[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TIANANMEN AT 35: THE ONGOING STRUGGLE FOR
HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY IN CHINA
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 4, 2024
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Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-894 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House Senate
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair
Chair STEVE DAINES, Montana
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts MARCO RUBIO, Florida
BRIAN MAST, Florida TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia ANGUS KING, Maine
MICHELLE STEEL, California TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon LAPHONZA R. BUTLER, California
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
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
Piero Tozzi, Staff Director
Todd Stein, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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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......................................................... 4
Statement of Zhou Fengsuo, Executive Director of Human Rights in
China and student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square
demonstrations................................................. 5
Statement of Ruohui Yang, founder, Assembly of Students, Humber
College, Canada................................................ 8
Statement of ``Karin,'' White Paper protest activist and student
at Columbia University......................................... 10
Statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan, a U.S. Senator from Alaska....... 12
Statement of Rowena He, senior research fellow, University of
Texas, Austin and author of Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the
Struggle for Democracy in China................................ 13
Statement of Hon. Laphonza Butler, a U.S. Senator from California 15
Statement of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi........................ 18
Statement of Hon. Jennifer Wexton, a U.S. Representative from
Virginia....................................................... 27
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Fengsuo, Zhou.................................................... 35
Yang, Ruohui..................................................... 38
``Karin''........................................................ 42
Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 43
Merkley, Hon. Jeff............................................... 45
McGovern, Hon. James P........................................... 45
Submissions for the Record
Questions for the Record for Zhou Fengsuo from Senator Brow...... 46
Questions for the Record for Ruohui Yang from Senator Brown...... 47
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form.......................... 50
Witness Biographies.............................................. 51
(iii)
TIANANMEN AT 35: THE ONGOING STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY IN
CHINA
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2024
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was held from 10:34 a.m. to 12:42 p.m., in Room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC,
Representative Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, presiding.
Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair,
Representatives Pelosi, Salinas, Nunn, and Wexton, and Senators
Butler and Sullivan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NEW JERSEY AND CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chair Smith. (Off mic)--government employees and police
joined the Tiananmen students. Their voices echoed through the
streets of over 400 cities, demanding a future built on
justice, freedom, and dignity.
Late in the evening on June 3rd and into June 4th, 1989,
the Chinese Communist Party leadership unleashed the People's
Liberation Army upon the protesters. They used brute force and
lethal force against peaceful protests; guns and tanks crushed
innocent civilians, young and old alike. The precise number of
casualties to this day is unknown. There has been no public
accounting of the events of that week and no justice for the
victims. Rather, those seeking to commemorate the event or
seeking information about those killed--like the Tiananmen
mothers--are harassed, detained, and arrested themselves.
One of the most iconic figures of the Tiananmen massacre is
that of the Tank Man, the solitary figure, with shopping bags
in hand, who stood in front of the advancing line of tanks.
That act of brave defiance inspired the world and reminds us
why the heroic protest movement of 1989 must never be
forgotten. Tiananmen is not simply a past event to study and
ponder but a present reminder that when the Chinese people are
free to assemble, to act, and to speak, they demand freedom,
democracy, and political reform.
What happened on Tiananmen Square in 1989 should also
remind us that the principles of freedom and democracy are not
only American principles. The fundamental human yearning for
dignity and liberty is not limited to any one region or country
in the world. They are aspirations that transcend countries and
culture, and neither tanks nor torture can erase them.
Nonetheless, as we look at China today, the prospects for
greater civil and political rights seem as remote today as they
did the day after the tanks rolled through Tiananmen Square.
An increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party
government is more repressive in domestic politics, more
mercantilistic in trade and economic policy, increasingly
dismissive of international norms, and more assertive in
exporting the authoritarian model globally. While repression
looks so much different today than it did 35 years ago, the
goal remains the same--to preserve the Communist Party's
monopoly, absolute monopoly, on political power through any
means necessary--state-sponsored indoctrination, a pervasive
surveillance state, arbitrary detention, torture, and
transnational repression.
At this moment in time, the United States and its allies
face a systemic challenge from the Chinese Communist government
and its authoritarian allies in Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
It is a challenge we cannot avoid and one where promotion of
human rights and freedom must be recognized as a strategic
advantage against authoritarianism. I am proud to work
alongside the CECC and its amazing staff to shine a bright
light on Xi Jinping's atrocities these past 5 years. I am proud
that the Congress has worked across the aisle to address
genocide and to stop any company from profiting from forced
labor of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic
minorities.
But there's so much more to do. The United States must do a
better job leading the free world's democracies in holding the
Chinese Communist government accountable through sanctions in
the United States and at the United Nations, for its ongoing
blatant repression of the Chinese people. We must take all
steps to stop the Chinese Communist government's efforts to
export their authoritarian model around the world, which they
are aggressively doing. We must find more efficient ways to
stop American companies from subsidizing tyranny and forced
labor. We must better protect Chinese students in the Chinese
diaspora from transnational repression.
We must treat the Great Firewall of China like the 21st
century Berlin Wall. Tearing it down must be a critical U.S.
priority, allowing the dissemination of news and information
within China and allowing the Chinese people to communicate
freely and securely. At the same time, we must also stand
resolutely with those in China and Hong Kong who are imprisoned
and disappeared, those persecuted and silenced, those censored
and suppressed--the Chinese pastor, the Uyghur, the labor
organizer, the Tibetan Buddhist monk, the human rights lawyer,
the Hong Kong democracy activist, and countless others living
under the repressive policies of the Chinese Communist
government.
We must communicate to the Chinese people that their
struggle and pain has not been and will not be forgotten. And
we--and that we believe that the Chinese Communist Party will
eventually be consigned to the ash heap of history. To do
anything less dishonors the spirit of Tiananmen and those who
stood so bravely and resolutely for freedom.
I'd now like to yield to our very distinguished cochair,
Senator Merkley. I would just make a note--and I apologize to
our witnesses. We have a great group of witnesses today. My
wife is in the hospital nearby. It's pretty serious--very
serious. And I have to leave to be by her side. But, again, I
thank you, and I thank my good friend Senator Merkley for his
work on this Commission. It's extraordinary.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A SENATOR FROM
OREGON AND CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE
COMMISSION ON CHINA
Co-chair Merkley. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And today being June 4th, this is the appropriate day for our
hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China,
because of the focus on the events of June 3rd and 4th, 1989.
Focus on not just Tiananmen Square, but the activities across
China--hundreds of cities across China. The activities and the
response to those activities really shocked the conscience of
the world and the conscience of this Congress.
The massacre of peaceful protesters by their own government
spurred a decade of debate here in Congress about whether the
U.S. should condition trade relations with China on improvement
in human rights. Our chairman, Congressman Smith, was at the
forefront of those bipartisan debates, along with Speaker
Emerita Pelosi. That question was settled in the year 2000,
when Congress and President Clinton granted permanent normal
trade relations to the People's Republic of China.
Congress insisted, however, that the deal include a
mechanism to monitor China's progress on human rights and rule
of law. That insistence, that legislation, created this
Commission--a bicameral, bipartisan watchdog to assess China's
behavior against international human rights standards. But
today's hearing is not about this Commission. It is about the
people in the People's Republic of China, the oppression they
continue to endure, the hopes they continue to hold for a
better future, the aspirations that they continue to fight for.
The people gathered in Tiananmen Square in the spring of
1989 were demanding their government respond to their
grievances, as well as their aspirations. And the government's
brutal response ended lives and ended optimism that day, but it
did not end the desire for freedom. It did not end the desire
for dignity. Those feelings are universal. They're innate to
every human everywhere. It's a spark that cannot be
extinguished. Thirty-five years later, that brutal grip of
oppression has only tightened. People cannot openly express
dissent.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about whether
and how the citizens of the PRC find ways to share frustrations
and desires, their use of social media or chat groups, or
informal networks. What can the 2022 White Paper protests tell
us? I also hope to hear how we, American policymakers, can best
understand what people in China are saying, what they are
feeling, what they are advocating for. It's vital that we
listen to their voices, rather than project our own ideas or
politics. I'm interested to learn how people keep the legacy of
Tiananmen alive in the face of a concerted and successful
effort by the CCP to erase the history of Tiananmen, both on
the mainland and now in Hong Kong.
Preservation of memory is another innate human impulse,
essential to people's ability to maintain their culture and
maintain their identity. Freedom of expression and freedom of
assembly are core human rights, enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The Chinese government's
relentless effort to suppress them does not diminish the
yearning of the people of China to realize them, or our
responsibility to speak out for them. And that's why we are
here. And that's why I look forward to your testimony.
Is there anything else that anyone would like to weigh in
on before we turn to our witnesses?
STATEMENT OF HON. ANDREA SALINAS,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM OREGON
Representative Salinas. Thank you. Thank you, Chair
Merkley. And thank you to Chair Smith as well for holding this
important hearing. And thank you to our esteemed witnesses for
taking the time to be here today to share your stories with us.
I was 19 years old when the Tiananmen Square protests erupted.
And I can still remember the infamous image of the Tank Man
bravely staring down the military tanks with his grocery bags
in hand. And I can still remember hearing the news about the
thousands of protesters who lost their lives standing up to
oppression.
Now, on the 35th anniversary of the protests, the Chinese
people are still prohibited from talking about Tiananmen and
have faced reprisals from recent protests such as the White
Paper movement. The Chinese government has cracked down on
protesters both here and transnationally, which underscores the
very important need for this hearing. We can honor the legacy
of these courageous protesters by hearing these stories today
and ensuring that they are remembered, despite efforts by the
Chinese Communist Party to erase them from memory.
With that said, I'm eager to hear from all of you and to
discuss how this Commission and Congress can support you in
your fight for human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech
in China. Thank you.
Co-chair Merkley. I will now introduce our witnesses,
starting with Zhou Fengsuo. And I'll apologize for my
pronunciation, however off it might be. Welcome. He is--he was
a Tiananmen student leader and is executive director of Human
Rights in China. In 1989, Zhou was a physics student at
Tsinghua University in Beijing, who helped set up a broadcast
station on Tiananmen Square and provided support and medical
help to students who were on a hunger strike. Authorities took
him into custody and detained him for a year without trial.
After coming to the United States in 2007, he cofounded
Humanitarian China to promote the rule of law, human rights,
and freedom of expression in China, and to provide humanitarian
support to political prisoners and their families. Since 2023,
he has served as executive director of Human Rights in China.
Next will be Ruohui Yang, a rights advocate and is
currently a paralegal student at Humber College in Canada. In
2020, he founded the Assembly of Citizens, a Chinese student
association which organized large-scale June 4th commemoration
activities and White Paper movement protests in Canada. Since
2022, he has been an assistant editor for China Spring, where
he has strengthened the focus on Chinese human rights issues
and political prisoners through his editorial work.
Karin, an alias, is a student at Columbia University who
organized a campus White Paper protest solidarity event in
2022. She will testify in disguise, as other organizers of the
event were either attacked at Columbia or encountered
intimidation from the PRC police.
Rowena He is joining us by video. She is a China specialist
and historian of modern China at the University of Texas at
Austin. Her focus is the nexus of history, memory, and power,
and the relationship between academic freedom and public
opinion, human rights, and democratization, youth values, and
nationalism. Her first book was entitled Tiananmen Exiles:
Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China.''
Mr. Zhou, we'll turn to you first.
STATEMENT OF ZHOU FENGSUO,
TIANANMEN STUDENT LEADER AND
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA
Mr. Zhou. Thank you, Senator Merkley. Thank you, Chris
Smith. And thanks to the CECC for organizing this hearing.
I am Zhou Fengsuo, Fengsuo Zhou in English, and I'm
currently executive director of Human Rights in China and
president and co-founder of Humanitarian China. I was a
Tiananmen student leader 35 years ago. It is my honor and duty
to testify today, as a survivor of the Tiananmen massacre.
In October 2022, I was at a Halloween parade with a group
of young protesters. I was the only adult in the group of about
50. But looking around, I knew many of them. Some of them were
guests at my home. Some visited the Tiananmen exhibition. Some
were kids of my fellow protesters from Tiananmen. I was really
touched when one of them told me that he was arrested a few
years ago on Tiananmen Square commemorating the Tiananmen
massacre in the very place it happened, even though at that
time nobody knew about this.
As I was standing there, I was excited and inspired. And
then, without my prompting, they chanted, ``Down with CCP, Down
with Xi Jinping.'' At that moment, I was in tears. I realized
that after 33 years, we have finally seen the younger
generation. They are stepping up to carry the torch of freedom
that I have carried with me since 1989 from Tiananmen Square.
In 1989, I was a physics student at Tsinghua University. I
was among the first to protest on Tiananmen Square after Hu
Yaobang's death. Hu Yaobang was a former party secretary of the
CCP, but his death signaled the death of reform in China.
That's why we were concerned. That's why we went to Tiananmen
Square to protest. And then, on this very day 35 years ago, I
was among the last to leave Tiananmen Square when the tanks
were rolling in, the soldiers were pointing guns at us. One of
the tanks was only 20 feet away from me.
In between these two dates, I witnessed the most incredible
outpouring of Chinese people in support of freedom and
democracy. Millions of people gathered on Tiananmen Square from
all walks of society, not only students but also journalists,
communist government officials, Christians, Buddhist monks,
even police and soldiers. It was also my first time meeting
people from Hong Kong and witnessing their strong support, and
learned from them the techniques of civil society. The
solidarity at that moment was so overwhelming, strong, and
inspiring.
I installed dozens of loudspeakers on the Monument to the
Heroes at the center of the square, and firsthand the people's
real voices were heard, echoing across this huge plaza, at the
very center of Communist China's political power. In that
moment, many Chinese people who were fearful and quiet became
expressive and articulate, sometimes even jubilant. Freedom was
in the air. Democracy was almost within reach.
Unfortunately, I also witnessed the brutal massacre of
these peaceful protesters by the troops armed with tanks and
machine guns. The pungent smell of tear gas, the bullet holes
in the buildings, the rolling tanks, armored vehicles, and the
dead bodies outside of the hospital--in a bicycle shed, because
the hospital was so overwhelmed with those who were injured and
killed. That was a war. A war conducted by the CCP's invading
army against freedom-loving Chinese.
I remember seeing Zhong Qing among those who died. He was a
younger classmate of mine at Tsinghua University. He died for
our shared dream of a free China. He was a third-year student
studying instruments at Tsinghua University. I was shocked
beyond belief. I couldn't comprehend what I was witnessing. I
realized I must carry his name and continue speaking out on his
behalf.
The protesters were not the only ones who suffered under
the government's attacks. The military's brutal siege of the
capital encountered courageous resistance from the people of
Beijing. When martial law was first declared, millions of
people poured out from their homes to block the troops. Many of
them stood in front of the marching soldiers and rolling tanks
in order to protect students like me, some of them carrying
their children on their shoulders just to show the soldiers
that Beijing was peaceful.
This is why the world witnessed the great Tank Man, who has
since become the most important icon of the last century,
representing courage against overwhelming power and violence.
To date, I'm often asked who this Tank Man is. We probably will
never know. Had he survived, he probably wouldn't even realize
the significance of his move because there were many like him
who stood in front of the tanks.
The whole world watched as the Chinese government turned
against its own people and murdered peaceful protesters. Yet
President Bush sent a special envoy to inform the Butcher of
Beijing, Deng Xiaoping, of the support of the U.S. Government,
even after the senseless massacre. Within 10 days, probably,
the CCP took the wrong path after 1989, setting the country on
the trajectory of ever-increasing political repression and
human rights violations. That is why later this very regime
would put Uyghurs in concentration camps, would force Tibetans
into self-immolation, and would deprive Hong Kong of its
freedom.
If a regime can use tanks in broad daylight to kill its own
people and still enjoy the support of the most democratic
countries in the world, there's no limit to what it could do--
both in terms of internal repression and external aggression.
That's why we are seeing the China of today. Domestically, the
CCP chooses to erase the memory of the massacre through
censorship and brutal repression. It tightened its grip on free
speech, banning any mention of the reality of what happened on
Tiananmen Square and in the rest of the country, to the extent
that many young people today have never heard about it. Twenty
years later, after the death of my classmate, Zhong Qing, his
brother visited the Tiananmen Museum in Hong Kong. And that was
the first time he learned why his older brother died. This
museum was shut down by the CCP after the National Security
Law. That's why we are building museums here. There's one in
Manhattan.
Perhaps in 1989 the CCP could have taken a different path,
transforming itself into a social democratic party. But the
massacre and the crackdown eliminated the ability of this
regime to be positively changed through mere trade and
investment. The U.S. Government has deliberately put their
heads in the sand, ignoring the cause of human rights activists
and political prisoners in China. This strategy may have
brought short-term gains, in the form of increased profits and
lower inflation, but appeasing the CCP for the benefit of trade
has proven to be self-defeating and self-destructive.
