms. Salinas asked
me about the situation, I didn't put forward my recommendation.
I am a project manager. On everything, I think we need a
solution or, let's say, a suggestion or proposal. Regarding the
situation of the prisoners--in China, right now I have a very
simple but maybe difficult recommendation, because I know each
of the countries have diplomats in China. We have the human
rights officer in Beijing, in Shanghai, and maybe in other
places. Right now I understand the difficulty is that the human
rights officer is not able to do anything publicly. Anytime he
meets with the family, the family gets harassed and even
imprisoned, like Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan. The only reason Xu Yan
was imprisoned is because she went to meet the U.N.-EU
delegation when they came to China.
I mean, this is a very bad case for the Chinese government
to be showing the world. To the outside world: Pay attention to
the political prisoners. They still can detain their family. So
what I want to say is, I hope the next more tangible step is
that the human rights officer in China should directly request
to visit the detention centers, the prisons. As Rana just said,
of course they will cover everything up, but even just the
request will put pressure on them to follow the law they wrote
themselves. We're not asking them to do anything else. Just do
what you write in your law. This is one recommendation.
Another thing I want to highlight, in my written statement
I mentioned that when a couple is detained or imprisoned, their
children are in real difficulty. The people taking care of them
have a big problem. And I wish we could have some way that the
human rights officer, just from a humanitarian point of view,
be paid attention to. This is my second point.
The third point, regarding the term of life in prison; for
some of the prisoners, like Wang Bingzhang, he is already 75
years old. I talked to his family. I said, should we ask him to
give up what he's doing at 75 years old? He just wants to come
back home. But he was sentenced to life. For these kinds of
cases the human rights officer can reach out to do some
negotiation, because the political prisoners--there are just so
many cases--we have all kinds of circumstances. But we have to
go case by case.
Sorry, maybe I spoke too long, but I have a lot of
recommendations I could put forward into my prepared statement.
Thank you.
Chair Smith. I appreciate it.
Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. I'd like to answer your question,
What's next?, very briefly. I'll do so in respect to three
areas. First on the United Nations, second, in regard to Hong
Kong, and third, more broadly on China itself. At the United
Nations, I very much agree with Rana Inboden that our
experience at Hong Kong Watch, when we were advocating for the
UPR, we had some very encouraging meetings with nontraditional
allies--countries that we hadn't worked with before that are
not totally in China's camp. Countries like Peru, Costa Rica,
Chile, Mexico. In the end, they didn't come forth with the
recommendations we hoped they would on Hong Kong, but they were
very receptive to hearing from us, at least their diplomats in
Geneva were. So I would encourage a greater engagement with
non-Western potential allies to try to counter China's
influence at the U.N.
I think we need to really engage the special procedures,
the special rapporteurs, on all of the issues we've talked
about. It's worth putting on the record the fact that just
before the UPR, a group of special rapporteurs issued a
statement calling for the release of Jimmy Lai. And then just a
day or so ago, one particular special rapporteur came out with
a finding that a key witness who is due to appear soon in Jimmy
Lai's trial, Andy Li, who is himself a political prisoner, has
been subjected to severe torture, and that he's testifying
against Jimmy Lai, but under coercion and pressure and torture.
The special rapporteur has found that and has said, therefore,
that Li's testimony will not be valid because it is a result of
torture.
Coming on to Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai, I know there is a
proposal--which, I think, Mr. Chairman, you are aware of, from
Nina Shea, to create a Jimmy Lai Way somewhere close to the
Chinese Embassy. I think that would be a fabulous step to take.
And I will certainly be looking to encourage that in the United
Kingdom and elsewhere as well. This week, the Hong Kong
government announced a so-called public consultation on the
Article 23 security legislation. While we know that's not going
to be a genuine public consultation, I wonder whether--in the
same way that you have requested to go to Xinjiang--whether the
CECC might request the opportunity to contribute to Hong Kong's
public consultation on Article 23, and see how far you get with
that.
Then, just more broadly, I'd like to put on the record the
issue of pension funds that are invested in companies in China
that are complicit with facilitating surveillance, repression,
and genocide, but also the issue of the pension fund providers
that are withholding Hong Kongers' pensions under the Mandatory
Provident Fund, the MPF scheme. I won't go into detail on that,
but that is something that I think should be addressed to allow
Hong Kongers who are leaving Hong Kong and coming, particularly
to the U.K., but also elsewhere, to withdraw their hard-earned
pensions. And finally, if there is an opportunity to do more to
highlight Jimmy Lai, perhaps in the form of a resolution on his
case, during the course of his trial to put a spotlight on the
trial, that would be very welcome. So thank you.
Chair Smith. Great suggestions. On the Jimmy Lai Lane, we
are working on a piece of legislation. We're more likely to try
to do it in front of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices
and put it there. Hopefully, they won't be there much longer,
but that would be one thought. It might be easier than doing it
in front of the embassy, because when we do that it's amazing
how much opposition there is, and the ability to spike that,
particularly if it passes the House and the Senate, has
happened before.
Did you want to say something, Rana? I wasn't sure.
Ms. Inboden. I'll try to be brief on your request about
next steps.
Chair Smith. Yes.
Ms. Inboden. I still believe in American energetic
diplomacy. The Xinjiang resolution in the Human Rights Council
could have passed if the U.S. Government had advocated for it
more vigorously. For China, it was a full court press. For the
United States, I honestly think that more calls at higher
levels to certain other governments would have secured at least
an abstention, if not some votes in favor of it, including, for
example, Ukraine. The U.N.'s commissioner for human rights has
said that he will follow up on his predecessor's report on
Xinjiang. I would like the U.S. to push to be talking to that
office, letting them know that mere engagement with the PRC is
not enough. It needs to be pressure. It needs to be public. And
I would love to see the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
himself mentioning these cases by name.
Then finally, I support Sophie Luo's suggestion. I would
love to see American diplomats in China asking for access to
these prisoners. Finally, in other academic writings, I have
written about China's authoritarian collaboration in the United
Nations, including with a group that goes by the moniker Like-
Minded Group. They're like-minded about trying to hold back the
U.N. human rights bodies from scrutiny. I would love to see
American diplomats try to chip away and weaken that group,
making it smaller and less powerful. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you so much.
You know, let me just ask a follow-up. Can that resolution
on Xinjiang be reconsidered or reintroduced?
Ms. Inboden. It could be. My understanding is there's a lot
of hesitancy about doing that. We can't go back in time, but I
think also that the configuration of the Human Rights Council,
with China being reelected again, is still not in our favor. I
really would have liked to see more vigorous American lobbying
for that resolution. It was a travesty that it did not pass,
because there was the potential for it to pass.
Chair Smith. Thank you. Just one issue I'd like to bring up
that we've been working on as a Commission--our staff and I
have been pushing hard on it, and that is the North Koreans who
left North Korea, made their way into China, and now in
absolute contra-
vention of the Refugee Convention, China is sending them back
to North Korea--there are at least 600, of an estimated 2,000--
that was the UNHCR suggestion, that about 2,000 are at risk of
refoulement. There's not enough being done to raise it. We've
raised it repeatedly here in the Commission, and I have done so
with many, including with UNHCR. But there needs to be a
resolution there. Those people go back, and most are women.
They go back to a situation where they will be tortured. Many
will be executed. Six hundred is the estimation of how many
have been sent back against the clear obligations pursuant to
the Refugee Convention.
There's another rule of law issue where they signed on.
They're signatories to the Refugee Convention--``they'' being
China. And yet they are just violating it with impunity. And
that's a larger question; they sign things, and then what do
they do? I remember for years--year after year--with one of the
major human rights treaties--every time a delegation was
coming, they would say, you know, they're reconsidering this.
All the China hands that make money from Beijing would be
saying, Oh, they're about to sign it. It went on for, like, a
half dozen years, and it's useless. And there's no limitation,
as you know, on any of this. But if any of you want to speak to
the Refugee Convention, please do. I wanted to get that on the
record because that is really, really serious.
Ms. Abbas. May I have permission to speak, Chairman?
Chair Smith. Of course.
Ms. Abbas. In regard to the issue that you mentioned, we
have some Uyghur cases around the world. Specifically, we have
someone in Morocco, actually, for the last few years, Idris
Hasan, in limbo, and, as well, we have some Uyghurs in
detention in Thailand. Also, recently, there is one more
refugee that we spoke to Piero about confidentially yesterday.
So these are the cases that we need to do something about
immediately. Our administration, our posts, our embassies,
should take steps. If the previous administration and this
administration both declared that what's happening to Uyghurs
is genocide, they would not be facing the risk of being
deported back to China.
Also, on the second related issue, we have a few hundred
Uyghurs in the United States. Their political asylum is not
even being reviewed, or after the interview they are not
getting approved. So if we cannot do anything for the millions
of Uyghurs back in the Uyghur region, at least we should do
something for those Uyghurs here and around the world. That's
something that is really important and immediate--if we can do
something. Thank you.
Chair Smith. Let me just say one other thing. You know, I
mentioned Wei Jingsheng earlier. And I'll never forget this.
I've heard it several times since from political prisoners, how
important it is that their names be visible and that we
persistently bring this up, that everyone bring this up. I got
another insight. You know, I worked a lot on the Soviet Union
in the 1980s. Went to Perm Camp, like I said before. I
befriended a man named Irwin Cotler, who was a senator in
Canada and became the Minister of Justice there. His daughter,
parenthetically, is the head of combating antisemitism for the
State of Israel. I met with her recently as well.
She told me a story about Natan Sharansky, who was one of
the greatest human rights activists ever. And he was in Perm
camp. Irwin Cotler became Sharansky's lawyer, he met with
Gorbachev, you know, and it was very visible. When Sharansky
learned that he had a lawyer it gave him renewed hope. Here he
is languishing, and word gets back to him, Hey, you got a
lawyer, and he's a very prominent Canadian. But he asked--this
is Cotler, Senator Cotler. He asked Gorbachev--he wanted to
know, Why did you let Sharansky out? And Gorbachev goes,
Because every time I turned around somebody was raising the
name ``Sharansky.'' So I said, Okay, I don't know who this man
is. Let him go.
Now, that won't always happen, but I think we have to
realize--Ronald Reagan and Shultz, his Secretary of State, were
famous for having a list--every time they met with a Soviet
interlocutor, they would talk about releasing political
prisoners and many got out. So we need to renew that, you know,
when President Biden talks to Xi Jinping on those phone calls,
go through some names. Say: We want--please, let them out.
Don't plead, but you can use the word ``please,'' I think.
We've got to make that a priority for all of us, not just the
China Commission. I just heard that story a couple of months
ago about Gorbachev saying, That's why I let him go.
Anything further you would like to add before we conclude?
You've been a great panel. So much leadership in this room. We
do have a few statements for the record that will be included.
The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, the
International Campaign for Tibet, Ma Ju, Hong Kong Watch,
Transitional Justice Working Group, Chinese Human Rights
Defenders. Without objection, their statements will be made a
part of the record.
Thank you so much. Your leadership is extraordinary and you
give guidance. Pastor Pan is here from Taiwan. Okay, we could
almost recognize everybody in this room for your leadership. So
thank you. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Rana Siu Inboden
______
Distinguished Commissioners, it is an honor to be a part of today's
hearing.
The recent Universal Periodic Review of the People's Republic of
China (PRC) at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) provides
an opportune time to assess the PRC's record and examine ways it is
continuing to attempt to subvert the U.N. human rights system.\1\
Beijing not only attempts to stymie a fair and thorough assessment of
its human rights record by manipulating the Universal Periodic Review
(UPR) of China, but it is working to impair the vitality of the U.N.
human rights system in other ways as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ This was the PRC's 4th UPR with its previous review occurring
in 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
China's assault on the U.N. human rights system comes in tandem
with severe domestic repression that includes pervasive persecution of
ethnic Uyghurs, including arbitrary detention; a crackdown on any form
of dissent in Hong Kong; extensive state control and suppression in
Tibet that includes forcibly removing children from their families; and
an ongoing onslaught on human rights defenders through the use of black
jails, extensive jail sentences, and forced disappearances.\2\ Just as
Beijing's policy toward the Uyghur community is said to be intended to
``break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections and
break their origins,'' the PRC also appears to be attempting to break
the U.N. human rights system. The PRC's efforts to undermine robust
human rights scrutiny of its record are intended to conceal its
extensive human rights violations, including the politically motivated
detention of individuals, such as Pastor Wang Yi, Uyghurs Ilham Tohti
and Rahile Dawut, Tibetan Yeshe Choedron, human rights defenders Xu
Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi and Gao Zhisheng, and the trial of Jimmy Lai in
Hong Kong. These individual cases are not isolated ones, but rather are
emblematic of the politically repressive landscape in China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ ``2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China
(Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet),'' U.S. State Department,
https://www.State.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-
practices/china/, accessed January 22, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
China's actions over the last decade show that the PRC has become
intent on using its presence in the U.N. to alter international human
rights norms and rewire the system in ways that will make it easier for
states to escape scrutiny of their human rights records. There are
several specific features of China's assault on the international human
rights regime that I outline below.
Manipulating the Universal Periodic Review
The Universal Periodic Review was initially intended to ensure that
every nation underwent routine human rights scrutiny before the
international community.\3\ It includes a three-and-a-half-hour session
where representatives of the country under review appear in person to
participate in a dialog that includes both a government presentation
and an opportunity for questions from other nations during a session of
the Human Rights Council. Other nations can also put forward
recommendations for the government under review.\4\ The UPR also relies
on documentation submitted by the government in question, the United
Nations, and civil society. The procedure was developed with a vision
of vigorous scrutiny, yet the PRC has tried to render the UPR a
meaningless exercise and actively works to whitewash its violations.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Due to the rotational nature, each nation usually undergoes
review about every 4.5 years.
\4\ The nation under review can accept, reject or note
recommendations. Some nations, particularly China, have indicated that
certain recommendations have already been implemented even though this
has often not been the case.
\5\ ``China Attempts to `gaslight' international community at U.N.
human rights review,'' Amnesty International, January 23, 2024, https:/
/www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/01/china-
attempts-to-gaslight-international-community-at-un-human-rights-review/
, accessed January 24, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of China's key strategies toward this goal is soliciting
fawning or softball comments from compliant nations in order to flood
the proceedings with weak recommendations and perfunctory remarks. This
was a strategy that the PRC initiated shortly after the HRC was formed
in 2006. During the first round of the UPR, held during the first years
of the Council, countries like China and Cuba heavily recruited (and at
times pressured) other nations to sign up to speak during their
reviews.\6\ Speaking during the UPR is voluntary and ideally nations
that are concerned about that country's human rights record should be
able to have sufficient time to query the country under review, but the
PRC and other authoritarian-leaning nations manipulated the process so
that the speaking list is filled with many countries offering bland
statements and insipid or meaningless recommendations.\7\ In the lead-
up to China's UPR in January 2024, according to Reuters, the PRC
mission circulated a diplomatic note to other nations that read, ``I
would kindly request your delegation to render valuable support to
China and make constructive recommendations in the interactive dialogue
. . . taking into account the friendly relations and cooperation
between our two countries.'' \8\ For developing countries, that are
reliant on PRC economic assistance or other forms of support, the
language ``friendly relations and cooperation'' could easily feel like
pressure to ensure that they remain in the PRC's good graces. Beijing's
machinations meant that during its January 2024 UPR 163 nations had
signed up to speak, which meant that each country only had 45 seconds
to deliver remarks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Other authoritarian nations, including Cuba, have also used
this tactic.
\7\ During the first round of the UPR, this PRC tactic resulted in
time running out so that a number of countries did not get to deliver
their statement. The queue was initially a physical one so China and
other countries could see which delegations bothered to line up early.
\8\ Emma Farge, ``China lobbies countries to praise its rights
record ahead of U.N. review,'' Reuters, January 22, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the statements delivered on the PRC's behalf not only
congratulated the PRC about its economic development achievements, but
even endorsed some of the PRC's rights-abusing policies. According to
press reporting, the Chinese government also requested praise from at
least a couple of (and possibly more) non-western countries and
specifically suggested that they mention China's record on disability
rights and women.\9\ A number of countries also appeared to parrot the
content in Beijing's state report and employed phrases from the Chinese
government, particularly slogans used by Xi Jinping, such as ``whole
process people's democracy.'' \10\ As a result, several delegations
commended China for lifting 100 million people out of poverty and
reaching some U.N. Sustainable Development goals ahead of schedule and
recommended China share lessons with other developing countries, make
progress in agriculture, continue to address rural development, and
deforestation.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Ibid.
\10\ ``China Review--45th Session, Universal Periodic Review,''
U.N. Web TV, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1z/k1z43db5bt, accessed
January 25, 2024. Although many observers see China as playing a
destructive role in the international human rights system, India's UPR
statement encouraged China to continue playing a constructive role in
representing developing countries in the U.N. human rights system,
including through `reform' of multilateral institutions. For background
on China's negative influence on the human rights system, see Sophie
Richardson, ``China's Influence on the Global Human Rights System,''
Brookings Institute, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-
influence-on-the-global-human-rights-system/, accessed January 25,
2024.
