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

                            BRINGING HOME AMERICANS
                                DETAINED IN CHINA

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

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION
                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 18, 2024
                                   __________

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

                      [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    56-796 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2025

                  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

                                  ----------

                                   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 Nelson Wells, Sr., father of detained American
      citizen Nelson Wells, Jr.......................................     4
    Statement of Harrison Li, son of detained American citizen Kai Li     6
    Statement of Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn
      Michelle Hunt..................................................     8
    Statement of Peter Humphrey, journalist, due diligence
      specialist, Sinologist, and former prisoner of China...........    10
    Statement of Katherine Swidan, mother of detained American
      citizen Mark Swidan............................................    12

                                    APPENDIX
                              Prepared Statements

    Wells, Sr., Nelson...............................................    39
    Li, Harrison.....................................................    41
    Hunt, Tim........................................................    42
    Humphrey, Peter..................................................    44
    Swidan, Katherine................................................    55

    Smith, Hon. Chris................................................    56
    Merkley, Hon. Jeff...............................................    57
    McGovern, Hon. James P...........................................    58

                           Submissions for the Record

    Submission of Jason Ian Poblete, Counsel and President of the
      Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign..............................    59
    Submission of Benedict Rogers, co-founder and trustee of Hong
      Kong Watch.....................................................    61
    Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, ``Foreign Prisoners
      in China: Abuse, Forced Labour and a Denial of Human Rights,''
      a briefing, July 2023, submitted by Benedict Rogers............    62
    Submission of Cedric Witek, advocate for detained American
      citizen David McMahon..........................................    72
    Submission of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, Inc..........    74
    Submission of Cynthia Sun, researcher, Falun Dafa Information
      Center.........................................................    77
    Submission of Sir William Browder KCMG, head of the Global
      Magnitsky Justice Campaign.....................................    78
    CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    81
    Witness Biographies..............................................    83

                                     (iii)

                            BRINGING HOME AMERICANS
                               DETAINED IN CHINA

                                  ----------

                         WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

                                Congressional-Executive
                                           Commission on China,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was held from 10:14 a.m. to 12:29 p.m., in room
    106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC,
    Representative Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China, presiding.
        Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair, and
    Representatives Steel and Nunn.

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

        Chair Smith. The hearing will come to order, and good
    morning to all of you.
        We open today's hearing knowing that Pastor David Lin is
    back in the United States after nearly two decades unjustly
    detained. Pastor Lin's crime was that he worked to strengthen
    the Protestant Chinese house church movement. For this, he
    received a life sentence. We are overjoyed for the Lin family.
    This Commission has pressured both the previous administration
    as well as this one. And we're happy that the Biden
    administration helped facilitate his return. So much--the agony
    that all of you here are experiencing, not just today but every
    single day and night--I don't know how you do it. You know,
    it's got to be beyond words cruel what the Chinese Communist
    Party has put you and your loved ones through.
        Despite the release of David Lin, we now know, and we know
    beyond--(off mic)--more than anywhere else in the world.
    Wrongfully detained U.S. nationals are serving--(off mic)--Mark
    Swidan, Kai Li, Nelson Wells, and Dawn Michelle Hunt know these
    hard facts--you know these hard facts all too well. They have
    all languished far too long in Chinese prisons. The Foley
    Foundation identifies 11 wrongfully detained Americans in
    China, including those subjected to exit bans. John Kamm,
    however, the preeminent expert on political prisoners in China,
    estimates that there are 200 or more American citizens
    coercively detained (with 30 Americans being held under exit
    bans, where U.S. citizens are stopped from leaving China) to
    settle economic disputes or to coerce their relatives to return
    to China to face alleged crimes.
        This is absolutely unacceptable. If the Chinese government
    wants to improve relations with the United States, they should
    release Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned without
    condition and unilaterally end the use of exit bans, a form of
    de facto hostage taking that violates Article 12 of the
    International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty
    that the PRC has signed, though it has not yet ratified. And I
    would note parenthetically that they went for years getting all
    kinds of accolades here in Washington that they had signed that
    covenant--(off mic)--that covenant and didn't ratify it. And
    it's not enforceable anyway. But it is a good statement of
    principles, and we wish that they would at least ratify it.
        The release of American citizens should be the first thing
    President Biden says to Communist Party Xi Jinping whenever
    they talk. Their names should be mentioned so often that Xi
    Jinping memorizes them. Their cases should be agenda item No. 1
    at every meeting the Secretary of State has with Chinese
    officials. And every U.S. official traveling to China--and that
    includes Members of Congress, Senate and House, and of course
    members of the administration at every level--they should be
    constantly raising the names of those who are being held--
    Americans being held in captivity.
        Every channel of the U.S. Government must be focused on the
    release of wrongfully detained Americans. It's that simple. All
    Americans detained in China deserve robust diplomatic
    assistance to gain their transfer out of prison or at the very
    least, to have more frequent U.S. consular official visits,
    more frequent and longer visits with their families, and better
    access to legal representation and health care, which is almost
    nonexistent. Given the legal system in China, and the poor
    prison conditions, more Americans should be considered by the
    State Department to be unjustly detained. That list needs to
    grow based on the facts.
        How many Americans currently in Chinese prisons receive a
    transparent trial, with a genuine legal defense, in an
    impartial Chinese court? In China's rule by law system, where
    the Party can dictate sentences of guilt or innocence--and it's
    so often guilt--there is none of that. It doesn't exist. (Off
    mic)--of the poor conditions in PRC prisons where Chinese and
    foreigners alike are forced to work long hours, where they are
    often tortured or mistreated by guards and other prisoners,
    where they suffer from insufficient medical care and nutrition.
        Your testimony today about what you and your families have
    endured while jailed should be--and we will submit it as--
    evidence of torture to the U.N. Committee Against Torture for
    its upcoming review of China. We need more people speaking out.
    There's been far too few voices. And, of course, the U.N. has a
    golden opportunity, particularly the U.N. Committee on Torture,
    to speak out, and to do so robustly. I will ask our staff to
    work with you to submit your testimony to the United Nations
    High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. Mission in
    Geneva.
        But that's just the start, given the number of Americans
    detained and the Chinese Communist Party's willingness to
    engage in this ongoing atrocity. To that end, I will introduce,
    along with Tom Suozzi, a bill that will, among other things,
    direct the U.S. Department of State to create a strategy for
    gaining the release of your family members, gain insight into
    the diplomatic tool the State Department is using for your
    family members--Executive Order 14078, Bolstering Efforts to
    Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals
    Home, seek more transparent information from the State
    Department about the cases of your loved ones, including
    gaining access to the resources Congress allocated to assist
    families with the financial burdens of advocacy.
        I know this is a very tough and emotional day for our
    witnesses, but every day and every night is tough and
    emotional. Again, I don't know how you endure it. No amount of
    words or empathy from us can replace your missing loved ones. I
    hope you know that our purpose here today, in an absolute
    bipartisan way--and Senator Merkley and I work like brothers on
    these issues and we will work very hard. And I know here in the
    Senate, and of course over in the House--(off mic)--not
    personally done enough either, and so it's time we did more as
    well. Thank you so much for being here. Your loved ones are in
    my prayers.
        [The prepared statement of Chair Smith appears in the
    Appendix.]
        I yield to my good friend and colleague, Co-chair Senator
    Merkley.

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

        Co-chair Merkley. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for
    convening this hearing. And much appreciation to each of you
    for coming.
        For more than two decades, the Members of Congress and
    executive--(off mic)--who have been unjustly jailed by Chinese
    authorities for seeking to exercise basic human rights. Our
    Commission maintains a Political Prisoner Database that
    currently has 2,764 nationals of the People's Republic of China
    known or believed to be detained. And as the Chairman pointed
    out, the Foley Foundation has a list of about a dozen
    individuals--American individuals wrongfully detained in China.
    But estimates by human rights organizations go up to about 200.
    Two hundred Americans detained. We don't know the exact number.
        What we know is this--even one American detained as a
    political prisoner in China is too many. If an American breaks
    the law in China, that individual can be prosecuted just as a
    Chinese national would be here in the United States. But here's
    the problem--many laws of the PRC are not consistent with--(off
    mic). And the rule of law is undermined by political
    considerations. Now, our U.S. Government has been developing
    some tools to counter this--the executive branch issued
    directives--by President Obama in 2015--to implement an
    interagency response to overseas hostage taking, including the
    creation of a special Presidential envoy for hostage affairs at
    the State Department.
        In 2020, President Trump signed into law the Robert
    Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability
    Act. In 2022, President Biden issued an executive order to
    authorize sanctions against foreign government officials and
    others who are complicit in hostage taking. With these tools,
    and under President Biden's leadership, we have seen a
    decrease--a 42 percent decrease--in the number of detained
    Americans overseas since the peak of 2002, according to the
    Foley Foundation. Now, there have been some high-profile
    returns, including some from Russia, including Paul Whelan,
    Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and others. But not
    every American detained overseas gets a spotlight.
        Today we are putting a spotlight on three individuals, Kai
    Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt, who have been unjustly
    detained in China for eight or more years. We want to hear
    their story from their family members today, because in hearing
    your story we're then able to tell the story. We can tell the
    story to the administration, to the media. Most importantly, we
    can carry that message and work toward their release with the
    government of the People's Republic of China.
        Our Americans in detention suffer from illness and mental
    anguish. We want to make sure they get proper care and counsel.
    But most of all, we want them united with their families. And
    we're joyful that David Lin has been released, that he's now
    reunited. I'm sure--what a celebration that is. But we want a
    celebration for each of your families. Reportedly, China
    wrongly holds more Americans than any other country. We want to
    know why the Chinese government refuses to allow them to come
    home.
        Our U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns has met with
    the three Americans that we're focused on today. Secretary of
    State Antony Blinken raised their cases directly with President
    Xi. But despite these efforts, despite the tools we have,
    representations made, the Chinese government continues to turn
    a blind eye to the suffering and the heartbreak. So here today
    we'll not only hear your stories, but your stories represent
    the stories of so many Americans with family members detained.
    And they'll help inform us of the circumstances, but also help
    us ponder what more we can do, as Chairman Smith has suggested.
    We look forward to hearing from you.
        [The prepared statement of Co-chair Merkley appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Smith. Thank you, Chairman Merkley.
        I'd like to introduce our distinguished witnesses--oh,
    Michelle Steel, one of our commissioners, I understand, has
    just come online. She's going to have a few opening comments.
        Commissioner Steel.

                      STATEMENT OF MICHELLE STEEL,
                 A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA

        Representative Steel. Yes. Americans detained in China. As
    already mentioned, there are more Americans detained by the CCP
    than anywhere else in the world. But this doesn't stop at
    Americans. The CCP and other communist governments, such as
    North Korea and Vietnam, are imprisoning journalists, human
    rights defenders, religious figures, and dissidents.
        One of my constituents had been wrongfully detained in a
    Chinese prison for nearly two decades and just returned home
    this week. And David Lin is a pastor from Garden Grove who was
    in China helping--building a church. He can finally see his
    family and meet his grandchildren he never met before for the
    first time in 20 years. Mr. Lin isn't the first person to be
    jailed for life for committing contract fraud. It is appalling
    that the CCP requires Christian churches to pledge loyalty to
    the Communist Party. I'm grateful that he's back in the United
    States.
        I have other constituents who live in fear of their loved
    ones being apprehended by the CCP. One of my constituents had a
    loved one tracked by text messages and arrested by CCP
    authorities while we were in the process of helping them flee
    the country. According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnamese
    authorities have convicted at least 163 people since 2018 for
    exercising their right to freedom of association or freedom of
    expression against the Vietnam communist government.
        And I have written many letters to President Biden with the
    names and sentences of journalists and other prisoners of
    conscience and urging him to take action to secure their
    release. As we speak, I'm advocating for the release and
    protection of Y Quynh Bdap with them and urging his
    resettlement in the U.S. or Canada. He's a Vietnamese citizen
    and U.N.-recognized refugee being held in Thailand on false
    charges by the Vietnamese communist government.
        I have urged the State Department to redesignate Vietnam as
    a country of particular concern, due to their human rights
    abuse. I especially requested that Secretary Blinken prioritize
    addressing Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, who has faced continued
    religious persecution by his government. And I'm hopeful that
    shining more light on the communist authorities falsely
    detaining innocent people will help bring justice to those
    already in prison and prevent future detainments.
        And I'm so happy that Chairman Smith is having this meeting
    today and talking about the detainees--that we really have to
    bring them to a free country. And, you know, our job is not
    done yet, and we are still working. Thank you for having this
    meeting today.
        Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Commissioner Steel. And
    thank you for joining us, and for your leadership, which has
    been ongoing and very effective.
        I'd now like to introduce our very distinguished panel of
    people who are fighting so hard for their loved ones, beginning
    with Nelson Wells, Sr. He's the father of Nelson Wells, Jr.,
    and a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. He and his wife,
    Cynthia, who is here with us today as well, now live in
    Haughton, Louisiana. Mr. Wells is a 20-year U.S. Army veteran
    stationed all over the country and world, including a stint in
    the Middle East during the Gulf War. His wife Cynthia worked as
    an Army recruiter for the Department of Defense for 28 years.
    Both are retired and are now advocating full-time for their
    son's release.
        Then we'll hear from Harrison Li, who is a doctoral student
    studying statistics, who has begrudgingly had to become a
    political advocate for his father, Kai Li. Never expected he
    would have to do this. He is originally from Long Island, New
    York, and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He
    serves on the steering committee of the Bring Our Families Home
    Campaign, an advocacy group of families of Americans wrongfully
    detained around the world working together to try to cut
    through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting assistance for
    and information on their wrongfully detained family members.
    His greatest wish is for his father to be home and in good
    health, to see him graduate next spring, after missing his
    college graduation in 2018.
        We'll then hear from Tim Hunt, who is the brother of Dawn
    Michelle Hunt, and a native of Chicago. He attended Whitney
    Young Magnet School and DePaul University and served as a
    Chicago police officer for 28 years. So thank you for that
    service, as well as to you, Nelson Wells, for your service in
    the military. But he worked everything--beat, car,
    plainclothes, bicycle, mounted, and forensic unit roles.
    Serving and protecting the public is a family business, as his
    mother, father, and three uncles were all Chicago police
    officers as well. Tim retired in 2017 and has been advocating
    tirelessly for his sister's release from prison.
        We'll then hear from Peter Humphrey, who is a British
    sinologist who has spent half a century working and studying in
    China and lived there for 25 years as a student, teacher,
    journalist, philanthropist, corporate due diligence detective,
    and then prisoner. In 2013, Peter and his American wife, Yu
    Yingzeng, were wrongfully imprisoned on false charges of
    illegal information gathering. Their only crime was to have
    offended someone with connections in the Chinese Communist
    Party. It was all about revenge.
        Since his release in 2015, Peter created a support network
    for the families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their
    welfare and for their release. Through his work he has become a
    specialist on justice and imprisonment in China and is
    undoubtedly the leading authority on foreign prisoners in
    China. In addition to his work with families and the wrongfully
    detained, he is also an external research affiliate at Harvard
    University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, an occasional
    columnist and documentary advisor, and has been a guest speaker
    at universities and think tanks about China's judicial and
    penal system. I would like to thank you for that great work.
    After suffering so much, you are just giving back so well to
    try to help all the others who have been left behind.
        I'd now like to yield such time as he would like to take to
    Mr. Wells.

               STATEMENT OF NELSON WELLS, SR., FATHER OF
              DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN NELSON WELLS, JR.

        Mr. Wells. Good morning, Chair Smith, Co-Chair Merkley, and
    esteemed Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on
    China. Thank you for inviting me and our advisor, Peter
    Humphrey, to testify at this hearing on Americans detained in
    China. My name is Nelson Wells, Sr. I am a native of New
    Orleans, Louisiana and live in Haughton, Louisiana. I am
    appearing before you on behalf of my wife, Cynthia Wells, our
    family, and asking for your assistance in bringing home our
    son, Nelson Wells, Jr., who has been unjustly imprisoned in
    China for 10 years.
        I served in the United States Army for 20 years, and
    Cynthia served at the Department of Defense for nearly 28
    years. We have been stationed and traveled all over the United
    States and the world, and most often brought our two children
    with us. In the spring of 2014, we were awakened in the middle
    of the night by a call that no parent ever wants to receive.
    Paraphrasing, the male caller said: I am a companion of Nelson.
    He's in trouble. He's been arrested in China. They're going to
    kill him. Naturally, I thought it was a prank, a scam. We
    didn't even realize Nelson, at 40 years old, was in China. When
    we called his wife in Japan, she learned that he had taken a
    trip to China. And we knew we had a problem.
        Over the next weeks and months, we reached out to the
    United States embassy multiple times to find Nelson, or a
    record of his arrest. But they could not locate him. It was not
    until we contacted Mr. John Kamm at the Dui Hua Foundation that
    we were able to confirm that Nelson had indeed been arrested.
    For Nelson's part, he had been incarcerated all that time in
    China, a country where he was only visiting, where he did not
    read or speak the language, and where he did not know if we
    were looking for him or even knew that he had been arrested.
        Frightened and desperate, Nelson was willing to do anything
    to improve his conditions, even plead partially guilty so that
    he could enter the prison system to be allowed phone calls
    home. Ultimately, we learned that Nelson had been arrested on
    drug charges. As he was leaving the country, he naively agreed
    to carry a bag of what he thought to be baked goods for a so-
    called friend through the security at the airport. Those baked
    goods were allegedly laced with illegal drugs. For that one
    mistake, that one betrayal, none of our lives will ever be the
    same.
        Nelson originally received a life sentence, but that
    sentence was ultimately reduced in 2019 to 22 years. We are
    thankful to the Chinese government for that, but his sentence
    did not include time served. This means that Nelson will not be
    released until the year 2041. In the years since 2014, my wife
    and I have become consumed with efforts to secure Nelson's
    release, to ensure his safety and health while in prison. We
    expended almost all of our savings in those early years via
    trial-and-error efforts to help Nelson, without meaningful
    guidance from our own government.
        For years, we wrote letters to our Members of Congress, to
    the White House, to State Department officials, to Democrats
    and Republicans, to anyone who was in a position of influence.
    But our calls for assistance went unanswered, until recently.
    American Citizen Services in Beijing was helpful, but some case
    officers were better than others, and they change frequently.
    One of Nelson's former best case officers is working with your
    committee now, and his current case officer is outstanding as
    well. But no matter how good or how well meaning, with each
    swap it feels like we--like Nelson--is starting all over.
        This inconsistency takes a toll on him, as have the years
    of incarceration. Over the years, Nelson has suffered from
    debilitating chronic pain, seizures, malnutrition, internal
    issues, dental pain, severe depression, and thoughts of self-
    harm. We also know that, based on family history, Nelson needs
    regular cancer and heart health screening. He also needs
    regular contact with a mental health professional, regular
    calls, ideally video calls, with us, and the ability to speak
    English with another person on a regular basis.
        We're thankful to those who have helped us, but we often
    feel that meaningful change is blocked at every turn. For
    example, Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or held
    unjustly. We've been told that humanitarian release is not a
    possibility. And although Nelson has also sought to utilize the
    2018 law in China that allows for prisoners to be transferred
    to an American facility without a bilateral treaty with the
    home country, the United States still requires a treaty. And so
    Nelson remains in Chongqing prison.
        Whatever the path, we are asking, pleading with this
    Commission, with Congress, with the administration, and with
    the Chinese government to work together on behalf of our son to
    create a pathway for outright release or prisoner transfer to a
    home prison. I hope you will read my longer testimony and
    attachments so that you understand our full story. I look
    forward to answering your questions during and after the
    hearing. Learn more about
    Nelson, my son, whom I love, and follow our story at
    www.nelsonwellsjr.com. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Nelson Wells, Sr. appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Mr. Wells.
        Mr. Li.