What Tiananmen told us 35 years ago, and still today, the
most important lesson is that United States policy toward the
CCP regime must focus on the democratization of China. Without
democratization, the regime will become an even stronger threat
toward universal values, including freedom and human rights.
Okay, I'm running out of time. Okay, let me just quickly finish
this. Today we remember Tiananmen because it reminds us of what
a different China could have been, because Chinese people
demonstrated their love for freedom and democracy through their
protests and their resistance. The fight didn't stop them. For
most of us, it was only the beginning of our journey.
Liu Xiaobo gave up a position as visiting scholar at
Columbia University to go back to China to join the students on
Tiananmen Square. He refused to leave China and died as the
first and only Nobel Peace laureate in prison without ever
seeing the award. Xu Zhiyong was only a high school student,
but the protest and the massacre awakened him. He resolved to
dedicate his life to the dream of a free, democratic, and
beautiful China. His New Citizens Movement gained tens of
thousands of followers from all over China. He was recently
sentenced to 14 years in prison.
For me personally, it has been a privilege to work with
these amazing freedom fighters, to raise awareness of their
suffering, their sacrifice, their dreams, their goals, and to
support the Tiananmen Mothers and the other victims of the
Tiananmen massacre and the crackdown. Even though the Tiananmen
protest and the massacre remain a source of trauma for the
Chinese people, it has simultaneously become a tremendous
source of inspiration, healing, and hope. That's why I have
collected many relics and artworks from 1989. Each of these
items carries a story of life and death, of strength and
endurance, that is difficult to find anywhere.
I have with me this blood-stained towel. In the morning,
when we were leaving Tiananmen Square, someone was shot. This
towel was used to wipe the blood of the person who was wounded.
This is evidence of the murder. It's also a sign of hope and
life, because this was kept for 33 years in China very
carefully, against the government's surveillance for two
generations, and gifted to me last year. This T-shirt was made
by the students who created the very sculpture of the Goddess
of Democracy on Tiananmen Square. This was the reason millions
of people protested on Tiananmen Square--democracy and freedom
for China. Thank you.
Co-chair Merkley. And is that what the Chinese writing is
on the T-shirt, is it democracy and freedom for China?
Mr. Zhou. Yes, sir.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
And with your permission, I'll enter the balance of your
testimony into the record.
Mr. Zhou. Please.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you. I really appreciate how you
have highlighted many individuals who, with very courageous
acts, have stood up for democracy and freedom. Thank you.
Mr. Yang.
STATEMENT OF RUOHUI YANG, FOUNDER OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS AND
DEMOCRACY ORGANIZATION ASSEMBLY OF CITIZENS, AND STUDENT AT
HUMBER COLLEGE, CANADA
Mr. Yang. Hello. I just want to say I highly agree with
what my Right Honorable friend Mr. Zhou just said. The Chinese
Communist Party has unleashed a war on its own people. So
that's why I also brought this one with me. This medal was
issued to those soldiers who shot students on Tiananmen Square
35 years ago. In normal nations, medals are given to soldiers
who are acting distinguishedly and brave on the battlefield
against their enemy. But in China, their enemy appears to be
their own people. It says, ``commemorative of putting down the
riot.'' Those soldiers got this medal not because of their
bravery, but because they were cowards. Not for fighting the
enemy, but for slaughtering their own people.
My story begins 5 years ago. Five years ago today, the 30th
anniversary of June the 4th, I took to the streets for the
first time, committing myself to the movement of democracy in
China. I was deeply intimidated by the atmosphere of fear
cultivated by the Chinese Communist Party in Canada. However,
the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement has further
secured my determination to engage in the Chinese democracy
movement. In Toronto, I have actively participated with my Hong
Kong friends organizing support for the democracy movement
supporting the Hong Kong people.
As someone from mainland China, I have faced huge pressure
from my own community, dealing with psychological stress from
harassment by communist supporters and also the suffering from
political melancholy. Things that happened during the protests
remind me that the national border cannot stop the CCP from
spreading fear overseas. Some Chinese, organized and encouraged
by the consulates, drove their luxury cars through our
protesting line shouting insults. They burned our flowers at
the Statue of Democracy. Some protesters even received death
threats. My life was full of harassment by strangers.
In 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower of COVID-19,
who could have possibly stopped this global catastrophe from
happening, was arrested by the Chinese police for ``spreading
false statements'' and labeled a criminal. He died shortly
after, due to the virus. But surprisingly I witnessed many
young Chinese students attending the memorial event we
organized in downtown Toronto, which deeply moved me. I called
on everyone to be organized and bound together to overcome the
fear and despair, and fight for a life of humanity, human
rights, democracy, and freedom.
This led to the founding of our organization, Assembly of
Citizens. Over 3 years of COVID-19, the young generation in
China has suffered from other human rights disasters. During
the White Paper revolution in the winter of 2022, the Assembly
of Citizens became capable of organizing events and protests
across Canada more professionally and faster as a group. Our
friends in Europe created a mailbox for contributors and for
resistance fighters inside the Great Firewall; it became one of
the most influential Mandarin accounts on X. Dr. Li collected
testimony and stories of human rights catastrophes that have
been neglected by international society--and told those stories
to millions of people every day, while simultaneously facing
threats from the Communist Party.
Our friends in the U.S. are making movies, talk shows, and
all forms of art in order to spread awareness of the oppression
of human rights in China.
Our friends in Japan and Korea are trying to establish
creative businesses to emphasize resistance as a lifestyle.
Through dealing with various issues, we realized how to avoid
division, build professional organizations, and build more
inclusive and stronger links with other groups.
Twenty-nine years ago in this very same congressional hall
Major General Charles Sweeney, who testified about the decision
to drop the atomic bomb, said, ``One can only forgive by
remembering. And to forget is to risk repeating history.'' The
last rapid deterioration of human rights under a major power is
1933 in Germany. That's the year when they enacted the Enabling
Act, which brought Germany under dictatorship. In that year,
Peter Drucker began writing his first book, The End of Economic
Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism. Today as we open this
book, we feel as if history is actually repeating itself.
Let me adopt some of his words to describe today's
situation in China. The Chinese substitute the CCP for order,
but they cannot have real order. And they worship Xi Jinping,
because they have no God to worship, showing their very
intensity that they must have order, a creed, a radical concept
of man. Military intimidation of Taiwan, the suppression of
freedom, persecution against LGBTQ groups, the reeducation
camps for Uyghurs and Tibetans, and the war against religion
are all a sign of weakness instead of strength. The more
desperate the Chinese become, the more strongly entrenched
totalitarianism will appear to be. The further they push down
the totalitarian road, the greater will they despair.
However, as soon as we offer an alternative, the whole
totalitarian magic will vanish like a nightmare. This is the
current situation in China. And this is our mission. We hope we
can show all Chinese a new choice, a possibility for a
democracy and freedom lifestyle, with dignity and the value of
human rights. Therefore, I believe my colleagues can do their
job well. I trust that my predecessors from the Tiananmen
Square generation can cooperate effectively. I trust that my
allies can stand with us. And I also believe that you can make
the right choice. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, I
truly appreciate you for listening to my story. We're doing the
best we can. But your help is necessary as well. After all,
this future belongs to us. It belongs to them. And it belongs
to you. Thank you.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you. Thank you much. And thank you
for your advocacy and your courage.
We're now going to turn to Karin. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF KARIN (AN ALIAS),
WHITE PAPER PROTEST ACTIVIST
AND STUDENT AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Ms. Karin. I would like to begin by expressing gratitude
for the opportunity to testify disguised, even though it will
only delay the inevitable police visit to my parents. Media
Director Scott Flipse told me that only I could evaluate
whether the cost of testifying is worth it. But however much
this cost weighs on me, the cost for my fellow student
activists who have already experienced intimidation,
harassment, and even physical assault from CCP agents is 10
times greater. And for the record, all the names in my
testimony will be aliases.
I was born and raised in China. Like many Chinese students
my age, I wondered about the conspicuous lack of events
depicted between 1970 and 1990 in our history textbook. I only
learned about June 4th by reading about it on Wikipedia in high
school. In 2022, I began an internship in Shanghai with one of
China's largest technology conglomerates. Like many young
people who grew up in the economic prosperity of the 2010s,
sheltered by censorship, I was ready to bask in and contribute
to the economic achievements of my nation.
In March an unexpected citywide lockdown began, and this
will subsequently be remembered as one of the largest
humanitarian crises in China's COVID response. The lockdown has
made me realize that despite economic development, the Chinese
Communist Party has not changed, even in 35 years, from its
totalitarian self. In November 2022, after I returned to
university, the fire in Urumqi sparked a global wave of vigils
and protests to commemorate the victims.
My friend and I organized a vigil at Columbia in front of
Low Library. We spread the word through social media only one
day before the event. But to our surprise, not just 10 or 100,
but 300 people showed up that night. The scene reminded me of
how Chinese students at Columbia 35 years ago gathered at the
very same place to demonstrate solidarity with students on the
square.
We wanted it to be a peaceful event, but my friend Eva,
shortly after delivering her speech, was violently assaulted,
struck right on the face three times by an unidentified
individual who claimed to be a Columbia student. Later, she
turned to the Columbia administration, but no action was taken
aside from a suggestion to seek mental health support. Not even
a campus safety alert.
I was in a class on China's foreign policy. There were a
few Chinese students whose comments were blatant CCP
propaganda, like how the concentration camps do not exist.
After the vigil, I was always afraid that those Chinese
students would recognize me. I was afraid that what happened to
Eva at the protest was going to happen to me too, and that
Columbia would just do nothing. As China reopened, the momentum
of the White Paper protests has died down gradually. My friends
and I at Columbia have tried to preserve the spark by
continuing to organize events like movie screenings of COVID
documentaries and panel discussions.
However, we were always plagued by far-reaching
transnational repression. My friend and co-organizer Chris was
interrogated by Chinese police when he returned to China last
year. He reached out to me on Instagram to inquire about the
names of participants of the New York protests. I was informed
that he sent those inquiries under police pressure. The CECC
has done an extraordinary job in its 2023 report in documenting
the CCP's transnational repression, especially that faced by
the Uyghurs and the Hong Kongers.
But I want to bring to your attention that even though the
White Paper movement has subsided, the intensity of
transnational repression against outspoken Chinese overseas
students has only escalated, in most cases through personal
harassment, transnational surveillance, and the coercion of
proxies--meaning the intimidation and interrogation of family
members in China. My fellow student activists experienced this
retribution in ever-increasing quantities and severity this
year. Yet, unlike Hong Kong or Uyghur activists, few can step
forward and tell their story.
According to Columbia's own website, it has approximately
6,000 currently enrolled Chinese students in 2023. Many of
them, after completion of their study, will return to China and
work in occupations of political or economic importance. As a
social science major, I have always believed that a change in
society starts with a change in its citizens' minds. In fact,
many vocal individuals of the White Paper movement in China
were educated overseas. Exposure to freedom made us free. But
if these brilliant minds cannot even think and speak freely on
American campuses, on American soil, it will be much more
difficult for a movement like White Paper to be sparked again.
I don't have time to go through the policy recommendations
in my testimony, but I would like to receive questions on them
later if possible. Congressmembers, 160 years ago President
Lincoln showed us that America was a nation that would hold the
power and bear the responsibility to assure freedom to the
free. He said, as Americans, ``We shall nobly save or meanly
lose the last best hope of Earth.'' That is our union. That is
our beacon of liberty for those oppressed around the world.
Congressmembers, 35 years ago you showed those students
from Beijing fleeing a brutal massacre that the United States
kept its promise as the last best hope of Earth, a safe haven
for people who pursue and fight for democracy and freedom. Now
I ask you to show the compassion and support for us, for those
first pioneers who lit the spark for all should not be allowed
to freeze in the wind and snow.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you very much for your testimony.
And we're now going to have testimony from Rowena He, who's
joining us by video. Members have various hearings, briefings,
and votes, so we are coming and going, and I apologize that
that is the nature of how the House and Senate operate. I'm
going to turn the gavel over to my colleague from the House.
Representative Nunn. At this time, I'd like to recognize
Rowena He for her opening comments.
As we do an audio check here, I just want to say Rowena He
is joining us by video. She is a China specialist, a historian
of modern history at the University of Texas in Austin. Her
focus is on the nexus of history, memory, and power, and the
relationship between academic freedom and public opinion, human
rights and democratization, and youth values and nationalism.
Her first book was entitled Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the
Struggle for Democracy in China.
As we work through our audio system, we'll recognize
Senator Sullivan for his opening comments. And then we'll come
back for Q&A with the panel. Thank you very much for being here
today. With that, Senator.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN,
A SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I
want to thank the witnesses for their courage, their testimony,
and bravery. And now, in my view, Mr. Chairman, some of this--
the fact that you even have to be brave in America, as Karin
has shown, is a real troubling aspect of what's happening right
now with regard to the Chinese Communist Party's attempts at
global reach to suppress dissent. Even trying to depress
dissent in the United States.
You know, this anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre
is something that most Americans who were alive then, we all
remember it. And unlike what the Chinese Communist Party has
tried to do to its own people, they have not been able to erase
the memory of those horrendous events in the United States or
around the world.
I am actually just back from a Senate CODEL with Senator
Butler and some other senators, a bipartisan Senate CODEL to
Taiwan. And this is a real free society, one of the freest
societies in the world. And of course, culturally, it is
Chinese. Which is why the CCP is so scared about what's
happening in Taiwan. Like Hong Kong, the way Hong Kong was,
Taiwan threatens the very central tenet of the Chinese
Communist Party's ruling ethos, which is that one man, ruling
in perpetuity by crushing all dissent, knows what's good for
1.4 billion people. That is why they're so afraid of Taiwanese
democracy.
I want to thank the witnesses again, Mr. Chairman, here,
and to recognize also what is one of the most outrageous
Chinese Communist Party offenses. And that is how they
systematically, regularly target dissidents abroad and their
families to make them comply with what they see as correct
behavior. And as we are seeing with these brave witnesses
today, they're even doing this in the United States of
America--hunting down dissidents in the United States of
America. I think every single American citizen should be
outraged by this.
And, again, I want to thank our witnesses today for their
courage. We stand with them. And I look forward to them taking
their questions and getting the word out not just to American
citizens but to people all around the world on the brutality of
this authoritarian regime in Beijing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Senator. I could not agree
more with your well-placed opening statement.
With that, I'd like to return to one of our key witnesses,
Rowena He, who is now available for us remote. Rowena, the
floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF ROWENA HE, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF
TEXAS, AUSTIN, AND AUTHOR OF TIANANMEN EXILES: VOICES OF THE
STRUGGLE FOR
DEMOCRACY IN CHINA
Ms. He. Okay. Thank you so much. Can you hear me now? Thank
you so much for this opportunity to join you from afar in
solidarity. I'm currently at Stanford because I wanted to honor
my commitment that I made a long time ago to speak here on
campus for the Tiananmen anniversary today, June 4th. And as
you all know this is a special day because exactly today, 35
years ago, over 200,000 army soldiers, equipped with AK-47s and
tanks, were deployed into the capital city of Beijing against
unarmed civilians.
I was a teenager at that time. And I always wondered in
those days if the world knew what was happening to us. I used
to light candles secretly with my friends, my college friends--
closing the doors and windows, worrying about being caught. I
know many of them are listening to me today, from afar. It
means a lot that the CECC is organizing this hearing and giving
us a voice on this special day, when the idealism of my
generation was so violently silenced in 1989.
Ten years ago, when I first testified for the CECC, I was
both hopeful and sad. I had just published my first book
Tiananmen Exiles despite state efforts to erase the history of
1989; I was also teaching this taboo subject at Harvard,
keeping the memory alive among the younger generation. At the
same time, I felt so sad because there was still no justice for
the victims. A Tiananmen father hanged himself in an empty
parking lot before one of the Tiananmen anniversaries. I used
to listen to this father's testimony. He was so determined to
carry on, seeking justice for his son, Ya Aiguo.
All these years I kept wondering what was in this father's
mind when he was walking towards that empty parking lot near
Tiananmen Square--that's probably the closest place that he
could get to near the Square where his son was killed.
All these years I kept wondering what this father was
thinking when he was walking towards that empty parking lot.
That was a Rising China age. That was the time when the whole
world was mesmerized by the power and the wealth of the CCP,
and it was all about that ``China Model'' of state capitalism
and authoritarianism. This father probably felt that there was
nothing in this world that he had, except his life, to remind
us that we owe his son justice. And I wanted so much to be able
to give him that justice. That was 10 years ago.
Five years ago, I was invited to testify before the CECC
again, but I had a commitment to speak at the University of
London. I couldn't make it. And at that time, I had just
finished a fellowship at IAS Princeton and accepted a
professorship in Hong Kong. And who would have thought that
now, 5 years later, on the 35th anniversary of Tiananmen, I
would be denied a work visa and banned from returning to my
position as Associate Professor of History at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong.