\11\ ``China Review--45th Session, Universal Periodic Review,''
U.N. Web TV, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1z/k1z43db5bt, accessed
January 25, 2024. In response to the PRC's oft-repeated claims about
the number of people lifted out of poverty, Dr. Sophie Richardson
pointed out that the level of economic development might be due more to
the PRC lifting its boot off the people enough to allow them to be
economically productive. ``World Report 2020: Live from the United
Nations,'' Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhTUiIey00A,
accessed January 27, 2024. This point also makes sense given that much
of China's development occurred prior to Xi's reimposition of Mao-like
State control.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In exchange for these dutiful remarks for Beijing, other rights-
abusing nations appear to receive reciprocal treatment from China.\12\
For example, Belarus put forward the following advance question,
``China upholds that all ethnic groups are equal and works for all-
round development of the cause of ethnic minorities. Would you please
share the efforts and practices by the Chinese government in protecting
the rights of ethnic minorities,'' \13\ and in 2021 when Belarus
underwent its UPR, the PRC stated that ``it supported the achievements
of Belarus in protecting human rights and its efforts to maintain its
independence, sovereignty, security and development.'' \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Rana Siu Inboden, China and the International Human Rights
Regime: 1982-2017 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), see
Chapter 5.
\13\ ``Advance Questions to China,'' U.N. Human Rights Council,
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/cn-index, accessed January 25,
2024.
\14\ U.N. Human Rights Council, ``Report of the Working Group on
the Universal Periodic Review, Belarus,'' January 4, 2021, U.N. Doc. A/
HRC/46/5. China also recommended that Belarus, ``Continue to pursue the
human rights development path suitable to its national conditions.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PRC also manipulates the process by attempting to control and
influence the information that is used for the UPR, including the
compiled written information and civil society access to the
proceedings. For example, while the PRC government claims to meet the
UPR guideline of involving civil society and allowing for domestic
consultations in developing the report that it submits to the United
Nations, the organizations that were cited as having input into the PRC
government report were government-affiliated ones.\15\ As a result, the
content of the PRC's national report is divorced from the reality of
the repression that Tibetans, Uyghurs, residents of Hong Kong, and
human rights defenders face, as well as the overall surveillance and
control that all Chinese citizens face.\16\ Instead, China's report was
full of propaganda and blandishments and in its oral statement the PRC
delegation claimed that China was one of the ``safest countries in the
world'' and that the Chinese people ``are the masters of their country
and society.'' The delegation further claimed that with the imposition
of National Security Law in Hong Kong ``the days of social disturbance
and fear are over'' and that ``stability and order are restored'' to
the city.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ ``Universal Periodic Review Fourth Cycle--China--Reference
Documents,'' U.N. Human Rights Council, https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-
bodies/upr/uprcn-add-info-s45, accessed January 25, 2024.
\16\ U.N. Human Rights Council, ``China National report submitted
in accordance with Human Rights Council resolutions 5/1 and 16/21,''
November 3, 2023, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/WG.6/45/CHN/1*. Moreover, given
Beijing's pattern of using transnational repression and engaging in
reprisals against human rights advocates who engage with the United
Nations, independent Chinese civil society activists could justifiably
fear consequences of putting forward statements or information for the
UPR. U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
``Cooperation with the United Nations, its representatives and
mechanisms in the field of human rights--Report of the Secretary-
General,'' August 21, 2023, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/54/61, https://
www.ohchr.org/en/
documents/reports/ahrc5461-cooperation-united-nations-its-
representatives-and-mechanisms-field. China is regularly cited in this
annual report for engaging in reprisals.
\17\ ``China Review--45th Session, Universal Periodic Review,''
U.N. Web TV, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1z/k1z43db5bt, accessed
January 25, 2024. The statement on the Hong Kong National Security Law
was especially untrue given that this piece of legislation has been
described as draconian and a threat to freedom in Hong Kong. Javier
Hernandez, ``Harsh Penalties, Vaguely Defined Crimes: Hong Kong's
Security Law Explained,'' New York Times, June 30, 2020, https://
www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/world/asia/hong-kong-security-law-
explain.html, accessed January 24, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition, there have been instances when China has attempted to
control the information compiled by the U.N. In 2018, when China was
last reviewed, the PRC succeeded in temporarily removing critical
submissions from Hong Kong, Tibetan, and Uyghur groups.\18\ Given
previous reports of the PRC pressuring or trying to influence the U.N.
secretariat, it is highly likely that the PRC sought to ensure that the
U.N.'s compilation did not include the August 2022 report on Xinjiang
by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or mention
of that report's finding that the PRC's actions in Xinjiang ``may
constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against
humanity.'' \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Sophie Richardson and Rana Siu Inboden, ``Beijing Is Pouring
Resources into Its U.N. Human Rights Review--All to Prevent Any Real
Review from Taking Place,'' ChinaFile, January 22, 2024, https://
www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/China-UPR, accessed
January 25, 2024.
\19\ ``OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China,'' U.N. Office of
the High Commissioner for Human Rights, https://www.ohchr.org/en/
documents/country-reports/ohchr-assessment-human-rights-concerns-
xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region, accessed January 22, 2024. On ways
the PRC might apply pressure to the United Nations, see Rana Siu
Inboden, ``China, power and the United Nations Special Procedures:
Emerging threats,'' Global Policy (forthcoming).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, China attempts to crowd out independent civil society
organizations with government-affiliated ones (often referred to as
GONGO's) through both the submission of information to the U.N. and
even filling up the section allotted for NGO representatives to observe
the UPR.\20\ Moreover, GONGO representatives have at times attempted to
intimidate independent human rights defenders at the United
Nations.\21\
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\20\ ``Briefing Paper: Strategies for Making China's 4th UPR
Effective in Stopping Atrocity Crimes,'' Chinese Human Rights
Defenders, https://www.nchrd.org/2023/12/briefing-paper-
strategies-for-making-chinas-4th-upr-effective-in-stopping-atrocity-
crimes/, accessed January 25, 2024.
\21\ See Human Rights Watch, The Costs of International Advocacy:
China's Interference with United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms
(Washington DC: Human Rights Watch, 2017), 18-20.
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Rejecting of the Universality of Human Rights Norms
China is asserting positions that challenge the universality of
international human rights norms.\22\ One of the PRC's strategies in
this regard is insisting that the ``significance of national, and
regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious
backgrounds must be borne in mind'' in promoting international human
rights.'' \23\ The PRC repeatedly makes this point, including asserting
that ``There is no one-size-fits-all development path for human
rights.'' \24\ China employs this resistance to universal human rights
standards to shield itself and other rights-abusing governments. For
example, during an HRC Special Session on Iran related to the crackdown
on the September 2022 protests, PRC Permanent Representative Chen Xu
offered a statement that opposed the convening of a special session on
Iran and called on other nations to ``respect each countries' own
choice of human rights development path (sic).'' \25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Previously, there were sporadic PRC statements that offered
some rhetorical acceptance of the universality of human rights. See
Inboden, China and the International Human Rights Regime, 52-53 and 75.
\23\ The PRC's language in rejecting the universality of
international human rights norms is becoming sharper. In a submission
to the UNHRC's Advisory Committee, the Chinese government stated that
``Different countries have different historical and cultural
traditions, levels of economic and social development and political
systems, different human rights concepts and practices, and different
priority areas and specific plans for human rights development.''
``Reply to the Questionnaire of the Human Rights Council Advisory
Committee on the Role of Technical Assistance and Capacity Building in
Fostering Mutually Beneficial Cooperation,'' PRC government, https://
www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/
AdvisoryCom/TechnicalAssistance/China_English.pdf, accessed December
14, 2023.
\24\ ``Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press
Conference on November 8, 2022,'' http://un.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/
fyrth/202211/t20221108_10834174.htm, accessed January 25, 2024.
\25\ ``35th Special Session of the Human Rights Council,'' U.N. Web
TV, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1l/k1lbchotfp, accessed January 22,
2024.
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China does not merely express these views in its national documents
and statements. Beginning in 2017, it also began proactively injecting
these ideas into U.N. debates and texts, particularly HRC
resolutions.\26\ For example, the PRC's HRC resolutions on ``The
Contribution of Development to the Enjoyment of Human Rights'' erodes
universality by introducing the idea that the realization of human
rights is contingent on economic development, particularly that the
international community should ``take into account different national
realities, capacities, and levels of development.'' \27\ Although
economic development can support human rights, this position risks
giving developing countries a pass on vigorous protection of political,
civil and religious rights.\28\ HRC resolutions convey the positions of
the Council's members (or the majority of them) on human rights issues,
and over time can alter other key aspects of the human rights regime,
such as forming ideas about U.N. human rights priorities, the HRC's
functioning and work, including the mandates of the HRC's independent
experts.
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\26\ For background on the PRC's introduction of these kinds of
resolutions see Andrea Worden, ``With Its Latest Human Rights Council
Resolution, China Continues Its Assault on the U.N. Human Rights
Framework,'' China Change, April 9, 2018, https://chinachange.org/2018/
04/09/with-its-latest-human-rights-council-resolution-china-continues-
its-assault-on-the-un-human-rights-framework/, accessed January 22,
2024.
\27\ U.N. Human Rights Council, ``The contribution of development
to the enjoyment of all human rights, resolution'' July 12, 2019, U.N.
Doc. A/HRC/RES/41/19.
\28\ Moreover, instead of using its economic wealth to benefit
Chinese society, the CCP has used its growing wealth to build an
extensive and draconian digital surveillance system.
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Redefining the Substance of the Human Rights Regime
Taking a page from the old Soviet Union Cold War playbook to
undermine human rights, China is also seeking to shift consensus on the
main content of the international human rights regime to focus on
issues such as a ``right to development'' and an emphasis on the aid
and assistance that is owed to the developing world from the Global
North.\29\ In this vein, the PRC has introduced and secured passage of
resolutions on the right to development that include language on the
obligations of developed countries to aid their less developed
counterparts. For example, the PRC asserts that ``Developed countries
should honor their official development assistance commitments, help
developing countries accelerate economic and social development,
eradicate hunger and poverty, and ensure the right to survival and
development.'' \30\ While development is a laudable goal, using the HRC
to introduce the idea that the international system is unfair to under-
developed nations diverts the HRC away from considering oppression such
as torture or forced disappearance.\31\ These PRC efforts further alter
the raison d'etre of the human rights regime away from protecting
people from harm and preventing atrocities to a development forum.
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\29\ See for example, U.N. Human Rights Council, ``The contribution
of development to the enjoyment of all human rights, resolution,'' July
27, 2021, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/47/11.
\30\ PRC government, ``Reply to the Questionnaire of the Human
Rights Council Advisory Committee on the Role of Technical Assistance
and Capacity Building in Fostering Mutually Beneficial Cooperation,''
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents /HRBodies/
HRCouncil/AdvisoryCom/TechnicalAssistance/China_English.pdf, accessed
December 14, 2023. The PRC has also sought to shift attention in the
HRC toward issues that could be perceived as intended to sow further
divisions between the Global South and the Global North, such as a
resolution on the legacies of colonialism. U.N. Human Rights Council,
``Negative Impacts of the legacies of colonialism on the enjoyment of
human rights, resolution'' 14 October 2021, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/48/7.
\31\ U.N. Human Rights Council, ``Promotion of a democratic and
equitable international order, resolution'' October 15, 2021, U.N. A/
HRC/RES/48/8.
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The PRC's rhetoric and resolutions also appear to be aimed at
turning the HRC into a venue where a grievance culture prevails that
creates divisions between the Global South and the Global North. China
regularly claims that developing countries are unfairly targeted for
human rights scrutiny. In response to the introduction of a resolution
on Xinjiang, PRC Permanent Representative Chen Xu claimed that ``today
China is targeted, tomorrow it could be another developing country''
and that ``all country-specific resolutions are targeted at developing
countries.'' \32\ The PRC's claim about unfair scrutiny of developing
countries is clearly aimed at trying to marshal developing world
support to shield itself. China's attempt to couch itself as a
developing country is also incongruous with its assertions about its
success in lifting people out of poverty and becoming a ``moderately
prosperous society.'' In a similar vein, the HRC resolutions on the
``Negative impact of the legacies of colonialism on the enjoyment of
human rights'' and ``A Democratic and Equitable Order'' appear intended
to create rifts.\33\ This tactic is ironic given the PRC's neocolonial
oppression of places and people groups such as Tibetans, Uyghurs and
Hong Kong.
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\32\ ``51st session of the Human Rights Council,'' U.N. Web TV,
https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1w/k1w9tube8v, accessed January 25,
2024.
\33\ U.N. Human Rights Council, ``Promotion of a democratic and
equitable international order, resolution,'' October 15, 2021, U.N.
Doc. A/HRC/RES/48/8.
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Corroding Human Rights Accountability Procedures
The PRC is also among the nations weakening country-specific
scrutiny, including country-focused resolutions, Special Procedures,
and special sessions. For decades the PRC has taken aim at country-
specific scrutiny, especially resolutions, that were aimed at its own
record by calling for cooperation and dialog to advance human rights,
but now its statements are much more insistent on ``mutually beneficial
cooperation'' in lieu of accountability. It is also appropriating
arguments about sovereignty to weaken international scrutiny. China's
statement on behalf of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter
of the United Nations, a grouping that includes a number of rights-
abusing governments, asserts that ``there is no other option than
cooperation, engagement, and national ownership,'' in promoting human
rights.\34\ This group, which is comprised of 19 states, including
Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, the Islamic
Republic of Iran, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mali,
Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, the Russian Federation, Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe, is
exploiting sovereignty to resist human rights accountability and weaken
key tools.\35\
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\34\ ``Statement Delivered by H.E. Mr. Chen Xu, Ambassador
Permanent Representative of the People's Republic of China to the
United Nations Office in Geneva, During the Interactive Dialogue on the
Annual Report of the United Nations High-Commissioner for Human
Rights,'' The Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United
Nations, https://www.gof-uncharter.org/_files/ugd/
6140e8_b80ea090c64741b9b19f7b0df8e90745.pdf.
\35\ The Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United
Nations, ``About Us,'' https://www.gof-uncharter.org/about-us, accessed
December 14, 2023.
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The Chinese government also asserts that human rights scrutiny that
is not based on the consent of and cooperation with the government in
question, is a violation of national sovereignty and constitutes
interference in internal affairs.\36\ China employed this position in
its statement opposing the HRC resolution on Xinjiang, stating that the
``so-called assessment'' was not consented to by the PRC so it was
``null and void.'' \37\ Similarly, in defense of Syria, the PRC issued
the following statement: ``China supports Syria in opposing external
interference, opposing unilateral bullying, and safeguarding national
independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity . . . .'' \38\
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\36\ China also attacks the use of sanctions, referring to them as
unilateral coercive measures. During the HRC's 2022 special session on
Iran, the PRC bemoaned that ``UCM's [unilateral coercive measures] have
caused harm to Iran and other developing countries.''
\37\ The PRC statement also appeared to describe it as an ``illegal
assessment.'' ``51st session of the Human Rights Council,'' U.N. Web
TV, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1w/k1w9tube8v, accessed January 25,
2024.
\38\ ``Xi Jinping Meets with President of Syria Bashar al-Assad,''
PRC Ministry for Foreign Affairs, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/
zxxx_662805/202310/t20231008_11157381.html, accessed
December 14, 2023.
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Recommendations
China is strongly motivated to continue this assault on the U.N.
human rights regime because the ideals enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights present an existential threat to the CCP's
continued one-party rule. Even though a Chinese diplomat was involved
in the drafting of this watershed document, the PRC now shows
resistance to the U.N. human rights system. The U.N. human rights
system emerged in the aftermath of the horrors of World War II, of the
gulag and the Holocaust, and our Nation must again be prepared to
advance the cause of protecting the rights of individuals around the
world. Despite the U.N.'s flaws, the U.S. must remain engaged in it to
prevent China and other authoritarian nations from coopting it.
As part of this effort, the U.S. Government should:
Continue to utilize U.N. tools and commit to
participation. Despite the U.N.'s manifest shortcomings, the U.S. can
have a greater impact if it remains in the U.N. Human Rights Council
and continues to stand for election as often as it can. American
diplomats also did a laudable job of using the opportunity to put
forward questions in advance of China's January 2024 UPR by submitting
15 strongly worded questions, including one that asked about twenty-six
prisoners of conscience.\39\ In addition to continued membership in the
HRC, the United States should also pursue participation and leadership
in other bodies, including ones that appear primarily technical but
that have human rights implications, such as the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU).\40\
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\39\ ``Advance Questions to China,'' U.N. Human Rights Council,
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/cn-index, accessed January 25,
2024.
\40\ Tom Wheeler, ``The most important election you never heard
of,'' Brookings Commentary, August 12, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/
articles/the-most-important-election-you-never-heard-of/, accessed
December 14, 2023.