                       STATEMENT OF HARRISON LI,
                SON OF DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN KAI LI

        Mr. Li. Thank you, Representative Smith and Senator
    Merkley, for convening this important hearing. It's been a long
    time coming. All of us here have suffered far too many years.
    And it is about time--it's past time for more attention on our
    loved ones' plight, to bring them home.
        Today marks 2,932 days--that's more than 8 years--since my
    dad, Kai Li, was arrested in Shanghai, China. He spent 2 months
    under ``residential surveillance at a designated location,''
    during which he was held at a secret location, interrogated day
    and night with no access to legal counsel. Then almost a year
    passed before he was subjected to a closed-door trial, and
    another year went by before he was sentenced to 10 years in
    prison for stealing so-called state secrets--even though these
    alleged secrets can be freely found and searched on the
    internet, even in China.
        More than 3 years ago now, the United Nations Working Group
    on Arbitrary Detention issued a landmark decision calling for
    the release of my dad on the basis that his detention was, in
    fact, arbitrary. And yet, despite all of this, in more than 8
    years we have seen no visible positive movement on my dad's
    case. Since 2022, I am fortunate to have gotten to know a
    really large number of families of American hostages and
    wrongful detainees around the world through the Bring Our
    Families Home Campaign.
        In that time, we've seen the campaign shrink dramatically
    from 18 families now down to just 6. And that's because of
    Americans who have come home from Afghanistan in September
    2022, from Venezuela and Iran in October 2022, Russia in
    December 2022, Niger and Rwanda in March 2023, then Iran again
    in September 2023, Venezuela again in December 2023, Russia
    again last month, and finally, of course, just this past Sunday
    we were thrilled to see that David Lin was finally released and
    reunited with his family after 18 years in China.
        In fact, I got that news just as I was on the train coming
    down here to D.C. And each time we get this news, it's a really
    complex mix of emotions because, of course, you know, we're
    just so thrilled for these families. We know, of course, what
    it's like to have a loved one unjustly missing for so long, and
    to know that the family is finally being made whole again, and
    that they're on the road to recovery. You just can't help but
    feel your heart swell with pride and happiness. But at the same
    time, it raises the question for us, What about my dad? When
    will it be his turn?
        One thing that has become clear to us, in light of all
    these recent developments, is that when the various parts of
    our government--from the State Department to the National
    Security Council all the way up to the President himself--when
    they put their heads together to come up with creative
    solutions, American hostages and wrongful detainees in fact do
    come home. Frankly, it's incredibly impressive seeing how last
    month's Russia prisoner swap materialized, just the sheer level
    of effort and coordination it took really shows that these
    cases can be solved. And now seeing an American finally come
    home from China last week in a major diplomatic breakthrough,
    to us there's really no reason now why my dad--who has now
    spent more time behind bars than Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva,
    and Evan Gershkovich combined, cannot come home too.
        Unfortunately, time is not on our side. No matter who wins
    November's Presidential election, we will have a change of
    administration. And we know from experience, unfortunately,
    that that means months or even years where absolutely no
    progress on these cases will be made. And that's because
    communication channels will need to be reestablished, reworked,
    and carefully worked out. The good will that the Chinese
    government has built up by releasing Pastor Lin will fade. And
    so the next few months before President Biden leaves office is
    a critical window for getting my dad home, and getting home all
    of the Americans wrongfully detained in China.
        Personally, I've now spent a third of my life missing my
    dad. Every day, I wake up and shudder at the thought of him
    crammed in that tiny cell with anywhere from 7 to 11 other
    people, no climate control, unable to sleep in the summer due
    to the heat, experiencing the mental and physical anguish that
    Peter here, unfortunately, can tell you about firsthand, having
    spent 2 years in the very same prison and the same brigade
    where my dad is now being held. In his time in captivity, my
    dad has suffered a stroke, he's lost a tooth, he's endured
    draconian COVID-19 lockdowns that had him essentially locked in
    a cell 24/7, for over 3 years. And so I ask President Biden,
    how much longer does he need to suffer? Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Harrison Li appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Smith. Mr. Li, thank you, too, so very much. And for
    pointing out that there is a window of opportunity right now.
    There needs to be a surge. I do hope that whoever wins the
    Presidency will move quickly on this issue as well to bring
    Americans home; but you're right, the chaos, the beginning of a
    new administration can frustrate those efforts. The idea that
    there needs to be a surge right now is well taken. Thank you
    for that.
        Mr. Hunt.

                   STATEMENT OF TIM HUNT, BROTHER OF
              DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN DAWN MICHELLE HUNT

        Mr. Hunt. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, and
    members of the Commission, thank you for inviting me today to
    tell you the story of my sister, Dawn Michelle Hunt. Dawn is
    incarcerated in Guangdong Women's Prison. She was arrested in
    2014 and charged with smuggling, a charge she vehemently
    denies.
        Since her incarceration, I've written hundreds of letters
    to officials, lawyers, and anyone else who would listen. Over
    the years, things have changed. My sister and my family are
    getting worn down. Dawn's health has been failing, and our
    father's health is failing as well.
        It all started when my sister was tricked into believing
    she had won a contest. She received an email stating that she
    had won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hong Kong. She didn't
    believe it at first, but checked on the company and believed
    they were legitimate.
        She was in Hong Kong for 9 days and she told me that the
    organizers treated her well. She went sightseeing, shopping,
    and started to trust the organizers who put together her trip.
    After exploring Hong Kong, she was asked if she wanted to visit
    mainland China. After her positive experience in Hong Kong, she
    agreed. She went to mainland China and traveled around for
    another 9 days.
        The organizers then asked if she wanted to visit Australia.
    Once again, she agreed. Before she left for her Australia trip,
    she was told that she also won some designer purses. Trusting
    the organizers, she took the purses and packed them in luggage
    given to her by the organizers. It was at the airport, waiting
    to board her Australia flight, that she was called by airport
    security. They escorted her to a room and her luggage was in
    the room as well. She was asked if the luggage belonged to her,
    to which she responded ``yes.'' She stated that she was asked
    multiple times, and each time she stated ``yes,'' not knowing
    drugs were in the lining of the purses.
        I hope you can see that something like this could happen to
    a lot of people. As a matter of fact, in May of this year, the
    Secret Service issued a warning for law enforcement to educate
    the public on similar schemes. Such a warning didn't exist in
    2014.
        After her trial she was found guilty and received the
    ``death penalty with 2-year reprieve.'' She was duped. She was
    scammed! She trusted the wrong people! She doesn't deserve
    this! My sister is trusting and believes that people are good.
    This ordeal has hurt her and has taken years from her life.
        While in prison she has developed physical ailments
    (uterine fibroids and possibly ovarian cancer) according to the
    doctors who examined her in prison. She has received numerous
    blood transfusions due to heavy bleeding and has been advised
    that she needs a hysterectomy, which she has refused out of
    distrust. How can she trust the same people who have
    incarcerated her after she cooperated with the Chinese
    authorities?
        When I visited her recently in prison, I could see the
    depth of her depression. She has lost weight, her eyes are
    bulging. She has an abdominal bulge on her right side, and her
    complexion is very pale. She told me that she still has to work
    in the prison despite her illness but that she can't lift heavy
    objects because her fibroids might rupture and she would start
    bleeding. After my visit to her, I updated my father on her
    condition. I had to leave out some details of her physical
    appearance because my dad is 91 and has recently been diagnosed
    with cancer. I wanted to avoid giving him an additional shock.
        I'd like to share a bit about my father. He's an Army
    veteran and a retired Chicago Police Sergeant of 32 years.
    Policing is a family business; I followed in my dad's footsteps
    and served on the Chicago PD for 28 years until my recent
    retirement.
        Dawn Michelle is my dad's only daughter and he is
    devastated by her predicament. In a strange way, my dad is
    locked up as well. He is worried that with all this, he's not
    going to live long enough to see his daughter free and safe.
    He's getting worn down, just like my sister. We've gotten our
    hopes up over the years, only to be disappointed again and
    again. This hearing today offers us some new hope that Dawn
    will not be forgotten. I've come to learn that Chinese law
    allows for transfer of prisoners out of China and it doesn't
    require a bilateral prisoner extradition treaty. It is our hope
    that this mechanism can be used by the State Department to get
    Dawn Michelle out of a Chinese prison, get her the medical care
    she desperately needs, and get her back home to her family.
        And I'd also like to add that my sister sent me a
    handwritten letter. And in this handwritten letter, she refused
    the surgery. And she said, and I'm going to quote this to bring
    some of her own words to this hearing: ``I, Dawn Michelle,
    refuse to take the surgery and will hold China liable for all
    the consequences from August 11, 2021, in regard to my tumor
    and safety of my life.''
        I say this because China knows, in addition to the U.S.
    Embassy, that Dawn Hunt is innocent and has been since June
    2016. There is written documentation of the status in the
    courts and computers of Guangdong No. 1 Detention Center. She
    also goes on to say, and I'm going to quote this--she says,
    ``The American government has sided with China and knows of my
    innocent status from Judge Zhang Hui Ting in May 2016, but did
    nothing for their own citizen and did not prevent me from
    coming to the Chinese prison but left me out to dry.''
        Gentlemen, this isn't political for me and my family. I'm
    just asking you, as a brother, just bring my sister home. Do
    whatever it takes; just bring her home. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Tim Hunt appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hunt.
        Mr. Humphrey.

        STATEMENT OF PETER HUMPHREY, JOURNALIST, DUE DILIGENCE
          SPECIALIST, SINOLOGIST, AND FORMER PRISONER OF CHINA

        Mr. Humphrey. Good morning to you all. I have submitted
    detailed written testimony and will keep my oral remarks brief.
        I've spent almost 50 years involved with China in various
    roles. And two of those years were in Xi Jinping's prisons--
    also my American wife, Yingzeng Yu, both of us falsely accused
    of illegal information gathering for my due diligence company.
    And I have described this experience in great detail in the FT
    magazine in a long article a few years ago, and in the written
    testimony that I've submitted to you at this hearing.
        After my release, in between battles with cancer, PTSD, and
    a former client who got us into trouble, I decided to work to
    help other families suffering from similar ordeals. I have
    about 25 cases around the world in different countries, and I'm
    mentoring and supporting such families with a loved one locked
    up in China. I've accumulated many case studies and carried out
    a great amount of related research.
        The most important lesson from all of it is that not a
    single American prisoner held in China has had a fair and
    transparent trial, and prisoners there from any other country
    as well, for that matter. China's judicial system is a
    political system of oppression. It is not a system of justice.
    All of its organs--the police, the prosecution, the judiciary,
    the prisons and the Chinese lawyers--form a single organic
    whole, all controlled by the Communist Party. No judge is
    independent or impartial. He is just a messenger of the Party.
        The system is exploited by connected individuals to harm
    their perceived opponents and rivals. Cases are built upon
    forced confessions, often televised, and upon forced witness
    statements. Inside China's prisons, the prisoners, including
    Americans, are subjected to horrendous daily living conditions.
    In addition, there is forced labor for the prison's commercial
    profit. There is the withholding of proper medical treatment,
    even for cancer. And there is the writing of mandatory thought
    reports, in other words brainwashing, to mention just a few
    things.
        And speaking of labor, these are Christmas cards that were
    packaged for a Western supermarket chain called Tesco by
    foreign prisoners in Shanghai's Qingpu Prison, including
    American prisoners.
        The U.S. Government withholds the total number of Americans
    held in Xi Jinping's jails. Based on my inquiries and research
    over the years, I estimate up to around 300 Americans may be in
    some form of incarceration in China or under exit bans, mostly
    just because they are Americans. It is possible that not all of
    them are registered with American consulates.
        Now, just remember, none of them have had a fair and
    transparent trial. Some are in dire health. Some are over 50,
    aging rapidly. Some of them have been in Xi's jails for over 10
    years and are there for life. I don't think any of them deserve
    to be there. It doesn't matter what they're accused of. It
    doesn't even matter whether they are guilty or not, when they
    have never had a fair and transparent trial in an independent
    court with an impartial judge. And in Xi's China, they never
    will.
        Today, we see some new examples of American prisoners
    coming into the public view--Nelson Wells, Dawn Michelle Hunt,
    and David McMahon. They are horrific cases. They are the tip of
    an iceberg. And let me say something about David's case. David
    McMahon is the most egregious case, the most toxic case, the
    most disgusting example of China's injustice. He is one of my
    mentees. I shared a cell with him for 1 month in Shanghai in
    2014, while he was trying to appeal. I interviewed him for a
    whole month. I call it an interview because throughout my life
    I have been a professional interviewer. I've conducted
    thousands of interviews as a journalist, and then as a
    corporate investigator. And I know that David is innocent.
        This American primary school teacher was falsely accused
    and framed of molesting a 6-year-old child, a girl, in the
    Shanghai French School. How toxic can you get? I hope you will
    read the written testimony that I have submitted on David's
    behalf in his absence today, plus the testimony from
    investigator Cedric Witek and ex-prisoner Marius Balo. And I
    hope that you will read the protest letter that David McMahon
    wrote this year personally, on his 43rd birthday, in the 11th
    year of a 12-year sentence on a false conviction--an American
    robbed of his prime by the Xi Jinping system. Or I can read it
    for you, if you want me to. I have it here. I can read a
    snatch, yes? Let me get through this, Congressman, and then if
    you think I've got time I'll read a snatch or two from it,
    okay?
        Today, only three Americans held in China have been on the
    list of the U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs. One has
    just been released, to our joy, probably because of this
    imminent hearing on the calendar, which China was very well
    aware of. The timing seems to be not a coincidence at all. But
    I believe that all Americans held in China qualify to be on
    that list, first of all, because there is no independent
    judicial system and none of them have had a fair and
    transparent trial. And that is the key criterion for qualifying
    them to be on that list based on the Levinson Act.
        It's good that we have this act, but I believe the U.S.
    Government should treat all American prisoners in China
    equally. I believe the U.S. Government must abandon its policy
    of nonintervention in these judicial cases in China and should
    intervene in them all. It has a duty of care to protect its
    citizens against abusive dictatorships and their so-called
    judicial systems. It can lead the world in this pushback like
    no other country can. I imagine that these families wonder
    which candidate in the upcoming election will bring their loved
    one home.
        In the final points and recommendations of my written
    testimony I've called for legislation that would increase the
    onus on the U.S. Government to take real action for its
    citizens imprisoned in China. As Alex Karp, the founder of
    software firm Palantir, said a few days ago: If you touch an
    American, we're going to make you and your friends' life hell.
    And that's the way it should be. Americans are suffering in Mr.
    Xi's dungeons. The United States must hold China to account.
    Just imagine a new kind of Magnitsky Act to target this
    problem.
        So thank you very much. Those are my remarks. If you would
    like me to read from David McMahon's letter, I'll do that.
        ``My name is David McMahon. And I've been imprisoned for
    the past 11 years for a crime that never happened. Maybe you've
    heard of me. I've sent letters to Ambassador Burns and to Roger
    Carstens, but neither has responded to me. I'm hoping you will.
    [``you'' is referring to the Consul General Scott Walker in
    Shanghai.]
        ``I get released, as far as I know, in 1 year. [Actually,
    it's next May.] I think it's probably too late for anyone in
    the State Department to try to help me get released. I'm not
    asking for that anymore. What I'm asking now is this: Why
    didn't you help me when you had the chance? I've read the
    entire Levinson Act. My case qualifies. I've read, copied from
    the SPEHA website, what they consider to determine wrongful
    detention. But when my case was rejected [by SPEHA] they
    refused to tell me why. I don't think you, anyone at the State
    Department, anyone at the FBI, any French law enforcement
    agency, or any of the Chinese investigators can justify what's
    been done to me. I'm not going to try my case in this letter,
    but I will simply state I am completely innocent.
        ``There are approximately 13 U.S. citizens in this prison.
    [By the way, one of them is Kai Li. They're in the same place.]
    The State Department currently is only helping to recognize the
    release of one. [He means Kai]. One out of thirteen. From a
    country where all men are created equal, you only help one
    person?
        ``I remember when Brittney Griner's story was in the news.
    I don't believe for a moment that she was a drug trafficker,
    but let's be clear, she brought a small amount of illegal drugs
    into Russia. Her arrest was not in any way arbitrary. She was
    not arrested because of her race, sexuality, nationality,
    religion. She was arrested because she had drugs on her. And
    while the sentence handed to her was absurd, make no mistake
    about it--she was kind of guilty. Now I look at the Levinson
    Act, and I look at the SPEHA website, and I ask myself: How the
    hell does her case qualify for help?
        ``I'm wrongfully imprisoned. I'm not telling you how to
    feel, but if I worked for the State Department, I'd be ashamed.
    Innocent Americans left to suffer while celebrities are home in
    time for Christmas. I used to think America was better than
    that--but I digress. If you know why my case was rejected for
    help, or if you can find out, I feel that I deserve to know.
    The SPEHA's secret process of deciding who to help and who to
    abandon totally lacks transparency. The decision not to help me
    not only hurt me very deeply, but my entire family. We deserve
    an explanation.''--David
    McMahon, Qingpu Prison.
        [The prepared statement of Peter Humphrey appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Smith. Peter, thank you.
        We have a short video from Kathrine Swidan, the mother of
    Mark Swidan. She could not be here, but she asked that we play
    it right now.