Tiananmen is not just about the past. Tiananmen is ongoing.
The repression, the political repression, is ongoing. The
Tiananmen Mothers are still not allowed to openly mourn their
children; the exiles are not allowed to go home to their
parents' sickbeds and funerals. And scholars like me are
constantly being punished. We are in freedom; we are outside
China, but we are never free. It pains me to watch these
younger people, who have just now testified about the
repression, talking about fear, about harassment to their
family members. Because that's exactly what we had previously
been through.
If there's any one thing that kept me going, it's not
because of courage, the word people often used to describe me.
On the contrary, it's because of fear. It's because of the fear
that we have lived through, especially after 1989. It's because
of fear that I wanted to continue. I wanted to carry on.
The past 35 years have witnessed a war of memory against
forgetting. The CCP has used all the state machinery to erase
the history of memory, but not in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, where I just got expelled, used to be the beacon
of light for those of us struggling in darkness for 30 years.
Every year in Victoria Park, you would know that no matter how
difficult it was, no matter how depressing, how daunting my
journey of studying Tiananmen was--you knew that on the day of
June 4th, today, for 30 years people in Hong Kong would light
the candles in Victoria Park--telling the Beijing regime that
there's something in this world that cannot be crushed by guns
and tanks, and propaganda machines and jails. That's our human
beings longing for freedom, truth, and justice.
But now the organizers of these candlelight vigils are
either in exile or in jail. The last court trial that I went to
before I left Hong Kong was actually for the trial of the
organizers of the Tiananmen candlelight vigil. I had imagined
so many times before I went to the court that day, how I would
react, how I would feel when I saw my friends on the other side
of the courtroom. But when I saw them--when I saw them coming
out--Albert Ho Chun-yan and Lee Cheuk-yan, these men who
devoted their lives to organizing the candlelight vigils for
us--lighting candles to show those of us in darkness that ``we
are still here'' and ``we are not giving up.'' But now they
were on the other side of the courtroom.
That strong sense of helplessness was just so overwhelming,
just like a few months ago before their court trial, when the
statue of the Goddess of Democracy was removed from my campus
at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Twice in my life, first
time in my teenage years--the second time when I was a middle-
aged woman, as a professor on campus--trying to defend academic
freedom on my campus, to protect the younger generation of Hong
Kong and China when they were struggling in their fight for
freedom and democracy. And twice, we saw that statue of
democracy that the students first erected in Tiananmen Square,
symbolizing our generation's longing for the same values
represented by your Statue of Liberty in New York City, being
taken away.
Tiananmen was not just about repression. It's also about
hope. It's about a generation's longing for the universal
values of liberty and democracy. And that fateful night of
repression changed everything, but we are still--we are still
trying to carry on the fight. I think it's because of all the
repression that Congressman Smith mentioned at the beginning,
and also the earlier testimony, that makes it even more
important that we continue this fight.
People used to ask me why human rights in China matters.
They said that we have economic interests, voters' interests--
human rights in China was not our priority. I fully understand
how important it is for each of us, every one of us, especially
under the difficult economic situation, to bring food to the
table for our family and to take care of our loved ones. That's
what we want as human beings. However, Tiananmen was not just
about China; it's not just about 1989. If we look at what
happened during COVID, the violation of human rights of one
medical doctor in Wuhan, in China, became the violation of
human rights of every single human being on Earth.
So 1989 did not end in 1989. It's an ongoing struggle. If
there's anything we can do--as Milan Kundera describes it:
``The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory
against forgetting.'' As expressed in 1984, ``those who control
the present control the past, and those who control the past
control the future.'' Let's work together collectively to make
sure that the government in Beijing cannot control our present
to control our past, and cannot control our past to control our
future. I know that we may lose many battles, but we are going
to win the war of memory against forgetting. History is on our
side. I will be happy to answer any questions later. Thank you
very much.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Professor He, for that
powerful testimony.
With that, I'd next like to recognize the senator for her
opening comments, and then we'll get into comment and question.
STATEMENT OF HON. LAPHONZA BUTLER,
A SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA
Senator Butler. Thank you, Chairman, for the opportunity to
address such an esteemed panel. It's interesting to me that we
mark this moment and anniversary with a declaration of courage.
Also marked with a great deal of sadness. But what inspires me
is that we sit in this moment listening to the fear and
concerns, but also underneath, the expectation and hope. And
the work of this Commission, I think, is a critical part of
meeting those expectations of hope with these activists, and
leaders and academics across the country and the world. I
believe that together, as has been declared, we can meet the
moment of expectation and hope by continuing to commemorate the
sacrifice of so many in 1989. But making that commemoration
with a very loud demand--a demand for justice, truth, and
freedom.
And I know that, as a part of this Commission, I stand with
all of my colleagues in meeting that moment in such a way. Mr.
Chairman, I just have a few questions, if that would be okay.
Mr. Zhao, thank you for your bravery, and for being here
today and sharing your story. As one who knows truly the
firsthand consequences of speaking out on human rights, your
perspective and your insight are especially valuable to us. One
thing that particularly interests me is how you have worked to
unite those who focus on the overall human rights picture in
China and those who focus on the specific concerns of the
Uyghur and Tibetan communities. Can you tell me a little bit
more about how your work with the Uyghur and Tibetan
communities has gone, and how you've been effective in
developing cooperation among these groups?
Mr. Zhou. Thank you, Senator Butler. Thank you for coming
today. And thank you for your kind words of support and
solidarity.
I have worked extensively with Tibetan communities and the
Uyghur activists in the past. Of course, we always want to do
more. The Tibetan community has been our strongest supporter
from 35 years ago to date. They participate in our
commemoration rallies everywhere. And I normally go to their
celebrations, their events, regularly. And we have a very
active community for cultural exchange among the diaspora
communities.
So, you know, with that we have tremendous respect for the
Tibetan community. They have grown their roots very deeply in
the host countries, and they have practiced democracy in their
diaspora. You know, both of these are aspects of what we are
trying to learn. And we are actually getting a lot of help from
them. For example, sometimes we want to have events in our
organizations. Early on they gave us, you know, space to hold
these kinds of events. And we are forever grateful.
And my organization, Humanitarian China, was one of the
earliest supporters of the Uyghur economist, Professor Ilham
Tohti when his daughter, Jewher, arrived in the United States.
Because her father was arrested at the airport she was here
alone. We raised money among our supporters to support her
transition. You know, she's made friends since then. And I also
talk continuously with the Uyghur community. We are very
outspoken on the concentration camps and other issues.
For me, of course, it was when I was in prison that I began
to realize that I was in the same situation as all these
underprivileged groups under the CCP. You know, we were
brainwashed to believe that we were, like, the prized children
of the CCP regime. But then, you know, in prison we realized
how brutal this regime is against people. Once you're in that
kind of situation, you feel a bond with the other
underprivileged groups. And it's always my hope that we can do
more. Thank you.
Senator Butler. Thank you so much for that. As a labor
leader in California representing one of the most diverse
communities across our state, what I hear in your response is,
the tools that have been most effective, and I think it's
applicable as we continue to meet this moment, are the
experience of shared pain and common humanity, and most
importantly, the aspirational purpose that unites us all, no
matter what community. And I appreciate you for lifting those
tools up as we all work together to broaden this coalition to
bring more voices to this incredibly important issue.
My last question, if I can, Mr. Chair, just quickly, would
be to Mr. Yang. I've always believed that young people should
be empowered to advocate for change as they seek to shape the
future in which they will live. So I'm pleased to learn about
your efforts to organize students around the world in
advocating for human rights in China. Can you share with us
your view on the younger generation of Chinese citizens, both
within and outside the country, and their--and the perspective
may be different from their parents' or grandparents'
generation. I'd love to hear the sort of inter-
generational perspective of leaders within the community
relative to this issue.
Mr. Yang. Thank you, ma'am. First of all, about my family.
My father's generation, pretty much my father and my mother and
my grandparents were really, really loyal to Communist Party
members. So they'll be really unhappy to see me being here. But
generally, the condition in China right now is really
desperate. Even at this very moment when we are having this
meeting right now, someone in mainland China might just be on
the way to committing suicide because of the terrible, terrible
economic atmosphere in China right now. And the entire society
is really desperate, especially for young people. The suicide
rate in mainland China, which I believe is included in my nine-
page written testimony--you can take a look later--is really
high right now. So that's really a catastrophe.
Additionally, overseas we do have--we're really glad to see
there's various groups in Europe, in Japan, in America, all
over the place. Currently, I'm trying to establish
communication and cooperation with these groups and these
people that are really helping, really encouraging that we are,
like, really showing solidarity. But we might have a little bit
different agenda than the Tiananmen Square generation. We're
trying to be more creative, utilize modern technology as well
as we can. And we are more focused on basic human rights.
We do not have the privilege of talking about the future of
Asia, or the shape of the world, because right now due to the
atmosphere being so desperate, our goal is just to help as many
people as possible at least save their lives--like LGBTQ
groups, like those students being persecuted during the White
Paper revolution. We somehow would like to return to the
basics, and restructure our society as more civilized, more
democratic, and with the values of humanity and dignity from
the beginning, step by step. And I have--I have myself full
confidence that we will complete this task really quick.
Senator Butler. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield
back.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Commissioner, Senator
Butler. Excellent line of questioning.
With that, I'd now like to defer the chair to the Speaker
Emerita, Representative Nancy Pelosi. Madam Speaker.
STATEMENT OF HON. NANCY PELOSI,
SPEAKER EMERITA OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, members of the Commission, for paying very important
attention to the Tiananmen Square massacre 35th anniversary.
It's wonderful to hear. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee.
And to our guests, our student leaders, our leaders for
human rights and democracy in China, thank you for your
participation. Thank you for your ongoing courage. Because,
unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, that's what it's going to take
this time, because the Chinese have a very long arm outside of
the country. I was just in London, where they had reached out
to show their disagreement with the courage of those speaking
out in Hong Kong.
But here we are 35 years later. You were not born yet.
Maybe some of your parents weren't even born yet, I don't know.
But in any event, it was an event that shocked the world
because on live TV--unlike many things that had happened
before--we could see a beautiful demonstration of courage, of
the statue modeled after the Statue of Liberty, giving respect
of the people in Tiananmen Square. And there were people in
hundreds of other cities, I understand, at least a hundred
other cities, who had come out to speak for democratic
freedoms, also for the end of corruption. There were several
items on the agenda.
And there were leaders in the Chinese government who were
supportive of and sympathetic to the cause. They were soon
rejected.
But first--the Chinese rolled tanks over these young
people. Many died. Others were arrested. So many--some who
escaped came here to Congress. I remember the first day some of
them came here, the press of the world was focused on what they
had to say. So this attention that this Commission is paying
here today is very, very important, because we cannot let
anyone think that those champions of Tiananmen Square are
forgotten.
As we speak, there is genocide occurring against Muslims in
China. As we speak, there is repression in Tibet of culture,
religion, and language so that children have to leave Tibet to
be raised in their culture. As we speak, China--the Chinese
government--I make that distinction from the Chinese people--
the Chinese government, the Communist Party, has made a mockery
of ``one country, two systems'' by the suppression that we see
in Hong Kong to destroy their democratic freedoms. They're in
contradiction with the Basic Law, which they agreed to when the
U.K. handed Hong Kong back over to China.
What kind of an argument is that to the world, that they
are truly one country, two systems? What kind of a case is that
to make to Taiwan, when they are threatening aggression not
only to Taiwan, but in the South China Sea? So what has
happened in China under the circumstances of the past 35 years
has not been positive in terms of global democracy, in terms of
human rights, in terms of promoting democratic freedoms. We
don't expect them to have a democratic government, but
democratic freedoms and freedom to speak--very important.
I say this in China and I say it at the highest level--the
highest, highest level there--we as Americans--if we do not
speak out in recognizing the violations of human rights and
democratic freedoms in China because of commercial interest, we
lose all moral authority to speak out about human rights in any
country in the world. This is a challenge to our conscience as
a country. The man before the tank was a symbol of such great
courage. Not only his, but of all the others in Tiananmen
Square, and of yours for speaking out now--student leaders and
leaders of human rights and democracy in China, for speaking
out now.
I just wanted to--as the writer Lu Xun wrote, ``Lies
written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.'' I just
want to say, China is trying to deny some of this. When I was
there a few years after Tiananmen Square, I said to some of the
leaders in the government, there's a rumor that China is trying
to revisit Tiananmen Square and change your attitude toward
what happened there--maybe free the prisoners and the rest. And
they said to me: You're right. It's a rumor. It's a rumor.
But we must remember what happened at Tiananmen because
China continues to deny history.
One of my proudest possessions is the poster of the man in
front of the tank. It's beautiful, a picture of courage. But
not only that, it's signed by almost every dissident who has
made his or her way out of China--signatures of courage. But I
was saddened to learn on a subsequent visit, after we unfurled
the banner in Tiananmen Square, remembering those who gave
their lives--that was the early 1990s--but subsequent to that
when I went there and was speaking at the universities, what
was sad for me was to learn that most of the students didn't
have the faintest idea of what that poster was, the man
standing in front of the tank. Was it a commercial for a
product in America? They had tried to erase that iconic image
and what it stood for, as far as young people were concerned in
China.
So this is not only wrong, it's mean-spirited because it
tries to erase the history. But we cannot forget. And we will
not let the history be forgotten. And that's why I'm so
grateful to the committee for your work. I thank you for the
opportunity to share some thoughts about this really important
35th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, members of the Commission.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Madam Speaker. We
appreciate you joining us.
Ms. He. Can I jump in to respond to the questions online?
Representative Nunn. Yes. Professor He, if you want to jump
in, this will be your time.
Ms. He. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Congresswoman
Pelosi. It means a lot to see you here today with us. I fully
agree with you that a government that deployed over 200,000
army soldiers with AK-47s and tanks against unarmed civilians
in its capital city should not have any legitimacy. And the
narrative that the post-Tiananmen regime created, that we did
this for you--telling the Chinese people that we did this
because, if we hadn't, we wouldn't have had this Rising China,
was the root of this war of memory against forgetting.
Public opinion about democratization and nationalism, and
even war, is all closely connected to the collective memory of
the nation's most immediate past. So I think this war is not
just about getting justice and getting the truth, but also, has
strong--profound implications on public opinion, both
domestically and internationally. The CCP has been extremely
successful exporting its propaganda outside China, taking
advantage of our principles of intellectual freedom, using
democracy to undermine democracy.
I've taught on different American campuses and later on
Hong Kong campuses. We always faced the challenges of allowing
different voices on the one hand, but protecting our campuses
from the CCP propaganda that the regime had all the state
machinery to back up. It is very difficult; it is indeed a
challenge for democracy. And as I mentioned at the beginning,
the fact that I, myself, after living through both post-'89
China and surviving 2019 with my students in Hong Kong, and
then banned as a Tiananmen scholar from returning to Hong Kong,
is already very telling--they are afraid of a history scholar
and teacher because they are afraid that people will find out
the historical past.
They are so afraid. That was why--that's why they launched
the patriotic education campaign in the post-Tiananmen period,
in which they emphasized foreign invasions--the Opium War, the
Japanese invasion, while at the same time, they twist and
manipulate historical memories of every atrocity that the CCP
was responsible for. This is something that we need to think
about harder in our policy-making--what can we do to protect
our campuses?
I would also like to respond to the question raised earlier
about engagement. Forgive me if I'm running over--you can tell
me. What can we do to engage? I think there's something lost in
translation. Often people in this country think of engagement
as the way the U.S. engages. Of course, human rights NGOs are
doing great work. But we also need to recognize the fact that
under the CCP, any organization, any formal official
organization, will immediately be banned, and targeted.
So I think it is important that we see those who are
invisible but who are doing groundwork on the front line of the
battlefield. I felt strongly about this, especially after my
experience of working in Hong Kong after 2019, in the past few
years. We had to be low profile when we were carrying on in
small ways. There are still so many people who are invisible
but they are doing important work underground. So maybe we can
think about how to support these people in addition to NGOs and
social media. For example, after the passing of Article 23 in
Hong Kong, I immediately felt that social media had become so
quiet. But that doesn't mean that people have given up
resisting. They haven't. They have their own way to resist and
to express themselves. I could keep going with examples. But
thank you for the opportunity to share my views.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Professor He.
Speaker Pelosi, do you have any further questions for the
Commission? Otherwise, we'll continue with the line.
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Just to pick up from what we just
heard. Everybody says to me, Well, what are you going to do
about China? It's a big country. We're a big country. We have
to find our common ground. There are areas that we must try to
work together on if we're going to solve the climate crisis,
for example. We have to try to find some common ground there,
and some areas of respect. But that doesn't mean that we ignore
what has happened before. So we have to be true to our values,
be true to our priorities, and be respectful of the people of
China and not equate them with the Chinese Communist Party
regime and the rest.