Support independent civil society, especially Chinese
human rights defenders. The U.N. human rights system relies heavily on
independent human rights defenders being willing to report and
communicate about the abuses they face and the situation in their
country. The U.S. has important opportunities to bolster civil society,
including by continuing to work with other nations to overcome China's
efforts to withhold U.N. consultative status from genuine civil society
groups. Despite the severe level of repression there, I encourage the
U.S. to persist in finding safe and resourceful ways to support and
nurture activists in China. The U.S. must also consider ways to support
those human rights defenders who seek exile because the persecution in
China has grown too pervasive and abusive to withstand. This can be
done through fellowships, research and small grants, as well as mental
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health support.
Better protect people from PRC transnational repression,
especially those who engage with the U.N. Federal level U.S. law
enforcement agencies have begun to better understand the threat that
the PRC poses to human rights activists in the United States through
transnational surveillance, intimidation, and repression. These efforts
must continue but also need to include state and local law enforcement.
The U.S. Government should also ensure that Federal agencies have the
resources they need to continue to investigate and halt PRC
transnational repression efforts, such as overseas police stations.
Counter the PRC's efforts to sow north-south divisions.
The U.S. and many other western nations have been supportive of
developing countries, including funding generous foreign aid programs.
Yet the PRC's rhetoric and actions in the HRC is making it a divisive
venue. The U.S. needs to find creative ways to puncture this false PRC
narrative that developing nations are not supported by the west and
that they receive unfair human rights scrutiny.
Expand efforts with allies. The U.S. cannot defend the
human rights system on its own and needs to prioritize working with
other countries with a commitment to human rights. This should include
both western nations as well as nations from other regions.\41\ The
U.S. has shown an ability to do this and in ECOSOC it partnered with 36
other countries to grant U.N. accreditation to NGOs that had been
blocked by authoritarian governments from gaining accreditation.
Because of this, cross-regional action organizations such as the Syrian
American Medical Society Foundation and the Belarusian Helsinki
Commission have been granted U.N. accreditation.\42\
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\41\ During China's UPR there were several non-western nations that
raised important concerns about China's human rights abuses or made
strong rights-friendly, such as Brazil, Chile and the Marshall Islands.
See, ``China Review--45th Session, Universal Periodic Review,'' U.N.
Web TV, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1z/k1z43db5bt, accessed January
25, 2024.
\42\ ``EU Statement--U.N. ECOSOC: Committee on NGO's,'' Delegation
of the European Union to the United Nations in New York, https://
www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/un-new-york/eu-statement-%E2%80%93-un-
ecosoc-committee-ngos_en, accessed December 14, 2023.
Support creative advocacy. While China and its allies
attempt to drown out incisive human rights questions during the UPR and
other formal U.N. proceedings, the U.S. should also match America's
formal participation in the Human Rights Council by also supporting
creative advocacy that helps elucidate China's human rights abuses. For
example, the U.S. Mission in Geneva could organize a festival featuring
films by Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kong residents and host the
immersive performance ``Everybody Is Gone,'' which depicts the horrors
of the detention camps in the Uyghur region.\43\
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\43\ ``Everybody Is Gone,'' The New Wild, https://
www.thenewwild.org/everybody-is-gone, accessed December 14, 2023.
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Prepared Statement of Benedict Rogers
Representative Smith, Senator Merkley, distinguished Commissioners,
it is a privilege to have this opportunity to testify today at this
important hearing, just over a week after the People's Republic of
China (PRC)'s Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations in
Geneva. I have been requested to focus my testimony on the situation of
freedom of religion or belief in China today, and the situation in Hong
Kong.
Brief personal background and examples of harassment, intimidation, and
threats received
I have been involved with human rights in China, and especially
freedom of religion or belief, for over 30 years, and worked in various
capacities with the human rights organization Christian Solidarity
Worldwide (CSW), which specializes in freedom of religion or belief for
all, for much of the past 30 years. I have lived, worked, and traveled
extensively throughout China and Hong Kong, visiting China regularly
and living in Hong Kong for 5 years from 1997 to 2002. In October 2022,
I published a new book, The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the
Chinese Communist Party's Tyranny (Optimum Publishing International,
2022), which includes chapters on the persecution of Christians in
China, the genocide of the Uyghurs, the atrocities in Tibet, the
persecution of Falun Gong and the practice of forced organ harvesting,
as well as the crackdown on civil society, human rights defenders,
dissidents, and journalists across China and the dismantling of Hong
Kong's freedoms.
It is important to note that in October 2017 I was denied entry to
Hong Kong on the orders of the regime in Beijing, becoming one of the
first Westerners to be refused entry to Hong Kong,\1\ and in March
2022, I and the organization I co-founded and lead, Hong Kong Watch,
were threatened by the Hong Kong Police Force, accused of violating the
National Security Law which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.\2\ I
received two letters, one from both the Hong Kong Police Force and the
National Security Department, informing me that the work of Hong Kong
Watch, a UK-registered non-governmental organization (NGO), was a
threat to China's national security and a violation of Hong Kong's
National Security Law. The letters stated that unless we shut down our
website and ceased our activities within 72 hours of receipt of these
letters, I as the Chief Executive of the organization could face a fine
of HK$100,000 (US$12,790) and a prison sentence. It is important to
note that Hong Kong Watch has never had any presence on the ground in
Hong Kong, any personnel or assets in Hong Kong itself, and these
threats were explicitly issued exercising the extraterritoriality
clause set out in Article 38 of the National Security Law.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ BBC, ``UK `concerned' as Hong Kong denies Benedict Rogers
entry,'' 11 October 2017--https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-
41586529. See also reports in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2017/oct/11/british-conservative-party-activist-benedict-rogers-
hong-kong and the statement by the UK Foreign Secretary at the time
https://www.gov.uk/
government/news/foreign-secretary-expresses-concern-over-uk-national-
denied-entry-to-hong-kong and this question in the UK House of Commons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch'v=njHRQTak8Sg. Congressman Smith also
issued a statement at the time.
\2\ BBC, ``Briton accused of jeopardising China's security,'' 14
March 2022 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60732949. See also The Times,
``Hong Kong threatens British human rights activist,'' 14 March 2022
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-threatens-british-human-
rights-activist-3k5zvjdfk and The Guardian report https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/14/hong-kong-watch-rights-group-
website-national-security-law-china-benedict-rogers, as well as the
statement by the UK Foreign Secretary at the time: https://www.gov.uk/
government/news/foreign-secretary-statement-on-hong-kong-watch-march-
2022.
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More recently, on January 2nd of this year and on several occasions
since then, I have been named by the prosecution in the National
Security trial of the entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy
Lai (which I will detail later in my testimony) as a ``collaborator.''
Messages from Jimmy Lai to me have been cited as evidence in the
prosecution's case against him, including a message in 2019 asking me
to request the last British Governor of Hong Kong, Lord (Chris) Patten
of Barnes, to provide a comment to journalists from Mr. Lai's Apple
Daily newspaper. It is standard and unquestionably legal for a
newspaper to ask a politician for comments.
In addition, I have received numerous attempts at harassment and
intimidation in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, including anonymous
threatening letters stamped and postmarked from Hong Kong sent to my
private home address, to my neighbors in the residential area where I
live in London, and to my mother who lives in a different part of the
country,\3\ as well as anonymous email threats, including on one
occasion a message when I was traveling in Canada disclosing the name
of the hotel in Vancouver where I was due to stay.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ South China Morning Post, ``Threatening letters sent from Hong
Kong make British human rights activist `more determined' to speak up
for the city,'' 13 July 2018 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/
politics/article/2155147/threatening-letters-sent-hong-kong-make-
british-human-rights. See also: Hong Kong Free Press https://
hongkongfp.com/2018/07/13/rights-activist-
benedict-rogers-condemns-menacing-letters-sent-hong-kong-mother-
neighbours/ as well as The New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/
politics/2018/09/hong-kong-threatening-letters-mailboxes and The
Washington Examiner https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/
1250927/chinese-intimidation-comes-to-benedict-rogerss-mailbox/.
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For all these reasons, I take additional safety precautions when in
the UK and traveling abroad. I have also been unable to visit Hong Kong
or China since 2017 and would not even risk transiting in Hong Kong.
Freedom of religion or belief in China
Freedom of religion or belief has always been suppressed and
violated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime, ever since the
founding of the PRC in 1949. At various times over the past 75 years
the CCP has attempted to eradicate religion, and at other times control
and restrict religious practice. Over the past 12 years of Chinese
leader Xi Jinping's rule, the crackdown on freedom of religion or
belief has intensified significantly. In particular, responsibility for
policy on religious affairs has been centralized. Whereas in the past
the situation for religious practice across the country varied,
depending on the attitudes of the provincial or municipal governments,
today, under Xi Jinping, there has been a new focus on religion at the
highest levels of government.
Xi Jinping himself has made several speeches on religion, including
in May 2015 to the Central United Front Conference held by the CCP's
United Front Work Department (UFWD), in which he introduced the
principle of `Sinicization of religion.' This policy requires religions
in Mainland China to be independent of foreign influences and aligned
to the CCP's goals and values and under the Party's control. ``We must
manage religious affairs in accordance with the law and adhere to the
principle of independence to run religious groups on our own accord,''
Xi said. ``Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions into
socialist society.'' \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ The Guardian, ``President Xi Jinping warns against foreign
influences on religions in China,'' 21 May 2015 https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/21/president-xi-jinping-warns-
against-foreign-influence-on-religions-in-china.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a further speech at the National Conference on Religious Work in
April 2016, Xi outlined the CCP's policies regarding religious
activities, emphasizing that ``religious affairs carry special
importance'' in the work of the CCP and the government and that the
``relationship of national security and the unification of the
motherland'' has a place within ``socialist religious theory with
Chinese characteristics.'' \5\ He added that ``religious groups must
adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China'' and that the
Party ``should guide and educate the religious circle and their
followers with the socialist core values.'' \6\
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\5\ The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, SPF China Observer, ``Why Does
the Xi Jinping Administration Advocate the `Sinicization' of
Religion,'' No. 8 2018/08/11 https://www.spf.org/spf-china-observer/en/
document-detail008.html.
\6\ Hong Kong Free Press, ``Religious groups must `adhere to the
leadership of the Communist Party,' Pres. Xi Jinping,'' 24 April 2016
https://hongkongfp.com/2016/04/24/religious-groups-must-adhere-to-the-
leadership-of-the-communist-party-pres-xi-jinping/.
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In his most recent speech about religious affairs, in 2021,
according to a Chinese-language report on the website of the United
Front Work Department of the Party's Central Committee, ``Xi emphasized
the need to further promote the Sinicization of China's religions,
guide and support China's religions to be led by socialist core values
and enhance the identification of religious people and believers with
the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the CPC and
socialism with Chinese characteristics. Education on patriotism,
collectivism and socialism should be carried out in religious circles,
and education on the history of the Party, new China, reform and
opening-up, and the development of socialism should be strengthened in
a targeted manner, so as to guide religious figures and believers in
cultivating and practicing socialist core values and promoting Chinese
culture. It is necessary to adhere to the overall concept of national
security, adhere to the principle of independence and self-management,
and promote related work in a coordinated manner. The management of
religious affairs on the internet should be strengthened. Outstanding
problems affecting the healthy transmission of religion in China should
be effectively addressed.'' \7\
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\7\ United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, 6
December 2021 https://www.zytzb.gov.cn/zytzb/2022-10/27/
article_2022102720260292972.shtml.
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Xi Jinping's campaign of the Sinicization of religion has nothing
to do with healthy inculturation, adapting a religion to Chinese
culture, but rather its objective is the total co-optation of religion
to the CCP's agenda, aimed at absorbing religious communities into the
United Front to further the CCP's indoctrination, propaganda,
surveillance and control. Any religious teachings that are not in
conformity with the CCP's teachings must be discarded. As a
consequence, religious leaders are restricted in what they can preach
in their sermons, and--moreover--they are required to actively support
and promote the CCP in their sermons.
A range of new regulations regarding religious affairs have been
introduced in recent years, notably the revised Regulations on
Religious Affairs which took effect on February 1, 2018. These
regulations, according to CSW, strengthen State control over religious
activities in mainland China, closing down the gray area in which
unregistered churches had until then been tolerated by some local
authorities. Un-
registered `house' churches and other independent religious groups are
under increasing pressure to either register or disband. According to
the China Aid Association, ``non-government churches, called `house
churches,' have been outlawed completely. Many of them are ordered to
join the official church system and submit to government censorship.''
\8\
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\8\ Evidence submitted by CSW and China Aid Association to the UK
Conservative Party Human Rights Commission's China inquiry and cited in
the report The Darkness Deepens: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China
2016-2020 https://conservativepartyhumanrights
commission.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/CPHRC-China-Report.pdf.
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Many Protestant pastors and Catholic priests have been arrested and
imprisoned in recent years. A notable example is Pastor Wang Yi of
Early Rain Church in Chengdu, Sichuan province, who was arrested in
December 2018 along with his wife and 100 members of his congregation,
and sentenced on December 26, 2019 to 9 years in prison. Pastor John
Cao, a missionary working in Burma/Myanmar's Wa state, along the border
with China, was arrested by authorities in Yunnan province in 2017 and
sentenced to 7 years in prison in March 2018.
More recently, in July of last year CSW reported that three leaders
of Linfen Covenant House Church (Shengyue Jiayuan) \9\ in Shanxi
province have been accused of forming a ``criminal clique'' and
obtaining ``illegal income,'' and of establishing an ``illegal
organization.'' In recent years there has been a notable increase in
the number of religious leaders prosecuted with alleged fraud charges,
which could carry a prison sentence of more than 10 years.\10\
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\9\ Church members have established this blog in Chinese https://
jiayuan.homes/.
\10\ CSW, ``House church leaders prosecuted as `criminal clique',''
5 July 2023 https://www.csw.org.uk/2023/07/05/press/6034/article.htm.
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On January 2d of this year, the Catholic bishop of Wenzhou, Bishop
Peter Shao Zhumin, was arrested again and his whereabouts are unknown.
He has been repeatedly arrested and detained multiple times in recent
years.\11\ According to Aid to the Church in Need, at least 20 Catholic
priests were arrested in mainland China in 2023.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ UCANews, ``Arrested dissident Chinese bishop remains
untraced,'' 8 January 2024 https://www.ucanews.com/news/arrested-
dissident-chinese-bishop-remains-untraced/103748.
\12\ Aid to the Church in Need, ``Record number of priests
arrested, kidnapped or murdered in 2023,'' 17 January 2024 https://
acnuk.org/news/international-record-number-of-priests-arrested-
kidnapped-or-murdered-in-2023/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furthermore, hundreds of churches have been destroyed, crosses
dismantled, and in state-controlled churches portraits of Xi Jinping
and CCP propaganda banners are displayed alongside or sometimes instead
of religious imagery. Surveillance cameras are installed to monitor the
congregation, and minors under the age of 18 are prohibited from going
to places of worship.
The persecution of Falun Gong continues. According to Bitter
Winter, Falun Gong practitioners claim to have verified 209 cases of
persecution to death in 2023, bringing the total documented number of
victims killed to over 5,000 since 1999. On January 18, 2024, the
European Parliament adopted a resolution on ``the ongoing persecution
of Falun Gong in Mainland China, notably the case of Mr. Ding Yuande.''
\13\ The practice of forced organ harvesting, primarily from Falun Gong
practitioners, continues. In 2019 an independent tribunal chaired by
the British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice, KC, who prosecuted former
President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic, concluded ``beyond reasonable
doubt'' that this practice is continuing and that it constitutes a
``crime against humanity,'' describing the PRC as ``a criminal state.''
\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Bitter Winter, ``The European Parliament Condemns China for
Persecuting Falun Gong, Mentions Organ Harvesting Again,'' 22 January
2024 https://bitterwinter.org/the-european
-parliament-condemns-china-for-persecuting-falun-gong-mentions-organ-
harvesting-again/.
\14\ The China Tribunal judgment https://chinatribunal.com/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Church of Almighty God (CAG), a new religious movement
established in 1991, also continues to face brutal suppression and
persecution. Categorized as an ``evil cult'' or ``heterodox teaching''
(xie jiao) by the CCP, along with Falun Gong and other groups, it
claims that since 2011 at least 400,000 of its members have been
arrested and over 159 killed.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Evidence submitted to the UK Conservative Party Human Rights
Commission's China inquiry and cited in the report The Darkness
Deepens: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China 2016-2020 https://
conservativepartyhumanrightscommission.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/
01/CPHRC-China-Report.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In regard to the `xie jiao' regulations, CSW stated in a January
2024 briefing that: ``The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme
People's Procuratorate interpreted `xie jiao' as `illegal
organisations, which, through fraudulent use of religion, qi gong, or
any other name, by defying and promoting their ringleaders, or by
fabricating and spreading superstitious fallacies to confuse and
deceive others, grow membership and control group members, and harm
society.' Such a vague definition gives the authorities power to target
legitimate religious activities. A lawyer recalled a case where a house
church pastor was accused for their `unbiblical teaching' on suspicion
of `spreading superstition.' Much to his amusement, the evidence
produced was a doctrine document provided by a pastor affiliated with
the government-approved Three Self Patriotic Movement (TPSM).'' \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ CSW, Briefing: `Socialist rule of law' in China, 16 January
2024 https://www.csw.org.uk/2024/01/16/report/6149/article.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to CSW, ``in July 2022, China's Anti-Xie Jiao Association
published an article listing 25 groups which the author claims have
been designated `xie jiao' by `relevant national departments' since the
1980's. This is not an official document, and there are no official
government or legal documents defining any particular group as `xie
jiao' that are accessible to the public. The process by which public
security, procuratorate and courts identify `xie jiao' appears to be
completely arbitrary. Some groups are frequently targeted while others
in the same region are largely left alone. Some house church leaders
receive a fine while others are arrested and handed harsh prison
sentences with a `xie jiao' label.''