                     STATEMENT OF KATHERINE SWIDAN,
            MOTHER OF DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN MARK SWIDAN

        Ms. Swidan. My name is Katherine Swidan. I'm the mother of
    Mark Swidan. He's been wrongfully detained in China, Jiangmen,
    China, for 3,641 days, nearly 10 years. In a few days, it'll be
    a 10-year anniversary.
        The way I would describe Mark is, he's a good man, he's
    funny, he's very smart, he's also gracious. Loves his mama.
    While I was on the phone with him at his hotel, I heard a lot
    of commotion. And he said, Hold on, Mom. And Chinese police got
    into his apartment. They said, we need to take you in for
    questioning. And the phone hung up. We figured, Okay, he's
    going to be questioned, they'll find out the truth. There's
    nothing there. And they'll let him go. Didn't happen.
        I just can't fathom what Mark is going through. I know he's
    suffering. I received about 300 pieces of artwork, countless
    letters. He said, ``I'm in a lot of pain, physically and
    mentally. I'm in a dark place.'' He's made out on this picture
    to be his own superhero, that nobody's going to help him so he
    has to do it himself. It took 8 years before anyone paid
    attention to me. I feel like I'm one little woman against all
    China.
        When Mark comes home--I say when, not if--but when Mark
    comes home I have to be greeting him coming off of that plane.
    And he said, Mama, I will come home in a box of ashes or
    walking off the plane, but I will come home.
        [Video presentation ends.]
        Chair Smith. Katherine, thank you for producing and
    submitting to this Commission that very moving video about your
    son. I know you're watching and know that, like our very
    distinguished people here who are advocating for their loved
    ones, we will work on that case as well, as a Commission, and
    do everything we can. And Peter, thank you for the way you have
    taken the cruelty you suffered, and your wife, and now have
    turned it into advocacy, and with the precision of a journalist
    asking all the right questions and doing everything you can to
    assist and to get us, in government, to do our part. Because
    again, there are some well-meaning people, but we don't do
    enough. And I think we have to triple our efforts.
        This hearing, to me, is a pivot point for us to take that
    next series of steps. And again, Mr. Li, your thoughts that
    this is a time for the Biden administration to really triple
    its efforts before it leaves--I agree with that. If that does
    not happen, know that we will try, with whomever wins the White
    House, to make this a very high priority. These are Americans.
    These are your loved ones. And we can't sit by and say, Well,
    there's only a few that are on the list. I mean, that is
    absolutely--you know, I love the statement that you gave from
    David McMahon, ``who to help and who to abandon.'' I mean, that
    says it all. All have to be helped! All have to be helped! And,
    you know, I read The New York Times piece, Tim, by Mara
    Hvistendahl, who, parenthetically, has testified before my
    committee in the past. She is an absolute truth teller. And she
    writes for The New York Times. And it was a very moving piece
    that she did. She did quote that your father, I believe it is,
    had said that he believes that she [Dawn Michelle Hunt] has
    been raped by the guards and of all things, a family of police
    officers who have protected innocent people your whole life,
    you know your father, you, your relatives--to have that kind of
    indignity, that cruelty imposed upon her. That, again,
    motivates all of us, I think, to triple our efforts as well.
    And we will, I guarantee it.
        I know, and Mr. Wells, you are concerned about this as
    well--that African Americans have been mistreated, perhaps even
    more so, because of racism. I remember reading extensively
    about how African students in China were mistreated so very
    often. So, you know, there they are studying in China and not
    being well treated. So there is a significant racist issue with
    an undertow of hatred toward Africans and African Americans
    that has to be taken into consideration. All people are equal
    and need to be protected. We need to be aware of that. And that
    needs to come into the equation as well.
        You know, the whole idea of not having a treaty or a way of
    transferring a trickle of people that are on the list--that is
    un-
    acceptable. As you said, Peter Humphrey, all these trials are
    sham trials. All these processes that are undergone--if you're
    accused, you're guilty, that's it. And it's just how long
    you're going to serve, and on trumped-up charges to boot. So
    there is no judicial independence. The judges are all part of
    the Chinese Communist Party apparatus. And we need to realize
    that and not put our head in the sand like ostriches, you know,
    and say, Well, we can't deal with that.
        Trumped-up charges--it's the worst game in the book. If I
    go to China tomorrow, they could trump up--I'm barred right now
    from going because of my advocacy. But, frankly, if I go, I am
    always aware that something can be put into my suitcase--
    because they come in and they check your suitcases anyway. They
    rifle through them when you're in a hotel. You know, it might
    be harder to do that to somebody that's an elected official,
    but not beyond. Your families are totally at risk.
        So--window of opportunity. We need to surge. But the surge
    has to go right into the next administration. This has to
    become the priority. These Americans have been left behind, and
    Xi Jinping has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that in the
    annals of history he will go down as one of the worst
    dictators. But that doesn't mean everybody around him has to be
    complicit in that. You know, there are people who hopefully
    will say, wait a minute. Time out. The maltreatment needs to
    stop. You know, it brings dishonor to the Chinese Communist
    Party to treat people in this horrendous way, and not honor.
    Yes, they're feared. Big deal. But it brings dishonor and loss
    of face to so mistreat people and trump up charges.
        And I get your point about David Lin. You know, what about
    your families? You were so happy for him to be released,
    joyous. But I understand the sense of disappointment that you
    feel anew. Hope rises, but--and, again, this idea of
    celebrities always getting the additional focus, whatever they
    are. You know, I'm glad that reporters and basketball players--
    very glad that they get out. But you're all celebrities,
    especially in the eyes of God. We're all equal in the eyes of
    God. And, you know, all people are equal and need to be treated
    so. So I would ask that all of us focus on that, too.
        The media doesn't cover the hardworking American man or
    woman, or like your sister, Tim, who got tricked. How easy it
    is for them to trick your sister, as they did. So I would just
    ask if you'd want to respond to that--the idea that there
    should be no differentiation between a celebrity and somebody
    who's a good, honest, hardworking person like yourselves. And,
    again, not only the U.S., but the world, has to stop its
    complicity by its indifference. And I know--and maybe you could
    speak to how the State Department has handled your cases.
        I know, because I just chaired a hearing on child parental
    abduction--I wrote a law on it 10 years ago--and they feel that
    they get short shrift from the U.S. Department of State. There
    are great people at the Department of State. But very often the
    individual cases get crowded out by big geopolitical concerns,
    and to me it should be the other way around, because the canary
    in the coal mine is how well or poorly they're treating that
    individual, that vulnerable person. And I think we need to make
    the biggest statement and push for your families. They're
    Americans. They need to be rescued.
        So if any of you would like to speak about how well or
    poorly you think the State Department--and without any fear of
    retaliation. You know, we're all here to work for you. And that
    goes for the U.S. Department of State. It goes for the
    President. Goes for Members of Congress, House and Senate. So,
    I mean, you pay our salaries, you elect us. We have an
    obligation, a duty, to respond as aggressively and as
    effectively as we can. And again, Tim, reading that New York
    Times piece, just, again, the mistreatment, and Mr. Wells as
    well, because they're African American, that's a further
    abomination in this process. So if any of you would like to
    speak to that.
        Mr. Hunt.
        Mr. Hunt. Yes. Thank you, Senator. The State Department,
    American Citizen Services, they have been helpful in some ways.
    When my father went to visit my sister, he actually missed his
    flight home. And when I went to pick him up, he wasn't on the
    flight, and I thought he was detained as well. And I did a
    quick phone call, and the person at ACS, she located him, told
    me, made me feel comfortable. And said, hey, he missed this
    flight. He should be--he's on this flight. He should be on his
    way home. However, as Mr. Wells stated, these officers change
    quite frequently. So it's--I'm not trying to downplay it--it's
    almost as if when you call someone or when you write an email,
    it would be the same as if you have a problem, you call
    customer service, and they say, Oh yes, well, I'm going to
    transfer you to another department, and then you have to
    explain it all over again.
        And unfortunately--I won't make light of it--that's sort of
    how it is. And if it's that way with us, imagine how it is
    trying to get information from the prison about our loved ones,
    if the officers who are taking care of our loved ones continue
    to change. They don't know our loved one's story. They don't
    know if they need medical attention. They don't know if
    they're--what they're going through, because they're new. And
    try as they might, they have to get caught up with each
    individual case. And, just to bring up quickly, it took me
    between six and eight months to visit my sister because the
    Chinese prison didn't submit the paperwork to give to ACS, so I
    could have permission to see her. However, ACS was helpful in
    facilitating my visit. But it took that long for me to have
    that visit arranged.
        Chair Smith. Mr. Li.
        Mr. Li. Yes. Thank you, Chair Smith, for asking the
    question. I will say--yes, I echo Tim's statements about ACS.
    You know, they, for the most part, try their best to help. They
    have been able to push for monthly consular visits for my dad.
    But of course, at the same time, it has varied. We've seen so
    many officers come and go very quickly. So, you know, it's hard
    to maintain that long connection.
        I also wanted to speak to another aspect, which Peter
    touched on, reading from David's letter, about designation of
    cases by the State Department. Now, of course, my father is
    fortunate to be one of the cases that has been designated, but
    obviously that's not the case for the others on the stage. And
    I fully agree that there's no transparency in that process. You
    know, for the first 4 years my dad also was not designated by
    SPEHA. We asked for it and we just got the response--no. You
    know, it's not going to happen.
        I've worked with a lot of other families who are trying to
    go through this process in other countries. And it's really--
    it's really the same. You know, the Levinson Act is great, but
    there's no timeline for a response. There's no transparency.
    And it really does seem like families are owed that at a
    minimum. They should be provided the opportunity to be told, if
    no, then why not? And what additional information is needed?
    But to my understanding, that's never been offered to any of
    the families. It's unfortunate that it's creating this kind of
    division. You know, it really should not be the case. And I
    think this process of designation needs to be reviewed
    thoroughly for that reason.
        Mr. Wells. Thank you, Chairman Smith. I would like to say
    that what Tim and Harrison said, I agree 100 percent on some of
    the things. And I share their same pain. But one of the things
    that appalled me the worst is when we called the embassy--and
    they couldn't find my child. It took an outside source to find
    him. And then after they did find him, we didn't know how to
    navigate through this at all, period. So we wondered, how could
    they--you all--support us in trying to get Nelson home? My
    response to what they said was an angry one. And I have spoken
    with an outburst many times on Zoom calls. I guess they
    probably feel they don't want to deal with Mr. Wells.
        And the reason is because I think the policies should be
    improved. I think they should have more power to be able to
    visit, to be able to get the medical records that we are
    demanding for the prisoners. When we asked them if there was
    any way they could advise us on legal representation, they
    said, No, this is not something we can do. So if you're a
    family with no political background or power, you're out there
    all alone. And I believe that the embassy, being that they are
    supposed to support American citizens, should be more
    accountable for helping us in getting the support we need. If
    it hadn't been for Cynthia, as strong as she is, and staying up
    all night, and corresponding with Mr. Humphrey, Mr. Kamm, we
    would probably have never found Nelson. And to me, I think we
    need to do a better job. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Recently, I put together a meeting with
    families--left-behind parents through parental child abduction.
    Like I said, I wrote a law on that. And we had Rena Bitter,
    who's the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, sit in on
    that meeting, as well as other administration people. And the
    beauty of it was she sat across from people who had very
    serious criticisms that needed to be taken into account and
    then rectified. And she walked away after a 2-hour meeting--it
    was just recently we did this--saying, we need to change this,
    we need to work on that.
        I would love if you can come back, whenever you can. We can
    put it together as quickly as you can come. She's a very
    responsive person. She runs it all. There's always a problem
    with crossing into the political side with the assistant
    secretaries who manage--human rights becomes a sub-issue. And
    that's been on every human rights issue, from religious freedom
    to you-name-it. But, again, these are American human rights
    that are being violated with impunity. But I would invite you,
    if we could put together that meeting--we'll do it. And if you
    can come and share this with her and her staff, I think that
    will lead to serious reform. Because she has been responding
    extremely well on the parental abduction issue. And she's done
    that before with some of the issues that we've brought to her
    attention.
        So I would invite you. We'll put it together, a week, 2
    weeks, whatever works for you and her. Roundtable, no press,
    just talk and get it right. Because I think that feedback, they
    don't get it necessarily. It does not percolate up to the top.
        Mr. Humphrey.
        Mr. Humphrey. I'll just pick up on the comments the other
    three witnesses made about service on the ground, as it were--
    ACS, etc. I mean, everything Mr. Li said I can certainly
    confirm, because I've been involved in many cases, not just
    some of these here. Their experiences are very, very, similar
    to my wife's as well, because my wife was in prison at the same
    time--an American citizen. And one of the questions that people
    often ask me about our experience is, How well did your
    government perform? How much did they help you? And I always
    answer this in a two-tiered way.
        I say, well, you know, there's the nanny and messenger
    service, first of all. And that's the service provided by
    consular officers who visit people in the prisons. And they're
    allowed to bring messages and letters and sometimes reading
    material, and so forth, and to carry messages from you back to
    your family. I call that the nanny and the messenger service.
    And I say, well, that service is provided very well by the U.K.
    consulate, in my case, and by the U.S. consulate in my wife's
    case. But there's this other level of service--which I think is
    necessary, and that is at the higher political level--which is
    completely lacking.
        So it comes down to, when people visit us, you ask them for
    this or that, you ask them to do this or that. And they say,
    I'm sorry, we can't--we can't intervene in your case. That was
    the phrase I heard many times during consular visits. And my
    wife also heard this phrase many times. And that's wrong. You
    know, where there is no real justice--you can't treat China as
    a country under the rule of law in the way we understand the
    rule of law to be for our own citizens. You have to intervene.
        And finally, in connection with the same issue, after my
    release and when I started investigating my own case, and what
    had happened to me and all the things I didn't know when I was
    behind those walls, I tracked down a former ACS officer--in
    other words a State Department officer--who had been
    coincidentally both the visitor to my wife and the visitor to
    David McMahon at the same time in the Shanghai detention
    center. That's the pretrial detention center. I tracked him
    down and I interviewed him twice for a couple of hours as part
    of my investigation, and he told me how he would come away from
    visits to David McMahon feeling very, very troubled because--
    and then he said, there's a film I want you to watch. It's
    called ``The Hunt.'' ``The Hunt'' is a Danish film about a
    schoolteacher who is falsely accused of molesting a young boy,
    and the whole thing balloons into a witch hunt and this poor
    man is almost harassed into suicide. And so he was basically
    telling me that he did not believe David was guilty. He visits
    him--visited him many times in his capacity and he was coming
    away from this thinking, This man is innocent--but I'm not
    allowed to say that.
        And when his superiors found out that I'd been talking to
    him about this--he was silenced. I find this very unacceptable
    and I think it's an illustration of this problem of ``we cannot
    intervene.'' We must. We absolutely must intervene in these
    cases.
        Chair Smith. Senator Merkley.
        Co-chair Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Wells, in your testimony you note that American Citizen
    Services in Beijing was very helpful in arranging visits or
    helpful in visiting, calling, communicating, reporting back.
    Were any of those visits by you or your family or were those
    visits they were conducting and then reporting back to you?
        Mr. Wells. Mr. Merkley, all those visits were from ACS. We
    never had any visits at all, period. All information that we
    get is from them and every communication--we may have phone
    calls that we will engage or some Zoom calls that we set up--
    basically they will give us a personal comment as we speak. But
    it's always been emails and done by them.
        Co-chair Merkley. And I assume you've all sought to visit
    but always been turned down?
        Mr. Wells. Yes.
        Co-chair Merkley. And Mr. Li, have you been able to visit
    your father?
        Mr. Li. Senator Merkley, I have never visited my father in
    prison. I believe--you know, he spent 3 years in a pretrial
    detention center where no outside visits were allowed. Now that
    he's in the prison I believe he is allowed visits from family
    but I've personally chosen not to visit my father as much as I
    would like to due to the inherent risk to myself and my family
    for doing so.
        Co-chair Merkley. This is something I'm going to follow up
    on in terms of trying to understand what the norms are and the
    protections are for Americans to be able to visit their family
    members.
        And Mr. Hunt, you noted that your sister had a series of
    things and I think that was your observation. You were able to
    visit her?
        Mr. Hunt. Yes, Senator. In June of this year I went to
    visit my sister. If you'd like to know I can tell you how it
    was. ACS did arrange that visit. However, there was a letter
    that ACS was supposed to tender to me and that letter was the
    letter that allowed me to visit my sister. It was basically the
    permission slip to visit her and they didn't give it to me
    until the day of my visit. There was nothing that I had before
    that except the communication from ACS but not the
    communication from the Chinese government--that had their seal
    and their stamp that allowed me to visit.
        So I still visited her without that letter, and I just want
    to highlight the point that I didn't access my emails once I
    was in China so the permission slip that ACS gave me--I should
    have gotten that earlier so I had it. I just went there with an
    ACS communication from our government, not a permission slip
    from their government. So that was one risk that I inherited.
        In visiting her, just so you know, there are armed guards--
    military-type guards that are outside of the prison that escort
    you with long guns, weapons, everything. They took my passport.
    They held my passport, so I understand why Mr. Li would not
    want to visit because there's no guarantee you're going to get
    your passport back. After this hearing I don't believe it would
    be advisable for me to go and visit my sister again.
        Co-chair Merkley. And you mentioned ATS. ATS stands for----
        Mr. Hunt. ACS. American Citizen Services.
        Co-chair Merkley. Oh, American--oh, ACS. Okay. Just to
    clarify.
        And that is a group that's formally liaised with our State
    Department?
        Mr. Hunt. Yes, it's part of the State Department.
        Co-chair Merkley. Part of the State Department. Okay.
        I look forward to learning more about that because I know
    visits can be pretty meaningful to those of our families that
    are detained, but the risks, the uncertainty about what else
    might happen, one injustice implies another injustice may
    occur.
        Several of you mentioned a law--a Chinese law--and you
    expand on it in detail, Mr. Humphrey--a 2018 PRC law on
    international judicial assistance and criminal matters, and you
    say that--if I understand the testimony right--this law allows
    for the opportunity for foreign prisoners to be transferred to
    a facility near their home which I assume is back, in this
    case, in the United States.
        But then you note, ``To the best of my knowledge the U.S.
    Government has never explored this mechanism on behalf of any
    individual.'' Are there other governments that have been able
    to utilize this? Has Canada been able to utilize this? Have
    European countries utilized----
        Mr. Humphrey. I know of two successful cases by France
    bringing citizens home that way. The other cases are not so
    prominent countries, not so obvious democracies, such as
    Turkey, for example. But France has been very diligent in
    helping its citizens get out of these situations in China.
        Co-chair Merkley. So at least one Western nation has been
    able to utilize this----
        Mr. Humphrey. Yes.
        Co-chair Merkley. And I think that in your testimony you
    note that a response from our government as to why they have
    not explored this mechanism is that we do not have a transfer
    treaty with China--and you note that a transfer treaty is not
    required.
        Mr. Humphrey. Yes. I mean, between governments it is
    possible to establish what's called a PTA, which is a prisoner
    transfer agreement. That is a treaty and it provides a
    framework for prisoner transfers. I know a lot have been done
    with some of the Middle Eastern countries but America doesn't
    have one. Some European countries do and they have used the
    treaty mechanism to manage transfers.
        But the point about the law, Senator--the Chinese law--is
    that it provides a nontreaty pathway to do something similar on
    a case by case, individually negotiated basis, and the onus is
    on the foreign government to open the discussion by saying, We
    would like to speak to you about such and such a person, and
    this should be directed toward the Chinese ministry of justice
    and the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs.
        And there is no requirement on China's part that a PTA must
    exist bilaterally with that particular country in order to use
    this law. The American government, however, has taken the
    position that we can't do it without a treaty with China
    because somehow our law doesn't allow it. But I have actually
    not seen any law which disallows this.
        Co-chair Merkley. Are you aware of whether our State
    Department has pursued the possibility of such a treaty?
        Mr. Humphrey. The possibility of what, sir?
        Co-chair Merkley. Such a treaty, a treaty on----
        Mr. Humphrey. I don't think so. I'm not aware that they
    have.
        Co-chair Merkley. Well, certainly, this is something that
    we can follow up on as well, both the treaty strategy and the
    use of the 2018 law in the fashion that France has used it.
        Just as we've noted in all your testimony, China is not a
    rule-of-law nation and so I'm well aware that no matter what
    they have in their law, when it comes to their strategy--and we
    see their strategy of transnational repression all the time--of
    what they're doing to their own citizens as well as detaining
    our citizens, my heart really does go out to each of you on
    your family members detained under these various premises. I
    think about my own children and if my own child had been told
    they won a contest, and then developed a relationship over
    time, going to Hong Kong and then to China and then invited to
    go to Australia and then told that they won some purses--they
    get to take those, too--how easy and seductive that scam is. Or
    to carry baked goods laced with drugs or to have something
    invented to detain somebody. Or to send a message to everyone
    else, in the case of your father, Mr. Li.
        And our relationship with China, I think, has really taken
    a terrible turn under President Xi. My impression is that these
    circumstances became much more difficult and common following
    Xi coming to power. I'm not sure if that's accurate but, Mr.
    Humphrey, could you comment on that?
        Mr. Humphrey. I think that's accurate to say. As an
    overview of this whole thing over the last 10 or 12 years--
    we've seen the situation growing steadily worse in China's
    prisons and in particular for foreign prisoners whom he is
    trying to drag down to the same treatment as Chinese prisoners,
    whereas 12 years ago foreign prisoners were treated much
    better.
        Senator, there was another point in connection with your
    original question to me and that is that there's a very able
    American lawyer based in Beijing. His name is James Zimmerman,
    known as Jim Zimmerman, and we have a memo from him on the
    subject of this Chinese law where he sets out the case along
    the lines I just described to you, and we would be happy to
    share that memo with you.
        Co-chair Merkley. Great. That would be----
        Mr. Humphrey. And I can also assure you that John Kamm
    holds a similar view as well on this topic.
        Co-chair Merkley. Great. And, Mr. Wells, you mentioned in
    the beginning it was very hard to find anyone in the U.S.
    Government to help. As you see others go through this--is the
    place that you direct them to now, this American Citizen
    Services branch of the State Department, is this the key group
    to help facilitate contact with the Chinese government in
    regard to detained individuals?
        Mr. Wells. Yes. I think that's something that they
    definitely need to improve on, and one of the things that was
    brought to my attention--Mr. John Kamm, he's a great advocate--
    there was always a list whenever an American was detained
    overseas that would come on his radar and the shocking thing
    was when we spoke to him he said, I'm surprised that Nelson
    didn't come on our radar.
        So when we contacted the embassy he was able to find them
    before the embassy was and I was confused because it took his
    information--for him to give it to us and for us to give it to
    them and that was when they were able to find him.
        Co-chair Merkley. Right. No, that does raise real questions
    about why--what network existed that our government didn't
    succeed in accessing when you were in need.
        You've given us--you've shared your stories which, as I
    mentioned in my initial statement, by you speaking to us you're
    really speaking to our Nation, and this process publicizes not
    just your individual cases but the overall challenge that we
    face with citizens being detained in China. And so you've given
    us some ideas of how we might pursue improvements. So thank you
    very much for taking the time and effort to be here. I hope
    that there is a celebration in each of your futures. You're not
    only helping your own family members, you're helping many other
    families as well.
        Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator.
        Just to conclude, have any of you had any contact with our
    Ambassador, Nicholas Burns? Has he been in contact with you?
        Mr. Li. Yes. I will comment that in our case Ambassador
    Burns has been in touch with our family. He has, fortunately,
    visited my father three times in prison. We're grateful for the
    work that he's doing for my father and I know he's also visited
    Mark Swidan. But ultimately, he's not going to be able to bring
    them home; we need a more coordinated, larger government
    effort.
        Chair Smith. Okay. Mr. Wells.
        Mr. Wells. For our family we've had no contact at all, and
    to my knowledge I'm not sure he's even aware of my son.
        Chair Smith. Well, he will be after today. So thank you for
    that.
        Mr. Wells. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Mr. Hunt.
        Mr. Hunt. No. My family has had no contact with him.
        Chair Smith. Again, if you're not on the right list you
    don't have contact and that's contemptible. As Peter Humphrey
    pointed out, this is not a rule-of-law country. So we will do
    our level best to engage him.
        You know, interestingly enough, Daniel Kritenbrink, who is
    the assistant secretary for Near East and Pacific Affairs--he's
    on this Commission. So it would be very helpful, with you as
    the family members, to have that kind of meeting with a member
    of the Commission who is also a point person for the
    administration with regard to policy.
        And I would also add that Uzra Zeya is also--she's the
    undersecretary. She's been at some of our hearings and I know
    her staff is following this today. We'll put together a meeting
    to just convey all of this and your points.
        I have to say this. I understand how frustrating it is when
    they change case officers and somebody is reading a chart
    somewhere, maybe, about your case. One time I was so frustrated
    with this transfer of the case to someone else who has no idea
    what your case is all about. That's if they even open up a case
    for you.
        It reminded me of a--I'm a big ``Seinfeld'' fan and there
    was one famous episode where George Costanza had the Penske
    file and he kept holding the file saying, I've got it--and
    nothing was happening with it. It was just information that was
    going nowhere, nothing actionable. So, you know, by being here
    today my hope is it'll help make your cases actionable.
        Mr. Li, I know that yours already is but, Mr. Wells and Mr.
    Hunt, yours are not, at least the way they should be. So we'll
    work on that and we'll try to get Daniel and others to come and
    meet, as well as the head of Consular Affairs.
        I have found that Consular Affairs is very often empathetic
    but it stops there, as you pointed out, Peter, when it gets to
    the political side. And this is something that causes
    consternation at the political level so, therefore, we drop it
    and don't do all that we can do. Your point is well taken.
        Michelle Steel, by the way, is still with us. Commissioner
    Steel, do you have a question or any comment you want to make?
        Representative Steel. Yes.
        Chair Smith. Oh, good.
        Representative Steel. I just have questions because I've
    been engaging with the State Department. I have another
    constituent that's been detained in China. So we try to work
    with them and we tried to ask the State Department how they
    negotiated the release of Pastor Lin this time.
        So to all the witnesses, how can we improve policy tools
    and resources to deter foreign governments from engaging in the
    wrongful detention of U.S. nationals and citizens of other
    countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea, and others? Are
    there policy options? Could Congress consider disincentivizing