And to recognize--you know, when President Xi came to the
United States, not this time for APEC but before--Senator
Feinstein, my dear friend, and colleague of the senators who
are here--she and I spoke to him about Tibet, in particular. We
talked about China, but Tibet in particular. And he said, When
it comes to Tibet you don't even know what you're talking
about. You should go there. Things are great there. You just
don't know. You should go. So I said, Mr. President, I've been
trying to get a visa to go to Tibet for 25 years. Does this
mean we have a visa to go to Tibet?
So we went to Tibet. And it was like a Potemkin Village.
You know, they had tried to make it look as if people were just
as happy as can be to have their culture diluted, their
language forbidden, their religion mocked, and their people
tortured for even the thought or the mention of the Dalai Lama.
And so we told him when we went to Beijing after that visit--
Jim McGovern said to him, We saw your Potemkin village of
Tibet, because it wasn't real. And time prevents me from going
into all of the unreality of it.
But, again, it's a big country. We're a big country. We
want to find a future together that has global security, again,
our values respected, because they respect in their governance
their own people. That wouldn't be possible but for the courage
of our guests here--the testimony here today. Thank you so much
for that. So I don't really have a question except to say, when
people say we can't ignore them, no, we can't ignore China. We
have to find our common ground. But that common ground has to
be about respect. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Nunn. I'd like to thank the lady from
California. And thank you, Congresswoman, for your advice and
your perspective on this. Very good.
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you.
Representative Nunn. I want to return to the Commission
here and say how honored I am to chair this hearing and that
Chairman Smith has done great work to bring this team together
on the 35th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. Today, we're
holding important hearings to highlight not only the
demonstrations that occurred over three decades ago, but the
challenge that continues. I remember being a child and watching
on NBC News as the anchor highlighted this gentleman here
[points to photo of the Tank Man]. Standing as a beacon not
just to the individuals of China standing up to tyranny, but
really a world at the precipice--facing down both Communist
China and the Soviet Union and their proxies around the world.
And here, more than anywhere else, we saw the first
breaches in that horrible wall of communism's takeover of the
world. For those of you who are here today, both those who were
on the ground when it happened and those who continue to be a
voice for democracy and human rights, we are so grateful for
your experiences and your voice. And we recognize that there is
much more that needs to be done. As we gather here today, we
not only remember the brave individuals who stood up in the
name of democracy in 1989 in the streets of Beijing, but also
to examine ways in which the CCP maintains a stranglehold on
free speech throughout that country and exports it around the
world today--including its detrimental effect and intimidation
factor right here in the United States, on U.S. soil today, as
one of our witnesses is exemplifying.
This Commission has examined time and time again Xi
Jinping's brutal rule and has turned the clock backward on the
people of China. And despite the victories won in 1989, we have
seen the sun continue to set. His desire to crush political
dissidents, silence opposing ideologies and threaten those who
would challenge his power, signifies that China has descended
into a near total authoritarian dystopia. This overwhelming
suppression is not limited to immediate threats to Xi's power,
but rather transcends decades of opposing and intolerable
narratives. As we have learned today, the inability of those in
mainland China to discuss the 1989 Tiananmen Square
demonstration showcases the lengths to which the CCP will go
not only to whitewash history, but to bury those, literally in
some cases, who disagree with the Party.
It's critical that we understand why the CCP continues to
silence the story of Tiananmen Square and identify the tactics
in which they're engaging to repress speech today. So I applaud
this Commission for working together not only in a bipartisan
and bicameral way, and with the White House to give voice to
those who have been silenced. I want to thank our witnesses for
their bravery for appearing here today. I'd like to get in a
line of questioning.
So with that, I'd like to begin with Dr. Zhou Fengsuo.
During these protests that are highlighted behind me, you
helped set up the broadcast station to echo your beliefs and
help keep fellow demonstrators up to date on what was happening
in real time, in a country where free speech--let alone
coordinated speech--was nearly impossible. As a young student,
walk us through your thought process on the opposition work
that you had done to stand up to China leading up to it, and
including the day of events in Tiananmen Square.
Mr. Zhou. I was a physics student, but I was a voracious
reader. I read a lot of English literature. I was inspired by
the famous speeches and documents. My first speech on Tiananmen
Square was comparing the Declaration of Independence with the
Chinese constitution, which I believe is arbitrary and
dictatorial. It's not really from people's consent, like what
the Declaration of Independence was showing us. But at that
time I was pushed away after my speech because the student
organizers on Tiananmen Square believed I was too radical.
Only in prison when I studied Chinese law--you know, so-
called law--I realized just talking about the illegitimacy of
the constitution is a crime in itself. That's why the other
people were scared. But for me, this was a moment I realized
even though it was a scary thought, the moment I shared it, it
made such a difference in me and in the people around me.
That's why Tiananmen Square is like a magnet for so many people
from different walks of society, even though, you know, before
that they were so fearful.
Representative Nunn. Mr. Zhou, the same intimidation that
you felt in 1989 China, we're now more than three decades on.
You look at individuals in the country. Does that same level of
intimidation persist? Is it pervasive under Xi's current CCP?
Mr. Zhou. It's even stronger now. You know, at that time,
we all believed that technology would change China to a better
direction. But unfortunately, what happened is exactly the
opposite. The CCP used the most sophisticated technology to
monitor people, to force people into self-censorship. And
that's not happening only in China. It's happening abroad as
well. So that has proven to be, you know, one of most
disturbing aspects of the technology, and how it happened.
But on the other hand, you know, there are always brave
people who are fighting against this. At this moment we're
speaking, the Twitter account of Teacher Li on Twitter--the
very tweet about today in Beijing, that Human Rights in China
wrote for him, is receiving 1.6 million hits. And most of these
are people from China on this very single topic. This is, like,
15 hours after its publication. You know, it showed people's
will. They are very interested in this. They have to overcome
all the difficulties and risk a lot just to access this
information. But as they state, they are not forgetting. They
are trying to remember.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Mr. Zhou. And I applaud the
bravery not only of the folks inside of China but, as you
noted, the bravery continues outside of China. And,
challengingly, the use of electronics has actually put many of
them on the target list. And so I'd like to turn to Karin here.
Karin, you have worked hard to continue to ``call out'' the
hypocrisy not only within China, but the threat it has to folks
right here on U.S. soil. Your work calling out China's zero-
COVID policy illustrates the broader context of the CCP's
desire to maintain control of a population well beyond the
shores of Beijing's territorial integrity, but to intimidate
folks like yourself, right here on U.S. territory. You can
highlight here the complete lockdown of an entire country of
over a billion people, but yet they still had resources to come
after you. Karin, share your story with us and how this
suppression and tracking extends far beyond China's coastline.
Ms. Karin. Yes. Thank you for your question,
Representative. I would like to begin by saying that I
personally haven't experienced any direct intimidation or
harassment, but many of my friends and more and more this year
are experiencing intimidation, harassment, and interrogation.
When they are here, they might just get a call from their
parents asking them to hop onto a Zoom call. And then in the
window of the Zoom call, next to their parents, they will see
the face of CCP police, ready to interrogate them unexpectedly.
And part of the reason that I'm testifying in disguise is
because I was afraid what happened to my friend Eva might
happen to me again.
But the larger reason as to why I'm afraid actually has
more to do with not knowing what's going to happen to me. I
don't know if tomorrow I'm going to get punched in the face
three times like Eva was or be like the girl from the Berklee
School of Music who received a threatening message that her
hand was going to get chopped off for just doing the vigil at
the school. And at Columbia, a school with a massively
influential CSSA, and almost 7,000 Chinese students, I think
there will always be this feeling of uncertainty as to when,
and from whom, and what format the retaliation or transnational
repression is going to happen.
Representative Nunn. Well, Karin, to both you and your
colleagues, we salute not only your bravery but your steadfast
commitment to speaking truth to power--whether it's here in the
United States or overseas.
I'd now like to call on Professor Rowena He. Identify for
us, Professor, you're coming to us remote here, but you've seen
from your work CCP suppression both inside mainland China and
that tradition of censorship now spilling over. The CCP has
influence over the Chinese diaspora, as well as political
activists here in the United States. What have you been able to
identify as to how they've carried this out beyond Beijing's
immediate threshold of control?
Ms. He. Thank you. For decades, I lived in fear. People
often ask me, What are the difficulties of researching
Tiananmen or any forbidden memory, taboo subjects by the
Beijing regime? I think first of all, it was fear. This is a
problem for the entire China field, not just for me, and also
for journalists reporting from inside or outside China. If you
do a good job with integrity, you will very likely, sooner or
later, lose access to the country that you study or report on.
So the implications, again, are profound. The regime has full
control of who can get in and who will be denied work visas.
It's almost mission impossible.
How is it possible that you are studying China, but Beijing
is going to control your access to China? So you do a good job,
and then you lose your job, as I mentioned at the beginning.
This is conflict of interest. We need to figure out
collectively what we can do about this. Academic freedom,
intellectual freedom--is the core of any inquiry. The CCP has
been doing this in the post-'89 China. There is always such an
unbalanced relationship between the state power and its people,
between the power and the powerless like me. They use all state
machinery to control you. Instead of trying to resolve the
political and social issues being brought up, the regime
punishes those who raise those issues, people like Liu Xiaobo
and those who signed Charter 08, when people openly asked for
political change and transformation again after Tiananmen. And
the result was, Liu Xiaobo became the second Nobel Peace Prize
laureate who died as a political prisoner. So those kinds of
implications on individuals are profound. And we need to find a
way to protect individuals who speak truth to power, including
myself. When I first returned from the battlefield, that's what
I called it, when I was being banned after defending our
universal values on the front line, I didn't know what was
going to happen to me, and what was going to happen to my
family in China.
And I think each of us, people like Fengsuo, can tell you a
story about how we were punished because of work and were not
allowed to return to China to be at the sickbed of our loved
ones before they died. So Tiananmen is not just about politics;
it's not even just about facts. It's about humanity. It's also
about the values that we defend. And the CCP has been
successful in twisting the values and changing the narrative.
We are facing a big crisis with the CCP taking over public
opinion about the China Model, presenting it as an alternative
of civilization for the world now that democracy is failing. If
that narrative takes over, then we would really be in crisis.
I'm now exiled officially, after studying Tiananmen for over
two decades. Democracy is my only home. I hope that we will
work together to safeguard and preserve democracy. I will have
no home to move to if democracy fails. Let's protect and
preserve democracy.
Please allow me a few more minutes to respond to your
question about the 1980s, and the Tiananmen generation. We were
a generation of what I call ``inbetweeners.'' We were born
toward the end of Mao's Cultural Revolution and grew up during
Deng's open reform era. On one hand, we were instilled with the
ideas of sacrificing for the great cause; at the same time, we
were exposed to individualistic new ideas. That was reflected
in the two songs sung throughout the Tiananmen Movement in
1989. The first one was the Communist Party's
``Internationale.'' And then the second one--``Nothing to My
Name'' by the rock singer Cui Jian.
So people often ask me, how is it possible that the
students were singing the communist ``Internationale'' while
falling in front of communist machine guns? This is what I call
the betrayal of loyalty in my book.
But I don't think the White Paper Generation has that kind
of illusion about the regime. Maybe we don't see any cracks
now, but I think the hope lies in the future generation;
engagement with the future generation. I think that they know
better what this regime is capable of. And that's where the
hope is.
We may not be able to tell when the change will take place
until it happens. Any major historical change, before it
happened, people would tell you it's impossible, including the
fall of the Berlin Wall. But after it happened, everyone said
that it was inevitable. With that, I think that we leave a note
of hope with the future generation present today who testified
together with us. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Professor Rowena He.
I'd now like to turn from the generation of Tiananmen
Square to where we are now inside China. Mr. Yang, you have
been a journalist. You have been on the front lines, both
covering and reporting this. And you are part of a new
generation of individuals standing up for free speech. To what
extent do you think the Tiananmen massacre influenced your
generation of Chinese students? And has censorship fueled the
type of threat that was talked about by other members on the
panel today? And to what extent would you recommend change?
Mr. Yang. Thank you, sir. First of all, the Tiananmen
Square massacre to our new generation, I've been having
conversations with many of my colleagues. And to many of us,
the most surprising part and most encouraging part of the
Tiananmen Square massacre is not--we're not really surprised by
the bloodshed that has been conducted by the Communist Party,
because we have already witnessed what's happening in Tibet,
what's happening with the Uyghurs, what's happening in Hong
Kong. So we are kind of prepared as to how brutal the Communist
Party could possibly be.
And for many of us, the new generation, when we first
learned about the Tiananmen Square massacre, the most
surprising part was not the brutal murder and slaughter. It's
actually we were really surprised to find that our nation at
one time was so close to freedom, was so close to breaking the
chain of thousands of years of dictatorship and autocracy. And
we're really encouraged that this land still has hope, that
these people are trustworthy. But the circumstances are such
that the atmosphere is really being manipulated by the
Communist Party. So we're not really able to observe and
witness the real circumstances in China right now. But the main
goal is we are still looking ahead, and with real confidence
about the future of this land, and to our people.
And sorry, what's the second question again?
Representative Nunn. Aspects that you've seen for reform or
holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable--either in your
reporting or speaking out against it?
Mr. Yang. Right. So currently we do have lots of case
studies and experience of people who have been harassed and
intimidated by the Chinese Communist Party overseas. Especially
for someone like me, who has decided to be openly against the
Communist Party. We do have lots of pressure, lots of
intimidation, sometimes really harmful trauma we need to go
through. So that's why we are currently including the proposal
I've brought in my nine-page report to you, that we are doing
the best we can to try to seek the resources to reestablish a
safe space, a public zone with democracy and the value of
humanity. In that case, we could help our colleagues, members,
or people in our community to rehabilitate from this trauma.
That's one of the most important steps we need to take, and to
walk away from the trauma and move on.
Representative Nunn. Thank you, Mr. Yang.
We heard about the physical violence, the intimidation
occurring here in the United States. You've reported from
Canada. Tell us how the transnational threat coming from the
CCP, including places in Canada, has had an impact on
communities there.
Mr. Yang. Right, absolutely. I just had a case that came up
I believe a couple weeks before. One of my friends in London,
which is in Ontario, brought this to my attention--the whole
story is they have, like, a festival in college, and someone
brought a Korean flag there--and many of the Chinese students
were really upset about this scenario. So my friend was
thinking, like, You guys can't do this. This is discrimination.
And he was seriously bullied by these Chinese nationalists--we
call them ``pinkies'' or patriarchs of the Communist Party--
communist lovers, etc. They seriously threatened my friend and
really tried to intimidate him.
So we are currently still working with the other MPs and
Canadian police to deal with these kinds of circumstances right
now. And besides that, I have personally experienced lots of
swearing and intimidation from the Mandarin-speaking community
in Toronto. Besides that, one of the most shocking parts is
what I mentioned in my speech, that we--in 2019 placed plastic
flowers as a 30-year memorial for the Tiananmen Square massacre
at the Statue of Democracy at New York University. After around
one or two days, I realized that that the flowers had been
burned, and there were really dark marks on the floor--on the
wall and the floor around them. But no one really deals with
it.
So that's part of what we are trying to do right now.
That's why from our Canadian side we're trying the best we can
to have a coalition and push a bill forward called C 70, which
is regarding foreign registration and regulations.
Representative Nunn. I want to thank our witnesses not only
for their testimony but for their individual bravery in
standing up and shedding light on this. Whether it was in 1989,
sir, or whether it's today in 2024. As a career-long
intelligence officer who worked in China, there was hope. There
was an opportunity to make a change.
But we have seen that door quickly shut, whether it's in
the direct ramifications of what's happening and the transition
of Hong Kong back to dictatorial rule by Beijing, whether it's
what's happening to the people inside of China, whether they be
Uyghurs or minority members being oppressed by their own
government, or, as you have highlighted, individuals who are
the children of the 1989 revolution within Tiananmen Square, or
the next generation, who continue to be both hunted, bullied,
and clearly abused.
We have to make a change. By calling out China you are
doing a direct service not only to your fellow countrymen but
to individuals and humanity around the world. I'm truly
emboldened by your bravery. And I thank you for being here with
us today.
With that, as chair, I'd like to recognize Commissioner
Representative Wexton for her comments and questions before the
witnesses today. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. JENNIFER WEXTON,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA
Representative Wexton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As members
of the Commission already know, last year I was diagnosed with
progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP. I describe it as
Parkinson's on steroids and I don't recommend it. PSP makes it
very difficult for me to speak. So I use an assistive app so
that I can participate and you can understand me. I want to
thank the Chair and Co-chair for allowing me to do both today.