In Tibet, atrocities continue, with Tibetan Buddhists' religious
practice tightly controlled. There are ongoing reports of Tibetan
Buddhist monasteries and other institutions being intrusively
monitored, disrupted or closed, property confiscated and monks arrested
and detained. One of the most egregious practices which has recently
gained some international attention is the use of colonial-style
boarding schools in which almost a million Tibetan children, almost 80
percent of the population, have been coercively separated from their
families and indoctrinated into Han Chinese language and culture and
CCP ideology, cut off from their Buddhist religion, Tibetan culture and
their families and communities in a form of cultural genocide.\17\ In
February 2023, U.N. experts expressed their concerns about this large-
scale program of forced assimilation.\18\ The CCP is actively pursuing
a campaign to rename Tibet as ``Xizang,'' the Chinese name for the
region, in an attempt to eradicate Tibet's identity.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Foreign Affairs, ``Erasing Tibet'', by Tenzin Dorjee and Gyal
Lo, 28 November 2023 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/south-asia/erasing-
tibet#::text=.
\18\ United Nations, ``UN experts alarmed by separation of 1
million Tibetan children from families and forced assimilation at
residential schools,'' 6 February 2023 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-
releases/2023/02/china-un-experts-alarmed-separation-1-million-tibetan-
children-families-and.
\19\ Newsweek, ``China is slowly erasing Tibet's name,'' 14
November 2023 https://www.newsweek.com/china-changing-tibet-english-
name-1843391.
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Finally, the most egregious of the litany of violations of freedom
of religion or belief and the many atrocity crimes which are being
perpetrated by the CCP is the genocide of the predominantly Muslim
Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in Mainland China's western
region of Xinjiang, which is also known as East Turkestan. This has
been recognized as a genocide by both the previous and current U.S.
Secretary of State, several Parliaments around the world, and in
December 2021 by the independent Uyghur Tribunal, chaired by British
barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice, KC.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Uyghur Tribunal judgment https://uyghurtribunal.com/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to the well-documented use of forced abortions, forced
sterilization, forced labor, torture, sexual violence, and the
incarceration of at least a million Uyghurs in prison camps in
Xinjiang, the Uyghurs are subjected to widespread violations of freedom
of religion or belief. Uyghur Muslim men may be arrested if they have a
beard beyond a certain length and women could be targeted if they wear
a headscarf. Basic religious practices such as praying, fasting, going
to the mosque, reading the Quran, or abstaining from pork or alcohol
can result in arrest and imprisonment. Many mosques have been either
closed, desecrated or destroyed.
The crackdown on Muslims now extends beyond Xinjiang. In November
2023, Human Rights Watch reported that ``the Chinese government is
significantly reducing the number of mosques in Ningxia and Gansu
provinces under its `mosque consolidation' policy, in violation of the
right to freedom of religion.'' According to Human Rights Watch,
``Chinese authorities have decommissioned, closed down, demolished, and
converted mosques for secular use as part of the government's efforts
to restrict the practice of Islam. The authorities have removed Islamic
architectural features, such as domes and minarets, from many other
mosques.'' \21\
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\21\ Human Rights Watch, ``China: Mosques Shuttered, Razed, Altered
in Muslim Areas,'' 22 November 2023 https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/
22/china-mosques-shuttered-razed-altered-
muslim-areas#::text=.
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Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Falun Gong
practitioner, or practice another religion or belief, in mainland China
today it is increasingly difficult and dangerous to practice your
faith. In March 2019, the then U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious Freedom, Ambassador Sam Brownback, said in a
speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong that ``the
Chinese government is at war with faith. It's a war they will not win.
The Chinese Communist Party must hear the cry of its people for
religious freedom.'' \22\
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\22\ International Christian Concern, ``Ambassador Brownback: China
is At War With Faith,'' 10 March 2019 https://www.persecution.org/2019/
03/10/Ambassador-brownback-china-war-faith/.
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Hong Kong
In the U.N. Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of China on January
23rd this year, 18 U.N. Member States raised recommendations on Hong
Kong at the United Nations, including the United States and the United
Kingdom, principally calling for the repeal of the National Security
Law. This is a welcome step.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Hong Kong Watch, ``Hong Kong Watch welcomes Recommendations on
Hong Kong at the U.N. Universal Periodic Review,'' 23 January 2024
https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2024/1/23/hong-kong-watch-
welcomes-recommendations-on-hong-kong-at-the-un-universal-
periodic-review.
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The U.S. urged Beijing to ``cease harassment, surveillance, and
threats against individuals abroad and in China including Xinjiang,
Tibet, and Hong Kong . . . repeal vague national security, counter-
espionage, counter-terrorism, and sedition laws, including the National
Security Law in Hong Kong . . . end repressive measures against women,
LGBTQI+ persons, laborers, and migrant workers, including in Hong Kong
and Macau.'' The U.S. also condemned the ongoing genocide and crimes
against humanity in Xinjiang, as well as the CCP's transnational
repression aimed to silence Hong Kongers, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans and
other Chinese dissidents abroad.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Hong Kong Watch, ``Hong Kong Watch welcomes Recommendations on
Hong Kong at the U.N. Universal Periodic Review'', 23 January 2024
https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2024/1/23/hong-kong-watch-
welcomes-recommendations-on-hong-kong-at-the-un-universal-
periodic-review.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 2022, the U.N. Human Rights Committee recommended the repeal of
the Hong Kong National Security Law and found the Hong Kong government
in violation of its international legal obligations. Similarly, in
2023, the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
also raised concerns regarding the Hong Kong National Security Law's
violations of human rights, among other violations of rights and
freedoms in Hong Kong.
The UPR and previous U.N. Committee recommendations exemplify how
over the past decade and especially since the imposition of the
draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong, the CCP has dismantled
Hong Kong's freedoms, the rule of law, and autonomy in total breach of
its promises under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration which paved
the way for Hong Kong's handover to Beijing in 1997. The CCP has also
continued to be in complete violation of Hong Kong's obligations as a
party to the ICCPR, as well as Hong Kong's own mini-constitution, the
Basic Law, and the `one country, two systems' principle. Freedom of
expression, particularly media freedom, freedom of assembly and
association, and the right to democratic participation in politics have
all been almost completely destroyed. There are over 1,000 political
prisoners in Hong Kong, and over 68 civil society organizations have
been forced to close. In Hong Kong today, it is almost impossible to
operate openly as a civil society organization if you are engaged in
any activity that might be regarded as `political.' In addition, as
Hong Kong Watch documents in its November 2023 report `` `Sell Out My
Soul': The Impending Threats to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Hong
Kong,'' freedom of religion or belief in Hong Kong is now being
undermined.\25\
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\25\ Hong Kong Watch, `` `Sell Out My Soul': The Impending Threats
to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Hong Kong,'' 7 November 2023
https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2023/11/7/hong-kong-watch-
launches-groundbreaking-new-report-on-threats-to-freedom-of-religion-
or-belief-in-hong-kong.
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In Hong Kong today it is fair to say that freedom of worship,
narrowly defined, remains intact. People are still free to go to
church, to the mosque, to the synagogue or temple. Religious believers
can still access the Bible, the Quran or other religious scriptures and
educational materials. Unlike in mainland China, persecution of
religion, including the dismantling of crosses, closure, destruction or
desecration of places of worship, and the arrest and imprisonment of
religious leaders and practitioners because of their religious practice
is not occurring. However, there are clear signs of violations of
freedom of religion or belief and early warning signs of worse to come.
There are four main indicators of threats to freedom of religion or
belief in Hong Kong:
The impact of the National Security Law and potential new
restrictive, repressive laws to come, such as Article 23;
Self-censorship;
The impact on the education sector, and particularly
church-run schools;
Beijing's campaign of Sinicization of religion and the
``patriotism'' test.
The undermining of freedom of religion or belief in Hong Kong is
subtle, slow and insidious. It involves the creation of a ``chill''
factor which results in religious leaders themselves making
compromises. Christian clergy will now avoid certain topics in their
sermons and will certainly not touch on anything that hints of human
rights, justice, or freedom. In August 2020, Cardinal John Tong--
Apostolic Administrator of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese at the time--
instructed all Catholic priests to ``watch your language'' when
preaching and avoid ``political'' issues. Since 2022, the Catholic
Church in Hong Kong has stopped the annual commemorative masses which
used to be held in parishes to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
One Protestant pastor who has left Hong Kong claims his church removed
all his sermons from the past 30 years from its website, and that many
churches no longer share sermons online.
At least three prominent pastors, including Hong Kong's 91-year-old
Bishop Emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen, have been arrested. One, Pastor
Garry Pang, was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 1 year in jail.
Another, Roy Chan, went into exile but his church, which had provided
pastoral support and sanctuary to pro-
democracy protesters in 2019, was raided by the police, and HSBC froze
his and the church's bank accounts. Of course these cases relate to
what may be regarded as ``political'' rather than ``religious''
activities, but the individuals concerned were acting according to
their consciences, informed and inspired by their religious beliefs.
The ability of anyone in Hong Kong today to follow their conscience is
now severely curtailed.
Perhaps as many as 60 percent of government-funded schools in Hong
Kong are church-run, whether by Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran or other
denominations. Like all schools in the city, faith-based schools are
required to introduce National Security Law education and promote
Beijing's propaganda in the curriculum. According to one Protestant
pastor, faith-based schools are now ``diluting their religious
education.'' School boards are believed to be infiltrated by CCP
sympathizers, eroding their faith-based ethos. Many of these church-run
schools are associated with parishes, and that spells a potential
threat to the churches themselves--parishes could be held responsible
if the school does not comply with the National Security Law, and could
then be shut down as a result.
Xi's campaign of Sinicization of religion is now creeping into Hong
Kong, with at least three conferences between Hong Kong's religious
leaders and representatives of Beijing's religious affairs apparatus.
Even Hong Kong's new Cardinal, Stephen Chow, has called on Hong Kong
Catholics to be ``patriotic,'' which is a euphemism for surrender to
and co-optation into the CCP.
In some respects, this is inevitable. Once Beijing exerted direct
control of Hong Kong, the death knell for religious freedom was
sounded. First, freedom itself is indivisible. When freedom of
expression, assembly, and association are dismantled, freedom of
religion--which is interlinked and interdependent on other basic
freedoms--is unsustainable. Second, because the regime in Beijing has
always been hostile to religion, and at various times since 1949 has
sought either to eradicate, repress, control, coerce, or co-opt
religion. Beijing's hostility to religion in Hong Kong is likely
exacerbated by the fact that many of the city's pro-democracy activists
are people of faith. From the father of the democracy movement Martin
Lee to the founder of the now closed Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai,
who faces the rest of his life in jail, and from the organizer of the
2014 Occupy Central demonstrations Benny Tai, who also initiated the
2020 pro-democracy primaries to choose candidates for the Hong Kong
Legislative Council and is now serving a long prison sentence, to the
teenage activist Joshua Wong and the Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, people of
faith were at the forefront of the city's fight for freedom. Let us not
forget, in 2019 for a time, one of the anthems of the protesters was
``Sing Hallelujah to the Lord.''
Where will all this lead? Strangulation of religious freedom by
stealth. Pro-Beijing media in Hong Kong has already sounded the
warnings, publishing articles last year attacking religion from various
angles and calling for new regulations to restrict religious practice
and establish a government department to vet, license and monitor
religious groups.
Beijing is unlikely to use headline-grabbing physical repression
against religious groups in Hong Kong because, despite the dismantling
of its freedoms and autonomy, it is still an international financial
center with a degree of global scrutiny and foreign presence. Instead,
it is opting for coercion, co-optation and forcible compromise of
conscience.
As one religious scholar from Hong Kong puts it, ``the most violent
form of attack on religious freedom is not necessarily the burning of
churches and the killing of believers, for the persecutors kill the
bodies but not the souls. Rather, the more dangerous and insidious
attack on a religion could be its corruption from within, so that its
believers can only practice the faith in name rather than in essence.
In this regard, the CCP is about to use the latter strategy to attack
religious freedom in Hong Kong.'' Beijing can restrict religious
freedom in Hong Kong by ``exerting total control on churches without
closing them.''
For this reason, the international community must monitor the
situation closely. New repressive laws in Hong Kong--likely to be
introduced in the coming months--should be analyzed for their impact on
freedom of religion or belief. Diplomats in Hong Kong should engage
with religious communities in the city, and people of conscience should
speak out for people of faith in Hong Kong, when they are no longer
able to speak for themselves.
As a leader in championing freedom of religion or belief worldwide,
the U.S. should pay close attention to the practice of freedom of
religion or belief in Hong Kong and continue to pressure the CCP and
the Hong Kong authorities to abide by international human rights law.
In its 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China (Includes
Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet)--Hong Kong, the U.S. Department of State
noted, ``For the first time in 33 years, Hong Kong Catholic churches
did not hold memorial masses on June 4 for the victims of the 1989
massacre, out of concern the masses would be deemed a violation of the
National Security Law (NSL).''
The U.S. Department of State also raised concern following credible
evidence of ``arbitrary arrest and detention; political prisoners or
detainees; cruel or degrading treatment or punishment by government
agents; transnational repression against individuals outside of Hong
Kong; serious problems regarding the independence of the judiciary;
arbitrary interference with privacy; serious restrictions on freedom of
expression and media, including unjustified arrests or prosecutions of
journalists and censorship; substantial interference with the freedom
of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly
restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of
nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations;
restrictions on freedom of movement and on the right to leave the
territory; the inability of citizens to change their government
peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable
restrictions on political participation; serious government
restrictions on domestic and international human rights organizations;
and significant restrictions on workers' freedom of association,
including coercive actions against independent trade unions and arrests
of labor union activists.'' The U.S. should continue to observe the
practice of these freedoms in Hong Kong, especially given the
increasing threat to the freedom of religion or belief in the city.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ U.S. Department of State, ``2022 Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices: China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet)--Hong
Kong,'' 20 March 2023 https://www.State.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/
415610_HONG-KONG-2022-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf.
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Finally, let me end with some brief words on the trial of Jimmy
Lai, which began on December 18th last year and is underway as we
speak.
Hong Kong's plight is illustrated most starkly with the trial of
Jimmy Lai, the 76-year-old Hong Kong entrepreneur, media tycoon, and
pro-democracy activist who has spent the past 3 years of his life in
prison and may well remain there until he dies. He is accused of
conspiring to collude with foreign forces, a crime under the National
Security Law, and publishing allegedly seditious materials. In reality
he is charged, as the head of his international legal team Caoilfhionn
Gallagher, KC puts it so brilliantly, with the crimes of conspiracy to
commit journalism, for daring to publish stories and opinions which
Beijing dislikes, conspiracy to talk about politics to politicians, and
conspiracy to raise human rights concerns with human rights
organizations.
As mentioned, on January 2nd and on several occasions during the
court proceedings since, I have been named as one of a number of
foreigners with whom Mr. Lai had communicated or collaborated with.
According to media reports, in court the prosecution displayed a chart
labeled ``Lai Chee-ying's external political connections,'' showing
headshots of me, several other British citizens, and several U.S.
officials, including the former U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong
Ambassador James Cunningham, former U.S. Army General Jack Keane, and
former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Several foreign
``co-conspirators'' have also been named, including the U.S.-born
financier and campaigner Bill Browder, who leads the Global Magnitsky
Justice Campaign, and U.S. citizen Mark Simon, Mr. Lai's closest aide.
On January 22nd, the day before the UPR, four U.N. experts--
including the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment; on the protection and
promotion of freedom of opinion and expression; on the independence of
judges and lawyers; on the rights of freedom of peaceful assembly and
of association--called for all charges against Jimmy Lai to be dropped
and for his immediate release.\27\ In its recommendations to the UPR,
the United Kingdom made the same call.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Hong Kong Watch, ``Hong Kong Watch welcomes U.N. experts' call
for immediate release of Jimmy Lai ahead of UPR,'' 22 January 2024
https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2024/1/22/hong-kong-watch-
welcomes-un-experts-call-for-immediate-release-of-jimmy-lai-ahead-of-
upr.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The outrageous imprisonment and prosecution of Jimmy Lai is
emblematic of the CCP's all-out assault on human rights, including
freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief. Jimmy Lai is a
devout Catholic who, while not specifically in prison for his faith,
certainly was motivated and inspired by his faith to campaign for
freedom and democracy.