    foreign governments for engaging in the wrongful detention of
    U.S. nationals? Anybody can answer this if you have any idea.
        Mr. Humphrey. It sounds to me really like a question for
    Senators and Congressmen to address. I don't think any of us
    really are qualified to make such suggestions at a really high
    level.
        Representative Steel. So you don't have----
        Mr. Humphrey. What deterrence we could introduce to deter
    that awful government in Beijing from arresting so many
    Americans--it's hardball, you know.
        Representative Steel. Yes it is. It is.
        Mr. Humphrey. You have to play hardball back. What else can
    I say? I mean, obviously, I'm not suggesting that you go around
    arresting lots of Chinese citizens who are innocent in America,
    but you are the leaders and you have to fight back for your
    citizens.
        Representative Steel. Thank you, Mr. Humphrey. The thing is
    that, while we've been working with the State Department, a lot
    of times we get very frustrated and, you know, open up the
    conversation. That's the State Department issue that was the
    one I asked.
        What's going to be so helpful--what role do other leaders
    and those global platforms have in raising awareness on this
    issue, especially corporate America or people with major
    platforms? Should they criticize abuses and raise awareness?
    I'm saying this because I actually sent a letter out before the
    Beijing Olympics. We had 17 corporate sponsors for the
    Olympics. They spent billions of dollars, and I asked them can
    you use a little bit of that platform to find out--to let the
    whole world know what China is doing, how China is abusing the
    system, and they're the one detaining our--and not just our,
    citizens but at the same time the human rights violations that
    they've been practicing. It's just awful that, you know, we
    hear those stories.
        So do you think it is good that these corporations--by the
    way, after we sent a letter out to those 17 Olympic sponsor
    corporations, none of them answered. So do you think that they
    should use major platforms and then, you know what? We have to
    let the whole world know what China is doing.
        Mr. Humphrey. I think that this problem, the types of
    prisoners who we've been discussing today--and we're not
    talking about Chinese political prisoners or religious
    prisoners in general but the type of prisoners we're talking
    about today are people who are accused of common crimes--I
    would call them common crimes, whether it's theft or fraud or
    rape or whatever, whether they're guilty or not, and this is a
    systemic problem that so many people are getting prosecuted and
    convicted on totally murky bases, with no fairness, no
    transparency, no proper defense.
        So it is systemic. It's the Chinese system and one thing
    you can do is talk more to other governments of similar mind
    and spirit about this to try to exert more international
    influence, put more pressure on China to behave. I don't see
    that happening very much when it comes to the prisoners who are
    accused of common crimes. I think they're very often forgotten
    about. But you can do that, I think. You only need to get four
    or five or six governments together on the same page on the
    same platform.
        I will point out that later this month the Australian
    Senate is holding a hearing similar to this one. They have an
    inquiry ongoing and they will report in November. I will be
    speaking at this Senate hearing there.
        And I think that's another example of how you can connect.
    In the U.K. we've had a lower key thing last year which I
    participated in and I'm working at the moment to try and get
    something like this convened in the EU parliament as well. So I
    would suggest that one way of strengthening your muscle
    internationally is to combine with other countries to provide a
    united front against China to behave.
        Representative Steel. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman. I yield back.
        Chair Smith. Thank you so much.
        Commissioner Nunn.
        Representative Nunn. Well, thank you, Chairman, very much
    for bringing us all together here to talk about just a--
    historically challenged Beijing.
        As we look at bringing Americans home--I think you have
    highlighted specifically the intent of the Communist Party
    within China to use Americans as a pawn in a larger political
    game, so let me be clear from the git-go, Mr. Chairman, that
    any nation that holds Americans hostage to exert their
    political will against the United States is, first and
    foremost, responsible for those Americans' safety and their
    safe return to the United States, and second, that the full
    weight of the American people is looking on those countries to
    be responsible actors in making sure those hostages are brought
    home.
        We expect our citizens to be treated well and we expect
    them to be released. As an Air Force officer for more than two
    decades serving on our Nation's front line, I know that no
    mission is complete until every American makes their way back
    to U.S. soil.
        It is completely unacceptable, even though China is our
    number-one trading partner, that there are more Americans
    detained in China than anywhere else on Earth. Due to the lies
    and deceptions of the Chinese Communist Party we are unsure
    exactly how many Americans are even being held today on the
    mainland in China.
        But what we do know is that our fellow Americans, including
    this incredible panel before us today, are on the front line of
    exposing how many Americans are being held in captivity
    including Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt.
        Each faces unknown health concerns, potential threats of
    torture, mistreatment at the hands of the CCP, and I want to
    begin by thanking each of you for taking time to come here
    today to share your stories and be the face for so many stories
    that remain unspoken at this time.
        The threats from the CCP range. We know that its false
    imprisonment for trumped-up charges of espionage simply for
    preaching Christianity in China--to family members who were
    detained and used as political pawns against the United States.
    These Americans have unjustly and unfairly found their freedom
    stolen by the Chinese Communist Party.
        It's our duty today to bring attention to these very
    important cases and work hard to ensure that we bring all of
    our brothers and sisters back home. So thank you each and, Mr.
    Humphrey, I'd like to begin with you. You are a China expert.
    You're a former CCP detainee yourself.
        In June of this year four citizens from my state, teachers
    from Iowa teaching at Cornell, were viciously attacked in rural
    China simply for being Westerners. But, certainly, it appears
    that the attack may have been propagated by an anti-West
    feeling stoked by local officials.
        According to ABC News these four instructors from Cornell
    were brutally attacked simply by bumping into a 55-year-old
    Chinese national. There seemed to be an overall hostility
    toward Westerners throughout the region. So I want to begin.
    Does the CCP look for opportunities to target, attack, and
    arrest ordinary citizens while operating in China?
        Mr. Humphrey. What we can say, I think, is that the CCP
    under Xi Jinping's leadership--in other words, him--has
    fostered an atmosphere of xenophobia in China during his reign
    and we've seen it expressed initially in policies toward the
    outside world and we've seen it expressed in constraints and
    harassment of foreigners in China.
        But there's an element in the Chinese population which
    takes these kind of signals as signals to get rough with people
    and--there was a prisoner--American prisoner--held in the same
    cell as Nelson Wells some years ago. He's out now. He's a
    footballer and his name's Wendell Brown, from Detroit, and he
    was certainly a victim of that type of arrest where he was
    working, coaching in China, and he started to get bullied in a
    bar because he was with a Chinese woman and some local people
    started a fight with him and he got arrested and jailed for
    brawling.
        I think he was held for a few years--two and a half years,
    something like that--and a skillful Chinese lawyer got him out
    in the end with a reduced sentence. That's an example of the
    atmosphere that you're talking about, Commissioner Nunn.
        Xi Jinping has engendered an atmosphere of hatred of the
    outside world in China today. Not everyone buys it but the kind
    of people who beat up, you know, your four guys from Iowa--they
    were victims of precisely this atmosphere which he has created.
        He came to power saying, you know, we need to clean up all
    this foreign trash we've got in China. That was precisely the
    time when we saw this wave of people getting arrested and
    imprisoned in the category of Dawn Hunt, Nelson Wells, and Mark
    Swidan. They were all taken in that period as that atmosphere
    was being whipped up by the new Xi Jinping regime.
        I hope that answers your question.
        Representative Nunn. Mr. Humphrey, thank you very much. And
    let me first say as somebody who has worked as a counter-
    intelligence officer in Guangzhou, a large swath of Chinese
    people truly believe in a greater humanity and it's a salute to
    those who are trying to push back against this type of
    brutality coming out of it.
        Mr. Humphrey. Yes.
        Representative Nunn. But this is clearly a dictate coming
    from the CCP trying to identify leverage, in my opinion,
    against the United States. And their tactic now has become this
    incarceration of U.S. citizens to use as leverage. And this
    goes for Hamas or anyone else.
        Mr. Humphrey. I agree with you entirely.
        Representative Nunn. Let me ask this. When the CCP arrests
    and detains American citizens, what do you believe is the
    ultimate goal when they take these individuals, as you know,
    for brawling--for years in a Chinese detention facility?
        Mr. Humphrey. I mean, I think in a way they see it, like,
    as a warehouse, and they're building up inventory in that
    warehouse to trade off when they need to. In fact, one of my--
    one of my detention center guards, a senior one, once said to
    me, we're just a warehouse. We move people in and at some point
    in time we move people out. So that metaphor is very
    applicable, I think. They're building stock to trade on.
        Representative Nunn. That is frightening and I think
    absolutely, something we would say in the military, building a
    stock of blood chits that they get to cash in--that happen to
    be U.S. citizens that they're housing. In your words, and I
    think it's correct, warehousing American citizens for a time
    that they want to gain leverage over the United States.
        Mr. Humphrey. Yes.
        Representative Nunn. Can I just briefly--what are the
    tactics they're using--you noted instigating a brawl to be able
    to identify--are these intended targets? Are they looking
    across the board? Is it happenstance? How do they go after what
    you call these common crimes to be able to draw a noose around
    an American?
        Mr. Humphrey. I do think it's partly happenstance and
    opportunism when an opportunity arises and it involves those
    kinds of people--those kinds of Chinese people, those elements.
    They take the opportunity. I mean, I know many cases where
    foreigners including Americans have been subjected to this
    treatment over the last 10, 12, 15 years. It's been quite
    common.
        Representative Nunn. Mr. Humphrey, you brought up a very
    good point here. This is not unique to just the United States.
    They are targeting other nations as well. Could you share with
    us who else is being targeted in these wholesale roundups of
    foreigners?
        Mr. Humphrey. I think the Japanese are a particularly
    favorite target because even though there's not such a large
    number of Japanese in prison in China, they're harassed a lot
    because there's a lot of hatred toward the Japanese nation in
    China.
        But we see it also with Australia. Australia has a
    substantial number of prisoners in China, and we see it in
    general toward the laowai, the dabizi, or the foreigners around
    in China. There are less of them now because in recent years
    they've been leaving in an exodus, you know. There are far
    fewer foreigners in China now because of this atmosphere which
    has been created.
        Representative Nunn. I'd like to talk to the families,
    particularly those who have loved ones currently in detention
    there. It's an open question, but, Mr. Li, I'll start with you.
    Your father was arrested on unspecified so-called espionage
    charges. How are Americans treated when they go through these
    Chinese courts? You had a front row seat to it. Is it
    transparent? Is there an appeal process? Does the accused get
    any kind of defense?
        Mr. Li. Thank you for the question, Mr. Nunn.
        Yes. Look, it's certainly not a transparent process. I
    think that goes without saying. Like I said, my father did not
    have access to legal representation in the first six months
    when he was being interrogated. The trial was behind closed
    doors.
        Members from the consulate tried to attend but were not
    able to get in and, you know, it's because allegedly the trial
    is about ``state secrets''--so that's a convenient way for them
    to bar access to the trial.
        So it's certainly not a transparent process. It's a long
    process. You know, for my father it was two years from initial
    detention to sentencing. For a lot of others it's been,
    unfortunately, much, much longer.
        In terms of an appeal process, such a process exists. My
    father did appeal his sentence. Ultimately, it got denied. I am
    not aware of a single case in which an appeal has been
    successful.
        Representative Nunn. Mr. Wells, first of all, thank you for
    your military service and long-rendered sacrifice for our
    country. You are now fighting another battle, to bring your son
    home. When he was detained by the Chinese, can you speak about
    or are you aware of the type of environment he was placed in
    once in the Chinese detention facility, how he was treated, and
    what updates you have on his well-being?
        Mr. Wells. Thank you, Mr. Nunn.
        As I stated before, it took us a while to find Nelson. He
    was in a detention center quite a long time and while he was
    there he wasn't able to reach out to us. So when we did find
    out where he was and we contacted numerous lawyers and that
    didn't work out well, but there was one lawyer that picked up
    the case and he said, I will try to assist Nelson.
        But by the time he got there Nelson had already gone to
    trial and, as Harrison said, it was closed. He didn't have
    anybody to speak for him so it had to be through
    interpretation. But it was already stamped that Nelson was
    going to be guilty regardless.
        But one of the things that the lawyer did tell us, he said,
    while I was there I was able to do two things. The first thing
    is that I listened to what the case was about, and he said that
    it was inconclusive. He said, As far as I'm concerned Nelson
    should be free.
        The second thing that he was able to do is to tell Nelson
    that your parents are aware that you are in this situation and
    that they are doing everything they can so that you will not
    feel like you are all alone and by yourself.
        Those were the only two things that he was able to do. But
    when Nelson finally talked to us--and you've got to remember
    that all his phone calls are monitored. They are censored. So
    when he had the opportunity to talk to us he started telling us
    the duress that he was under, how he was being treated, how the
    guards were handling him and doing things that--to me, it's
    inhumane.
        So he was crying out, Pops, get me out of here! Get me out
    of here! I can't take it! So I told him--as we started
    discussing--they hung up the phone. He was able to give us
    another call--six months later. He asked us were we making any
    progress, and he was still in this detention. So he said, I've
    got to get out of here, so I set up an appeal and the appeal
    should help me get out. Is there any legal assistance that you
    could help me with?
        And I told him that we were--it's hard to tell your child
    that your hands are tied. So I told him I was not capable but I
    will do everything I could. So that's when he decided--under
    coercion and having been through what he was going through--he
    decided to do a plea. And at that point, that's when they
    accepted his appeal, and then they agreed to put him in a
    regular prison system to get him out of detention.
        And then he was able to give us code on telling us how he
    was being treated. He would reminisce about a movie or anything
    of that nature and say, Pops, remember this movie? It went like
    this, and that's how we understood what he was going through.
        Nelson has been attacked because in the situation that he's
    in--he's the only American and only black American in the
    prison where he's at. So he has no communication with anyone to
    speak English. Everything he does has to be within himself,
    internal. All the guards are Chinese, all the inmates are
    Chinese, and so he has been attacked just for who he is, being
    American--a black American. He has been put in the hospital
    several times as well as the fact he's been attacked by guards,
    which was just recently.
        So the situation that he's going through when he
    communicates this to us, we tell ACS and we ask them to do more
    frequent visits because from Beijing to where Nelson is I
    understand it's quite a distance so they will only go see him
    every 3 months.
        Well, we were requesting that they would go see him at
    least once a month because of the fact he's out there on his
    own. And the correspondence that we get to him when we send it
    through--like Mr. Humphrey said, it's a nanny service. When we
    give him--our family members write letters to him and books
    that we try to send to him, and it is being screened by the
    guards and they won't allow him to have it. So that means it'll
    be at the prison but he can't receive it because of the fact
    they feel it's not appropriate. So it takes away from his
    communication with his family and loved ones.
        So to answer your question, while he was in the detention
    center he tried to explain that he was sleeping on the floor
    and, as Mr. Li said, because of the weather he said, Send me
    some clothes so I can weather the winter because the windows
    are open. There's no way to close the windows.
        So his plea to us has always put an emotional strain on us
    as well, because we know our child is suffering. And that
    detention center, for those that go there and stay there for
    long periods of time, that's a stressful situation.
        Representative Nunn. Mr. Wells, you are doing so much for
    your son even just by being here today to raise awareness to
    the American people. As a father I compliment you. As a warrior
    I thank you, and for your son Nelson not only do our hearts go
    out, there must be action taken on our side to hold the Chinese
    accountable and you have our commitment for that. I'm grateful
    for you being here.
        Mr. Hunt, thank you for your service, first and foremost,
    as a Chicago police officer. You are one of these great heroes
    from the heartland. You have been on the front line here in the
    United States protecting our country and, certainly, there is a
    need for public safety. But it is different when a foreign
    country seeks out Americans to use as political tools.
        Your sister Dawn, a woman detained inside China--speak to
    us about what the Chinese have put her through while in the
    detention facility and what information you've been able to get
    out because we hear reports here of health concerns, of
    potential threats of torture, of mistreatment at the hands of
    guards, particularly of women. I can't imagine how difficult
    this is for you.
        Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Nunn.
        Yes. My sister conveyed to my father that she was sexually
    assaulted in the detention facility. I understand what Mr.
    Wells was saying because his story is the same story that I
    have. Denial of access to reading materials. Only being able to
    have anything in Chinese and she doesn't understand it. The
    cold, laying on the floor, wanting--requesting blankets. The
    food. Everything--Mr. Wells, everything that you've--every
    story that you've heard is correct.
        Our citizens are being mistreated, abused, and it's
    coordinated. It's not something that is a ``one off.'' It's
    not, Oh, it happens to this prisoner--it doesn't happen to
    others. It happens to every prisoner.
        I understand that we are convened here today so we can give
    you information. I hope you take this information to heart and
    I say this because during the visit with my sister there was a
    person who was standing right next to her with the headphone
    and listening to everything we said, taking notes.
        I asked my sister about the sexual assault. She briefly
    looked up, looked down, and there was a tension there I could
    see in her eyes, I could feel, and she said no. But I knew she
    was under duress. I knew that her freedom to tell me the truth
    had been taken away.
        Now imagine, not only is your freedom of movement taken but
    your freedom to tell the truth, your freedom to speak up, your
    freedom to cry out, your freedom to ask for help is taken as
    well. That's what I need this panel to understand. That's what
    all of our family members are going through right here, right
    now.
        Representative Nunn. Mr. Hunt, that is powerful. It is
    real.
        Mr. Chairman, I am so grateful for you doing this fact-
    finding hearing that is bicameral, that is bipartisan, that has
    the White House's ear, and it is clear that not only does more
    need to be done but we have to recognize the strategic threat
    here as well as the tactical human suffering that's going on.
        We've heard, Mr. Humphrey, that this is a coordinated
    effort by the Chinese Communist Party to build a warehouse of
    U.S. citizens in detention facilities that these families and
    so many, many more are going through right now--that there is
    intentional coercion of American citizens while in Chinese
    detention facilities to either plead guilty so they can speak
    to their family and have at least some hope of an appeal--or
    remain in solitary confinement year after year and, as you've
    each highlighted. In any country in the world we would consider
    this to be barbaric.
        But in a country that presents itself as an equal to the
    United States--to strip another citizen of not only their
    freedom but their humanity--this must be called into question,
    they must be held accountable, and we need to recognize that
    China not only is playing the long game here but they continue
    to build an arsenal of Americans to be held in detention at a
    time and place of their choosing to be able to negotiate
    against the United States. We should never allow this to
    happen.
        I thank the panel for being here. Our hearts are with each
    of your families. We will maintain the fight. Thank you, Mr.
    Chair.
        Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Nunn, and I would ask
    you--I'll give the last word to each of our witnesses.
        But before that, as you probably know there are four levels
    of travel advisory. The first is ``exercise normal
    precaution,'' No. 2 is ``exercise increased caution,'' No. 3,
    the State Department calls it ``reconsider travel,'' and No. 4
    is ``don't travel.'' Right now the PRC is ``reconsider travel''
    because of the arbitrary enforcement of laws and people being
    incarcerated simply because they happen to be Americans.
        In your view should the State Department now go to ``don't
    travel'' since we have a situation where your family members
    traveled and have now been unjustly detained and harassed and
    imprisoned? It seems to me that would get the attention of the
    Chinese Communist Party as well. Because it's an open risk.
    People are traveling there not even knowing that there is a
    travel advisory, that it's number 3 on the 4 scale. But perhaps
    it's time for No. 4 to be imposed.
        Peter, do you want to respond to that?
        Mr. Humphrey. I'll be very quick. There's one phrase I've
    been using for quite some years now and it's starting to dawn,
    and that is ``nobody is safe in China.'' Nobody.
        Chair Smith. Thank you.
        Mr. Hunt. Don't travel to China. That needs the security
    level. Whatever you do it needs to be raised to the highest it
    could be raised to. Don't travel.
        Chair Smith. So that's your word to the administration?
        Mr. Hunt. That is my word right here right now. Don't
    travel. None of us here want to have another story.
        Chair Smith. Thank you.
        Mr. Li. I will say this. It's been reported in the media
    that the Chinese government has requested the United States to
    reduce its travel advisory from level three down to level two
    or level one and, you know, I think it is laughable that that
    they are even willing to consider that, while they keep our
    loved ones arbitrarily detained.
        And so I think that the Chinese government clearly wants
    more Americans to travel to China. But as long as our loved
    ones are being held, as long as there are so many people at
    risk, then that travel warning must be escalated.
        Chair Smith. Thank you.
        Mr. Wells.
        Mr. Wells. If this would put pressure on the Chinese regime
    I say don't travel. No one should even go there.
        Chair Smith. I appreciate that. You know, I now give you
    the last word. I do by unanimous consent ask that the
    statements of Bill Browder be included; Ben Rogers, who we've
    worked with--both of those men--for years; Cedric Witek,
    Cynthia Sun, Jason Poblete, Katherine Swidan, who was on
    earlier with her son, and the Foley Foundation. Without
    objection, so ordered.
        But I'd like to give the four of you the last word, if you
    would, and I can't thank you enough. This, to me, is a pivotal
    hearing. You know, motivation is everything but information
    that motivates--you have motivated us to do even more and we
    will. I guarantee it.
        Mr. Wells.
        Mr. Wells. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I am grateful that we and all of these people who are in
    the same situation as us are here today in front of you all to
    raise awareness of our situation as well as the other Americans
    that are there.
        My last comment is that there were always three, and Mr. Li
    knows that these were on the radar of our administration and we
    tried to get Nelson's name included, and today you all have
    done that for us, as I know Tim agrees.
        But there's one thing that you will notice--the picture
    that all of you put out there. If you notice, everybody else is
    in civilian clothes--but my son is in his prison uniform. And I
    was apprehensive and afraid but I knew I needed to do this
    because everything that we do is going to help get him home.
        But that uniform prison picture that's out there--Nelson
    has received death threats. He has received harassment and been
    attacked because of that picture; they tried to force him to
    say how that picture got to us, and because we could not tell
    how it was done, Nelson has suffered at their hands.
        So I am proud and happy to be here. This picture has now
    shown the American people about my son but I'm also afraid of
    what might happen to him from this. So I know you all are going
    to be diligently trying to help us but there's one other thing
    that I wish, that you all can at least get the American
    citizens, consulars, to make more frequent visits to Nelson, to
    make sure they don't harm my child because if the illness
    doesn't take him out, I'm afraid they will. Thank you.
        Mr. Li. I would just like to end with this statement, you
    know, building off what Mr. Nunn just mentioned of China
    wanting to present itself as a country that is equal to the
    United States, yet at the same time engaging in these horrific
    practices, ripping apart our families, ripping apart our loved
    ones, torturing them physically, mentally, it needs to stop,
    and whatever other bilateral issues that need to be worked out
    irrespective of that, these cases have a tangible solution.
        The Chinese government has our loved ones. They can do the
    right thing and release them, and it's incumbent on our elected
    leaders to call for that, to make that the number-one priority
    in their diplomacy because it is something tangible, something
    doable, something with a clear-cut solution. So it should be
    one of the easiest things to get in diplomatic discussions. I
    think by bringing awareness to this issue that it is easy to
    get swept under the rug because we are individual families,
    ordinary Americans who have a difficult time getting attention.
        We need to be heard. We need to be made a priority. And so
    I thank you, of course, Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, but
    also all the commissioners on the CECC for convening and
    organizing this hearing and this forum to listen to our voices
    and take to heart and understand just what we have been going
    through and why it needs to be rectified immediately. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Hunt. First of all, I'd like to--I thank you, Mr.
    Chairman and Mr. Humphrey and everyone who's here on this
    panel. Thank you for allowing us to speak. I will state this
    just to repeat what you said about how to keep up the pressure.
        You asked whether we should raise the threat level. Of
    course. The other Senator asked, Is there something we could do
    socially by holding these companies responsible and yes, of
    course. I say this because my sister was making lithium
    batteries. That was her job, her duty, while she's
    incarcerated.
        I'm not sure what products these lithium batteries go to
    but I'm sure that some of these are imported here in America.
    I'm sure the citizens here need to understand and they need to
    know that the Chinese motto was ``rehabilitation through
    labor'' and a lot of this labor, as Mr. Humphrey says, goes
    into making greeting cards that we purchase.
        There needs to be a sort of transparency on what products
    are being made by prison labor and if that--if those things are
    transparent then that puts pressure on them as well as what you
    said, raising the threat level because, from what Mr. Humphrey
    said, if there's going to be a warehouse of Americans that
    they're going to use to gain political favor or use to do
    something to, I guess you could say, move the needle on their
    side by releasing a citizen from America--that needs to stop--
    and we need to put all types of pressure on them through
    political, economic, judicial means.
        Whatever we can do to bring everyone home, we need to do
    it. No one should be in this situation and this panel should
    not grow. There should be fewer of us, not more of us. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Humphrey. I prefer to leave most of these final words
    to these three very courageous families that you've got here
    today.
        But I'll just say one thing very, very briefly, and that is
    that I think it is incumbent upon Congress to legislate to deal
    with this problem of the prisoners in the categories that we've
    discussed today.
        You mentioned you received a statement from Bill Browder,
    who we could say was the creator of the Magnitsky Act concept--
    you know, a great campaigner who brought that about here. It
    was aimed heavily at the time against other countries,
    especially Russia, for human rights abuses and wrongful arrests
    and mistreatment of prisoners and so forth and we need
    something like that here to confront this problem with China.
        So I think it is incumbent upon Congress here to push some
    legislation forward which will be punitive in nature and also
    will be holding the U.S. Government to greater account to
    actually act and punish China for these kinds of wrongful
    detentions and arrests.
        I hope to see that in the next year or two. I realize that
    you're going to go through some changes over the coming year
    which may slow some progress down. But this is a bipartisan
    issue and I don't really think it matters who's running the
    administration. I think it is incumbent upon every Congressman
    and every Senator to get behind something like this. Thank you.
        Chair Smith. Thank you. We do have a duty to act and we
    must, so thank you. Who do we help and who do we abandon? To
    paraphrase again, we help all and abandon no one and I can't
    thank you enough for the powerful testimony and for the love
    that you have shown for your loved ones. It's incredible.
        The hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]