China's continued suppression of the free press is a grave
human rights concern. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the
Chinese Communist Party's efforts to bury the memory of its
crimes at Tiananmen Square. That's why I'm happy to be leading
the revolution with Chairman Smith, marking the 35th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It is critical
that the Chinese government end its censorship of speech about
the Tiananmen Square massacre and stop its intimidation of
families mourning those lost in 1989.
This question is for the whole panel, starting with Karin.
What are the primary challenges faced by activists working to
preserve the remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre,
despite censorship by the Chinese government?
Ms. Karin. Thank you for your question, Representative.
Since I'm currently a student on an American campus, I think I
can only speak on behalf of my other fellow student activists
here on American campuses. And I think the greatest challenge
that we face right now is the looming fear of transnational
repression, not knowing what form it's going to take tomorrow,
or not knowing from whom it's going to come. And I mentioned in
my testimony that, unlike Uyghur or Hong Kong dissidents,
Chinese overseas students encounter distinct obstacles when
attempting to reveal such instances of transnational repression
and coercion by the CCP.
And I think the situation faced by Uyghur or Hong Kong
dissidents is objectively much worse than ours. We, the Chinese
overseas students, often feel that we have too much to lose. By
coming forward to tell our stories, not only do we risk the
families, the core families of ours in China, but also the
social connection that we have here with our peers, Chinese
students. But if institutions here are willing to offer
students more support and protection of identity, as CECC is
doing today by allowing me to anonymously testify, then I think
more Chinese students will be willing to come forward and tell
their stories. I think this is the largest challenge faced by
our community. And this is the solution to it. Thank you.
Ms. He. Can I jump in?
Representative Wexton. Go ahead.
Ms. He. I think this is such an important, excellent
question. I hope I can jump in. As an individual, I've been
attacked all these years, first by the nationalist students and
also, at the same time, as Karin mentioned, the fear of our
families being taken hostage by the regime. And we see that
this is starting to happen in Hong Kong as well. So things are
deteriorating. And we face this as human beings.
That's why I argue in my book that sometimes being
idealistic and trying to fight for a human rights course in
China--you can be selfish. That means that you choose to do
what the right thing to do is, but the human price--the
personal price to pay is not just you. Because the CCP is
always seen by association. They also punish your loved ones in
order to control you. They intrude on your private space in
order to control your public activism. I think that's something
that we have to face as human beings. They take advantage of
the most beautiful thing in human life, that's your love for
your family members. And then they control you.
And secondly, I think engagement in--as a scholar, for me
as a teacher, on campuses, either before in Hong Kong or on
American campuses, I think it's also extremely important not
just to focus on Chinese students, or American students, or
Hong Kong students. I think the engagement, the community that
we built--like, for example, when I was at Harvard, I organized
annual Tiananmen conferences every year, even after the
semester ended. And the students wanted the Tiananmen Mothers
to know that, whatever the CCP was doing and saying, that we,
young people here, still remember, and we still care.
I think that message from the younger generation is
important. It's also a message of hope. And I believe that many
of us, not just someone who studies Tiananmen--I think many of
us on American campuses--in Hong Kong, it's very difficult now.
But I know my colleagues still carry on. But if you're in
freedom, if you're in democracy, please make full use of the
classroom space that we have to engage and to educate the
younger generation not just about China, not just about
Tiananmen, but about the importance of standing up for those
who cannot speak for themselves, like the Tiananmen Mothers.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Yang. I think it's my turn right now. So if I haven't
got the question wrong, it's pretty much about what barriers
we're facing, what circumstances we're facing, and what kind of
support we need. So at the current stage, I'll be really
direct, based on what I have in the data and what I have
experienced.
First of all, I think there are four important categories
for the new generation to deal with. And not only the new
generation, but pretty much for every protester against the
Chinese Communist Party overseas.
First of all, the most important one is identity. While
relatively safe, you might face the risk of returning to China
at any time. That could be a huge consequence. And
additionally, funding support. Many of the young
organizations--from what I know--are broke, and most of them
survive on donations and fundraising, not nearly enough for
what the political activists need. For example, I've been
spending a couple hundred dollars on speakers, and this still
hasn't been paid back yet. But it still takes time.
Additionally, legal support. In many cases we do need many
of the various policies to support the activists on doing what
we're doing right now. For instance, where I come from in
Canada, we do have a little bit of a shortage on these kinds of
circumstances. So we are trying the best we can to push our
bill forward through the Congress in order to get the political
and legal support in a more legitimate way.
Eventually, the last but one of the most important things
is, we do need support from the professional side. For
instance, the technical rules of having the meetings or the SOP
or standard formula of how to deal with conflict, or sexual
harassment, these kinds of procedures. We need some advice from
the professional side. But this one is pretty much linked with
the second point, which is the founding problem. The main goal
is just trying to establish our community and our organizations
to be more professional, to be more standard. And this is one
of the most important things that our generation is trying to
establish and complete. Thank you.
Mr. Zhou. Yes, I would like to add on. For me over the last
35 years the main challenge here is the collusion of the large
tech companies with the CCP regime in silencing the
commemoration of Tiananmen. My own accounts across two
different platforms were shut down at different times because I
commemorate the Tiananmen anniversary. And what's more
important is that the FBI investigation revealed that every
company with business in China has such an operation that they
would sometimes even hire a state security agent to tell them
what to do in terms of censorship and surveillance.
That puts everyone in danger, not only us. And, for
example, Apple, when some protester in China used AirDrop to
distribute the messages--and Apple stopped this function very
soon, very quickly, as it was happening. And just recently I
met someone who used AirDrop in China and his information was
leaked. They turned him in. There's no other way other than
Apple providing some insider information from the company so
that this kind of service can be tracked. So that's the kind of
area I think in which we need more clarification.
I would urge that there be a hearing on how U.S. tech
companies work with the CCP in this aspect, because a large
part of the transnational repression is also enabled by the
online surveillance. You know, for example, someone was
revealed online because the website that he used leaked the
information of his IP address somehow to CCP hackers, either
willingly or unwillingly. But, yes, we must look into this.
This is a very broad issue. Thank you.
Representative Wexton. Thank you. Does any member have any
additional questions for any member of the panel? Hearing none,
I want to thank the witnesses for their bravery in speaking out
against oppression and in support of the Tiananmen victims and
democratic self-determination. As an American who has lived her
entire lifetime in a free society and a democratic republic, I
can only imagine the repression that you all have seen. Please
know that you have friends here on both sides of the aisle in
Congress.
Staff Director Tozzi. Did anyone want to say anything
finally for the record? Professor He.
Ms. He. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. It just means so
much--I was traveling nonstop, and I wondered if I could do
this. But I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I'm so glad
I could do it. I hope that people will remember the Tiananmen
Mothers and remember those young people who lost their voices
in 1989. Also the struggles of the Hong Kong people right now--
ongoing. Please pay attention to them, to how Hong Kong is now
becoming really another city of China, politically, in terms of
the repression.
And please fight with us in solidarity. Very often we feel
weak, we feel vulnerable. We find it difficult. It's just so
meaningful to be with Fengsuo and the other two witnesses from
the younger generation, 35 years after Tiananmen. I see that
the torch is being passed on. And if we want light, we must
conquer darkness. Thank you so much.
Staff Director Tozzi. Anyone else?
Mr. Zhou. Yes, I would add something. The White Paper
protest, the success of it--you know, it was the first public
protest that forced the CCP into changing its policy--showed
that there is a very vibrant cyber community engendered by
Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook. And so it's very
important to keep this civil society, in cyberspace, strong and
alive. And for example, today there is just a tremendous
commemoration of what happened 35 years ago, way stronger than
any time in the past. But it is happening because there is
cyberspace. And, you know, what happened during the White Paper
protests also showed that the narrative in this civil society
virtual space is crucial for change in China.
The White Paper movement also showed that the overseas
diaspora organizations are important and effective in bringing
change to China today. You know, when Peng Lifa's message was
silenced in China, it was preserved and broadcast all over in
this virtual space, parallel to the censored space in China.
This is why my organization now wants to focus our work on
digital rights and freedom of expression, and then the diaspora
community building, especially with young people and the new
immigrants who are disillusioned by Xi Jinping.
Furthermore, I want to applaud the recent steps taken by
law enforcement and Congress to push back against transnational
repression. I have seen perceptible changes in the environment
because of recent actions, but the Chinese diaspora overall
still lives in fear in the shadow of the CCP's repression. It
is vitally important that we continue to work toward providing
a secure environment for people to live free of persecution. In
doing so, the United States must center its policy toward China
around China's democratization and respect toward human rights.
In conclusion, I thank the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China for your unfailing support on this very
important issue. On the 35th anniversary of Tiananmen, I urge
you to listen to the voices of the Chinese people who have
fought for freedom and to protect the rights of those who seek
to express themselves freely and openly. I believe in the
future of a democratic, free, and beautiful China. We are all
working toward it. Thank you.
Staff Director Tozzi. Thank you.
Mr. Yang or Karin?
Ms. Karin. I would like to also briefly add two things I
think the policymakers could do to address this very specific
transnational repression that Chinese students on American
campuses are experiencing right now. The first is to compel the
Chinese Student and Scholar Associations, known more commonly
as CSSAs, on American campuses to be transparent about their
funding sources. CSSAs provides a community for Chinese
students who have only recently arrived in America, but at the
same time many of its members receive funding from the Chinese
consulate or embassies and serve as eyes for the consulate to
identify and silence pro-democracy students.
By compelling CSSAs to disclose their funding, we can
ensure that this community, important to many, does not become
a vehicle of the CCP's long arm of repression. The second
thing, I think, is to urge universities to establish a
comprehensive response mechanism and support networks for
students facing transnational repression. This could include
many things, like setting up campus task forces against
transnational repression and offering security support for on-
campus events in which students participating potentially face
the risk of being identified and harassed. If we are able to
put such a response mechanism in place, then more pro-democracy
Chinese students will feel more comfortable expressing their
political thoughts in campus spaces, without needing to go
through what I or my friends were forced to go through. Thank
you.
Staff Director Tozzi. Thank you.
Mr. Yang. Thank you. Basically, my report is a bit too
long. So I'll just bring the most important thing that I
believe right here. On the political advice, I will say the
U.S. can be a partner with China on trade, but it has to be
based on the American people as partners in human rights with
the Chinese people. This is the most important thing. And
eventually I want to talk to all the people who're watching
this live. Coming to North America or coming to a free place is
not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. It's the
end of the beginning. There is a long way to go. There's a long
struggle to go. But luckily, we've got Congress, we've got
every free government--responsible government on our side.
We've got pretty much all the people who love freedom and
democracy on our side. So maybe you are melancholy or feeling
stress right now. Please carry on. We are with you and
everyone's with you. And we are eventually going to make it.
Staff Director Tozzi. Well, thank you. And with those
closing words, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:42 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
?
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Zhou Fengsuo
In 2022, I attended a Halloween parade in Manhattan with a group of
around fifty young people, dressed in protest garb and carrying signs
challenging the Chinese Communist Party. I was the only older adult in
the crowd, but I recognized many of the attendees. Several were
students who would go on to organize major White Paper protests, and
some were the children of fellow Tiananmen protesters. I had met many
of them in prior months, as they visited the June 4th Memorial Museum.
I was deeply touched when one protester told me that they had spent 7
months in prison a few years prior for commemorating the massacre on
Tiananmen Square. As I stood in this crowd of young people, I felt very
excited and inspired. Without any prompting, they shouted, ``down with
CCP, down with Xi Jinping.'' At that moment, I was in tears. I realized
that after 33 years, I was finally seeing the younger generation
stepping up to carry the torch of freedom that I have carried with me
ever since 1989, from Tiananmen Square.
In 1989, I was a student studying physics at Tsinghua University in
Beijing. I was among the first to protest on Tiananmen Square when Hu
Yaobang died, and I was among the last to leave when the tanks were
rolling in, one only 20 feet from me. In between, I witnessed the most
incredible outpouring of Chinese people in support of freedom and
democracy. Millions of people gathered on Tiananmen Square from all
walks of life: students, ordinary Chinese people, communist officials,
Christians, and Buddhist monks. It was also my first time meeting
people from Hong Kong, and witnessing their strong support. The
solidarity at that moment was so overwhelming, strong, and inspiring. I
installed dozens of loudspeakers on the Monument to the People's Heroes
at the center of the square, and for the first time, the people's
heartfelt voices were heard echoing across the huge plaza, at the
center of China's political power. In that moment, many Chinese people
who were fearful and reticent became expressive and articulate. Freedom
was in the air. Democracy was almost within reach.
I also witnessed the brutal massacre of these peaceful protestors
by elite troops, armed with tanks and machine guns. The pungent smell
of tear gas. The bullet holes on the buildings along the most important
street in Beijing. The rolling tanks and armored vehicles, and the dead
bodies outside of the hospital, laying in the bicycle shed because the
hospital was so overwhelmed by those who were wounded and killed. The
scene was that of a war zone; a war conducted by the CCP's army against
the Chinese people. I remember Zhong Qing, my younger schoolmate from
Tsinghua, who died for our shared dream of a better China. He was only
a third-year student, studying in the instrument department at Tsinghua
University. When I realized he was dead, I couldn't believe what I was
seeing. I realized I must carry on in his name and continue speaking
out on his behalf.
The protesters were not the only ones who suffered under the
government's attack. The military's brutal siege of the city
encountered courageous resistance from the people of Beijing. When
martial law was first declared, millions of people came out to block
the troops. Many of them stood still in front of the marching soldiers
and rolling tanks in order to protect the student protesters like me.
That is how we witnessed the great Tank Man, who has since become one
of the most important icons of the last century, representing courage
against overwhelming power and violence.
The whole world watched as the Chinese government turned against
its own people and murdered peaceful protesters. Yet, the response from
democratic countries was weak: the United States imposed only limited
sanctions, and President H.W. Bush sent a special envoy to inform Deng
Xiaoping of his support, even after this senseless massacre.\1\ The CCP
took the wrong path after 1989, setting the country on a trajectory of
ever-increasing political repression and human right violations. That
is why, later, this regime would put Uyghurs in concentration camps,
force Tibetans into self-immolation, and deprive Hong Kong of its
freedom. If a regime can use tanks in broad daylight to kill its own
people and still enjoy the support of most democratic countries, there
is no limit to what it could do, in terms of both internal repression
and external aggression.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``The Other Tiananmen Papers: A ChinaFile Conversation,''
ChinaFile, July 8, 2019, https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/other-
tiananmen-papers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domestically, the CCP chose to simply erase the memories of the
massacre through censorship and brutal repression. It tightened its
grip on free speech, banning any mention of the reality of what
happened that summer, to the extent that many young people in China
today have never heard of it. Twenty-eight years after my classmate
Zhong Qing's death, his brother visited the Tiananmen Museum in Hong
Kong. It was the first time that he learned why his older brother died.
Perhaps the CCP once could have taken a different path,
transforming into a social democratic party, but the massacre and
crackdown in 1989 eliminated the ability of this regime to be
positively changed through mere trade and investment. United States
policymakers have deliberately put their heads in the sand, ignoring
the cause of human rights activists and political prisoners in China.
This strategy may have brought short-term gains in the form of
increased profit, but appeasing the CCP for the benefit of trade has
proven to be self-defeating and self-destructive. What Tiananmen told
us 35 years ago, the most important lesson, is that the United States
policy toward the CCP regime must focus on the democratization of
China. Without democratization, the regime will become an even stronger
threat toward universal values including freedom and human rights.
Today, we remember Tiananmen because it reminds us of what a
different China could have been; because Chinese people demonstrated
their love of freedom and democracy through their protests and
resistance. The fight didn't stop then--for most of us, it was only the
beginning of our journey. There was Liu Xiaobo, who gave up a position
as a visiting scholar at Columbia University to fly back to join the
students on Tiananmen Square. He refused to leave China and died as the
first and only Nobel Peace laureate who died in prison without ever
seeing the award. There is Xu Zhiyong, who was only a high school
student when the massacre happened, but who was resolved from that
moment on to dedicate his life to the dream of a free, democratic, and
beautiful China. His New Citizens' Movement gained tens of thousands of
followers, from all over China. He was recently sentenced to 14 years
in prison.
For me personally, it has been a privilege to work with these
amazing freedom fighters, to raise awareness of their suffering, their
sacrifices, their dreams, and their goals, and to support the Tiananmen
Mothers, and other victims of the Tiananmen Massacre. Even though the
Tiananmen protests and massacre remain a source of trauma for the
Chinese people, it has simultaneously become a tremendous source of
inspiration, healing, and hope. That's why I have collected many relics
and artworks from 1989. Each of these items carries a story of life and
death, of strength and endurance, that is difficult to find elsewhere.