At the start of the trial of Jimmy Lai in December 2023, the U.S.
Department of State released a statement condemning Mr. Lai's trial and
calling for his release and the release of ``all others imprisoned for
defending their rights.'' Responding to the deteriorating situation in
Hong Kong more generally, the statement also says, ``We urge Beijing
and Hong Kong authorities to respect press freedom in Hong Kong.
Actions that stifle press freedom and restrict the free flow of
information--as well as Beijing and local authorities' changes to Hong
Kong's electoral system that reduce direct voting and preclude
independent and pro-democracy party candidates from participating--have
undermined Hong Kong's democratic institutions and harmed Hong Kong's
reputation as an international business and financial hub.'' \28\ The
United States should continue to speak out for him, monitor his trial
closely, and demand an end to the prosecution and his immediate and
unconditional release.
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\28\ U.S. Department of State, ``Trial of Jimmy Lai Under the Hong
Kong National Security Law,'' 17 December 2023 https://www.State.gov/
trial-of-jimmy-lai-under-the-hong-kong-national-security-law/.
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Thank you again for this opportunity and for your continued
leadership on these issues.
Prepared Statement of Emile Dirks
Representative Smith, Senator Merkley, and distinguished Members of
the Commission, thank you for holding this important hearing on the
state of human rights in the People's Republic of China and for the
opportunity to testify. The conclusion of the United Nations Human
Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group's review
of China provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on the current
State of human rights in China.
My testimony today draws upon the work of myself and other
researchers at The Citizen Lab. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary
research laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public
Policy at the University of Toronto, focused on research, development,
and strategic policy and legal engagement at the intersection of
information and communication technologies, human rights, and global
security.\1\ Citizen Lab research has explored transnational
repression, spyware, censorship, algorithmic policing, and biometric
surveillance.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``About The Citizen Lab,'' The Citizen Lab, https://
citizenlab.ca/about/.
\2\ Noura Al-Jizawi, Siena Anstis, Sophie Barnett, Sharly Chan,
Niamh Leonard, Adam Senft, and Ron Deibert, ``Psychological and
Emotional War: Digital Transnational Repression in Canada,'' The
Citizen Lab, March 1 2022, https://citizenlab.ca/2022/03/psychological-
emotional-war-digital-transnational-repression-canada/; Bill Marczak,
John Scott-Railton, Bahr Abdul Razzak, and Ron Deibert, ``Triple
Threat: NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware Returns in 2022 with a Trio of iOS
15 and iOS 16 Zero-Click Exploit Chains,'' The Citizen Lab, April 18
2023, https://citizenlab.ca/2023/04/nso-groups-pegasus-spyware-returns-
in-2022/; Jeffrey Knockel, Jakub Dalek, Levi Meletti, and Ksenia
Ermoshina, ``Not OK on VK: An Analysis of In-Platform Censorship on
Russia's VKontakte,'' The Citizen Lab, July 26 2023, https://
citizenlab.ca/2023/07/an-
analysis-of-in-platform-censorship-on-russias-vkontakte/; Kate
Robertson, Cynthia Khoo, and Yolanda Song, ``To Surveil and Predict: A
Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada,'' The Citizen
Lab, September 1 2020, https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/to-surveil-and-
predict-a-human-rights-analysis-of-algorithmic-policing-in-canada/;
Emile Dirks, ``Mass Iris Scan Collection in Qinghai: 2019-2022,'' The
Citizen Lab, December 14 2022, https://citizenlab.ca/2022/12/mass-iris-
scan-collection-in-qinghai/.
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Today I will focus my remarks on a particular aspect of China's
human rights record: Chinese state-backed online censorship. My
testimony will highlight three key points concerning online censorship.
One, state-backed online censorship profoundly impacts Chinese
citizens' freedom of opinion and expression, as well as the freedom of
opinion and expression of those accessing the internet from within
China or using China-accessible online platforms. Two, both Chinese and
U.S. companies contribute to online censorship on China-accessible
platforms. And three, online censorship is linked to repression inside
China and transnational repression outside China, both of Chinese
citizens and Chinese, Hong Kong, Uyghur, Tibetan, and other diaspora
members.
Drawing on these three points, I will conclude with three
recommendations for how the U.S. Government can demand accountability
from perpetrators and provide assistance to victims. One, the U.S.
Government should publicly request that Microsoft, Apple, and other
U.S. companies explain how they implement political and religious
censorship on their platforms in China. Two, the U.S. Government should
publicly request that Microsoft explain how political and religious
censorship was applied to the search suggestions of users outside China
and what safeguards will ensure that this will not reoccur. And three,
the U.S. government should provide training to relevant U.S. government
officials, including law enforcement and immigration authorities, to
recognize digital transnational repression and properly assist victims
and their families.
Part One: State-Backed Online Censorship
The Chinese government severely restricts Chinese citizens' freedom
of opinion and expression through online censorship, as detailed by the
United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
stakeholders' submissions for China's most recent periodic review.\3\
Using a sophisticated filtering system known as the ``Great Firewall,''
authorities block access to thousands of websites which provide
information which challenges the preferred narratives of the Chinese
government.\4\
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\3\ Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ``Concluding
observations on the third periodic report of China, including Hong
Kong, China, and Macao, China,'' United Nations Social and Economic
Council, March 22 2023, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g23/048/
63/pdf/g2304863.pdf?token=FHXzbyZoVrkAggrFCD&fe=true; Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, ``Summary of
stakeholders' submissions on China,'' United Nations Human Rights
Council, November 30 2023, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g23/
238/40/pdf/g2323840.pdf?token=lBtK9ZRWexoI5WMxLo&fe=true.
\4\ ``China: Freedom on the Net 2023,'' Freedom House, 2023,
https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-net/2023.
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One of the clearest measurements of state-mandated censorship comes
from Great Firewall Watch, a platform created by researchers at Stony
Brook University, the University of Massachusetts--Amherst, the
University of California, Berkeley, and The Citizen Lab at the
University of Toronto.\5\ Since its inception in March 2020,
GFWatch.org has discovered more than 640,000 blocked domains.\6\
GFWatch.org can also be used to test whether a particular domain is
accessible within China.\7\ Blocked domains include the website of the
congressional-Executive Commission on China, as well as the websites of
groups whose members have previously testified before the Commission,
including Tibet Action Institute, Human Rights Watch, Hong Kong
Democracy Council, Uyghur Human Rights Project, and the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Nguyen Phong Hoang, ``GFWatch: A Longitudinal Measurement
Platform Built to Monitor China's DNS Censorship at Scale,'' The
Citizen Lab, November 4, 2021 https://citizenlab.ca/2021/11/gfwatch-a-
longitudinal-measurement-platform-built-to-monitor-chinas-dns-
censorship-at-scale/
\6\ Great Firewall Watch, 2023, https://gfwatch.org/.
\7\ ``Censored domains,'' Great Firewall Watch, 2023, https://
gfwatch.org/censored_domains.
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Blocking websites is not the only way that the Chinese government
attempts to restrict freedom of opinion and expression. Online
censorship is pervasive even on platforms accessible in China. Numerous
Chinese government offices participate in online censorship, including
the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Public
Security. To clarify what broad categories of online materials are
prohibited, the Chinese government has issued a number of documents,
including the Measures for the Administration of Security Protection of
Computer Information Networks with International Interconnections
(1997), the Cybersecurity Law (2017), Norms for the Administration of
Online Short Video Platforms and Detailed Implementation Rules for
Online Short Video Content Review Standards (2019), and Provisions on
the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem (2020).\8\
Prohibited content listed in these documents includes ``content harming
the image of revolutionary leaders or heroes and martyrs'' and
information which is ``damaging the reputation or interests of the
state'' or ``detrimental to State religious policies, propagating
heretical or superstitious ideas.'' \9\ The Chinese government also
routinely conducts ``internet purification campaigns'' by which State
organs compel websites, platforms, and accounts to remove prohibited
content and punish violators through warnings or administrative or
criminal penalties.\10\
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\8\ ``Computer Information Network and Internet Security,
Protection and Management Regulations--1997,'' Lehman, Lee & Xu,
https://www.lehmanlaw.com/resource-centre/laws-and-_regulations/
information-technology/computer-information-network-and-internet-
security-
protection-and-management-regulations-1997.html; ``Translation:
Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (Effective June 1,
2017),'' DigiChina, https://digichina.stanford.edu/work/
translation-cybersecurity-law-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-
effective-june-1-2017/; ``Norms for the Administration of Online Short
Video Platforms and Detailed Implementation Rules for Online Short
Video Content Review Standards,'' China Law Translate, https://
www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/norms-for-the-administration-of-online-
short-video-platforms-
and-detailed-implementation-rules-for-online-short-video-content-
review-standards/; ``Provisions on the Governance of the Online
Information Content Ecosystem,'' World Intermediary Liability Map,
https://wilmap.stanford.edu/entries/provisions-governance-online-
information-content
-ecosystem.
\9\ Jeffrey Knockel, Ken Kato, and Emile Dirks, ``Missing Links: A
comparison of search censorship in China,'' The Citizen Lab, https://
citizenlab.ca/2023/04/a-comparison-of-search-censorship-in-china/.
\10\ Jeffrey Knockel, Ken Kato, and Emile Dirks, ``Missing Links: A
comparison of search censorship in China,'' The Citizen Lab, https://
citizenlab.ca/2023/04/a-comparison-of-search-censorship-in-china/..
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Yet while government authorities stipulate what broad categories of
content are prohibited, it is technology companies which are
responsible for day-to-day censorship. Technology companies operating
in China are required to ensure that content which appears on their
platforms complies with legal requirements or political directives from
the Chinese State. Companies which fail to moderate content on their
platforms can be fined or have their business licenses revoked.\11\
This form of intermediary liability or corporate ``self-discipline'' is
a characteristic feature of information control and online censorship
in China.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Rebecca MacKinnon (2009), ``China's Censorship 2.0: How
companies censor bloggers,'' First Monday, 14(2), https://
firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2378.
\12\ Rebecca MacKinnon, ``Commentary: Are China's demands for
Internet 'self-discipline' spreading to the West?,'' McClatchy DC,
January 18, 2010, https://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/
article24570625.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Citizen Lab researchers have discovered over 60,000 censorship
rules on eight China-accessible search platforms: Baidu, Baidu Zhidao,
Bilibili, Microsoft Bing, Douyin, Jingdong, Sogou, and Weibo.\13\
Examples of censored content covered by these rules include various
creative homoglyphs for the name ``Xi Jinping,'' references to the June
4 massacre, material related to religious communities, and criticisms
of the Communist Party. Citizen Lab research also demonstrates that
platforms institute different levels of censorship which fully or
partially censor search results for key terms. Partial or ``soft''
censorship provides results from authorized sources like Chinese
government websites or state media, while full or ``hard'' censorship
provides no results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Jeffrey Knockel, Ken Kato, and Emile Dirks, ``Missing Links: A
comparison of search censorship in China,'' The Citizen Lab, https://
citizenlab.ca/2023/04/a-comparison-of-search-censorship-in-china/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Citizen Lab researchers have also detailed how China-accessible
platforms including WeChat censor discussion of political events. These
events include activism in Hong Kong, crackdowns on human rights
lawyers, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the deaths of Nobel Peace Prize
winner Liu Xiaobo and former premier Li Keqiang.\14\ Results from these
research investigations demonstrate how China-
accessible platforms suppress politically sensitive information and
promote narratives favourable to the Chinese state.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ ``Censored Commemoration: Chinese Live Streaming Platform YY
Focuses Censorship on June 4 Memorials and Activism in Hong Kong,'' The
Citizen Lab, June 4 2019 https://citizenlab.ca/2019/06/censored-
commemoration-chinese-live-streaming-platform-yy-focuses-
censorship-june-4-memorials-activism-hong-kong/; Lotus Ruan, Jeffrey
Knockel, and Masashi Crete-Nishihata, ``We (can't) Chat: `709
Crackdown' Discussions Blocked on Weibo and WeChat,'' The Citizen Lab,
April 13 2017, https://citizenlab.ca/2017/04/we-cant-chat-709-
crackdown-discussions-blocked-on-weibo-and-wechat/; Lotus Ruan, Jeffrey
Knockel, and Masashi Crete-Nishihata, ``Censored Contagion: How
Information on the Coronavirus is Managed on Chinese Social Media,''
The Citizen Lab, March 3 2020, https://citizenlab.ca/2020/03/censored-
contagion-how-
information-on-the-coronavirus-is-managed-on-chinese-social-media/;
Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Jeffrey Knockel, Blake Miller, Jason Q. Ng,
Lotus Ruan, Lokman Tsui, and Ruohan Xiong, ``Remembering Liu Xiaobo:
Analyzing censorship of the death of Liu Xiaobo on WeChat and Weibo,''
The Citizen Lab, June 16 2017, https://citizenlab.ca/2017/07/analyzing-
censorship-of-the-death-of-liu-xiaobo-on-wechat-and-weibo/; Jeffrey
Knockel and Emile Dirks, ``Chinese censorship following the death of Li
Keqiang,'' The Citizen Lab, November 21 2023, https://citizenlab.ca/
2023/11/chinese-censorship-following-the-death-of-li-keqiang/.
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Part Two: The Role of U.S.-Based Companies in Online Censorship
While Chinese tech companies are the key players in online
censorship in China, U.S. companies are also involved. For instance, in
2018 leaked documents revealed that Google was planning to release an
app in China that would implement political censorship, a plan they
abandoned in 2019 after criticism from within and outside the
company.\15\ On their China-accessible platforms, U.S. companies have
imposed restrictions on political and religious content. And like the
restrictions imposed by Chinese counterparts, those imposed by U.S.
companies have impacted users both inside China and in other world
regions, including the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ryan Gallagher, ``Google Plans To Launch Censored Search
Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal,'' The Intercept, August 1
2018, https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-
censorship/; Sarah McKune and Ronald Deibert, ``Google's Dragonfly: A
Bellwether for Human Rights in the Digital Age,'' Just Security, August
2 2018, https://www.justsecurity.org/59941/googles-dragonfly-
bellwether-human-rights-digital-age/; ``Google's Project Dragonfly
`terminated' in China,'' BBC News, July 17 2019, https://www.bbc.com/
news/technology-49015516.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Citizen Lab research shows that the Chinese version of Microsoft's
Bing, the only major non-Chinese search engine accessible in China,
engages in extensive censorship.\16\ In China, Bing only displays
results for censored search queries from authorized websites, such as
government and state media websites. Like Chinese search platforms,
Bing's censorship rules target political material related to Xi
Jinping, religious material, references to Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu
Xiaobo, and terms related to the June 4 massacre. Compared with Baidu,
Bing's political censorship rules are also broader, affect more search
results, and lead to search results for a greater number of websites
being restricted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Jeffrey Knockel and Emile Dirks, ``Chinese censorship
following the death of Li Keqiang,'' The Citizen Lab, November 21 2023,
https://citizenlab.ca/2023/11/chinese-censorship-following-the-death-
of-li-keqiang/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The impact of censorship on Bing is not limited to users within
China. Citizen Lab researchers found that Bing's censorship of search
suggestions, though not search results, was applied to users in the
United States and other countries for at least 8 months from October
2021 to May 2022.\17\ Bing's censorship of politically sensitive search
suggestions in both English and Chinese applied to multiple regions
outside China, including the United States and Canada.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Jeffrey Knockel and Lotus Ruan, ``Bada Bing, Bada Boom:
Microsoft Bing's Chinese Political Censorship of Autosuggestions in
North America,'' The Citizen Lab, May 19 2022 https://citizenlab.ca/
2022/05/bada-bing-bada-boom-microsoft-bings-chinese-political-
censorship-
autosuggestions-north-america/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggestions including the names of politically sensitive figures
were censored, including those of Xi Jinping, the doctor Li Wenliang
who had warned his colleagues about early Covid-19 infections in Wuhan,
religious figures including the 11th Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima,
and references to the ``Tank Man'' photographed standing in front of a
column of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. In response
to a May 10, 2022 letter addressed to Microsoft's Chief Digital
Security Officer, Microsoft communicated to The Citizen Lab that it had
discovered and resolved a misconfiguration on Bing which had prevented
valid autosuggestions from appearing for users outside China.\18\
However, while Microsoft ceased Chinese political censorship of
autosuggestions in countries outside of China including the United
States, there is no indication that Microsoft has ceased censoring
autosuggestions for users of Bing in China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ ``Citizen Lab Letter to Microsoft,'' The Citizen Lab, May 10,
2022, https://citizenlab.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2022/05/Citizen-Letter-to-Microsoft.pdf; Jeffrey
Knockel and Lotus Ruan, ``Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Microsoft Bing's
Chinese Political Censorship of Autosuggestions in North America,'' The
Citizen Lab, May 19 2022, https://citizenlab.ca/2022/05/bada-bing-bada-
boom-microsoft-bings-chinese-political-censorship-autosuggestions-
north-america/.