    ?

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                                A P P E N D I X

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

                              Prepared Statements

                                  ----------

                    Prepared Statement of Nelson Wells, Sr.

        Good morning, Chair Smith, Co-chair Merkley, and the esteemed
    members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Thank you
    for inviting me and our advisor, Peter Humphrey, to testify at this
    hearing on Americans detained in China.

                                   Background

        My name is Nelson Wells, Sr. and I am appearing before you on
    behalf of my wife, Cynthia Wells, and our family, asking for your
    assistance in bringing home our son, Nelson Wells, Jr., who has been
    unjustly imprisoned in China for 10 years. We are natives of New
    Orleans, Louisiana, but relocated to Haughton, Louisiana in the
    aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We lost many of our worldly possessions
    to that storm, but nothing prepared us for the loss we would experience
    in 2014.
        In the spring of that year, we were awakened in the middle of the
    night by a call that no parent ever wants to receive. Paraphrasing, the
    male caller said, ``I'm a companion of Nelson's. He's in trouble. He's
    been arrested in China. Do you have money? Hurry up! They're going to
    kill him!'' Naturally, I said, ``Hang that phone up.'' I thought it was
    a prank, a scam. We didn't even realize Nelson, then a 40-year-old man,
    was in China. We thought he was at home in Japan, where we had recently
    spoken to him by phone, and he had been living with his wife and
    children--two daughters and a son--from two different marriages.
        I served in the United States Army for more than 20 years, and
    Cynthia served at the Department of Defense for nearly 28 years. We
    have been stationed and traveled all over the United States--from the
    South to the South Pacific--and the world. At each opportunity, we
    brought our children, Nelson and his sister, Kendria Wells, with us.
    Thus Nelson always had a love for travel, and it was not unusual to us
    that he settled in Japan, where his wife is from. But due to a medical
    condition he suffered from a traffic accident, we were discussing the
    possibility of the family re-
    locating to the United States permanently, so that he could get better
    treatment and expand his professional opportunities. Unfortunately, it
    was not to be.
        When we called his wife, our daughter-in-law, we learned that he
    had taken a trip to China. He is a dedicated husband and father, and we
    are a close family, so after he did not return immediately and we did
    not hear from him, we knew we had a problem.
        Over the next several weeks and months, we reached out to the
    United States Embassy multiple times to find Nelson or a record of his
    arrest, but they could not locate him. It was not until we took matters
    into our own hands and contacted Mr. John Kamm at the Dui Hua
    Foundation, which tracks and assists American detainees oversees, that
    we were able to confirm that Nelson had indeed been arrested. We think
    that somehow he had not been considered an American citizen--even
    though he, his wife, and his children all are citizens--and had fallen
    through the cracks. Only then did the U.S. Government begin working on
    behalf of our son. By then, precious months had passed.
        For Nelson's part, he had been incarcerated all that time in China,
    a country where he was only visiting, where he did not read or speak
    the language, and where he did not know if we were looking for him or
    even knew he had been arrested. It must have been torture for him. It
    was not until a Chinese lawyer we hired appeared at one of his court
    proceedings and passed him a note that he learned we were aware of his
    predicament. The lawyer could not represent Nelson, but he was able to
    provide him with a lifeline. Frightened and desperate to reach out to
    us and unfamiliar with the documents he was being presented, Nelson was
    willing to do anything to improve his conditions, even plead partially
    guilty so that he could enter the prison system and be allowed phone
    calls home, more regular contact with American Citizen Services, and
    other benefits. It was at that time that we were able to speak with our
    son, albeit on short calls that were heavily monitored and would
    disconnect abruptly when he attempted to share sensitive details about
    his treatment or condition or when we would express our own
    frustration.
        We learned that Nelson had been arrested on a drug charge. As he
    was leaving the country, he naively agreed to carry a bag of what he
    thought to be baked goods for a so-called friend through security at
    the airport. Those baked goods were allegedly laced with illegal drugs.
    That so-called friend made it through, but Nelson did not. For that one
    mistake--that one betrayal--his life, his wife's life, his children's
    lives, and our lives will never be the same.

                               Priority Concerns

        Though Nelson admitted partial guilt, he did not speak the
    language, never received proper due process, and did not have adequate
    legal representation to be able to offer a defense to the allegations
    or fully understand the terms and consequences of his pleadings. There
    were some bright spots: Nelson originally received a death sentence,
    but that sentence was ultimately reduced in 2019 to 22 years. We are
    thankful to the Chinese government for that, but his sentence did not
    include time served. This means that Nelson will not be released until
    the year 2041 when he is in his late 60s, if by some miracle he
    survives.
        In the years since 2014, my wife and I have become consumed with
    efforts to secure Nelson's release and to ensure his safety and health
    while imprisoned. At first, we did not have access to trusted lawyers
    or advisors that we could count on to advocate for Nelson and not take
    advantage of us. We expended almost all our savings in those early
    years via trial-and-error efforts to help Nelson and without meaningful
    guidance from our own government. With the exception of some former
    prisoners who were able to get messages to us and third-party
    advocates, we were virtually alone and operating in the blind. For
    years, we wrote letters to our Members of Congress, to the White House,
    to State Department officials, to Democrats and Republicans, to anyone
    who was in a position of influence, but our calls for assistance went
    unanswered.
        American Citizen Services in Beijing was helpful in visiting,
    calling, communicating with, and reporting back on Nelson, but some
    case officers were better than others and they changed frequently. One
    of Nelson's best officers is working with your Committee now, and his
    current case officer is outstanding as well. For that, we are forever
    grateful. But no matter how good or how well meaning, with each swap of
    a case officer, it feels like we, like Nelson is starting all over--
    having to re-tell his story, re-teach his spoken and unspoken language,
    and recount his mental and physical health challenges. The
    inconsistency takes its toll on him, as have the years of
    incarceration.
        While in the beginning we heeded warnings not to shine a public
    light on Nelson's story out of fear of retaliation against him, his
    declining health has forced us to escalate our efforts to share his
    story and gain attention for him in the hopes of mounting political and
    public pressure and ultimately diplomatic intervention. While it
    shouldn't be this way, we have seen with other released prisoners that
    public pressure--and perhaps nothing else--works; it encourages the
    government to prioritize your loved one and to advocate more
    aggressively for their release.
        Over the years, Nelson has been a target for being one of the few
    Americans and Black Americans in the prison, which has exposed him to
    harsher treatment and sometimes physical attack. He has suffered from
    debilitating chronic pain, seizures (a Chinese MRI report shows he has
    an atrophying of the brain), malnutrition, internal issues, dental
    pain, severe depression and thoughts of self-harm. We also know that
    based on family history, Nelson needs regular cancer and heart health
    screenings, which it is not always clear he has received. He also needs
    regular contact with mental health professionals, regular calls and
    ideally video calls with us, and the ability to speak English with
    another person on a regular basis. Without these things, we fear that
    he will die in prison from physical or mental illness and without our
    ever seeing him again.
        Thus, my wife and I built a multidisciplinary team of China
    legislative and communications experts, including Peter Humphrey, who
    is also testifying today, and also with the help of Marc Morial,
    President of the National Urban League, who is a childhood friend. We
    decided to share Nelson's story loudly, beginning in Louisiana with
    KSLA's Domonique Benn. After her 2023 story on our fight for Nelson's
    release, we began garnering attention from Louisiana to Washington and
    beyond. We are especially thankful to Senator Bill Cassidy and his
    team, who are working on our behalf, and the many journalists in the
    United States and China who have reported on our story. We are also
    thankful to the Commission for inviting us here today to share our
    story--the story of everyday Americans who found themselves in the
    midst of an international diplomatic nightmare.
        Still, a meaningful change in Nelson's circumstances has remained
    out of reach and only underscores the difficulty, and sometimes
    hopelessness, of our situation, where we feel thwarted at every turn.
    For example:

        1. Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or as being held
    unjustly, even though he received an impossibly harsh sentence for a
    first-time offender and did not receive proper due process, which means
    his case has not received the same diplomatic attention as others
    within the State Department.