Even though the CCP has tried, in many ways successfully, to erase
the memory of the Tiananmen protests, it remains the most sought-after
information for young people from China. They are eager to embrace the
Tiananmen protests as a source of energy and inspiration. Many of them
are willing to risk a lot to preserve the memory. Zeng Yuxuan, a law
student from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reached out to me
when she saw that I was touring a banner in commemoration of Tiananmen.
Tragically, she was arrested in Hong Kong for possessing this banner
and sentenced to 6 months in prison, then sent back to China, and she
has not been heard from since. I am always moved by her message about
the Tiananmen protests. She told me that even though the great protests
ended in tragedy, it is something precious that binds us all, across
generations.
I am reminded, often, of this legacy that ties together everyone
who has fought for freedom in China. When I heard of Peng Lifa, the
Sitong Bridge Warrior, I was immediately reminded of the great feat of
Tank Man in 1989. Peng Lifa staged his protest at the most visible
place, during very tight security for the 20th Party Congress. He used
a loudspeaker and smoke generator so his message would be seen, and
managed to broadcast for more than 30 minutes in Beijing before he was
arrested and disappeared.
Miraculously, his message spread like wildfire. Although domestic
censorship limited its initial reach, in the United States, in Berlin,
in Toronto, in Tokyo, everywhere, Chinese students were mobilizing.
They formed groups and stood up in the name of duty, a phrase borrowed
from the now very famous Tiananmen slogan: ``It's my duty,'' said a
protester riding a bicycle to Tiananmen Square. The voice of these
young activists was carried back to China by tens of millions of VPN
users, who were locked in their own homes under the Zero-COVID policy.
Eventually, this spark of protest spread out across China, and grew
in Shanghai after the unjust deaths of Uyghur families in the Urumqi
apartment fires, thus forcing the CCP to change their policy in
response to people's protests for the first time in the CCP's history.
Their story, the story of the White Paper protesters, reverberates
in me. The story of one young student who gingerly posted banners, then
found friends and realized she wasn't alone, exactly mirrored what we
went through in 1989. The moment that people began to gather, they
realized that there are millions of people just like them that share
the same opinions but were forced into silence and indifference because
of fear and self-censorship. But when they heard each other, they
realized not only that they were not alone, but their voices reflected
the true voices of people in China who can't speak out. This happened
35 years ago on Tiananmen Square, but today these discussions happen in
cyberspace, through platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and
eventually flooded onto the heavily censored and surveilled domestic
apps such as WeChat and Douyin.
Over the last 5 years, we have seen Uyghurs forced into
concentration camps, the forced takeover of Hong Kong, Tibetan children
torn away from their families, and, of course, the horrible Zero-COVID
policy. We are undoubtedly in a dark moment for human rights in China.
Yet, rather than giving up, Chinese people still fought to find their
voice in cyberspace. Millions of people use VPNs to circumvent the
Great Firewall. The internet is a vital place for civil society
discourse and actions, when these kinds of activities are completely
forbidden in China. There is, has been, and will be a huge impact on
China through this space.
The White Paper Movement also showed that overseas diaspora
organizations are important and effective in bringing change to China,
even today. The voice of Peng Lifa was preserved outside of China,
while it was silenced completely within China at first. It's because of
his message reverberating back over China that eventually, people were
able to act at the same time and under the same slogan. This is why
Human Rights in China, my organization, wants to focus our work on
digital rights, freedom of expression, and diaspora community building,
especially among young people and new immigrants who are disillusioned
by Xi Jinping.
I am also alarmed by the increasing censorship within China, which
now extends to Hong Kong. The Tiananmen Massacre is, in many ways, a
salient litmus test. For decades, Hong Kong held a yearly vigil for the
victims of the massacre. Yet, since 2019, we have witnessed a city
darkened by the CCP, while admirable heroes such as Chow Hang-tung, and
others, have risked and lost everything for the sake of remembering
Tiananmen. Just a few days ago, seven people in Hong Kong were
arrested, including Chow Hang-tung, her mother, and former colleagues,
for continuing her work and posting on social media about the Tiananmen
Massacre.
Unfortunately, Western tech companies have played a significant
role in enabling the Chinese government's censorship. Two social media
accounts on different platforms, belonging to Humanitarian China, an
organization I co-founded, have been shut down because of our
involvement in Tiananmen commemoration events. An FBI investigation
revealed that companies with business in China must comply with CCP
directions on censorship.\2\ During the White Paper Movement, the
people used Apple's AirDrop technology to spread Peng Lifa's message,
until the service was suddenly shut down, in another case of
cooperation with the Chinese authorities. Apple did not respond to our
concerns, even after student activist Wang Han protested with a week-
long hunger strike in front of Apple headquarters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Drew Harwell and Ellen Nakashima, ``Federal prosecutors accuse
Zoom executive of working with Chinese government to surveil users and
suppress video calls,'' The Washington Post,
Dec. 18, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/18/
zoom-helped-china-
surveillance/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both the White Paper Movement and Tiananmen commemoration face the
same strict online censorship, enabled by the willing cooperation of
U.S. companies. This is where policymakers can make a difference.
Through the White Paper Movement, we have seen proof that Chinese
cyber-society has the power to influence China and bring in fundamental
change. However, the companies that enable the existence of this
vibrant cyber-society remain vulnerable to the CCP, and have not done
enough to protect vulnerable users or stand up against the CCP's
demands. Companies must be held to account for their role in supporting
the CCP's censorship, surveillance, and harassment. I encourage
Congress to investigate how U.S. tech companies comply with the CCP's
demands, thus exposing every user to direct threat of surveillance.
Furthermore, I applaud the recent steps taken by law enforcement
and Congress to push back against transnational repression, and I have
seen perceptible changes in the environment. But the Chinese diaspora
still lives in fear, in the shadow of the CCP's transnational
repression. It is vitally important that we continue to work toward
providing a secure environment for people to live free of persecution.
In order to do so, the United States must center its policy toward
China around China's democratization and respect toward human rights.
In conclusion, I thank the congressional-Executive Commission on
China for your unfailing support on this very important issue. On this
35th anniversary of Tiananmen, I urge you to listen to the voices of
the Chinese people who have fought for freedom, and to protect the
rights of those who seek to express themselves freely and openly. I
believe in the future of a democratic, free, and beautiful China. Thank
you.
______
Prepared Statement of Ruohui Yang
Five years ago today, on the 30th anniversary of June 4th, I took
to the streets for the first time, committing myself to the movement
for democracy in China.
I was deeply intimidated by the atmosphere of fear cultivated by
the Chinese Communist Party in Canada. I was cautious around everyone,
wearing sunglasses and masks.
However, the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement further
secured my determination to engage in the democracy movement. In
Toronto, I actively participated with my Hong Kong friends in
organizing support for the Hong Kong people. As someone from mainland
China, I also faced considerable pressure from my own community,
dealing with psychological stress from harassment by Communist Party
supporters and suffering political depression filled with
powerlessness. I constantly worried about receiving midnight phone
calls from China, from my father--a Communist Party official--
hysterically threatening to cutoff my tuition to force me to return to
China. I worried about being unable to complete my studies and being
forced back to a land where expressing different opinions means facing
bullying from teachers and classmates.
Things that happened during the protests reminded me that the
national border cannot stop the Communist Party from spreading fear
overseas. Some Chinese, organized by the consulate, drove their luxury
cars through our protest lines, shouting insults. They burned our
flowers at the Statue of Democracy; some protesters even received death
threats. My life was filled with harassment from strangers, and I felt
isolated within my own community.
In 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower of COVID-19, who could
have prevented this global disaster, was accused by Chinese police of
spreading ``false statements'' and subsequently labeled a ``criminal.''
He died from the virus shortly after. Surprisingly, many young Chinese
students attended a memorial event I organized in downtown Toronto,
which deeply moved me. I called on everyone to organize and band
together to overcome this fear and despair and fight for a life of
human rights, freedom, and democracy--which led to the founding of our
organization, ``Assembly of Citizens.''
Before the summer of 2022, we remained a secret society. In our
group, we had events like movie screenings and discussion sessions and
learned the history of the Tiananmen generation. More importantly, we
have tried to re-establish a union based on respect for human rights,
and equality among individuals, fighting to create a public space and
seeking Chinese Democracy. With our solidarity, the Assembly of
Citizens successfully organized the Tiananmen Square massacre
anniversary event as a young generation during the summer of 2022, and
this is the point that we started to turn to the public. It was also
the moment that I decided to stand on the stage and openly protest
against the threat and fear of the CCP spreading.
Over the 3 years of COVID-19, the young generation in China has
suffered from our human rights disaster. The most familiar way of life
has been modified, it has accelerated the awakening of human rights, it
has also caused the establishment of various young groups around the
world. During the White Paper Revolution winter of 2022, the Assembly
of Citizens became capable of organizing protests and events faster and
more professionally to support the movement in China. Our friends in
Europe became the mailbox for contributors and resistance fighters
inside the Great Firewall, becoming one of the most influential
Mandarin accounts on X. Rowena He collected the testimoneys and stories
of human rights catastrophes inside the Great Firewall and told these
stories that have been neglected by international society to millions
of people every day, simultaneously facing the threat of the CCP. Our
friends in the U.S. are trying to make movies, talk shows, and other
forms of art to spread awareness of the oppression of human rights. Our
friends in Japan and Korea are establishing cultural and creative
businesses to emphasize resistance as a lifestyle. Through dealing with
various issues, we realized how to avoid division, build a professional
organization, and more inclusively and strongly link with other groups.
We inherited the spirit of resistance from the Tiananmen
generation, along with our characteristics. Our actions reflect what
Taiwanese people often mention: ``a lifestyle of democracy and
freedom.'' Based on this spirit, although our political beliefs may be
different, we were able to effectively connect with Taiwanese,
Tibetans, Hongkongers, Uyghurs, and other groups to combat our common
terror and oppression of human rights.
Twenty-nine years ago, in the same congressional hall, Major
General Charles Sweeney, who testified about the decision to drop the
atomic bomb, said, ``One can only forgive by remembering. And to forget
is to risk repeating history.'' The last rapid deterioration of human
rights under a major power was in 1933 in Germany, the year they
enacted the Enabling Act, a law that brought Germany under
dictatorship. In that year, Peter Drucker began writing his first book,
``The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism.'' Today, as
we open this book, we feel as if history is repeating itself. Let me
adapt his words to today's situation in China.
The form which the totalitarian revolution has been taking
indicates in itself that such an order will eventually arrive. That the
Chinese substitute the CCP for order when they cannot have real order,
that they worship Xi Jinping when they have no God to worship and no
concept of man to respect, shows by its very intensity that they must
have an order, a creed, and a rational concept of man. The more
fervently they turn to nationalism, the more feverishly they search for
something else. And the more eagerly they will embrace the new order
when it appears. Military intimidation against Taiwan, the totalitarian
organization of society, the suppression of freedom and liberties, the
re-education camps for the minorities, and the war against religion are
all signs of weakness, not of strength. They have their roots in the
blackest, unfathomable despair. The more desperate the Chinese become,
the more strongly entrenched totalitarianism will appear to be. The
further they push down the totalitarian road, the greater will be their
despair. As soon as they are offered an alternative--but no sooner--the
whole totalitarian magic will vanish like a nightmare.
Nothing the totalitarians can do to fortify their power will be the
slightest protection against the sweep of a new order which will again
give the masses a positive creed instead of a gospel of pure negation;
which will again affirm the validity of life and of society instead of
preaching senseless sacrifice; which will again give man dignity and
value instead of denying his very existence. Not even the totalitarian
education which seizes the youngest infants, and which has been
regarded generally as the greatest danger to civilization, will alter
the situation in the least. The youth of China may be regimented for a
positive idea and order. They can only be kept regimented for the
negative and for the sake of the organization as long as there is no
alternative. Children can be educated to think exclusively in one
direction, but they cannot successfully be educated not to think at
all.
This is the current situation in China, and this is our mission. We
hope that through continuous efforts abroad, we can show all Chinese
people a new choice, an option and possibility for a democratic and
free lifestyle that can endow us with positive beliefs and values,
affirm the legitimacy of our lives and public society, and let them
feel the dignity and value of humanity.
The competition and confrontation between the U.S. and China should
not be a racial or national confrontation, nor an ideological one.
Instead, it should be a confrontation between a lifestyle of democracy
and freedom and authoritarianism. Using Blinken's China policy as a
reference, we believe that the U.S. should cooperate with the Chinese
people at the global level and compete with the party nature of the
CCP, the CCP's foreign propaganda ideology, and confront the CCP's
actions, the police and surveillance State, and authoritarian ideology.
We hope that the U.S. Congress and government will incorporate a
perspective that upholds basic human rights and maintains peace when
formulating policies. It is advisable to refer to America's experience
in dismantling totalitarianism in the 20th century when developing
current policies toward China and policies concerning the Chinese
diaspora within the U.S. Effective communication with overseas Chinese
and the mainland population is essential. President Reagan used Soviet
jokes to highlight the Soviet people's struggle and consulted numerous
knowledgeable scholars about the USSR in the formulation of policies
toward it. These policies played a crucial role in the later
transformation and dissolution of the Soviet Union.
We need to work with the pro-democracy Chinese organizations and
expatriate Chinese communities, and through their efforts, establish
connections with people inside the firewall, showing them the lifestyle
of democracy and freedom, and encouraging them to further pursue human
rights inside the wall. They have already done much work voluntarily
abroad; here I aim to systematically organize these efforts based on my
connection.
Specifically, we should achieve this goal through a positioning
change and three stages.
A positioning change: The United States is a trade partner of China
on the premise that the American people are partners in human rights
with the Chinese people.
The United States should no longer recognize the controlled areas
of the People's Republic of China, including Hong Kong, as a free
market. The foundation of a free market is the autonomous
decisionmaking of market entities. However, the level of freedom
essential for the survival of free markets in Hong Kong and mainland
China--personal freedom, freedom of speech, thought, expression,
academic freedom, freedom of communication, freedom of information
dissemination, and judicial independence--are at their lowest level
since the reform and opening up policy. The overall societal freedom is
crazily regressing back to the Cultural Revolution era; thus, the
micro-foundations of a free market no longer exist in China. When the
Party leads everything in the market, the signals from market entities
are severely concealed and distorted by the will of the Party. Any so-
called ``free trade'' with Beijing supports the war machine of the
dictatorship, shifting contradictions, and providing resources, which
is a disguised form of appeasement. Using free trade as cover may
alleviate inflation and wealth disparity with cheap goods in the short
term, but it allows China's low human rights-advantaged products to
flood the market. It is both short-sighted and akin to drinking poison
to quench thirst.
China should only consider restoring its status as a market economy
after it elevates its human rights standards to meet the requirements
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
This is a clear signal that, through U.S. trade policy and joint
action with allies, a clear message is sent to the Chinese people at
home and abroad that Americans and the entire world are paying
attention to the human rights abuses they experience daily. Attention
is given to overtime work, unfair labor practices, unpaid wages,
unfinished buildings, disappearing freedoms in academia, speech,
communication, media, rights protection, children's education rights,
deteriorating rule of law, and mental health in China. With the
increased strength of China, the human rights situation of the Chinese
will be improved as well. Americans will consider the survival
circumstance of the Chinese as superior instead of their business
profit.
Based on this, in order to promote the improvement of human rights
in China and strengthen ties with the Chinese people, combating the
authoritarian propaganda and control of the autocratic government, we
should act in three stages:
These three stages are: Shaping a safe environment for overseas
Chinese, cultivating professional talent and organizations, and
promoting human rights reform in China. This is also the best way, from
a macro perspective, to address the collective political trauma of the
Chinese people, and to promote anti-war and resistance forces in China.
Stage One: Creating a Safe Environment for Overseas Chinese
1. Pay attention to the cross-border repression of dissidents,
especially regarding personal safety. Strictly manage agents of the CCP
in various countries. Restrict or even prohibit their activities
directed by foreign governments.
2. Strengthen research on the history of Chinese political
violence and trauma. Provide mental and psychological health experts
and various trauma recovery groups to the Chinese community, including
international students, to support their recovery from political
violence and trauma.
3. Pay attention to building independent Chinese community
organizations and networks, separate from the Communist Party. Assist
intellectuals, opinion leaders, and middle-class elites coming from
China in forming various associations independent of the Chinese
Communist Party. And assist with training in various systems such as
equality, anti-discrimination, non-violence, parliamentary rules, etc.
And provide opportunities for exchange with other ethnic networks to
explore how to establish related organizations.
4. Change the way of discussing issues related to China, based on
human rights and using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a
standard to measure Chinese actions. In discussions about China, reduce
debates about capitalism/communism, progressivism/conservatism,
fairness/efficiency, the rise of the East and the decline of the West/
civilizational conflicts, and superpower disputes, to avoid providing
material for domestic authoritarian propaganda in China.
5. Implement reciprocal privacy policies for Chinese software such
as WeChat. Require their overseas versions to be isolated from mainland
versions, lifting data censorship, and requiring data to be stored
locally.