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Microsoft is not the only U.S. company which performs Chinese
political censorship. In 2021, Citizen Lab researchers found that Apple
applied censorship to product engravings in China.\19\ Censored
political content included the names of Chinese leaders, Chinese
dissidents, and independent news organizations, as well as general
terms related to religion, democracy, and human rights. Apple applied
these censorship rules not only in China, but in Hong Kong and Taiwan
as well. Research findings also indicated that Apple did not fully
understand what content they censored. Instead, many censored keywords
appeared to have been reappropriated from other sources, including
censorship lists compiled by Chinese companies. Since the release of
this report, Apple eliminated Chinese political censorship in Taiwan,
but has continued keyword-based political censorship in both mainland
China and Hong Kong.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Jeffrey Knockel and Lotus Ruan, ``Engrave Danger: An Analysis
of Apple Engraving Censorship across Six Regions,'' The Citizen Lab,
August 18, 2021, https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/
engrave-danger-an-analysis-of-apple-engraving-censorship-across-six-
regions/.
\20\ Jeffrey Knockel and Lotus Ruan, ``Engrave Condition: Apple's
Political Censorship Leaves Taiwan, Remains in Hong Kong,'' The Citizen
Lab, March 22 2022, https://citizenlab.ca/2022/03/engrave-condition-
apples-political-censorship-leaves-taiwan-remains-in-hong-kong/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bing and Apple's extensive censorship inside China shows that U.S.
tech companies cannot introduce services in China without integrating
restrictions on expression. Furthermore, our findings show that it is
inevitable that such censorship will be applied, either accidentally or
otherwise, to users outside of China, including Taiwan and the United
States.
Part Three: The Offline Harms of Online Censorship
State-backed restrictions on political and religious expression do
not exist in a vacuum. Online censorship is linked to offline harms.
Chinese citizens who attempt to access or share sensitive information
online do so at risk to their personal freedom. Authorities have jailed
Chinese citizens for a range of offenses, including selling software
that allows people to circumvent the Great Firewall, making comments in
private chat groups, sharing videos of protests, and even posting on
social media platforms like X (Twitter) which are blocked in China.\21\
Such cases highlight the severe rights impacts that censorship has on
the people of China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Benjamin Haas, ``Man in China sentenced to 5 years' jail for
running VPN,'' The Guardian, December 22, 2017, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/man-in-china-sentenced-to-five-
years-jail-for-running-vpn; Eva Dou, ``Jailed for a Text: China's
Censors Are Spying on Mobile Chat Groups,'' The Wall Street Journal,
December 8 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/jailed-for-a-text-chinas-
censors-are-spying-on-mobile-chat-groups-1512665007; Amy Hawkins,
``Uyghur student convicted after posting protests video on WeChat,''
The Guardian, June 8, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/
08/uyghur-student-convicted-posting-protests-video-wechat-kamile-wayit;
Chun Han Wong, ``China Is Now Sending Twitter Users to Prison for Posts
Most Chinese Can't See,'' The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2021,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-now-sending-twitter-users-to-
prison-for-posts-most-chinese-cant-see-11611932917.
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While some Chinese citizens risk detention and even torture for
their online activities, state-affiliated actors use these same
platforms to launch attacks against opponents of the party-State. As
detailed by Citizen Lab researchers, a 2019-2021 harassment campaign
nicknamed ``HKLEAKS'' used websites and social media to distribute
personal information about Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.\22\
Actors involved in the campaign used proprietary websites and social
media accounts to publish personal identifiable information about
targeted activists. Those connected to the campaign claimed they were
members of Hong Kong volunteer committees. However, Citizen Lab
researchers uncovered indications that this was a coordinated
information operation conducted by professional actors aligned with the
Chinese State.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Alberto Fittarelli and Lokman Tsui, ``Beautiful Bauhinia:
``HKLeaks''--The Use of Covert and Overt Online Harassment Tactics to
Repress 2019 Hong Kong Protests,'' The Citizen Lab, July 13 2023,
https://citizenlab.ca/2023/07/hkleaks-covert-and-overt-online-
harassment-tactics-to-repress-the-2019-hong-kong-protests/.
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Victims of other online harassment campaigns live outside China.
This Commission has previously discussed how the Chinese government
silences overseas critics through transnational repression.\23\ For
years, the Chinese government has used transnational repression to
intimidate, threaten, and surveil diaspora members it views as
threats.\24\ Many of these victims are Tibetan.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ ``Countering China's Global Transnational Repression
Campaign,'' CECC, September 12, 2023, https://www.cecc.gov/events/
hearings/countering-chinas-global-transnational-repression-campaign;
``Preserving Tibet: Combating Cultural Erasure, Forced Assimilation and
Transnational Repression,'' CECC, March 28, 2023, https://www.cecc.gov/
events/hearings/
preserving-tibet-combating-cultural-erasure-forced-assimilation-and-
transnational; ``The Threat of Transnational Repression From China and
The U.S. Response,'' CECC, June 15 2022, https://www.cecc.gov/events/
hearings/the-threat-of-transnational-repression-from-china-and-the-us-
response.
\24\ Eric Hsu and Ai-Men Lau, ``Silenced Voices, Hidden Struggles:
PRC Transnational Repression on Overseas Human Right Activists,''
Doublethink Lab, June 1 2023, https://doublethinklab.medium.com/
silenced-voices-hidden-struggles-prc-transnational-repression-on-
overseas-human-right-activists-8f34aeee7ae6; ``China: Transnational
Repression Origin Country Case Study,'' Freedom House, 2021, https://
freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/china; `` `They Don't
Understand the Fear We Have': How China's Long Reach of Repression
Undermines Academic Freedom at Australia's Universities,'' Human Rights
Watch, June 30, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/06/30/they-dont-
understand-fear-we-have/how-chinas-long-reach-repression-undermines.
\25\ ``Chinese Transnational Repression of Tibetan Diaspora
Communities 2024,'' Tibetan Centre for Human Rights & Democracy, 2024,
https://tchrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Chinese-Transnational-
Repression-of-Tibetan-Diaspora-Communities.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since 2009, Citizen Lab researchers have investigated digital
attacks and espionage against Tibetan diaspora communities. These
attacks include cyber espionage programs targeting Tibetan
institutions, one-click mobile exploits and malware used to install
spyware in a target's phone, and phishing operations conducted against
diaspora Tibetan organizations.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Jane, ``Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage
Network,'' The Citizen Lab, March 28 2009, https://citizenlab.ca/2009/
03/tracking-ghostnet-investigating-a-cyber-espionage-network/; Adam
Hulcoop, Matt Brooks, Etienne Maynier, John Scott-Railton, and Masashi
Crete-Nishihata, ``It's Parliamentary KeyBoy and the targeting of the
Tibetan Community,'' The Citizen Lab, November 17, 2016, https://
citizenlab.ca/2016/11/parliament-keyboy/; Jakub Dalek, Masashi Crete-
Nishihata, and John Scott-Railton, ``Shifting Tactics: Tracking changes
in years-long espionage campaign against Tibetans,'' The Citizen Lab,
March 10, 2016, https://citizenlab.ca/2016/03/shifting-tactics/; Katie
Kleemola, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, and John Scott-Railton, ``Tibetan
Uprising Day Malware Attacks,'' The Citizen Lab, March 10 2015, https:/
/citizenlab.ca/2015/03/tibetan-uprising-day-malware-attacks/; Geoffrey
Alexander, Matt Brooks, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Etienne Maynier, John
Scott-Railton, and Ron Deibert, ``Spying on a Budget: Inside a Phishing
Operation with Targets in the Tibetan Community,'' The Citizen Lab,
January 30, 2018, https://citizenlab.ca/2018/01/spying-on-a-budget-
inside-a-phishing-operation-with-targets-in-the-tibetan-community; Bill
Marczak, Adam Hulcoop, Etienne Maynier, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Masashi
Crete-Nishihata, John Scott-Railton, and Ron Deibert, ``Missing Link:
Tibetan Groups Targeted with 1-Click Mobile Exploits,'' The Citizen
Lab, September 24, 2019, https://citizenlab.ca/2019/09/poison-carp-
tibetan-groups-targeted-with-1-click-mobile-exploits/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
State-backed proxies and online nationalists also harass Chinese,
Hong Kong, Tibetan, Uyghur, and other diaspora members on Chinese and
U.S. social media platforms. Some of the most vicious instances of
digital transnational repression are directed at women.\27\ As Citizen
Lab researchers have documented, Chinese and Hong Kong women activists
in Canada have suffered online threats of physical and sexual
violence.\28\ Digital transnational repression has profound
consequences for victims and their relatives. Many suffer intense
psychological harm, while others self-censor or limit their online
activities. Still others have had to contend with state harassment of
family members in China, a form of transnational repression known as
coercion-by-proxy.'' \29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Albert Zhang and Danielle Cave, ``Smart Asian women are the
new targets of CCP global online repression,'' The Strategist, June 3,
2022, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/smart-asian-women-are-the-new-
targets-of-ccp-global-online-repression/.
\28\ Noura Al-Jizawi, Siena Anstis, Sophie Barnett, Sharly Chan,
Niamh Leonard, Adam Senft, and Ron Deibert, ``Psychological and
Emotional War: Digital Transnational Repression in Canada,'' The
Citizen Lab, March 1, 2022, https://citizenlab.ca/2022/03/
psychological-emotional-war-digital-transnational-repression-canada/.
\29\ Fiona B. Adamson and Gerasimos Tsourapas, ``At Home and
Abroad: Coercion-by-Proxy as a Tool of Transnational Repression,''
Freedom House, 2020,https://freedomhouse.org/report/
special-report/2020/home-and-abroad-coercion-proxy-tool-transnational-
repression.
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Recommendations
Through state-backed online censorship, the cooperation of Chinese
and U.S. technology companies, and domestic and transnational
repression, the Chinese state severely restricts the freedom of opinion
and expression of people in and outside China. Addressing restrictions
on these freedoms requires holding Chinese and U.S. companies
responsible for their role in online censorship and supporting victims
of digital harassment and intimidation. Therefore, I recommend that the
U.S. Government do three things:
One, publicly request that Microsoft, Apple, and other U.S.
companies explain how and why they implement political and
religious censorship on their platforms in China. Citizen Lab
researchers have discovered censorship rules that U.S.
companies have implemented on China-accessible platforms and
measured the breadth and impact of these rules. However, it is
not clear how U.S. companies develop and implement these
censorship rules, nor why U.S. companies are willing to censor
political and religious content on their China-accessible
platforms. Requesting Microsoft, Apple, and other U.S.
companies to provide this information would contribute to more
informed and effective policies pertaining to addressing the
rights and privacy impacts of online platforms and digital
technologies.
Two, publicly request that Microsoft explain how political and
religious censorship was applied to the search suggestions of
users of Bing outside China and what safeguards will ensure
that this will not reoccur. Citizen Lab researchers discovered
that for a period of at least 8 months from October 2021 to May
2022 Microsoft's Bing search engine censored politically
sensitive Chinese search suggestions in different world
regions, including the United States. It is unclear why
Microsoft censored these suggestions and what steps Microsoft
has taken to prevent this kind of censorship from reoccurring.
Requesting Microsoft answer these questions would deepen
understanding of how individuals outside China, including in
the United States, are impacted by Chinese state-backed
censorship on China-accessible platforms.
And three, train U.S. Government officials, including law
enforcement and immigration authorities, to recognize digital
transnational repression and properly assist victims and their
families. Many victims of transnational repression, including
digital transnational repression, live in the United States.
The U.S. Government has a duty to protect both U.S. and non-
U.S. citizens who are victims of transnational repression.
Providing protection requires recognizing the severity of the
problem. Personnel working in relevant government offices,
including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and
Federal, State, and local law enforcement, should receive
training to help them identify both victims and perpetrators of
transnational repression. Training should also include learning
how to conduct outreach to victims and their families and how
to provide appropriate assistance to those at risk of
transnational repression. By helping victims of transnational
repression in the United States, the U.S. government will
demonstrate support for those exercising their freedom of
expression and opinion on and offline.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to
your questions and comments.
Prepared Statement of Sophie Luo
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cochairman, and distinguished members of the
Commission, thank you so much for holding this hearing and for inviting
me to speak. Today's hearing is so important to me, as the wife of
imprisoned Chinese human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi. We must continue to
speak out about the horrific human rights violations committed by the
PRC government and the Chinese Communist Party. This is all the more
important in the wake of the Chinese official delegation's denials
about its human rights abuses and the Chinese government's allies'
empty praise of poverty alleviation and so-called rights safeguards at
the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva last Tuesday, January 23,
2024.
As I begin my testimony, I want to thank the Commission for
tweeting about cases of political prisoners on social media in advance
of the PRC's UPR. More broadly, I would like to publicly thank the U.S.
Government for its robust statement during the UPR and its advance
questions, including the focus on political prisoners and human rights
defenders arbitrarily detained by the PRC government.
Since my testimony 2 years ago at the CECC hearing in February 2022
at the time of the Beijing Winter Olympics, I have spoken at length
about the cases of my husband Ding Jiaxi and his colleague and co-
defendant, legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, whom Chinese authorities detained
after they held a private gathering of friends to discuss civil society
and the rule of law in China. Chinese authorities held Ding and Xu in
pre-trial detention for nearly 2 years and 6 months before trying them
secretly in June 2022 and sentencing them in April 2023 to 12 and 14
years in prison. To date, no verdict has been issued to the families.
After the Shandong High People's Court refused their appeal,
authorities sent my husband Ding Jiaxi to Jiangbei Prison in Hubei
province, and Xu Zhiyong to Lunan Prison in Shandong province in
November 2023.
In April 2023, following the announcement of Jiaxi's verdict, I had
the honor of testifying before Chairman Smith at a hearing of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee together with Ms. Geng He, the wife of
disappeared lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Geng He and I discussed how Chinese
authorities persecute human rights defenders through forced
disappearance, secret detention, torture, coerced confession,
fabricating criminal evidence, closed-door trials and sentences, and
the use of ongoing surveillance even after human rights defenders are
released. These constitute violations of the Chinese constitution and
laws as well as the international laws and conventions that the Chinese
government is obligated to adhere to and respect.
Today, I am holding up an image that shows many current political
prisoners in China. My heart aches terribly every time I see this
picture, but I put it on my desk at home, and I look at it every day. I
must let the world know the true human rights situation in China. I
must fight for their rights and call for the release of all of them!
There are many more prisoners beyond this image. Some of their
cases are documented in the Commission's Political Prisoner Database
(PPD)--the research staff informed me that there are now 11,116 records
in the CECC's PPD, among which 2,714 are cases of currently detained
individuals. Human rights NGOs such as Chinese Human Rights Defenders,
Hong Kong Watch, the Dui Hua Foundation, various Uyghur and Tibetan
groups, the China Aid Association, Falun Gong groups, and others have
also documented detentions.
For the remainder of my testimony, I will highlight the main human
rights-
violating tactics used by Chinese authorities against human rights
defenders with specific case examples.
No. 1: Forced disappearance. Prominent human rights lawyer Gao
Zhisheng was ``disappeared'' in August 2017, and his family in the U.S.
have had no news of him since then. Sun Wenguang, an outspoken retired
professor at Shandong University, was in the middle of an interview
with Voice of America (VOA) when police broke into his home in Jinan
and forced him off the air on August 1, 2018. A few days later, the 84-
year-old scholar and his wife disappeared. Their well-being and
whereabouts were unknown until March 2022, when news emerged that he
died in secret detention in 2021, age 86, and his family and friends
had been silenced. The circumstances surrounding his death remain
unclear. In October 2020, pregnant public health activist He Fangmei
was disappeared together with her husband and two children, after she
splashed paint on the gate of a government office in Huixian. The
family was not heard from for more than a year. In March 2022, Ms. He's
sister received a notice about her arrest. Then through a lawyer the
family learned that Ms. He had given birth to a baby girl in a
psychiatric hospital in Huixian; her two young daughters, including the
older girl who had become disabled as a 1-year-old due to a faulty
vaccine, are still locked up in the hospital, even after their mother,
He Fangmei, was taken to a detention center; her husband Li Xin, also
an activist, was sentenced to 5 years in prison; her son has been
placed in foster care. He Fangmei is still waiting for a verdict. Dong
Yaoqiong, who famously splashed ink on Xi Jinping's portrait on July 4,
2018, was locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Zhuzhou, Hunan for the
third time on February 6, 2021. She has not been heard from since. Her
father, Dong Jianbiao, died in prison under suspicious circumstances in
September 2022. Another Hunan-based human rights activist, Wang Yifei,
who was previously jailed for commemorating the Tiananmen Square
Massacre, disappeared in May 2022. He had written several articles
about his experience in the detention center and prison. He is believed
to have been taken by State security in Changsha but no details are
known. Peng Lifa disappeared in October 2022 after he held an
individual protest on a bridge in Beijing, calling on Xi Jinping to
step down due to the Chinese government's harsh zero-COVID policy. The
whereabouts of Peng's wife and child are also unknown, and they are
believed to be held under some form of detention. Qiao Xinxin (a.k.a.