        2. Nelson's declining health, length of time served, and record of
    good behavior certainly should make him eligible for some sort of
    humanitarian release, but we have been told that this is not a
    possibility. It should be noted that over the past decade, Nelson has
    been a cooperative prisoner. Indeed, he promised me personally that he
    would not fight, even if he is provoked or attacked. He doesn't want to
    do anything to make his situation worse.

        3. Nelson has also sought to utilize a 2018 law in China that
    allows for a prisoner transfer to an American facility, absent a
    bilateral treaty with the home country (Law of the People's Republic of
    China on International Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters).
    Unfortunately, the United States still requires a treaty to engage in
    those negotiations and so Nelson remains in Chongqing Yudu Prison.

        We are at a loss as to what to do next, but whatever the pathway,
    we are asking, pleading with this Commission, with Congress, with the
    Administration--including the State Department and the Justice
    Department, and with the Chinese government, to work together on behalf
    of our son to find a solution that brings him home to us.
        When our country asked us to serve, my wife and I did so
    unreservedly and without hesitation. I even served in hardship posts,
    including during the Gulf War. I am asking now for your help on behalf
    of my child. He is a man, but as every parent here knows, he is still
    my child, and I cannot leave him behind. I am asking you also not to
    leave him--an American citizen--behind. We leave no man behind, right?
    We are people of faith, but he is losing faith. He feels alone. He
    feels helpless. We all do. I do not know how long I will be able to
    implore him to hang on.
        Please help our family by creating a pathway for outright release
    or prisoner transfer to a home prison. Please make improvements to the
    process for meaningfully working with detained citizens and their
    families so that they have help in navigating these crises and are not
    targets for abuse. The State Department should be focused not only on
    care for detainees, which is important, but also on offering resources
    and pathways for release, which is critical.
        Finally, we must improve diplomatic relations with China so that
    our citizens can travel abroad safely and that when an arrest happens,
    we can ensure their fair treatment. We were once told by a State
    Department official that Nelson should have never been in China in the
    first place and that citizens are warned about traveling there. In
    addition to this being a callous statement, it is also an unfair one,
    as those types of warnings were less clear in 2014 than they are now.
    More importantly, what good does that do Nelson or our family now. We
    still must bring him home. I am sure the official meant no harm, but no
    family should ever ask for help from the government only to be
    ridiculed.
        In addition to Nelson, we ask that you collectively help the
    hundreds of other Americans who are languishing in Chinese prisons and
    prisons elsewhere, who are perhaps worse off than us--Americans who are
    not before you today, who have not received media attention, who do not
    have Members of Congress working on their behalf, and who are known
    only to their loved ones. They need to have their stories told. They
    need someone to fight diplomatically for their release and at the very
    least for their fair treatment, their health, and their safety.
        On behalf of my son and all the sons and daughters who are still
    incarcerated on foreign soil, thank you for the opportunity to testify
    today, and I look forward to answering your questions during and after
    the hearing for the record.
                                     ______

                       Prepared Statement of Harrison Li

        Today marks 2,932 days--more than 8 years--since my dad, Kai Li,
    was taken by the Chinese government as a bargaining chip. He spent 2
    months under ``residential surveillance at a designated location''
    during which he was held at a secret location and interrogated harshly
    day and night without any access to legal counsel. Then almost a year
    passed before he was subjected to a closed-door sham trial, and then
    another year went by before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for
    stealing so-called ``state secrets''--even though said ``secrets'' are
    freely searchable even on the firewalled Chinese Internet. More than 3
    years ago now, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
    demanded his release in a landmark decision. Yet despite all this, we
    have seen no positive movement in his case or those of the other
    Americans wrongfully detained in China.
        Officials at all levels of the U.S. Government constantly reassure
    us that securing my dad's freedom is their ``highest priority.'' Yet
    their actions, or rather the lack thereof, show otherwise. Since the
    day President Biden took office, our family has made countless requests
    through the State Department, Congress, and White House National
    Security Council to meet with him. In that time, the President has met
    with the families of many Americans detained in places like Gaza,
    Syria, Russia, and Iran, while every single one of our requests has
    gone unanswered.
        In my last two trips to D.C., I sat outside the White House with
    the families of several other wrongful detainees in the Bring Our
    Families Home Campaign. Both times, we watched the President and/or his
    National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, meet with the families of
    other detainees, leaving us out in the cold. Why are we ignored like
    this? The administration is always quick to note that not all hostage
    families who've met with the President have seen their loved ones come
    home, and conversely many Americans have come home without meeting with
    him. But the numbers are clearly in the favor of those who have met
    with the President. That's not surprising, because as the reporting
    around last month's prisoner deal with Russia illustrates, when Jake
    Sullivan and the President put their heads together with hostage
    families, they can collectively come up with creative solutions to
    bring Americans home. Unfortunately, we do not see this happening with
    the China cases, even as my dad alone has now spent more time behind
    bars than Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva combined.
        Time is running out. No matter who wins November's Presidential
    election, we will experience a change of administration. We know (from
    experience, unfortunately) that that means months or years where no
    progress will be made as bilateral relationships and communication
    channels are re-formed. The next few months before President Biden
    leaves office thus form a crucial period for the administration to
    leverage the work they've put in to stabilize the broader bilateral
    relationship against the prospect of another spy balloon incident and
    negotiate a fair deal that will finally bring my dad home. Simply
    mentioning my dad's name in bilateral engagements won't be enough. And
    so we need all of you to raise your voices these next few weeks and
    call on President Biden to stop ignoring us and lead a wholehearted
    effort to bring my dad home before he leaves office.
        I have now spent a third of my life missing my dad. Every day, I
    wake up and shudder at the thought of him crammed into a tiny cell with
    as many as 11 other people, in deplorable conditions that Peter
    [Humphrey] here can unfortunately tell you about firsthand, as someone
    who spent two years in the same prison. In the last eight years, my
    dad's suffered a stroke, lost a tooth, and endured draconian COVID-19
    lockdowns for more than three years without climate control. President
    Biden, how much more does he need to suffer before you stop ignoring
    us?
                                     ______

                         Prepared Statement of Tim Hunt

        My sister Dawn Michelle Hunt is incarcerated in Guangdong Women's
    Prison. She was arrested in 2014 and charged with smuggling, a charge
    she vehemently denies. Dawn was born on 12 June 1971, so she is now 53.
    She was a receptionist at the time she was arrested. As I write this, I
    think of the numerous times I've written to officials, lawyers, and
    anyone else who would listen. I think I've written this type of letter
    hundreds of times since her incarceration, but over the years, things
    have changed. My sister and my family are getting worn down. Dawn's
    health has been failing, and our father's health is failing as well.
        It all started when my sister was tricked into believing she had
    won a contest. She received an email stating that she had won a cash
    prize. When she contacted the contest organizers, she didn't believe it
    at first, so she checked them out online and was surprised that the
    info they gave her checked out. With that, she sent them her passport
    information and they sent a ticket for her to travel to Hong Kong. She
    was there for nine days and she told me that the organizers treated her
    well. She went sightseeing, shopping and started to trust the
    organizers who put together her trip. After exploring Hong Kong, she
    was asked if she wanted to visit mainland China. After her positive
    experience in Hong Kong, she agreed. She acquired a visa for mainland
    China while she was in Hong Kong with the help of the organizers who
    put together her initial trip. She then flew to mainland China and
    traveled around, sightseeing and shopping for nine days. She was then
    asked if she wanted to visit Australia as part of her prize. Once
    again, she agreed.
        Before leaving for her Australia trip, she was told she also won
    some designer purses. Excited about her upcoming trip, and trusting the
    organizers, she took the purses before her flight, not knowing drugs
    were sewn inside the linings. She explained to me that the organizers
    wanted her to pack the purses in her luggage. She told them that her
    luggage was full so she and some people who organized her trips went to
    the Baiyun leather market and the organizers purchased an additional
    bag for her.
        She told me that while she was in the airport in China, on her way
    to Australia, she was called by airport security. They escorted her to
    a room and the luggage she checked (she checked two pieces) was in the
    room as well. She was asked if the luggage belonged to her, to which
    she responded ``yes.'' She stated that she was asked multiple times and
    each time she said ``yes,'' not knowing drugs were in the lining of the
    purses she won from the organizers of the contest. She told me that she
    even paid a small excess weight fee since the luggage was slightly over
    the weight limit when she checked in for her flight.
        I hope you can see that something like this could happen to a lot
    of people. As a matter of fact, in May of this year, the Secret Service
    issued a warning for law enforcement to educate the public on similar
    schemes. Unfortunately, my sister was arrested in 2014 and never
    received any such warning.
        After her trial, she was found guilty and received the ``death
    penalty with two years reprieve.'' She was duped. She was scammed! She
    trusted the wrong people! She doesn't deserve it. Although she told me
    it happened when she was taking a flight to Australia, a journalist
    said a court record says she was on her way to Qingdao in China on an
    internal flight. I don't know the reason for this discrepancy. The
    death penalty for this?
        In the years she was detained before her trial, she cooperated with
    the authorities, answered all their questions, and produced the emails
    she received from the organizers but unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
        Since her incarceration, she has developed physical ailments
    (uterine fibroids and possibly ovarian cancer) according to the doctors
    who examined her in prison. She has received numerous blood
    transfusions due to heavy bleeding and has been advised that she needs
    a hysterectomy, which she has refused out of distrust. How can she
    trust the same people who have incarcerated her after she cooperated
    with the Chinese authorities? How can she trust the same people she
    tried to help apprehend the organizers who had duped her?
        My sister has never been street-smart. She's trusting and believes
    that people are good. Being her older brother, I've seen her
    disappointed and upset when people in her life turn out to be something
    different from what they displayed. This has hurt her and has taken
    years from her life. When I visited her recently in prison, I could see
    the depth of her depression. She has lost weight; her eyes are bulging.
    She has an abdominal bulge on her right side, and her complexion is
    very pale. She told me that she still has to work in the prison despite
    her illness but that she can't lift heavy objects because her fibroids
    might rupture and she would start bleeding.
        After I visited her, I updated my father on her condition. I had to
    leave out some details of her physical appearance because my dad has
    recently been diagnosed with cancer and I wanted to avoid giving him an
    additional shock. I'd also like to share a bit about my father with
    you. He's an Army veteran and a retired Chicago Police Sergeant of 32
    years. I once witnessed him save our next-door neighbors when their
    house caught fire. Witnessing that event made such an impression on me
    as a kid that I followed in his footsteps and became a Chicago Police
    Officer and retired after 28 years.
        Dawn Michelle is my dad's only daughter, and he is devastated by
    her predicament. In a strange way, my dad's locked up as well. He's
    almost 91, freshly diagnosed with prostate cancer, has other health
    issues and is worried that with all this, he's not going to live long
    enough to see his daughter free, safe, and at home. He's getting worn
    down, just like my sister.
        As I stated at the beginning of this statement, my family is
    getting worn down. We've gotten our hopes up, only to be disappointed
    again and again. The hearing that you're having regarding the cases of
    unjustly detained Americans in China offers new hope.
        Chapter 8, Transfer of Sentenced Persons, in The Law of the
    People's Republic of China on International Judicial Assistance in
    Criminal Matters, offers a path for Americans incarcerated in China to
    come home, and it doesn't require a bilateral prisoner transfer treaty.
    This hearing gives my family a bit more hope that not only will my
    sister, who was unjustly detained, have a path to come home, but also
    other unjustly detained Americans as well. We need the CECC's help, and
    we need its advocacy to bring our loved ones home.

                      Prepared Statement of Peter Humphrey

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                  Introduction

        I am a British citizen. Half my family is American. My wife and son
    are American citizens. For much of my life I have interacted with
    American institutions. I have spent 49 years involved with China as an
    academic, teacher, journalist, corporate investigator, and
    philanthropist. I hold a degree in sinology from Durham University in
    England. I am currently an external affiliate of Harvard University's
    Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, a member of the UK think tanks
    RUSI and Henry Jackson Society, and a pro bono mentor to families of
    foreign prisoners in China. I and my American wife Yingzeng Yu were
    wrongfully imprisoned in China in 2013-2015 on false charges of illegal
    information gathering for our due diligence firm, ChinaWhys, in an
    extensively publicized case. Since our release in June 2015 I have
    created an information and support network among families of foreign
    prisoners to lobby for their welfare and their release, as well as
    interviewing newly released prisoners in order to track changes in the
    prisons. Before testifying to this commission, I have testified to the
    UK Parliament and the Australian Senate and I have provided evidence to
    support China-related legislation in the EU Parliament on China due
    diligence and the import of prison labor products.
        I am testifying to the CECC both as a specialist on justice and
    imprisonment in China and as a foreign victim of unjust imprisonment. I
    have a wealth of personal experience and insight after being a fly on
    the wall inside the Chinese prison system for 2 years, and one of the
    first victims of dictator Xi Jinping's crusade against foreigners, and
    for the past 9 years an activist who is exposing judicial and penal
    abuses that all foreign prisoners and detainees in China face.
        In my statement I will include some high-level observations in
    addition to some examples of abuse in China's prison system, and I will
    touch upon the cases of some American prisoners that I have followed
    and supported. Finally, I will also make some observations and
    suggestions for improving policy in areas that need review and change.
        First, let me also state that although we can see a number of
    American families presenting their cases of unjust imprisonment in
    China to this CECC hearing, there are a massive number who cannot or
    will not do so, largely due to fear of retribution against their loved
    ones locked up in one of Xi Jinping's jails. In addition, the
    communication of Americans languishing in China's prisons is
    deliberately obstructed by Chinese authorities, making it impossible
    for them to issue their own statements and pleas for help directly to
    such a hearing. We must keep all those Americans in our minds and
    hearts as we digest the testimony of the few who are able to testify.
    Regardless of class background, level of wealth, skin color, religious
    creed, or the crimes they are alleged by Chinese institutions to have
    committed, and whether ``guilty'' or not, they deserve equal support,
    as Americans. Some of them have been in Xi's jails for more than 10
    years and are in dire health.

                 The Humphrey and Yu Wrongful Imprisonment Case

        The story of what happened to me and my family in the clutches of
    China's judicial and prison system has been extensively documented and
    written about in the media and in the American litigation records of my
    lawsuit against a former client of mine.
        In short, after decades of benign involvement in China, one morning
    in July 2013, I and my American wife Yingzeng Yu were suddenly
    detained, our Shanghai offices and apartment were raided at dawn and
    our 10-year-old due diligence consultancy company was shut down without
    any legal grounds. I was 57 at the time, and my wife was approaching
    her 60th birthday. Our son, an American citizen, was 18 at the time and
    had just completed high school--our arrest orphaned him for the next 2
    years and seriously damaged his educational path and career ambitions.
    Our only crime really was to have offended somebody who we had
    investigated and profiled for a multinational client who suspected her
    of defaming the company. She turned out to have powerful connections in
    the Communist Party and arranged for us to be arrested in revenge.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ I cannot name this client here, for legal reasons, in order to
    comply with a legal settlement between the Humphrey family and the
    client, the terms of which are confidential. I can only refer to the
    public dockets.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        We never received a fair and transparent trial and we were treated
    inhumanely during 2 years of wrongful captivity. We spent over a year
    in a Shanghai detention center and the remainder of the period in
    prisons--me in Shanghai's Qingpu Prison and my wife in Shanghai Women's
    Prison.
        The detention center was like a penal facility from day one and not
    a pre-trial detention facility. My cell was unfurnished and it
    incarcerated 12 men in a floor space of 17.5 square yards. The off
    white paint and plaster in the cells was rotting and peeling off the
    walls and ceiling. The other cellmates were mostly Chinese.
    Occasionally there would be another foreigner, from Africa or Asia. The
    ceiling lights were kept on 24/7. There was no furniture, no bed to
    sleep on. We slept on a bare, rough wooden floor, which was our bed,
    our breakfast and dinner table, and where we had to squat or sit cross-
    legged for most of the day. We never received outdoor exercise,
    sunshine or fresh air. The toilet was a hole in the corner of the cell
    open to the view of every cellmate and the surveillance cameras. There
    was never a moment of privacy. The only privacy was inside your own
    head. We ate three times a day from doggy bowls containing food that
    was pushed through the bars of the cell by convict laborers. The food
    comprised gritty rice, scraps of vegetable, and the occasional sliver
    of meat. The food lacked vital vitamins and minerals and we all
    suffered from malnutrition and diarrhea, and quickly lost weight and
    grew weak. I lost 22 pounds. The cell provided no hot water but only
    cold water running from a tap in a crumbling stone sink. Medical
    attention was grossly inadequate. One cellmate was dying from heart
    disease and another, a Chinese-born American citizen, was suffering
    from a failing liver transplant that he had undergone just weeks before
    he was arrested on murky fraud charges in the middle of his own wedding
    party. The detention center authorities refused to acknowledge my
    prostate cancer situation and withheld medical treatment for it for the
    whole duration of my arbitrary detention there.
        I and my wife were subjected separately to daily interrogations by
    the police (PSB) and initially also by State Security (MSS) who tried
    to pin an espionage charge on us. In the end they charged us with
    illegal information gathering under a law which at the time of our
    business activities did not make our business activities illegal.
    (Since our release China has introduced new laws which make all
    information gathering potentially illegal, regardless of the means used
    to gather it.) During this detention and interrogation period, I and my
    wife were allowed no contact with each other. After 6 months we were
    allowed to write letters to each other but these took weeks or months
    to travel 300 meters through the concrete walls of the detention center
    due to three layers of censorship. They were censored and sometimes
    confiscated without us being told. We were not allowed to discuss our
    case in these letters. Correspondence with family was highly
    restricted. No family visits were allowed. This severely hampered our
    efforts to help our 18-year-old son who was suddenly cut adrift by our
    disappearance and had no access to our family funds. But we received
    occasional welfare visits from our respective U.S. and UK consulates
    bringing messages, letters and reading material.
        In short, the conditions in the detention center in their totality
    added up to torture designed to crush the human spirit and force out a
    confession, and failed to meet the standards required by international
    conventions or treaties that China has signed.
        In April 2014, my wife's brother, Bernard Yu, an American citizen
    born in Ohio, died in Maryland from a fast-moving cancer accelerated by
    the stress that he was experiencing in handling his younger sister's
    incarceration. His situation was withheld from my wife until our trial
    and she never had a chance to say goodbye to him. He was her only other
    close relative from her original nuclear family. She was only informed
    of his death on the morning of our sham trial in August that year,
    which seriously destabilized her in court, no doubt intentionally.
        During our detention we were allowed only minimalist meetings with
    defense lawyers, whose hands were tied by a rule that requires all
    Chinese lawyers to obey the Communist Party or lose their license.
    These meetings never enjoyed any privacy. The meetings were held in a
    cell with bars between me and the visiting lawyer and were held under
    surveillance. No documents were supposed to be exchanged.
        Needless to say, our defense was thus rendered useless. On 8 August
    2014, we were taken to a court for a show trial that lasted 1 day and
    we were sentenced immediately--me to two and a half years and my wife
    to 2 years. We decided not to appeal because we were falsely led to
    believe that life would be easier in a prison, especially for my wife
    who was ill with swollen kidneys, and because the time required for an
    appeal process might exceed the length of our sentence.
        For 1 month between the trial and my transfer to prison, I was in a
    transit cell for men who had been sentenced and were either awaiting
    transfer to a prison or were in the process of appeal. It was in this
    cell that I met the American prisoner named David McMahon, whose
    travesty I am separately presenting to this hearing, David having
    authorized me to take his case public over 5 years ago. I was so
    shocked by the sheer injustice of his case that I spent that month in
    interview mode, getting to know him as well as possible and assessing
    his case. We shared reading materials including books, magazines, and
    judicial documents and became good friends. David McMahon was a primary
    school teacher who worked at the French International School and had
    been falsely accused of molesting a 6-year-old girl in school. He
    showed me his indictment and judgment documents, family photos and love
    letters and I concluded that he was a normal heterosexual man in a
    normal loving heterosexual relationship with a female American school
    teacher, who would never be a pedophile and who had been wrongly
    accused. He was the victim of a witch hunt by a French mother whose
    daughter had been molested the previous year by another American
    teacher who was indeed a fugitive pedophile, Hector Oruela, and who was
    extradited to America and is now serving a long jail term for crimes he
    had committed in the U.S. Oruela was never tried in China and the
    French family resented this. They seized upon a proxy fantasy that
    their daughter had been molested by David.
        Life in Qingpu Prison \2\ was certainly not easier than in the
    detention center even though I was placed in a cell block designated
    exclusively for around 150 foreign citizens. Again I was in a 17.5
    square yard cell shared among 12 cellmates, a standard cell size in
    Shanghai. The cell had two-tier bunk beds on each side with a very
    narrow floor space in the middle. Lights were kept on 24/7, although
    dimmed at night. Food was similar to the detention center, although
    warmer, cleaner and with a bit more protein, eaten in a separate
    ``activity room,'' at tables, served by fellow prisoners. We received
    one boiled egg per week every Sunday. There were restrictions on
    receiving or sending our letters--all are censored by language officers
    known as ``letter captains.'' And restrictions applied to receiving
    reading material--subjective censorship decisions are made by officers
    who confiscate anything that they deem to have a political nature.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ Qingpu Prison is the very same prison where Kai Li and David
    McMahon are held today.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I was placed in a ``training cell'' where a ``chief prisoner'' was
    assigned to bully me, and a particular officer known to be sadistic was
    placed in charge of my cell with the specific mission to bully me into
    signing a confession. Other prisoners were ordered not to speak to me
    because I was a British ``spy.''
        Most of the prisoners were participating in mandatory manufacturing
    labor and some were employed as corridor cleaners or food servers. I
    boycotted the labor system and got away with it, perhaps because my
    sentence was short and I had no interest in earning points for a
    sentence reduction. Only through labor and through writing mandatory
    thought reports and confessions of guilt can you earn merit points and
    apply for sentence reductions. I had no intention of confessing to a
    crime that I had never committed. Most prisoners with longer sentences
    (including life terms) crumbled and many innocent people falsely
    confessed to uncommitted crimes in order to obtain sentence reductions.
        In connection with forced prison labor among foreign inmates, I
    published a series of articles in the Sunday Times in December 2019
    about Qingpu inmates packaging Christmas cards for the British
    supermarket chain Tesco, and Quaker Oatmeal sachets for PepsicCo. (See
    reading list at the end of this statement.)
        During my time in Qingpu, I witnessed frequent rough handling and
    beating of foreign prisoners and instances of brutal solitary
    confinement for the most minor of offenses such as refusing to get out
    of the bunk bed. Solitary included food deprivation, sleep deprivation,
    and water boarding sessions that were performed by trusted Chinese
    convicts, according to prisoners who suffered this treatment.
        Overall, the conditions in Qingpu Prison added up to torture as
    defined in the international treaty on torture and the international
    convention on minimum standards of treatment for prisoners which China
    has signed.
        In Qingpu, again, medical attention for my prostate cancer was
    deliberately withheld, this time on blatant illegal grounds: Whenever I
    asked for treatment, I was told, ``You have not confessed.'' It was
    only in the 21st month of my captivity in April 2015 that I finally
    obtained an MRI scan confirming my tumor. I managed to get this
    information out to my son and to my consular representative. I made
    clear I would use this news to overcast an impending visit later in
    2015 to the UK by President Xi Jinping. Soon afterwards, I felt that
    certain wheels were moving to try to get rid of me.
        The most senior officer of the foreign cell block, and the governor
    of the prison, tried to negotiate with me to formulate some kind of
    statement--they wanted an acknowledgement of guilt but they were not
    going to get it and never did. In the end they settled for a fudged
    statement full of conditional clauses, ifs and buts. And even this I
    signed only under duress. In June 2015 they finally released me with my
    wife, after fabricating paperwork that claimed we had acknowledged our
    crimes, behaved well in prison and reformed. All of this was a sheer
    box-ticking fabrication, a show. A big lie.
        We arrived in the UK on 17 June 2015. I underwent 5 years of
    prostate cancer treatments which failed. The 2 years in captivity
    without medical treatment for it had allowed it to advance to a
    dangerous point. In the end, in 2020, I had to undergo the removal of
    my prostate in its entirety to save my life. Although life-saving, this
    has brought life-changing consequences and daily management issues. I
    also underwent 5 years in and out of PTSD counseling, which has been
    unsuccessful. I still suffer from painful flashbacks and panic attacks.
    Although I have obtained some triumphs and exonerations outside China,
    delving into the fine details of my ordeal remains a huge mental and
    emotional struggle and I remain fragile as a result of my mistreatment,
    sometimes unable to marshal my thoughts as clearly as I could before
    this ordeal. A man leaves a prison, but a prison never leaves a man.