Stage Two: Cultivating Professional Talent and Organizations
1. Support the establishment of a Chinese human rights data base.
Counter the comprehensive control of news inside China, comprehensively
statisticians, and sort all possible contributions from inside the
Firewall. And according to the United Nations Declaration on Human
Rights, these are human rights violation events. Create quantified
annual human rights reports and present the real human rights situation
of the people in China. Through data base categorization and survey
questionnaires, collect experiences of maintaining rights inside China,
and write manuals and instructions for avoiding pitfalls in rights
defense.
2. Form a panel of experts on specific rights issues both inside
and outside China, provide various templates, documents, laws,
publicity materials, and process flows and create overseas rights
support groups. Make it convenient for rights defenders to cooperate
anonymously across borders. Visualize the data according to the age of
the people, the types of human rights infringements, locations, hot
topics, and others, forming a survival manual for inside the Firewall.
Let everyone understand the real human rights situation of their living
environment and its impact on them.
3. Absorb exiled Chinese elite scholars/Chinese policy interns
with a background in China into Federal Government/congressional staff/
think tanks. Make U.S. China policy clearer, more accurate, and vividly
convey to the Chinese people. Let the public realize the dangers of
authoritarianism and stay away from authoritarianism under nationalist
slogans.
4. Establish bipartisan groups for Chinese human rights/community
awareness/cultural integration. Help Chinese/international students
quickly popularize and have channels to practice American values after
entering American society, changing the wrong concepts originally held
in China, learning to respect freedom of speech and political freedom.
5. Support various academic research and artistic creations on
various human rights issues in China, including publishing, film,
podcasts, talk shows, literary works, stage plays, and creative design.
6. Pay attention to Chinese humanities scholars in exile, absorb
them into various think tanks, or form various organizations. Create
historical works and literary works based on human rights for Chinese
people, revealing the impact of the lack of human rights on daily life.
And form reading lists, collections, data bases, etc., to facilitate
the Chinese people reading about, and understanding, the importance of
human rights.
7. Increase academic research on the human rights situation of
Chinese people and the psychology and concepts of Chinese people.
Enable the academic community to interpret and observe human rights
issues from the perspective of the Chinese people. Change the structure
of the human rights report of the U.S. Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, paying more attention to the human rights issues
of ordinary people.
Promoting Human Rights Reform in China
1. Encourage overseas Chinese organizations to provide support for
rights defenders in China. Summarize the experience of defending rights
inside China and share.
2. Through overseas Chinese organizations, provide various
literary works, real information, and data bases to the Chinese people
inside the Great Firewall to help them understand the real situation.
3. Using data base reports and industry research reports, sanction
all Chinese companies that use high-tech technology to participate in
government projects that violate the human rights of the Chinese
people, including their executives/staff.
4. Link human rights to trade, cancel China's Most-Favored-Nation
(MFN) trade status and China's Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR)
status, implement tariff penalties/import controls on organizations/
companies that violate human rights, and limit American companies from
obtaining products and software that violate human rights. Limit
China's cost competition advantage gained through low human rights
standards.
5. Warn or punish human rights violators, and carefully review
their and their families' visas, and bank accounts.
These steps will require the efforts of the Tiananmen generation,
the efforts of our new generation, and the efforts of many people in
China. I can dedicate my life to this because, as a young person who
never experienced the Tiananmen Square incident, when first learning
about the history of June 4th, the initial shock did not come from the
Communist Party's ruthless bloody suppression, but from the realization
that our country once had such a different social atmosphere. We were
moved to tears by the images of the square and the saying `To Tiananmen
Square, it's my duty.' In our lowest and saddest moments, we realized
that we are not alone. For someone like me, an exile who has never
personally seen a glimmer of dawn in my homeland, that moment of June
4th represented a brightness of humanity that dispelled my prejudices
about this land, reinforcing my belief that the people in this country
deserve another possibility, that there is still hope for this land.
More importantly, it made me realize that my country, once, through
everyone's efforts, almost broke free from the shadow of millennia of
autocracy and dictatorship.
Therefore, I believe that my colleagues can do their jobs well, I
trust that my predecessors of June 4th will cooperate effectively, I
believe that my compatriots and allies can stand with us, and I also
believe that you can make the right decisions. Ladies and gentlemen of
the legislature, thank you for listening to my story. We are doing our
jobs; now it's your turn.
After all, this future belongs to us, to them, and to you as well.
______
Prepared Statement of ``Karin''
I would like to begin by expressing gratitude for the opportunity
to testify disguised, even though it will only delay the inevitable
police visit to my parents. Media Director Scott Flipse told me that
only I could evaluate whether the cost of testifying is worth it. But
however much this cost weighs on me, the cost for my fellow student
activists who have already experienced intimidation, harassment, and
even physical assault from CCP agents is ten times greater. For the
record, all the names in my testimony will be aliases.
I was born and raised in China. Like many Chinese students my age,
I wondered about the conspicuous lack of events depicted between 1970
and 1990 in our history textbook. I only learned about June 4th by
reading about it on Wikipedia in high school.
In 2022, I began an internship in Shanghai with one of China's
largest technology conglomerates. Like many young people who grew up in
the economic prosperity of the 2010's, sheltered by censorship, I was
ready to bask in and contribute to the economic achievements of my
nation. In March, an unexpected city-wide lockdown began. This would
subsequently be remembered as one of the largest humanitarian crises in
China's COVID response.
When the residents of Shanghai cried for help, the government
``addressed not the problem, but the person who voiced the problem.''
The lockdown made me realize that despite economic development, the
Chinese Communist Party had not changed, even in 35 years, from its
totalitarian self.
In November 2022, after I returned to the university, the fire in
Urumqi sparked a global wave of vigils and protests to commemorate the
victims. My friends and I organized a vigil at Columbia in front of the
Low Library. We spread the word through social media only 1 day before
the event. To our surprise, not just 10, or 100, but 300 people showed
up that night. The scene reminded me of how Chinese students at
Columbia 35 years ago gathered at the very same place to demonstrate
solidarity with students on the square.
We wanted it to be a peaceful event. But my friend Ava, shortly
after delivering a speech, was violently assaulted--struck on the
face--by an unidentified individual who claimed to be a Columbia
student. Later, she turned to the Columbia administration, but no
action was taken aside from a suggestion to seek ``mental health
support.'' Not even a campus safety alert.
I was in a class on China's foreign policy. There were a few
Chinese students whose comments were blatant CCP propaganda, like how
the concentration camp in Xinjiang does not exist. After the vigil, I
was always afraid that those Chinese students would recognize me. I was
afraid what happened to Ava at the protest was going to happen to me,
too. And that Columbia's administration would do nothing.
As China reopened, the momentum of the white paper protest died
down gradually. My friends and I at Columbia have tried to maintain the
spark by continuing to organize events like movie screenings of COVID
documentaries and panel discussions on campus. However, we were always
plagued by far-reaching transnational repression.
My friend and co-organizer, Chris, was interrogated by the Chinese
police when he returned to China last year. He reached out to me on
Instagram to inquire about the names of participants in the New York
protests. I was informed that he sent those inquiries under police
pressure.
The CECC has done an extraordinary job in its 2023 report in
documenting the CCP's transnational repression, especially that faced
by the Uyghurs and Hong Kongers. But I want to bring to your attention
that even though the white paper movement has subsided, the intensity
of transnational repression against outspoken Chinese overseas students
has only escalated, in most cases, through personal harassment,
transnational surveillance, and the coercion of proxies--in this case
meaning the interrogation and intimidation of family members in China.
My fellow student activists experienced this retribution in ever-
increasing quantities and severity this year. Yet unlike Hong Kong and
Uyghur activists, few can step forward and tell the story.
According to Columbia's own website, it had 6,880 currently
enrolled Chinese students in 2023. Many of them, after completion of
their studies, will return to China and work in occupations of
political or economic importance. As a social science major, I have
always believed that a change in society starts with the change in its
citizens' minds. In fact, many vocal individuals of the white paper
movement in China were educated overseas. Exposure to freedom made us
free. But if these brilliant minds cannot even think and speak freely
on American campuses, on American soil, then it would be much more
difficult for a movement like White Paper to be sparked again.
I believe there are two things that policymakers could do. The
first is to compel the Chinese Student and Scholar Associations (CSSAs)
on American campuses to be transparent about their funding sources.
CSSAs provide a community for Chinese students who have only recently
arrived in America, but at the same time, many of its members receive
funding from the Chinese consulate and serve as eyes for the consulate
to identify and silence pro-democracy students. By compelling CSSAs to
disclose their funding, we can ensure that this community, important to
many, does not become a vehicle of the CCP's long arm of repression.
Second, urge universities to establish a comprehensive response
mechanism and support network for students facing transnational
repression. This could include setting up campus task forces against
transnational repression, creating guidelines of resources available
for students to seek help when they feel unsafe, and offering security
support for on-campus events in which students participating
potentially face the risk of being identified and harassed. If we are
able to put such a response mechanism in place, then more pro-democracy
students will feel comfortable expressing their political thoughts in
campus spaces, without needing to go through the fear and trauma that I
and my friend Ava were forced through.
Congress members, 160 years ago President Lincoln showed us that
America was a nation that would ``hold the power, and bear the
responsibility [to] assure freedom to the free.'' He said as Americans,
``We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth''
that is our union, that is our beacon of liberty for those oppressed
around the world.
Congress members, 35 years ago, you showed those students from
Beijing fleeing a brutal massacre that the United States kept its
promise as the last best hope of earth, a safe haven for people who
pursue and fight for democracy and freedom. Now I ask you to show
compassion and support for us, that those first pioneers who lit the
spark for all not be allowed to freeze in the wind and snow.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith
Thirty-five years ago today the world watched as millions of
Chinese gathered to peacefully demand political reform and democratic
openness. The hopes and dreams of those heady days ended with needless
violence--tears, bloodshed, arrest, and exile. Mothers lost sons,
fathers lost daughters, and China lost an idealistic generation to the
tanks that rolled down Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989.
On this solemn occasion, we reflect on the bravery and sacrifice of
those who stood for democracy and freedom on that fateful day. We
grieve with those who still don't know what happened to their lost
loved ones. And we demand that the Chinese Communist government make a
full public accounting of those killed or missing and end its Orwellian
efforts to censor what is a dark chapter of Chinese history.
It is also important to reflect on the events that led up to that
fateful day in 1989 and consider why they still matter for the cold war
competition that now shapes U.S.-China relations.
The students who initially gathered in the center of Beijing in
April 1989 did so to mourn the death of Communist Party leader Hu
Yaobang--someone they viewed as a political reformer.
In the days to follow, thousands would gather in Tiananmen Square
and in over 400 other cities. Their numbers grew as the days passed
until more than a million people--including journalists, workers,
government employees and police--joined the Tiananmen students in
demanding a future built on justice, freedom, and dignity.
During the evening of June 3d and into June 4th, 1989, the Chinese
Communist Party leadership unleashed the People's Liberation Army (PLA)
upon the protesters. The PLA used brute and lethal force against
peaceful protest. Guns and tanks crushed innocent civilians, young and
old alike.
The precise number of casualties is unknown. There has been no
public accounting of the events of that week and no justice for the
victims. Rather, those seeking to commemorate the event or seek
information about those killed, like the Tiananmen Mothers, are
harassed, detained, and arrested.
One of the most iconic images from the Tiananmen Massacre is that
of the ``Tank Man''--the solitary figure, with shopping bags in hand,
who stood in front of the advancing line of tanks. That act of brave
defiance inspired the world and should remind us that Tiananmen is not
simply a past event to study and ponder, but a present reminder that
when the Chinese people are free to assemble and to speak, they demand
liberty and political reform.
What happened on Tiananmen Square in 1989 should also remind us
that the principles of freedom and democracy represent a fundamental
human yearning for dignity and human rights that is not limited to any
culture or country. They are universal aspirations that neither tanks
nor torture can ever destroy.
Sadly, as we look at the China of today, the prospects for greater
civil and political rights seem as remote as the day after the tanks
rolled through Tiananmen Square.
An increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist government is more
repressive in domestic politics, more mercantilist in trade and
economic policy, increasingly dismissive of international norms, and
more assertive in exporting the authoritarian model globally.
While repression looks much different today than it did 35 years
ago, the goal remains the same: preserve the Communist Party's monopoly
on political power through any means necessary--state-sponsored
indoctrination, a pervasive surveillance State, arbitrary detention,
torture, and transnational repression.
The U.S. and all freedom-loving people cannot be neutral when the
Chinese Communist Party tramples human rights with impunity or while
genocide and crimes against humanity are being committed.
A choice has to be made: You either stand with the Tank Man or you
stand with the tank. There is no middle ground.
That choice is even starker now than it was 35 years ago. The U.S.
and its allies face a systemic challenge from the Chinese Communist
Party and its allies in Russia, Iran, and North Korea. It is a
challenge we cannot avoid and one where promotion of human rights and
freedom must be recognized as a strategic advantage against the dark
forces of authoritarianism.
The United States must do a better job leading the free world's
democracies in shining a light on the atrocities being committed by the
Chinese Communist Party and holding those responsible accountable--
whether through more robust use of existing sanctions authorities or
better leveraging American influence at the United Nations.
We must take all steps to stop the Communist Chinese Party's
efforts to export their authoritarian model around the world. We must
find more efficient ways to stop American companies from subsidizing
communist tyranny and forced labor. We must better protect Chinese
students and the Chinese diaspora from intimidation and even violence
while they live in the United States.
And we must treat the ``Great Firewall'' of China like the 21st
century Berlin Wall; tearing it down must be a critical U.S. priority
that will allow the dissemination of news and information within China
and allow the Chinese people to communicate without fear.
At the same time, we must resolutely stand with those in China and
Hong Kong who are imprisoned, censored, and disappeared--the Christian
pastor, the Tibetan Buddhist monk, the Uyghur Muslim, the labor
organizer, the human rights lawyer, the Hong Kong democracy activist,
and countless others living under the repressive policies of the
Chinese Communist Party.
They are the ones who will ultimately bring political change in
China. We must communicate to them and the Chinese people directly that
their struggle and pain has not and will not be forgotten, and that we
believe the Chinese Communist Party will eventually be consigned to the
ash heap of history. To do anything less dishonors the spirit of
Tiananmen and those who continue to stand so bravely and resolutely for
freedom.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today being June 4, this is an appropriate
day for a hearing of the congressional-Executive Commission on China
because of the focus on the events of June 3-4, 1989, at Tiananmen
Square, and in cities across China. Those events shocked the conscience
of the world, and the conscience of this Congress.
The massacre of peaceful protesters by their own government spurred
a decade of debate here in Congress about whether the United States
should condition trade relations with China on improvements in human
rights. Our chairman, Congressman Smith, was at the forefront of those
bipartisan debates, along with Speaker Emerita Pelosi.
That question was settled in 2000 when Congress and President
Clinton granted permanent normal trade relations to the People's
Republic of China. Congress insisted, however, that the deal include a
mechanism to monitor China's progress on human rights and rule of law.
That insistence and that legislation created this Commission, a
bicameral, bipartisan watchdog to assess China's behavior against
international human rights standards.
But today's hearing is not about this Commission. It is about the
people in the People's Republic of China, the oppression they continue
to endure, the hopes that they continue to hold for a better future,
and the aspirations they continue to fight for.
The people gathered in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 were
demanding their government respond to their grievances as well as their
aspirations. The government's brutal response ended lives and ended
optimism that day, but it did not end the desire for freedom and the
desire for dignity. Those feelings are universal and innate to every
human everywhere. It is a spark that cannot be extinguished.
Thirty-five years later, that brutal grip of oppression has only
tightened. People cannot openly express dissent.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about whether and how
the citizens of the PRC find ways to share their frustrations and
desires. Do they use social media, chat groups, informal networks? What
can the 2022 White Paper protests tell us?
I also hope to hear how we, American policymakers, can best
understand what people in China are saying, what they are feeling, what
they are advocating for. It is vital that we listen to their voices
rather than project our own ideas or politics.
I am interested to learn how people keep alive the legacy of
Tiananmen in the face of a concerted and successful effort by the CCP
to erase the history, both on the mainland and now in Hong Kong.
Preservation of memory is another innate human impulse, essential to
people's ability to maintain their culture and maintain their identity.
Freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are core human rights
enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Chinese
government's relentless effort to suppress them does not diminish the
yearning of the people of China to realize them or our responsibility
to speak out for them. That is why we are here. I look forward to your
testimony.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern
Good morning. I join my colleagues in welcoming everyone to today's
hearing on the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in
China.
Thirty-five years ago, Chinese authorities ordered their military
to forcibly remove protesters who had occupied Tiananmen Square for
weeks, and who were calling for economic and political reform.