Yang Zewei), who was a passionate fighter against China's censorship
apparatus, the ``Great Firewall,'' was taken into incommunicado
detention by Chinese police from his residence in Laos and extradited
back to China in June 2023, and his whereabouts were unknown for more
than 2 months before news emerged that he had been held in a detention
center in Hunan province.
No. 2: Torture, especially while held under ``residential
surveillance at a designated location'' (RSDL). RSDL is a form of
incommunicado detention that allows authorities to hold individuals for
up to 6 months. Political prisoners are extremely vulnerable to torture
and other forms of maltreatment during RSDL. Both Ding Jiaxi and Xu
Zhiyong were held for months in RSDL and reported that they were
severely tortured. In recent years, torture also has been reported in
prison--in other words, after rights defenders have spent considerable
time in detention centers, and then are tried, sentenced, and
transferred to prisons. One such example is the torture of the unjustly
imprisoned young computer coder Niu Tengyu, the Guangdong-based female
veteran rights activist Li Biyun, and Nanjing-based dissident Shao
Mingliang. Both Li and Shao have disabilities and were subjected to
horrendous mistreatment and torture in prison.
No. 3: Lengthy pre-trial detention. Li Yuhan is a defense lawyer,
and she represented one of the ``709'' lawyers, Wang Yu. Li was
detained, tortured, and suffered many health problems in the detention
center for 6 years before her first trial was held in October 2023.
No. 4: Lack of access to medical treatment in detention and denial
of medical parole. Li Qiaochu was detained because she spoke up for her
partner, the legal scholar Xu Zhiyong. She had mental health challenges
even before being detained. After detention, she experienced severe
auditory hallucinations and needed medical treatment. Her mother
submitted over 10 requests for medical parole, but all were denied.
Most detainees who were tortured suffered from many types of health
issues in the detention center or in prison but had no access to
medical treatment. Zhang Zhan, who is serving 4 years in prison in
Shanghai for reporting on COVID-19 from Wuhan, has been gravely ill as
she has been on hunger strikes to protest her innocence since her
arrest in May 2020. Her family and lawyer's applications for medical
parole were declined too. Yang Maodong (a.k.a. Guo Feixiong) was
arrested in December 2021. His health also steadily declined as a
result of a hunger strike following his request to leave China and
visit his terminally ill wife in the U.S. She died in January 2022.
Yang is now serving 8 years in prison for ``inciting subversion.''
No. 5: Heavy prison sentences for human rights defenders. Uyghur
scholar and ethnic rights advocate Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life
imprisonment in 2014 on the charge of ``splitting the country.'' China
democracy advocate Wang Bingzhang was sentenced to life in prison in
2003 for alleged espionage and organizing and leading a terrorist
group. Many rights defenders have been sentenced to more than 10 years
on fabricated or trumped-up charges.
No. 6: Restricting defense lawyers' rights or imposing officially
assigned lawyers on the detainee. Defense lawyers face multiple
obstacles in representing human rights defenders, such as authorities
not allowing lawyers to meet with their detained clients and
withholding case documents and evidence, all of which are in violation
of Chinese lawyers' legal practice rights. The Chinese authorities also
pressure or coerce legal counsel representing human rights defenders to
sign confidentiality agreements, thus preventing defense lawyers from
speaking publicly about cases that authorities deem to be politically
sensitive. This has a further negative impact in that Chinese
authorities thus have space to malign human rights defenders or
publicize false information about them. Chinese authorities often
assign a lawyer of their choosing to legally represent rights defenders
in order to cover up the truth of the case. This was evident in the
case of Ruan Xiaohuan, a computer engineer who provided information to
the public about how to circumvent the ``Great Firewall.'' Since Ruan's
first trial, his family has been fighting very hard to authorize a
lawyer for Ruan during the appeal trial instead of the officially
assigned lawyers.
No. 7: Forced labor in prison. Cheng Yuan, the managing director of
an NGO and rights advocate, and Ou Biaofeng, another rights advocate,
reportedly had to engage in forced labor at Chishan Prison in Hunan
province. Cheng Yuan recently was moved to a different unit in Chishan
Prison where he no longer has to do forced labor, according to his wife
Shi Minglei, who now lives in the U.S. The Taiwanese rights defender
Lee Ming-che, who also was held in Chishan Prison, reported that he
worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day at Chishan Prison while he
served a 5-year prison sentence.
No. 8: Randomly depriving political prisoners of their lawful right
to be visited by family members. The Sichuan-based rights defender
Huang Qi is serving a 12-year prison sentence and has not been allowed
to see his mother since 2019. His mother is now 90 years old and is
suffering from cancer. Similarly, both Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong have
been deprived of their right to meet with their families and to
communicate with them by letter to this day.
No. 9: ``Non-release release.'' Shanghai authorities released
rights defender Cheng Jianfang in October 2024, but a group of
plainclothes police have been outside her home surveilling her since
that time, preventing her from enjoying her right to freedom of
movement and association, including for medical appointments or to meet
with friends. Another veteran activist Yin Xu'an served a 4-year
sentence for commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre and was
released in November 2023. He was immediately placed under house arrest
and has not been given medication for his extremely high blood
pressure. On December 5, 2023, he told friends that his blood pressure
was 270/170 mm Hg and he urgently needed to seek medical treatment.
Since then, Yin has been out of contact. He is believed to be in a
hospital under surveillance. His phone must have been confiscated and
his family has not been told where he is. Other ``non-release release''
cases include the aforementioned Li Biyun and Shao Mingliang, who have
been under around-the-clock surveillance and deprived of the right to
seek medical treatment.
No. 10: Persecution and/or harassment of the families of human
rights
defenders:
1. Detain and put into prison the rights defender's wife or loved
ones: Representative cases include Xu Yan, wife of detained human
rights lawyer Yu Wensheng; Wang Liqin, wife of imprisoned poet Wang
Zang; and Li Qiaochu, girlfriend of Xu Zhiyong. The children of rights
defenders often suffer mental and physical health challenges due to the
heavy pressure and surveillance placed on them. Additionally, the
children are frequently prevented from accessing an education when both
their parents are in prison. Among the most worrying cases currently
are the three young children of He Fangmei and Li Xin, both rights
defenders.
2. Deprive the children of rights defenders of their right to
attend school. For example, authorities have prevented the children of
human rights lawyers Li Heping and Wang Quanzhang from going to school
in China for more than 8 years.
3. Impose travel bans not only on the rights defenders but also on
their families. There are many human rights defenders who have been
banned from traveling, including Ding Jiaxi and lawyer Lu Siwei, who
was sent back to China while trying to cross the border into Laos.
Lawyers Wang Quanzhang and Li Heping and their families have not been
allowed to go abroad. Chinese authorities also banned their children
from going abroad. Children of rights defenders have been severely
harassed and prevented from leaving China to receive an education
abroad. This reflects a wider problem of the harassment of family
members.
4. Pressure landlords to revoke rental agreements. Lawyers Wang
Quanzhang and Li Heping and their families were forced to move many
times last year and continue to expect that their housing may suddenly
be revoked.
5. Economically destroy the rights defender's capacity to support
himself and his family. The Chinese authorities confiscated the life
savings of Ilham Tohti shortly after he was sentenced, leaving his
family in China to face severe economic difficulties. Plainclothes
police officers often harass rights defenders when they are trying to
find a job, leaving them jobless and their families in a difficult
economic situation.
I could go on and on, but due to time constraints, I am not able to
describe all the forms of persecution that Chinese human rights
defenders and their families are facing.
Before ending my testimony, I would like to put forward a few
recommendations for action that I think the U.S. Government and
international society could take to help political prisoners and their
families:
1. Human rights officers based in China from the United States and
other countries should request to visit detention centers and prisons
and should report whether these detention facilities are not compliant
with Chinese detention center regulations or Chinese prison law.
Routinely ask for such access so that Chinese authorities can't say no
easily.
2. Apply visa restrictions on those working at the Public Security
Bureau, the Procuratorate, and the Courts who are directly involved in
the human rights defender persecution cases, especially those who are
involved in implementing various forms of torture, for example, the
perpetrators who inflicted grievous harm on lawyer Gao Zhisheng and
were named by Gao in his written testimony.
3. Human rights officers based in China from the U.S. and other
countries should visit human right defenders' families instead of
inviting them to go to the foreign embassy only to be blocked or
detained on their way.
4. Call for humanitarian assistance and education for the children
of rights defenders when both parents have been detained or imprisoned
by Chinese authorities.
5. Call for international attention to the children of rights
defenders who are not allowed to go to school because of their parents'
rights activism.
6. Request medical parole or call for humanitarian assistance to
political prisoners serving life sentences and require the release of
elderly political prisoners and those in bad health, such as Wang
Bingzhang and Qin Yongmin.
I deeply appreciated the countries, in addition to the U.S., that
specifically asked the Chinese government to end arbitrary detention
and forced disappearance, and its abusive treatment of human rights
defenders, during the UPR. I look forward to your continuous support of
the families of human rights defenders to fight for basic rights and to
seek the unconditional release of these arbitrarily detained political
prisoners!
Thank you!
______
Prepared Statement of Rushan Abbas
Chairman Smith, Chairman Merkley, Ranking Members, members of the
Commission and staff, I express my gratitude for this opportunity to
submit my testimony. My purpose is to document my observations during
the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group session held in
Geneva on January 23, 2024, where the international community took
stock of China's human rights record. I will also provide an account of
reports, side events, and claims made by the Chinese Communist Party
during the UPR session.
Universal Periodic Reviews are intended for a genuine exchange
within the U.N. framework. This one, however, occurred amid an ongoing
genocide that the United Nations and its member states have chosen to
ignore, except for a select few. More than anything else, this UPR
session underscored the difficulty in holding China accountable for its
human rights atrocities against Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers,
Southern Mongolians, and Chinese dissidents, as well as the systemic
challenges China poses against the international system.
In Geneva, I witnessed how a totalitarian state aiming to silence
dissent and legitimize its oppression worldwide worked to exploit this
U.N. mechanism to receive an international seal of endorsement. The
event that unfolded in Geneva made it evident that a significant
accountability gap exists within our global framework concerning human
rights and justice.
I would like to underline, by providing a telling example, that the
U.N. system is under immense pressure from China. The main takeaway of
the August 2022 report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights was that Beijing's actions in the Uyghur region could constitute
``crimes against humanity.'' This is a grave allegation that the U.N.
cannot--and did not--raise without compelling evidence. However, it was
disheartening to see that the U.N.'s official compilation of its own
reports, as part of the UPR process, conspicuously left this conclusion
out.
As much as Campaign for Uyghurs was relieved to see that this
damning conclusion of a report by the U.N. itself was at least
mentioned through our organization in the summary of the civil society
reporting produced by the United Nations, the fact that the U.N. is
debilitated to the point of not being able to refer to its own
reporting without hiding behind a civil society organization shows the
level of China's undue pressure under which the U.N. system currently
operates.
This UPR was marred by the PRC's manipulative tactics aimed at
stifling genuine critique and dialogue. Before the session began, we
could see droves of pro-Chinese students and Chinese government-
organized NGOs sent to overcrowd the venue to restrict access for
authentic human rights representatives. The mission of these operatives
was clearly to limit civil society participation, and it took our
persistent efforts with the U.N. Secretariat to secure access to the
hall that clearly had more available space.
Defying the U.N.'s clear protocols, pro-China individuals spent
hours in the upstairs gallery photographing member state delegates and
activists from Uyghur, Tibetan, and Chinese dissenter groups, including
myself, during the review. Another pro-China attendee was taking
pictures of Tibetan and Uyghur rights defenders as we were standing in
line to enter the hall, and unfortunately, it took repeated calls from
activists to get U.N. security to stop this individual.
I saw a pro-Chinese attendee jotting down notes on his phone while
looking over at an Uyghur activist's computer. This deliberate
surveillance occurred inside the United Nations, a space meant for
secure and open discussion on human rights. These are common tactics
used by the CCP to intimidate and monitor human rights advocates in
international forums, especially those dedicated to unveiling the true
state of human rights in China.
At the session, a record number of 163 countries requested to speak
during the interactive dialog between member states, and each was
granted just 45 seconds to provide recommendations. Of these, over 120
countries either chose to ignore China's dark record or commend its so-
called progress. This included nations that, by their own account,
should stand against repression--and not endorse it. It was jarring how
sharply this orchestrated praise contradicted the realities of PRC rule
that subjects marginalized groups to indefensible persecution in so-
called re-education camps.
Surreal praise from countries, such as for ``bolstering religious
tolerance in Xinjiang,'' and hailing of China's so-called ``commitment
to guaranteeing the right to freedom of religion or belief,'' ring
hollow against the backdrop of over a million Uyghurs detained in an
ongoing genocide, with their basic human rights stripped away.
Similarly, endorsements of China's policies by nations like Russia
reflected a disturbing alignment with the PRC's attempts to eradicate
Uyghurs, Tibetans, Southern Mongolians, and Hongkongers along with
their rich cultural diversity and identity. Witnessing the subversion
of the UPR process was a gravely worrying sight to behold.
At this point, I want to applaud U.S. Ambassador Michele Taylor for
her resolute stance among the 28 countries that spoke against human
rights atrocities. In just 45 seconds, Ambassador Taylor delivered
eight recommendations on the ongoing Uyghur genocide and violations in
Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and mainland China.
As the session got underway, we became aware that China had
released a white paper on ``counterterrorism'' timed to distort facts
and spread misinformation about the Uyghur people. This move aimed to
divert attention from the ongoing genocide and shape a narrative more
favorable to China's interests. Despite conclusive research and
survivor testimony, side events organized by the Chinese government and
NGOs presented propaganda that cast doubt on the established evidence.
This white paper alleges to provide a legal framework for what
China misleadingly calls counterterrorism, when reports from several
credible sources show that Uyghurs are being arbitrarily detained on
false terrorism charges, even for uttering a common Islamic greeting,
``Assalamualaikum,'' which means ``Peace be unto you''--a common wish
of Abrahamic religions.
Participating in religious activities such as attending religious
classes, fasting, and going on religious pilgrimages is also considered
grounds for arrest. The release of this new white paper, strategically
timed to be published as the UPR session was underway, should be
understood as an indicator of China's confidence on the overall outcome
of its Universal Periodic Review, a victory lap as China successfully
cajoled and coerced many nations into silence on its abysmal human
rights record.
At side events organized by pro-China groups and aided by the
Chinese mission in Geneva, several speakers tried to whitewash China's
human rights atrocities. In one such attempt, a so-called scholar from
the Chinese Medical Association presented fabrications on the Uyghur
region, disputing the evidence of forced medical treatment and forced
sterilization among ethnic minority groups to suppress Uyghur
birthrates. In another instance, the China Society for Human Rights
Studies had brought a ``token'' Uyghur by the name of Remina Xiaokaiti
who showered praise for what she called significant progress in
employment and human rights in Xinjiang, attributing it to Chinese
modernization efforts. This individual also accused Western countries
of fabricating ``forced labor'' claims as a means of imposing sanctions
and undermining China's prosperity.
Another individual by the name of Suolang Zhuoma from another
government-
organized NGO, China Tibetology Research Center, praised China for its
efforts to sustain traditional Tibetan culture through investments in
preserving key cultural relics, encouraging young people's interest in
traditional art, and supporting cultural festivals. Continued
references to Xizang, a name constructed for Tibet by the Chinese
Communist Party, unfortunately pointed to a worrying trend adopted by
the CCP to improve its efforts to gradually erase the name of Tibet
from the United Nations system.
China's manipulation of the U.N. and its blatant abuse of the
international system undermines principles of justice, human rights,
and fair representation. Their maneuvers compromise the U.N.'s
integrity and pose a direct threat to global stability and human
dignity. In my opinion, China's calculated attempts were indeed
successful in shielding its egregious crimes from scrutiny and eroded
the U.N.'s founding principles and purpose. The international community
must unite against such tactics to preserve the U.N. as a beacon of
peace, free from exploitation.
Overall, my observation is that what transpired in Geneva was not
an isolated incident but a symptom of a much larger issue. The PRC's
conduct at the UPR, and the permissive attitude in that room, served as
a microcosm of China's broader disregard for international norms, human
rights, and the dignity of Uyghurs and other persecuted communities.
It must be said: China is bent on trying to silence those who can
speak about the real state of human rights in China. It became clear to
me that in Geneva, the PRC operates with an audacious sense of
impunity, treating the U.N. as if it were their own playground and
getting what they want. The United States must recognize the gravity of
this situation and the urgency with which it demands a response. It's
high time nations stood firm against such bold affronts, ensuring that
the U.N. remains true to the vision of Eleanor Roosevelt rather than a
rubber stamp for a global offense on freedom.
According to the rules of the UPR's interactive session, civil
society organizations are not granted an opportunity to speak. I am
grateful for this opportunity to correct the record and speak on the
real state of human rights in China.