                               Prison Population

        There are no reliable official statistics for the number of
    prisoners in the People's Republic of China because China intentionally
    obfuscates the situation. Based on piecemeal data available from
    various sources, and on my own experience inside the system, on
    anecdotal information from prisoners and on my research, I estimate the
    prison population to be approaching ten million in various forms of
    regular and irregular incarceration.
        Based on my most recent research, I estimate the number of
    foreigner prisoners in China to be approaching 10,000, having doubled
    under the rule of Xi Jinping. Two very large segments are Africans and
    China-born foreign citizens. Very few foreign governments have
    disclosed how many of their citizens are held in China. Australia has
    disclosed that 55 Australians are being held. Canada has admitted to
    there being 92 Canadian prisoners in China. Japan has admitted to 17
    Japanese.
        America and the UK and many other countries have withheld such
    data, citing ``privacy concerns'' as an excuse. But these total numbers
    are not a matter of privacy at all. The public needs to know. My own
    research estimates that there are close to 300 Americans, including
    many China-born American citizens, held in various forms of
    incarceration and detention in China or subject to exit bans.
        The American prisoner segment in Chinese prisons has ballooned
    since the 2000s as a result of a cooperation agreement on transnational
    crime between China and the United States during the Obama-Biden
    administration in areas such as drugs, pedophiles, trafficking and
    money laundering. The PRC seems to have taken this as a green light to
    arrest Americans. Then, in 2012/2013 when Xi Jinping took power in
    China, Chinese newspapers suddenly started talking about cleaning up
    all the ``foreign trash'' on China's streets and the arrest of
    Americans gathered pace. It was in this period that egregious false
    imprisonment drug cases such as those of Mark Swidan, Nelson Wells,
    Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt occurred.
        By all accounts and standards, China's prison system is indeed a
    veritable ``gulag.'' Its inmates are victims of injustice, as I will
    demonstrate here, and they are forced to work against their will to the
    profit of the prison system and its officers.

                           Judicial and Prison System

        Publicly available research and firsthand testimony make it clear
    that China's legal system, judicial system and prison system act as an
    organic whole to exercise repression, resulting in systemic abuse on a
    massive scale, including wrongful imprisonment.
        Research and firsthand experience make it clear that police,
    prosecutors, and judges all hail from the same stable--the Chinese
    Communist Party (CCP). And lawyers are compelled to obey the Communist
    Party, making them part of the same unfair and opaque system. Trial
    judgments are not determined by the judge on a case but are handed to
    the judge by a Communist Party committee who sits above him, known at
    the local level as the Political and Legal Affairs Committee and at the
    national level as the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. At every
    stage, whenever an official signs off on a detention order, a charge,
    an indictment, a judgment, they are taking a political step and
    immediately they have a political stake in this decision not being
    found to be mistaken and then reversed. In this sense, every convicted
    prisoner is a political prisoner, a prisoner of the political system.
        As a victim and as a fly on the wall inside the system for 2 years
    and having conducted many investigations for the private sector over a
    15-year period when I was in the due diligence business in China before
    my arrest, I observed that Chinese police do not conduct investigations
    with any real detective work or forensic procedures. They rely upon
    extracting confessions from detainees who are interrogated day by day
    under duress locked inside cages (as was I) with no lawyer present, and
    by extracting so-called witness statements (which are also often
    coerced) to frame the case the way they want it to be. Contradictory
    evidence is not allowed. People like American citizens Nelson Wells,
    Jr., Dawn Michelle Hunt, David McMahon, Kai Li, David Lin, Mark Swidan,
    to mention but a few, never stood a chance. (Nor did I and my wife.)
        The system during Xi Jinping's reign has also often used televised
    forced and false confessions broadcast on the main party-owned outlets
    CCTV and CGTN in violation of the country's own laws and constitutional
    provisions on trials, to prejudice a trial and poison Chinese public
    opinion. I and my American wife were the first foreign victims of this
    illegal practice.\3\ Our false TV ``confessions'' were broadcast to the
    world without our consent or awareness at the time.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ See photos at the top of this document. One photo shows me in a
    steel cage for the fake TV confession.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        After my release, I waged a campaign and legal action in the UK
    alongside an NGO against CGTN and CCTV. It resulted in the UK TV
    regulator Ofcom fining CGTN and stripping its UK broadcast license over
    the illegal forced confession broadcasts of me and my wife and over the
    fact that CGTN was owned by a political party, which is illegal in the
    UK. I also assisted other victims to file similar complaints. I would
    encourage other countries such as America to follow the UK lead on such
    action. (This would not be an assault on freedom of expression, it
    would be an action to protect the human rights of Americans abroad.)
        There is no fair and transparent judicial process. Defense lawyers
    are prevented from conducting genuine and vigorous defense. No defense
    witnesses are allowed to be called to court. (Multiple defense
    witnesses wanted to testify in support of David McMahon but were not
    allowed.) Defense evidence is not permitted to be presented. Defense
    lawyers who try too hard are debarred or jailed. Prosecution witnesses
    are not required to appear in person--only written testimonials are
    presented and cannot be challenged. There is no cross-examination of
    prosecution witnesses by the defense.
        As many as 99.9 percent of prosecutions in China result in
    convictions and sentences. And 99.9 percent of appeals are rejected. As
    beneficiaries of an open and fair judicial system in, say, America and
    the UK, we know that such glorious figures are simply not credible.
        China's pre-trial detention centers do not function like pre-trial
    custody regimes but as penal regimes from day one, even when a detainee
    has not been indicted, tried and convicted of any crime. The harsh
    conditions which I described in my long FT Weekend Magazine article
    published in February 2018 (https://www.ft.com/
    content/db8b9e36-1119-11e8-940e-08320fc2a277) have grown worse since my
    own stay in the Chinese prisons. I have interviewed released foreign
    prisoners, who have reported unspeakable woes in pre-trial detention.
    The detention centers are designed to crush the human spirit with the
    result that many prisoners falsely confess to a crime they never
    committed. Grown men and women cry inside those walls every day.
        In the post-trial prisons, the Xi dictatorship has steadily
    toughened and harshened prison regimens for foreign prisoners, reducing
    food rations, exercise, family phone calls, letter writing, the
    receiving of comfort packages, reading materials and so forth, and
    sentence reductions have become impossible to obtain without signing
    false confessions and submitting to coerced manufacturing labor.
        Keep in mind one very important thing: Among the millions of
    prisoners in the system, not a single prisoner has ever had a fair and
    transparent trial. Not a single one. Sentences tend to be reckless,
    inconsistent, and disproportionate to any offense. The entire system is
    arbitrary and subject to the whims of Communist Party officials and
    their friends. The system works to favor anyone with ``guanxi''
    (connections) to use the law to bash people they dislike. The tone of
    this behavior has been set from the top down. This results in
    substantial harm to masses of innocent people.
        As a result we cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, treat
    China as being a country under the rule of law and we should not accept
    any charges or trial judgments against our citizens at face value. They
    must all be challenged.

                           Forced Prison Labor System

        China's entire prison system holding many millions of prisoners is
    in fact at the same time a gigantic, self-perpetuating commercial
    enterprise which brings profits to the state, and income to prison
    officers, in other words a ``gulag.'' This funds prison operations
    across the country. Foreign prisoners are not exempt from such labor.
        Every Chinese prison imposes forced production labor on its
    prisoners for the commercial gain of the prison system. I have observed
    that prison officers are employed as labor supervisors, marketing and
    sales managers, and they get bonuses and perks for winning orders and
    for high production output. Designated officers go out to win orders
    and contracts from commercial manufacturers. Every prison has
    incorporated one or more companies to hold this business.
        Those of us who have been guests of Xi's jails have witnessed this
    system in practice. Those who refuse to participate in this labor get
    no merit points for sentence reductions. All other privileges such as
    spending on the prison shopping system, calls to family, family visits,
    reading and letter writing, etc., can be withheld if you refuse this
    work. Even food rations can be reduced. Recalcitrant prisoners get sent
    to solitary. (I personally was threatened with solitary when I refused
    to sign a confession.)
        Prison campuses contain entire factories making a range of goods,
    from sports shoes, apparel and daily hardware items, to electronics
    such as keyboards and appliances. Chinese prisoners work up to 12 hours
    a day 6 days per week. The seventh day is spent on writing thought
    reports and on ideological study and on hand-
    washing clothes.
        Accidents are frequent in the factories. I met many Chinese
    prisoners (and some other Asians) in the Shanghai Nanhui Prison
    hospital with broken bones caused by factory accidents.
        Foreign prisoners, including Americans, in most prisons, do not
    usually perform heavy factory labor (except Pakistani prisoners who are
    all held in Xinjiang) but perform manual tasks that require no
    machinery. Most perform this labor in a work room in their own cell
    block. In Qingpu Prison, where I was held, they worked five and a half
    days a week, occasionally more. However, in some other prisons, African
    prisoners have complained that they are working 12-hour days every
    day--the same hours as Chinese prisoners--and consider themselves as
    ``slave labor.''
        The typical work of foreign prisoners, including Americans,
    includes making gift bags for retail chains (including China's biggest
    duty-free shopping chain), making packaging materials, packaging items
    such as Christmas cards, plastic tags for retail display racks,
    keyboards, and breakfast oatmeal sachets, as witnessed among the
    foreigners in Qingpu Prison.
        I wrote extensively in the Sunday Times in December 2019 about the
    packaging of Tesco Christmas cards and Quaker Oats as revealed by
    foreign prisoners at Qingpu Prison in a message smuggled out inside a
    Tesco Christmas card box and found by a little girl in London at
    Christmas in 2019. [See page 54 for links to the articles.]
        While a prisoner in Qingpu Prison, I personally witnessed items
    being made or packaged for labels bearing the names 3M, H&M, C&A. Other
    prisoners that I have interviewed after their release have listed
    additional brands owned by companies in a number of countries appearing
    on items being made or packaged in Qingpu Prison. These names have
    included PepsiCo, Tesco, Zara, and Disney. These practices are repeated
    in all Chinese prisons.
        With this system, Chinese prisons make huge profits for the
    authorities. There is no incentive to release prisoners early. There is
    every incentive to keep prisoners in prison for as long as possible to
    squeeze more labor out of them. And there is an incentive to grow the
    prison population.
        Thus millions of prisoners are engaged in this enterprise against
    their will and without fair reward. For the Uighurs in Xinjiang labor
    camps things are even worse.
        Most of the almost ten million prisoners in China are performing
    forced labor for the commercial gain of the prison system and hence for
    the CCP dictatorship.
        I advised on and participated in a documentary film premiered last
    year which investigated forced prison labor in China, SOS from a
    Chinese Prisoner, which can be viewed here. It contains some remarkable
    details. https://vimeo.com/manage/
    videos/894499408/952924accf.

                                 Due Diligence

        Before I was wrongfully imprisoned for 2 years in 2013, I had spent
    almost 20 years as a Reuters journalist, and then 15 years as a private
    sector due diligence and anti-fraud investigator running my own well-
    regarded consultancy, named ChinaWhys with offices in Shanghai, Beijing
    and Hong Kong.
        I have extensive experience in performing due diligence in China
    for multinational companies, including many large manufacturing
    companies with deep and complex supply chains, and many American law
    firms. For example I have conducted investigations for Dow Chemical,
    Dell, Apple, PepsiCo, Terex, Baker Mackenzie, Jones Day, H&M, BMW,
    Daimler, Unilever, and Rolls-Royce Engines, to mention only a few.
        In general, many multinationals sub-contract work to Chinese
    factories, which in turn may further sub-contract parts of their own
    job to other small factories and so on. This creates a complex and
    murky supply chain. So very often a multinational has no knowledge of
    what is going on at the bottom, such as the use of a prison enterprise
    or child labor. To illustrate this very simply, a fashion company may
    commission a Chinese factory to make the trimmings for a pair of
    trousers. But that Chinese factory contracts another factory to do the
    zippers, and another one to do the buttons, and another to do
    packaging, etc. Tesco had no idea that its Christmas cards were being
    packaged by a prison. Much of the work done by foreign prisoners is
    indeed such packaging and simple manual assembly.
        The only way that companies become aware of this prison labor is
    when a prisoner manages to smuggle out a whistle-blowing message and it
    gets into the media. This happened with the Tesco Christmas cards in
    December 2019. Since then I have seen several similar messages emerge
    from various other Chinese prisons, related to completely different
    products including pregnancy test kits made at a prison in Tianjin and
    PPE products such as COVID masks made in a prison in Guangdong, all
    sold in Europe.
        It was always difficult for due diligence investigators to drill to
    the bottom of the chain but Xi Jinping has recently erected barriers to
    all information gathering by foreign companies and their agents, making
    meaningful on-the-ground due diligence impossible today. First it
    introduced privacy restrictions that limited due diligence activity.
    And the latest example is the new anti-espionage law introduced last
    year. Now, many activities that previously might have been treated
    merely as privacy matters have been moved under the spying law and
    could result in life sentences.
        In these circumstances, multinationals cannot satisfactorily check
    whether a Chinese company is using prison labor or other illegal
    unsocial labor. The only way to avoid this risk today is not to do
    business in China at all. Anybody who says you can avoid it is either
    lying or fantasizing.

                             Life and Death Matters

        The Chinese prison system weaponizes prisoners' health and medical
    care as an instrument to extort written confessions to crime, refusing
    to provide needed medical attention to prisoners who refuse to admit
    guilt. This is what happened to me and many others. They refused to
    treat my suspected prostate cancer and by the time of my release after
    2 years I had developed advanced prostate cancer and then had to battle
    it for 5 years after my return to the UK. Finally my treatment failed,
    my cancer relapsed and my prostate had to be removed. I am lucky to
    still be alive.
        Imagine what this means for anybody held in such conditions with a
    long sentence to serve, such as Americans Nelson Wells, Jr., Mark
    Swidan, Dawn Michelle Hunt, David Lin and many others.
        This practice is the norm in Chinese prisons. Medical treatment is
    also withheld simply to avoid spending money on it. I learned of
    several Chinese deaths inside my prison from untreated cancers. Since
    my release I have learned that a number of foreign prisoners have died
    soon after their own release, and at least two foreign prisoners in my
    cell block have died from cancer inside the prison in the last few
    years.