Estimates of how many people were wounded and killed when the tanks
rolled in range from the hundreds to a few thousand; the exact numbers
are still unknown. What we do know is that the violence unleashed that
day meant that hardliners in the Chinese government had gained the
upper hand over reformists, with consequences that are still being felt
today.
Through 2020, an annual vigil for the victims of Tiananmen Square
was held in Victoria Park in Hong Kong. In fact, Hong Kong was the only
Chinese city in which commemorations were allowed, a result of the
``one country, two systems'' arrangement. But in 2021, Victoria Park
was empty because the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020
made public mention of the massacre a jailable offense.
The new Article 23 law, passed in Hong Kong in March, doubles down
on this. Six people were arrested a few days ago for ``inciting
hatred'' against Beijing by posting messages about a ``sensitive
date''--the June 4th Tiananmen Square anniversary.
In fact, for years the PRC has used every tactic it can to erase
the memory of Tiananmen, from restricting internet searches and
removing books to physical repression.
So we are here today to commemorate that which cannot be
commemorated in China. We are here to remember and pay tribute to those
who were killed on June 4, 1989, and those who were wounded, and those
who were imprisoned for their participation. We are also here to
remember the demands of the protesters 35 years ago, their ideas, their
hope, and their courage. We are here because memory is both the
preservation of the past, and a source of power and inspiration for the
future.
As one of our witnesses will tell us today, even though the
Tiananmen protests and massacre remain a source of trauma for the
Chinese people, they have simultaneously become a tremendous source of
inspiration, healing, and hope. Another witness will tell us, ``We
inherited the spirit of resistance from the Tiananmen generation.''
Memory and memorializing can and should be an empowering process.
We are here today to contribute to that process, in honor of the Tank
Man and all the protesters in Tiananmen Square on that fateful day,
June 4, 1989.
Thank you.
Questions and Answers for the Record
______
Questions for Zhou Fengsuo from Senator Brown
June 4, 2024 marks 35 years since the wish for freedom and
democracy by the Chinese people was met with violent suppression by the
Chinese government. Lethal force was used against those using two of
their universal human rights: speech and assembly. I'd like to thank
Chair Smith and Co-chair Merkley for holding this important hearing.
China's citizens deserve a transparent account of the tragic events of
the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and we must do more to counter the
Chinese government's continued attack on human rights.
Question. Despite international efforts urging Chinese President Xi
Jinping to take concrete steps to end the repression of ethnic and
religious minorities, journalists, members of the LGTBQ community, and
the Chinese people as a whole, the People's Republic of China (PRC)
continues to harass diaspora communities and critics of the PRC--not
just in China, but around the world. Many of you mention the Chinese
government's use of transnational repression as a way to intimidate and
harass Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, the Taiwanese, journalists,
human rights advocates, and others. The Committee held a hearing on
this topic last year, where witnesses shared ideas on how to address
this serious challenge.
My question for you is: What steps do you believe the U.S. should
take, in partnership with our allies, to preemptively address and halt
transnational repression?
Answer.
1. Law enforcement needs to investigate and prosecute the
perpetrators who are acting on behalf of the CCP regime in the United
States. The recent indictments of Wu Xiaomeng and others are very
effective. The diaspora organizations like HRIC can work with law
enforcement to provide the most up-to-date information.
2. Require any organizations that take CCP money or work closely
with the CCP to disclose and register, especially CSSAs (Chinese
Students and Scholars Associations) and Hometown Associations. This
should also include lobbying groups, universities, and other
institutions.
3. Compel U.S. companies with businesses in China to disclose how
they comply with CCP authorities. Require U.S. tech companies to take
concrete action to prevent harassing, threatening, and surveillance in
cyberspace, targeting diaspora activists.
4. Government agencies should work closely and regularly with
human rights organizations to understand the full scope of CCP
transnational repression.
Question. This commission has spent time discussing concerns over
the use of surveillance technology by the Chinese government. As has
been widely reported, Chinese electric vehicles and other connected
vehicles utilize technology to gather sensitive data on drivers and the
environments they are in.
Mr. Zhou, you briefly mentioned how the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) has used technological repression against your organization, and
Mr. Yang also suggested that Chinese companies that use high-tech
technology to participate in government projects to violate human
rights be sanctioned.
I have called for banning Chinese electric vehicles from the U.S.,
one of many reasons being the potential security threat they pose.
Given your experience, do you believe that the CCP may be using data
collected by Chinese electric cars and other connected vehicles as a
surveillance tool?
Answer. Yes, every company in China serves the CCP regime as the
ultimate goal. There is no doubt that CCP utilizes every tool possible
for the purpose of surveillance and eventual domination of the
democratic countries. Electric vehicles are a natural choice and will
pose significant threats.
______
Questions for Ruohui Yang from Senator Brown
Question. Despite international efforts urging Chinese President Xi
Jinping to take the concrete steps to end the repression of ethnic and
religious minorities, journalists, members of the LGTBQ community, and
the Chinese people as a whole, the People's Republic of China (PRC)
continues to harass diaspora communities and critics of the PRC--not
just in China, but around the world. Many of you mention the Chinese
government's use of transnational repression as a way to intimidate and
harass Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, the Taiwanese, journalists,
human rights advocates, and others. The Committee held a hearing on
this topic last year, where witnesses shared ideas on how to address
this serious challenge.
My question for you is: What steps do you believe the U.S. should
take, in partnership with our allies, to preemptively address and halt
transnational repression?
Answer. The U.S. Government urgently needs to implement a
reciprocal policy against China. This policy, crucial for our national
security, must be revised promptly following any policy alteration in
China. As the guardian of its citizens and interests, the U.S.
Government must explicitly target the individuals and organizations
that have connections with Chinese diplomatic missions, which includes
all bodies cooperating with China, such as the CSSA, across
universities within U.S. territory, all the Chinese national or
regional fellowship and commercial associations, and other parties
mentioned by Chinese state media or foreign offices. These groups must
be queried, registered, and notified about their foreign agent status
and the constraints they must conform to for any potential detrimental
activities within U.S. territory.
The People's Republic of China has become a one-party authoritarian
state. In practice, the various consulates within U.S. territory
primarily serve as agents of the Chinese Communist Party, a.k.a. the
CCP, rather than the Chinese state or citizens. China's current
decisionmaking mechanism on foreign policy is monopolized by the
Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the CCP
(commonly called the Central Foreign Affairs Commission) instead of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. Another fact is that the superior
organ of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, the State Council,
primarily serves the decisionmaking of the CCP rather than that of the
National People's Congress or the government. The principle of
strengthening CCP leadership was first mentioned in the ``Opinions of
the CCP Central Committee on Strengthening the Party's Political
Construction'' in 2019 and again brought up by the amendment to the
Organization Law of the State Council in 2024. Both of them request
comprehensive leadership by the CCP over miscellaneous state
departments. China's ``wolf warrior diplomacy'' gradually commenced
during this period. Therefore, all Chinese diplomatic missions overseas
are front organizations of the CCP. It is worth remarking that as we
are writing this piece, Xi Jinping, the chairman of the CCP, has just
chaired the fifth meeting of the Central Comprehensively Deepening
Reforms Commission of the CCP. He has once again emphasized the
importance of integrating party leadership into various aspects of
corporate governance.
Considering the realities above, it is essential to differentiate
between ordinary Chinese citizens, the CCP and its executive bodies,
the Chinese government, and China's unique transnational modern
corporate entities. It is also critical for U.S. policymakers to
explicitly distinguish whether the individuals and groups are
associated directly with the CCP and its front organizations within
U.S. territory.
To counter the influence of CCP infiltration, the U.S. must
acknowledge the intrinsic importance of overseas Chinese and Chinese
American intellectuals, students, and human rights activists. Their
distinctive perspectives and backgrounds can be harnessed to combat the
CCP's massive propaganda. The U.S. Government should support the
overseas Chinese in formulating their community associations, which
should be non-political and binary, and focus on social integration and
community development. The primary goal for the U.S. is to assist them
in disseminating their work and allow them to partake in the American
policymaking process to counterbalance the ideological influence of the
CCP.
Due to tightening restrictions on freedom of expression, many
Chinese scholars and human rights lawyers have been exiled overseas.
The U.S. should now utilize these Chinese experts to comprehend China's
censorship mechanics. It is crucial to provide them with convenient
issuance of visas and improved working conditions, allowing them to
exemplify the reality of China to American voters through the media.
The long-term resolution is that the Chinese communities overseas
that are self-sufficient and independent of the influence of the CCP
must be strengthened to bankrupt the narrative of the CCP that
endeavors to obfuscate the difference between cultural belongingness to
the Chinese culture or community and corpse-like loyalty or obedience
to the CCP among domestic and overseas Chinese residents and Chinese
Americans. It should commence to consolidate support from the communal,
cultural, and political activist groups. It could even begin with the
younger generation of dissenters in exile, letting them reconstruct the
civil society that once existed in China with their thoughts and
activities.
Question. In your testimony, you wrote: ``Any so-called `free
trade' with Beijing supports the war machine of the dictatorship,
shifting contradictions, and providing resources, which is a disguised
form of appeasement. Using free trade as a cover may alleviate
inflation and wealth disparity with cheap goods in the short term, but
it allows China's low human-rights-advantaged products to flood the
market. It is both short-sighted and akin to drinking poison to quench
thirst.''
For my entire career, I've fought against trade policies that
undermine workers both at home and abroad. One effort that Congress
passed recently to address the continued use of forced labor to help
counter China's human rights abuses is the bipartisan Uyghur Forced
Labor Prevention Act. This law, implemented in June 2022, creates
protection against the funding of forced labor among ethnic minorities.
Do you have thoughts on what additional action is necessary to
prevent the Chinese government's continued human rights violations
against more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims who've been
coerced into forced labor programs?
Answer. Concerning the current issues of Xinjiang ``re-education
camps'' that have disastrously affected the lifestyle and cultural
identity of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities in Xinjiang, it must
be pointed out that to define it as genocide or religious extermination
against Uyghurs and other minorities is counterproductive to truly
alleviating or bringing to an end these human rights violations. I am
not attempting to deny the appalling atrocities committed by the CCP
against its citizens, but the definition of genocide will presumably
make many American voters assume it is a political gimmick. It will
also strengthen the misconception among Chinese residents in China that
the U.S. is exploiting this issue and using it as a justification to
implement sinophobic foreign policies or even a potential Chinese
Exclusion Act in the 21st century. Considering that the CCP can
misinterpret it in their propaganda agenda and exacerbate Islamophobia
among Chinese citizens, it can put Uyghurs and other minorities in
Xinjiang in more dangerous circumstances.
A more practical solution is to put the Xinjiang ``re-education
camps'' and other issues correlated to human rights violations in China
into a larger overall picture. We consider the re-education camps in
Xinjiang to be a series of social experiments by the CCP to impose
totalitarian control on every aspect of society. In their agenda,
Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities in Xinjiang are persecuted not
only due to their distinguishable ethnic and religious differences but
also because they are living in a distinct, self-reliant society that
is out of the reach of CCP totalitarianism, which, from the perspective
of the CCP, must be reorganized following the CCP's ideology. The CCP
has already attempted to reorganize the non-minority Han Chinese
society, which has been continuously developing since the Chinese
economic reform in the 1980s and the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.
In this case, they have achieved some limited success in imposing and
reinforcing authoritarian rule. Nevertheless, the necessity for
economic growth and international prestige has hampered their effort to
transform Chinese society into a more totalitarian one. The COVID-19
pandemic provided them with an opportunity to realize their ambition.
From 2020 to 2022, the Zero-COVID policy made many Chinese residents
realize the brutal face of the state and the CCP, which sacrificed
their basic living standards and natural rights to pursue a goal that
aimed to impose totalitarian control on every aspect of life. If we
look back to what happened in China during these three years, we will
discover that many of the suppressive approaches and mass surveillance
are directly duplicated from the Xinjiang re-education camps. This is
why China's ``White Paper Revolution,'' a series of protests against
the harrowing Zero-COVID policy imposed by the CCP, is derived from
Xinjiang, the northwestern province of China, with the most brutal,
scrutinized, and totalitarian social control. Many Chinese residents
have realized that the most significant terrorism in their country does
not come from Uyghurs or other Muslim minorities, but from the CCP
itself as state terrorism.
China's manufacturing industries are built on such widespread human
rights violations: the lack of safeguards for intellectual property
rights, the censorship and suppression of whistleblowers and customer
complaints, the connivance of companies' infringements of basic labor
protections, the lack of judicial independence that allows giant
corporations to be shielded by governments, the censorship of media
resulting in a lack of independent investigative journalists, and the
government's massive subsidy policy for specific companies at the
expense of trade freedom, allowing Chinese companies to dump cheap and
inferior products all over the world without regard for their product
quality, brand reputation, and sustainable operating capabilities.
On the other hand, many ordinary Chinese people have gradually
discovered the misery that this massive infringement of human rights
has brought to their everyday lives. Extensive works of art and
literature have portrayed the negative impact of this violation of
human rights on every ordinary Chinese person. Suppose American
politicians and voters chose to disregard the growing suicide and
unemployment rates, the decline in personal income, and the distress,
anguish, and despondency of Chinese citizens toward their society in
China. If so, the CCP will exploit this to isolate their opponents and
construct a siege mentality in Chinese public opinion and make them
feel that the motivation behind the attention to the Xinjiang re-
education camps from the U.S. is to contain China and to implement
sinophobic imperialist and neocolonial policies in China.
Hence, American politicians should have more awareness of the
massive human rights issues in China and regard the persecution of
ethnic minorities, such as the Uyghurs and Kazakhs, as the foretype of
China's human rights crisis rather than an ethnic or religious
conflict. Only this sort of strategy can encourage more Chinese people
to recognize the human rights problems in Xinjiang, including the
forced separation of families, systemic brainwashing, forced labor,
invasion of private property, and language extinction, since these
things are more likely to occur in the lives of every ordinary Chinese
citizen in the future. I believe this is the fundamental solution to
preventing further deterioration of human rights in Xinjiang and other
regions in China.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5350.001
Witness Biographies
Zhou Fengsuo, Tiananmen student leader and Executive Director of
Human Rights in China
In 1989, Zhou Fengsuo was a physics student at Tsinghua University
in Beijing. He started the Voice of Student Movement radio station and
organized demonstrations that demanded democratic reform. During the
protests, Zhou and other students set up a broadcast station on
Tiananmen Square and provided support and medical help to students who
were on hunger strikes. About a week after the massacre, authorities
took Zhou into custody and detained him for a year without trial.
Though wanted by Chinese authorities after he left China, he returned
in 2014 and was detained after he went to a Beijing detention center to
give money to political prisoners.
After receiving an MBA from the University of Chicago, he embarked
on a successful career in trading and investment, but never gave up his
advocacy for human rights and democracy in China. In 2007, he co-
founded Humanitarian China to promote the rule of law, human rights,
and freedom of expression in China and to provide humanitarian support
to political prisoners and their families. Since 2023 he has served as
Executive Director of Human Rights in China, mobilizing and empowering
young Chinese human rights advocates in the diaspora and building
advocacy coalitions with the Uyghur and Tibetan communities.
Ruohui Yang, rights advocate and student in Paralegal Studies at
Humber College in Canada
Ruohui Yang is dedicated to advancing human rights and democracy in
China. In 2020, he founded Assembly of Citizens, a Chinese student
association that organized large-scale June Fourth commemoration
activities and White Paper movement protests in Canada. Since 2022,
Ruohui has been an assistant editor for China Spring, where he has
strengthened the focus on Chinese human rights issues and political
prisoners through his editorial work. He is also the founder of social
media platforms that seek to organize Chinese youth and counter the
PRC's propaganda globally. The platforms try to help Chinese young
people recognize the deteriorating State of human rights in China and
build a sense of community among advocates for freedom and democracy in
China.
Karin (an alias), student and White Paper protest organizer at
Columbia University
Karin will testify in disguise because other organizers of the
event were either attacked at Columbia or faced intimidation by PRC
police.
Rowena He, China specialist and historian of modern China at the
University of Texas at Austin
Rowena He is interested in the nexus of history, memory, and power,
and their implications for the relationship between academic freedom
and public opinion, human rights and democratization, and youth values
and nationalism. Her first book, Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the
Struggle for Democracy in China, was named as one of the Top Five Books
2014 by the Asia Society's ChinaFile.
Dr. He received the Harvard University Certificate of Teaching
Excellence for three consecutive years for the Tiananmen courses she
created. She joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2019 and
received the Faculty of Arts Outstanding Teaching Award in 2020 and
2021. In October 2023, she was denied a work visa to return to her
position as an Associate Professor of History at CUHK.
Dr. He publishes and speaks widely beyond the academy. Her op-eds
have appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail,
the Wall Street Journal, and the Nation. Born and raised in China, she
received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
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