Thank you.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith
Good morning. Today's hearing, ``The PRC's Universal Periodic
Review and the Real State of Human Rights in China,'' will come to
order.
Last week, at the Universal Periodic Review of the People's
Republic of China at the United Nations, the Chinese Communist Party
thought that it could drown out the truth of its shameful human rights
record, enlisting its allies to offer pampering praise instead of
probing questions, while giving a platform to Party-controlled civil
society groups over independent non-governmental organizations--
something that is covered in a stand-alone special CECC report that was
released just yesterday.
But even Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party, and the PRC's
massive 60-person delegation could not make a lie true.
And it is indeed a baldfaced lie that the Chinese Communist Party
respects, honors, or abides by international human rights norms.
The truth is that Xi Jinping intends to rewrite and reshape these
norms, to manipulate even international bodies dedicated to protecting
human rights to serve his agenda. The truth--on stark display at last
week's UPR--is that Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party
constitute a systemic challenge to the international rules-based order,
and reject the very concept of universal human rights.
In its sham submission for the Universal Periodic Review, the PRC
claimed that it protects freedom of religion and freedom of expression,
and looks out for workers, women, ethnic minorities and the vulnerable.
In reality, Xi Jinping poses an existential threat to these and
other rights essential for human flourishing.
He tells journalists that they must be so loyal to the Chinese
Communist Party that ``Party'' becomes their middle name.
He tells leaders of religions whose roots in China date back to the
middle of the first millennia that they must ``sinicize''--which means
putting allegiance to the Party and to Xi himself before their faith
and their God.
He claims that women's equality is a state policy, while the
Chinese Communist Party decides how many children a woman should have,
including by the appalling practice of forced abortion, which is still
a terrible reality in Uyghur and ethnic minority communities, even as
restrictions have been eased for Han women, a blatantly eugenic policy.
Despite its best efforts, China has not succeeded at silencing
those courageous men and women who insist on telling the truth about
the real state of human rights in China, often at great cost to
themselves--some have paid with their lives.
Today, we will hear from a distinguished panel of witnesses. Rana
Siu Inboden has devoted her academic and professional career to
exposing the PRC's insidious attempts to undermine human rights.
Ben Rogers has been a passionate and effective advocate for
religious freedom in China and now for democracy and human rights in
Hong Kong, for which he has been denied entry to Hong Kong, threatened
with prison, and repeatedly harassed.
Emile Dirks has conducted groundbreaking research exposing China's
totalitarian surveillance and censorship regimes, documenting the PRC's
use of dystopian technology to target ethnic and religious groups for
biometric monitoring and data collection, and scrubbing China's
internet to create alternate realities.
And we are particularly honored to have with us today two women who
have taken extraordinary risks for the cause of human rights, fighting
on behalf of their family members who are imprisoned by the CCP: Rushan
Abbas, a powerful advocate for the Uyghur people, whose sister was
abducted by the Chinese government in retaliation for her activism, and
Sophie Luo, wife of imprisoned rights defender Ding Jiaxi, herself now
a dedicated advocate for victims and their families, all while working
as an accomplished engineer by day.
Ms. Luo, it is my privilege to share with you that the CECC has
nominated your husband, Ding Jiaxi, for the Nobel Prize, for his
tremendous service to the dream of a democratic China. We have also
nominated his ally and close collaborator, Xu Zhiyong, democracy
campaigner and free speech champion Jimmy Lai--whose son Sebastien
testified before this commission last May--and, finally, Uyghur
activist and scholar Ilham Tohti.
Today I am also keenly aware of those who are not here, whose
voices we can no longer hear from--especially the voice of Cao Shunli,
who died in 2014 at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party precisely
because of her work to amplify the voices of independent civil society
as part of China's Universal Periodic Review--the very process we are
here to talk about today.
She was taken into custody on her way to Geneva in 2013, where she
was to participate in a training on human rights for the UPR. The
Chinese Communist Party cruelly objected to even a moment of silence
for Cao at the U.N. Human Rights Council. In a hearing I held with this
Commission after her death, I said Cao Shunli is exactly the type of
person the Chinese government should embrace--not jail, discredit, and
leave to die!
She is not here but her voice is not silent. She speaks, along with
Liu Xiaobo, who also died in PRC custody, and with Ding Jiaxi and Xu
Zhiyong, who wrote from jail about their hopes for a democratic China.
They made enormous sacrifices to tell the truth about the real state of
human rights in China because they believed in and fought for a better
China.
I urge my colleagues and all those joining us today to insist that
the U.N. and its member states demand the truth about the PRC's human
rights violations and hold Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party
to account, in the names of Cao Shunli, Liu Xiaobo, Ding Jiaxi, Xu
Zhiyong, Jimmy Lai, Ilham Tohti, our brave witnesses and all of those
who have risked so much for the sake of these most fundamental rights
and freedoms.
With that, I'd like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Co-
chair of our Commission, Senator Merkley.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing. The topic is
appropriate for our first hearing of 2024, as it covers the wide
spectrum of human rights challenges in China.
Both this Commission and the Universal Periodic Review serve as
mechanisms to review China's compliance with international human rights
standards, in their own ways. The review of China, the fourth since the
creation of the UPR process, gives us an opportunity to assess its
outcomes to help us prioritize our work and inform the recommendations
we make to Congress and the Administration.
Members of this Commission will find the issues raised at the UPR
very familiar. We have documented in our annual reports and explored in
our hearings genocide against Uyghurs, decimation of freedom in Hong
Kong, colonial boarding schools in Tibet, and China's pervasive
surveillance state, among other brutal behaviors.
These are facts--facts this Commission has reported, facts that
member states raised in their UPR questions, and facts submitted by the
U.N. and the stakeholder non-governmental groups to the review session.
The Chinese government is obligated by international law to address
these matters and put itself in compliance with the law.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how these issues
were discussed in Geneva, and recommendations on next steps in terms of
holding the Chinese government accountable for its numerous violations
of the law.
We also hope to hear about the methods the Chinese government
employs to avoid facing these facts. As one NGO put it, the Chinese
Communist Party ``gaslights'' the world on its record by self-servingly
redefining concepts and recruiting allies to deflect attention away
from its actual conduct. And that conduct is in fact atrocious.
I commend the attention of Commissioners and the public to our new
staff report on the prevalence of ``PRC-sympathetic'' groups at the UPR
and how they distort the process. I offer my appreciation to the staff
for working so hard to put this piece together.
The UPR remains a valuable platform for the international community
to assess the human rights record of China and of every country,
including our own. It is far from perfect, and we will hear criticisms
of the process and how the PRC manipulates it.
But we must also take care not to let such criticism erode support
for the U.N. system. Its treaty bodies and instruments are the places
where international human rights law is defined and adjudicated. These
universal standards are those that this Commission is mandated to
assess the PRC's conduct against. Let us not undermine that work.
Last, let us remember our most essential role, to help give voice
to those who cannot freely express themselves, who languish unjustly in
jail, who suffer repression. Earlier this month I joined Senators
Rubio, Kaine, and Blackburn on a letter asking the State Department to
raise specific names of political prisoners at the UPR of China.
Chairman Smith and Commissioner Wexton led a similar letter on the
House side. I hope our witnesses will update us on cases of concern.
Thank you so much for doing so,
I also note that the Chair and I have nominated our witness Sophie
Luo's husband Ding Jiaxi, along with Jimmy Lai, Xu Zhiyong, and Ilham
Tohti, for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is another way we seek to shine
a light on prisoners of conscience.
Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today, and I look forward
to your testimony and your insight.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern
Good morning. I join my colleagues in welcoming the witnesses and
the public to this morning's hearing on the Peoples Republic of China's
Universal Periodic Review, the UPR, held on January 23rd.
I would like to begin by recognizing that the UPR is not just ``a
valuable platform'' for analyzing China's human rights record, as noted
in the hearing announcement.
First, the UPR is the only universal mechanism that exists to
examine states' compliance with international human rights law and
norms. Every U.N. member state is subject to universal periodic review
every 5 years. In principle, this gives the UPR greater legitimacy--
greater weight--than views expressed by any single government.
Second, the UPR reviews each country's human rights record against
the obligations the country itself has taken on through its sovereign
decisions to ratify or accede to international human rights treaties.
China is a State Party to several core human rights treaties--more,
I regret to say, than the United States. Those treaties include the
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention
against Torture; and conventions to eliminate racial discrimination and
discrimination against women.
China's acceptance of obligations under these human rights
instruments is, in fact, the basis for this Commission's work. It means
that we can directly examine the PRC's compliance with a broad range of
rights: civil and political rights, and also labor rights, women's
rights, the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, and the rights
of other vulnerable populations, including the LGBTQ+ community. It
means that the PRC's effort to change the international conversation to
development, rather than rights, fails--because China's development
claims must be interrogated using a rights lens.
All of this is to say that UPR recommendations go to the heart of
the China Commission's efforts to promote and defend the human rights
of the Chinese people, and I am glad to have this opportunity to focus
on them.
I would like to highlight some of the recommendations coming out of
last week's UPR session that address issues I care deeply about.
Last December I led a bipartisan letter with 23 House colleagues
urging the Biden Administration to ``highlight the increasingly severe
human rights violations the PRC is perpetrating against the Tibetan
people.'' The letter focused attention on ``PRC policies [that] are
eroding Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan language, and the Tibetan way of life
in ways that are widespread and systematic and constitute a fundamental
threat to the survival and well-being of the Tibetan people.''
The Administration did draw attention to these human rights abuses
against the Tibetan people, both in its advance questions and its
statement during the UPR session. Twenty countries joined the U.S. in
insisting that, with respect to Tibet, China must:
end forced assimilation policies;
end discrimination and protect the rights of ethnic and
religious minorities, including the right to language;
implement the recommendations of the recent Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights treaty review; and
permit visits by human rights bodies.
Governments made similar, often overlapping recommendations with
regard to the egregious repression and denial of the fundamental rights
of the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, which this
Commission has found may constitute genocide and crimes against
humanity.
Clearly, many countries around the world share the United States'
profound concern about the ongoing and systematic violations of the
human rights of religious and ethnic minorities in China.
Similarly, on Hong Kong, 20 countries echoed this Commission's
calling upon China to:
respect civil and political rights;
repeal the National Security Law;
end censorship and surveillance of activists;
restore judicial independence; and
release writers, bloggers, journalists, human rights
defenders and others arbitrarily detained.
More than 30 countries, including many from the ``global south,''
advocated for women's rights and gender equality in China; an end to
gender-based violence and trafficking; and full implementation of the
recommendations from the recent CEDAW treaty review.
I am especially glad to see that 11 countries specifically raised
the need to end discrimination based on gender identity and protect the
rights of the LGBTQ community in China. I am proud that this Commission
has documented and reported on serious rights abuses against the LGBTQ
community in the past and we will continue to do so going forward.
We will hear from the witnesses today about the limitations of the
UPR process, the obstacles the PRC puts in the way of advocates who
want to participate, and its efforts to manipulate the process in order
to undercut criticism--a reality that, sadly, is not unique to China.
Of course we must do all we can to counter these tactics.
That said, the UPR process is a valuable tool for human rights
advocacy because it is multilateral and because it holds China to
account for obligations it has explicitly agreed to. I hope the
discussion today will provide us with ideas for making the best use of
it--in particular, for strengthening multilateral efforts to end the
grave, ongoing rights violations occurring in the country.
Mr. Chairman, I ask that the document prepared by the U.N. Human
Rights Council UPR Working Group, titled ``China--Compilation of
information prepared by the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights'' be submitted for the record. The
document summarizes dozens of recommendations from treaty reviews and
U.N. independent human rights experts that are directly relevant to
this Commission's work.
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Witness Biographies
Dr. Rana Siu Inboden, Senior Fellow, Robert S. Strauss
Center for International Security and Law at the University of
Texas at Austin
Dr. Inboden is a senior fellow with the Robert S. Strauss
Center for International Security and Law at The University of
Texas at Austin. She serves as a consultant on human rights,
democracy, and rule of law projects in Asia for a number of
NGO's and conducts research related to international human
rights, Chinese foreign policy, the effectiveness of
international human rights and democracy projects and
authoritarian collaboration in the United Nations. Her book,
China and the International Human Rights Regime, examines
China's role in the international human rights regime between
1982 and 2017. Dr. Inboden has served at the U.S. State
Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, where
her primary responsibilities included managing the State
Department's Human Rights and Democracy Fund China program and
promoting U.S. human rights and democracy policy in China and
North Korea. She also served at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai,
in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, and in the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Dr. Inboden holds a DPhil
from the Department of Politics and International Relations at
Oxford University. She obtained an MA at Stanford University in
East Asian Studies and a BS at the School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University.
Benedict Rogers, Co-founder and Chief Executive, Hong Kong
Watch
At Hong Kong Watch, Mr. Rogers monitors and reports on the
PRC's violations of human rights, basic freedoms, and the rule
of law in Hong Kong, and is an advocate for actions to assist
Hong Kongers. Mr. Rogers has deep expertise in religious
freedom issues in China and Hong Kong. In November 2023, he
spearheaded Hong Kong Watch's report entitled `` `Sell Out My
Soul': The Impending Threats to Freedom of Religion or Belief
in Hong Kong.'' Mr. Rogers previously worked as East Asia Team
Leader at the international human rights organization Christian
Solidarity Worldwide. He is the author of five books, including
Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads and Than Shwe: Unmasking
Burma's Tyrant. He is a regular contributor to international
media, including The Wall Street Journal, The International
Herald Tribune and The Huffington Post, and has appeared as a
commentator on BBC, CNN, Sky, and al Jazeera. Ben has an MA in
China Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), and a BA in Modern History and Politics from Royal
Holloway College, University of London.
Sophie Luo, wife of imprisoned human rights lawyer Ding
Jiaxi
Ms. Luo is a highly trained engineer, based in the United
States since 2013, who has emerged as a powerful voice in the
Chinese human rights community following the December 2019
detention of her husband, the human rights lawyer and China
Citizens Movement organizer Ding Jiaxi. During her first
testimony at a CECC hearing, in February 2022, which was timed
to coincide with the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, she
explained Ding Jiaxi's trajectory as a proponent of human
rights in China, his detention and that of his co-defendant Xu
Zhiyong, and other related cases of political detention. She
subsequently gave testimony in April 2023 for the House Foreign
Affairs Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and
International Organizations, only a week after Chinese
authorities sentenced Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi to 14 and 12
years in prison, respectively. Ms. Luo's ability to articulate
with both passion and precision the maltreatment experienced by
Chinese political prisoners and their family members is an
important resource to Members of Congress, journalists, and
international human rights advocates.
Dr. Emile Dirks, Research Associate at the Citizen Lab at
the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University
of Toronto
Dr. Dirks's research explores the policing of so-called
``target populations,'' deemed by the PRC Ministry of Public
Security as threats to social stability, and who include users
of drugs, religious practitioners, petitioners, and people with
criminal records. He is currently looking at the use of digital
censorship and surveillance in contemporary China and Chinese
state transnational repression and foreign interference. His
previous research on police-led mass biometric surveillance in
China has been covered by the New York Times, the Economist,
and The Intercept, among other publications. He gave testimony
for the CECC in September 2022 on the issue of PRC authorities'
use of digital authoritarianism to target and control religious
groups. Dr. Dirks completed his PhD in Political Science from
the University of Toronto in 2022.
Rushan Abbas, Founder & Executive Director, Campaign for
Uyghurs
Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist, has dedicated her
life to championing the rights of the Uyghur people. Beginning
her advocacy during her time at Xinjiang University, she led
pro-democracy protests in 1985 and 1988. After relocating to
the United States in 1989, her commitment to the cause only
grew stronger. Co-founding the Uyghur Overseas Student and
Scholars Association in 1993, she played a pivotal role in
establishing the Uyghur American Association in 1998 and was
elected as its Vice President for two terms. In response to
Beijing's escalating genocidal actions against Uyghurs in 2017,
Abbas co-founded the Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU). This
organization advocates for Uyghur human rights and democratic
freedoms, rallying the international community against the
atrocities in East Turkistan. She pioneered the ``One Voice One
Step'' movement, orchestrating a global protest on March 15,
2018, across 14 countries and 18 cities against China's mass
Uyghur detentions.
Following her first speech, in September 2018, her sister
was abducted as retaliation for Rushan's activism. In 2020, CFU
released the report ``Genocide in East Turkistan,''
meticulously detailing how China's actions align with the
Genocide Convention. Notably, CFU received a Nobel Peace Prize
nomination in February 2022 for its relentless advocacy. Rushan
Abbas engages with global lawmakers, briefing them on East
Turkistan's human rights crisis. Testifying before the U.S.
Senate and Congress multiple times, she sheds light on the
Chinese regime's genocide and crimes against humanity. Rushan
currently serves as a lived experienced expert on the
Interparliamentary Taskforce on Human Trafficking and as the
Advisory Board Chair of the Axel Springer Freedom Foundation.
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