            USG Should Treat All American Prisoners in China Equally

        I have reviewed many cases of foreigners imprisoned in China
    including Americans. I mentor the families and/or prisoners in around
    25 cases on a pro bono basis, to varying degrees as needed. I and other
    volunteers have analyzed the situations of prisoners including
    available judicial documents, for prisoners such as Nelson Wells, Jr.,
    David McMahon, Dawn Michelle Hunt, Mark Swidan, and Kai Li. I have
    followed other cases closely without being directly engaged to assist.
        In all cases I have concluded that material and forensic evidence
    was absent in their prosecution, that these convictions are false, and
    that these cases would be thrown out of court in a country under the
    rule of law. I have concluded that not a single one of these prisoners
    received a fair and transparent trial and a proper defense. I have
    concluded through my wider research and experience that beyond these
    few cases, not a single prisoner in China as a whole has received a
    fair and transparent trial. The key values of justice that we espouse
    in democratic countries under the rule of law, and enshrined in the
    American Constitution, are absent.
        America has a law known as the Levinson Act which sets criteria for
    defining who is arbitrarily detained and a hostage. Those thus defined
    are supposed to go onto the list of cases handed to the office of the
    Special Envoy on Hostage Affairs (SPEHA). Only three from China have
    made it onto the list. However, all American prisoners meet the
    criteria by dint of not having received a fair and transparent trial in
    front of an independent court. This needs to change. All Americans held
    in China are arbitrarily detained persons by this classification alone,
    not to mention the other criteria listed in the Levinson Act.
        Nelson Wells, Jr.--the judicial documents show a lack of material,
    forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. His self-defense
    arguments were ignored and he was never allowed to tell his story in
    full in court. Mr. Wells is over 50 and critically ill after over 10
    years of a life term in prison. He would receive medical parole if he
    were not a foreigner. He qualifies for a prisoner transfer to America
    under Chinese law. The USG has not explored this opportunity with the
    Chinese side.
        David McMahon--the judicial documents show a lack of material,
    forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. The only witness was a
    6-year-old girl who was clearly primed and manipulated by her mother
    and the prosecution to utter sheer fabrications and fantasies. He has
    served 11 years from an uncommuted 12-year sentence. He has never
    admitted any guilt--because he is innocent. When he returns to America
    in May 2025 he plans to sue parties who have harmed him.
        Dawn Michelle Hunt--the judicial documents show a lack of material,
    forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. She initially received
    a death sentence, now commuted to life. She is over 50 and critically
    ill in prison and qualifies for a prisoner transfer to America under
    Chinese law. The USG has not explored this opportunity with the Chinese
    side. In addition, she would receive medical parole if she were not a
    foreigner. Throughout her captivity Chinese authorities have obstructed
    her communication with the outside world and prevented her from telling
    her story until the family managed to get it into the New York Times on
    11 Sept 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/world/asia/china-us-
    woman-imprisoned.html.
        Mark Swidan--the judicial documents show a lack of material,
    forensic evidence tying Mark Swidan directly to the crimes ascribed to
    him and a lack of proper defense. They show he was an innocent
    bystander who had somehow fallen socially into bad company without
    knowing the people. His fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong
    time with bad people, while his only reason for being in China was to
    explore the flooring products sector. For this he was sentenced to
    death now commuted to life. His story has been well told very loudly by
    his brave and vociferous mother Katherine, who is elderly and ailing
    and fears that she will never see her son again. Mark is critically
    ill, as witnessed by his own ambassador (Nicholas Burns) and would
    receive medical parole if he were not a foreigner. He should qualify
    for a prisoner transfer to America under Chinese law. The USG has not
    explored this opportunity with the Chinese side.
        Kai Li--I have had no sight of his judicial documents proving the
    charge of espionage against him. I understand that these have been
    sealed by the Chinese authorities on grounds that it is an espionage
    case. This is a very convenient way for an enemy with powerful
    connections in the Shanghai establishment to cover up a deliberate act
    of false imprisonment perpetrated by a business rival. (My own judicial
    records are now also sealed.) Sources have pointed to a private
    business dispute being illegally criminalized against Mr. Li. I have
    seen other instances of this in Shanghai involving citizens of foreign
    countries. Other prisoners released from Qingpu say Mr. Li has ailments
    common to his age (62) but that he is coping reasonably well, working
    in the mini library of the foreigners cell block, with 2 years of a 10-
    year sentence still to serve.

                       Chinese Law on Prisoner Transfers

        A Chinese law promulgated in 2018 commonly known as the PRC Law on
    International Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters contains a
    Chapter 8 that sets out a pathway and mechanism for a foreign prisoner
    to be transferred to a facility in their home country. Separately, a
    bilateral agreement known as a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) exists
    between China and many countries but not with the United States. The
    2018 PRC law puts the onus on the United States to open a discussion
    with China's Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs on any
    individual case. It does not require the pre-existence of a bilateral
    PTA.
        To the best of my knowledge the USG has never explored this
    mechanism with China on any individual case. I have even been told it
    is impossible because ``we don't have a prisoner transfer treaty with
    China.'' But that is not the way the Chinese law reads. And it is not
    the way relevant NGO leaders and American lawyers in the U.S. and China
    see it.
        I also noticed on my last reading of the U.S. State Department's
    guidance notes to its officers on the topic of American prisoners
    abroad that it does not even seem to be aware of this Chinese law. This
    has been a wasted opportunity to assist unjustly held American
    prisoners in China, none of whom have had a fair and transparent trial.

                       Final Comments and Recommendations

          In their aggregate, the harsh conditions in China's pre-
    trial detention facilities and prisons are tantamount to torture per
    international treaties and conventions.

          China's judicial and prison system violates international
    norms and treaties such as the U.N. conventions on torture and on
    minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners.

          The Chinese prison system is a political system of
    oppression and slavery, not a justice system.

          The Chinese system is not the rule of law and should not
    be viewed by America as though it is. In America we all know what the
    rule of law is.

          Forced labor products from China's prison system are
    entering our economies, including America's. We must legislate stronger
    laws to prevent this and we must enforce the legislation.

          Prisoners held in China for alleged common crimes
    (including Americans) are just as much victims of human rights abuse as
    China's own political and religious prisoners. The scale of this abuse
    is immense. In a system where every prosecution is political, all
    American prisoners are de facto political prisoners. America needs to
    recognize this and to act and legislate accordingly.

          Not a single prosecution case in China would survive the
    scrutiny of a court in America, the UK, or any other country under the
    rule of law. This postulation is very simple to put to the test in a
    simulated courtroom or even on a college campus.

          Countries which uphold the genuine rule of law, such as
    America, should abandon their practice of non-intervention in Chinese
    judicial cases involving U.S. citizens.

          In every case of a U.S. citizen being detained in China,
    the U.S. Government should challenge the processes and practices and
    the lack of transparency. America should intervene robustly both
    legally and politically in the cases of its citizens in China. This
    requirement should be contained in legislation.

          America owes this duty of care to its passport holders.
    This must not be only the privilege of one or two selected prisoners on
    the SPEHA hostage list. It must be the government's response to all
    such cases, regardless of skin color, class background, or the nature
    of the alleged crime.

          Congress should bring pressure on the USG to fully test
    the 2018 Chinese law on foreign prisoner transfers outside and beyond
    any bilateral treaty.

          America must impose mandatory due diligence requirements
    on all its firms to make them drill down their supply chains to ensure
    that there is no prison labor or other unsocial labor or illegal
    practices in the chain. Where China erects barriers to adequate due
    diligence, American firms must be legally required to abandon said
    business projects.

          Legislators and government should internationalize the
    issue of prison abuse and arbitrary and wrongful detention in China as
    a systemic concern. It is no less a human rights issue than political
    and religious persecution, and the scale is enormous.

          America should actively consider negotiated swaps for
    prisoners held for alleged ``common crimes,'' or even a mass swap,
    exchanging Chinese prisoners held in American jails for American
    prisoners held in China. Past experience (in China and Russia and
    elsewhere) shows this is a possible avenue.

    [Recommended media docs for reference--internet links appear on the
    next page.]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                     ______

                     Prepared Statement of Katherine Swidan

        Mr. Chairperson, distinguished members of the Commission, thank you
    for allowing me to share some thoughts with you today. My name is
    Katherine Swidan from Luling, Texas, and I am the mother of Mark
    Swidan, an American citizen who has been unjustly detained in China for
    12 long years.
        Mark is not just a statistic; he is a son, a brother, and a friend
    whose absence has left a gaping hole in our hearts and family. We are
    grateful for the congressional resolutions passed by the House and
    Senate last year. I thought he would be home by now, but 12 years into
    this, I am concerned that I will never see him again.
        I wish I could be with you today, but my health is failing, and I
    need to remain strong and heal for the day Mark finally comes home.
    Over a decade has passed since Mark was taken from us, and every day
    without him is a day too long. Despite overwhelming evidence of his
    innocence and the arbitrary nature of his detention, Mark continues to
    languish in a foreign prison, deprived of his freedom, his health
    deteriorating, and his hope fading. I do not want my son to become
    another Otto Warmbier or James Foley.
        I understand that diplomacy is complex and that negotiations with
    foreign governments can be delicate. However, the Chinese government
    has expressed a willingness to resolve my son's case, presenting
    proposals that, regrettably, have been met with reluctance or outright
    rejection by the Biden-Harris administration. Time is not a luxury that
    Mark or our family can afford. Every moment lost is a moment Mark is
    denied justice, a moment our family cannot regain.
        Despite all the talk about human rights abroad and the U.S.
    taxpayer funding annual reports on human rights abuses around the
    world, there are no such reports about Americans like Mark unjustly
    detained overseas. We rightly highlight the suffering of the people of
    Tibet, the Uyghurs, and repressed Christians in China, but what about
    the rights of Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned? Who speaks for
    them?
        Who ensures that the human rights of our citizens are not
    overlooked or forgotten while we champion those of others? The U.S.
    Government must remember that its first duty is to its own people, to
    defend their rights and bring them home. Do you realize that every time
    we issue reports condemning human rights in China, that is used against
    Americans and others who help or love our country? I support defending
    human rights, but we must focus on our people first. The Chinese may
    get upset about your reports, but they ignore these reports, but not
    when they talk about abuse of our people, such as Mark. Why is that?
        While I am distraught with China for what they have done, I am even
    more upset with my own government. How many more Presidents must take
    office before action is taken? President Obama, President Trump,
    President Biden--none has brought Mark home. Why is that? Why do the
    well connected seem to have their cases resolved more quickly while
    families like mine are forgotten?
        Mark is innocent. Even the United Nations Working Group on
    Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD) has issued a report declaring his
    detention arbitrary and in violation of international law. The UN WGAD
    found no evidence to justify the charges against him and called for his
    immediate release.
        Despite this, Mark remains imprisoned, his rights trampled upon
    daily, subjected to what this Commission knows is ``white torture'' and
    his innocence disregarded. How long must we wait while the world
    acknowledges what we already know: that Mark should be free and back
    home with his family? His case is a clear injustice, yet it continues
    to be ignored by those with the power to act. We need our leaders with
    moral and political courage to do right and use our power to bring Mark
    home.
        I am here today not only as a grieving mother but as a voice for
    every American family with loved ones wrongfully detained abroad. I
    plead for your help. I urge the Biden-Harris administration to
    reconsider its stance and to engage earnestly with the Chinese
    government's proposals. Our loved ones are not bargaining chips or
    political pawns; they are human beings whose rights and freedoms must
    be upheld and protected.
        As leaders of this great nation, I implore you not to let
    diplomatic complexities stand in the way of human decency and justice.
    I am pleading for my son's life, his freedom, and the chance to bring
    him home. Let us show the world that the United States of America does
    not abandon its citizens and that we will fight for their rights and
    their return, no matter the challenges.
        A few months ago, Bishop Strickland from Texas visited me. We
    talked and prayed for Mark, a devout Catholic who, even in captivity,
    has stood up for fellow prisoners when they were abused by Chinese
    guards. Mark's Bible has been confiscated and his rosary destroyed, but
    as I shared with Bishop Strickland, he has not lost his faith in God,
    family, or country.
        I also want to thank Mel Gibson, who did a video for Mark and a
    Mass, and many Members of Congress from Texas, such as Representative
    Cloud and Senator Ted Cruz, for not forgetting Mark and his plight. Of
    course I thank the Commission, Chairman Chris Smith, and Senator Jeff
    Merkley and the staff for helping raise awareness about Mark's plight
    and that of other Americans.
        In closing, I ask for your immediate action and commitment to
    engage in meaningful dialogue and negotiations for Mark's release. Our
    family is counting on you, as is Mark. Please help bring my son home.
        Thank you for your time and consideration.
                                     ______

                     Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith

        We open today's hearing knowing that Pastor David Lin is back in
    the United States after nearly two decades unjustly detained. Pastor
    Lin's crime was that he worked to strengthen the Protestant Chinese
    ``house church'' movement. For this, he received a life sentence.
        We are overjoyed for the Lin family. This Commission has pressed
    the past two administrations to prioritize David Lin's case. We
    acknowledge the efforts of the Biden Administration to gain Pastor
    Lin's release and are hopeful that his release creates space for more
    releases, like of the family members of our witnesses today.
        Despite the release of David Lin, there are more Americans detained
    in the People's Republic of China (PRC) than anywhere else in the
    world. Wrongfully detained U.S. nationals are serving long prison
    sentences--an average of 8 years. The families of Mark Swidan, Kai Li,
    Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt know these hard facts all too
    well. They have all languished far too long in Chinese prisons.
        The Foley Foundation identifies 11 wrongfully detained Americans in
    China, including those subject to ``exit bans.'' John Kamm, the
    preeminent expert on political prisoners in China, estimates that there
    are 200 or more American citizens ``coercively detained,'' with 30
    Americans being held in China under exit bans--where U.S. citizens are
    stopped from leaving China to settle economic disputes or to coerce
    their relatives to return to China to face alleged crimes.
        This is unacceptable. If the Chinese government wants to improve
    relations with the United States, they should release Americans who are
    wrongfully imprisoned without condition and unilaterally end the use of
    exit bans, a form of de facto hostage-taking that violates article 12
    of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty
    that the People's Republic of China has signed--though not yet
    ratified.
        But I'll go further than that. The release of American citizens
    should be the first thing President Biden says to Communist Party
    leader Xi Jinping whenever they talk. Their names should be said so
    often that Xi Jinping memorizes them. Their cases should be agenda item
    #1 at every meeting the Secretary of State has with Chinese officials.
        And every U.S. official traveling to China should be repeatedly
    saying the names of Kai Li, Mark Swidan, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn
    Michelle Hunt. Every channel of the U.S. Government must be focused on
    the release of wrongfully detained Americans. It's that simple.
        All Americans detained in China deserve robust diplomatic
    assistance to gain their transfer out of prison or at the very least,
    to have more frequent U.S. consular officials visit, more frequent and
    longer visits with their families, and better access to legal
    representation and health care. Given the legal system in China, and
    the poor prison conditions--more Americans should be considered to be
    unjustly detained by the State Department.
        How many Americans currently in Chinese prisons received a
    transparent trial, with a genuine legal defense, in an impartial
    Chinese court? In China's rule-by-law system, where the Party can
    dictate sentences of guilt or innocence--none.
        How many detained Americans face serious health challenges because
    of the poor conditions in PRC prisons--

          where Chinese and foreigners alike are forced to work
    long hours?
          where they are often tortured or mistreated by guards and
    other prisoners?
          where they suffer from insufficient medical care and
    nutrition?

        Your testimony about what you and your families endured while
    jailed should be submitted as evidence of torture to the Committee
    Against Torture for the upcoming review of China. I will instruct our
    staff to work with you to submit your testimonies to the United Nations
    High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. Mission in Geneva.
        But that is just a start. Given the number of Americans detained
    and the Chinese Communist Party's willingness to engage in hostage
    diplomacy, there should be more creative diplomatic approaches to
    counter the threat. To that end, I will introduce a bill with Rep. Tom
    Suozzi that will, among other measures,

          Direct the State Department to create a strategy for
    gaining the release of your family members;
          Gain insight into the diplomatic tools the State
    Department is using for your family members, including the use of
    designations and sanctions authorized in Executive Order 14078
    ``Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United
    States Nationals Home.''
          Seek more transparent information from the State
    Department about the cases of your loved ones, including gaining access
    to the resources Congress allocated to assist families with the
    financial burden of advocacy.

        I know this is a tough and emotional day for our witnesses. No
    amount of words or sympathy from us can replace your missing loved
    ones. I hope you know that our purpose here today is to listen to your
    stories and to learn about your loved ones and their ordeal.
        You must all know that we are here today because we are committed
    to bringing your loved ones home. As a Commission, we will continue to
    press the U.S. Government to do more for your loved ones. For my part,
    I promise to remain a tenacious advocate for their release. They have
    suffered too long. They will not be forgotten.
                                     ______

                    Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley

        Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for convening this hearing, and
    much appreciation to each of you for coming to share your stories.
        For more than two decades, Members of Congress and executive branch
    officials on this Commission have sought to shine a light on the
    prisoners of conscience who have been unjustly jailed by Chinese
    authorities for seeking to exercise their basic human rights.
        Our Commission maintains a Political Prisoner Database that
    currently has 2,764 nationals of the People's Republic of China known
    or believed to be detained, and as the Chairman pointed out, the Foley
    Foundation has a list of about a dozen American individuals wrongfully
    detained in China. But human rights organizations' estimates go up to
    about 200. We don't know the exact number. What we know is this: Even
    one American detained as a political prisoner in China is one too many.
        If an American breaks the law in China, that individual can be
    prosecuted just as a Chinese national would be here in the United
    States. But here is the problem. Many laws of the PRC are not
    consistent with human rights standards. Due process is routinely
    denied. And the rule of law is undermined by political considerations.
    Our U.S. Government has been developing some tools to counter this.
        In 2015, President Obama issued directives to implement an
    interagency response to overseas hostage-taking, including creation of
    a Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State
    Department. In 2020, President Trump signed into law the Robert
    Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. In
    2022, President Biden issued an Executive Order to authorize sanctions
    against foreign government officials and others who are complicit in
    hostage-taking.
        With these tools and under President Biden's leadership we have
    seen a 42 percent decrease in the number of detained Americans overseas
    since a peak in 2002, according to the Foley Foundation. Among these
    was the recent high-profile return from Russia of Paul Whelan, Evan
    Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and others.
        But not every American in detention overseas gets a spotlight.
    Today, we are putting a spotlight on three individuals: We will hear
    from the family members of three Americans--Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr.,
    and Dawn Hunt--who have been unjustly detained in China for eight or
    more years.
        We want to hear their story from their family members today.
    Because in hearing your story we're then able to tell the story. We can
    tell the story to the Administration and to the media. Most important,
    we can carry that message to, and work toward their release with, the
    government of the People's Republic of China.
        Our Americans in detention suffer from illness and mental anguish.
    We want to make sure they get proper care and counsel. But most of all,
    we want them united with their families.
        We are joyful that David Lin has been released and is now reunited
    with his family. What a celebration that is. But we want a celebration
    for each of your families. Reportedly, China wrongly holds more
    Americans than any other country. We want to know why the Chinese
    government refuses to allow them to come home.
        Our U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, has met with three
    Americans wrongfully detained. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised
    their cases directly with President Xi. But despite these efforts,
    despite the tools we have and the representations made, the Chinese
    government continues to turn a blind eye to the suffering and the
    heartbreak.
        So today we not only hear your stories. Your stories represent the
    stories of so many American families of those detained, and they help
    shed light on the details of the circumstances and help us ponder what
    more we can do, as Chairman Smith has suggested.
        We look forward to hearing from you.
                                     ______

                  Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern

        My thanks to Chairman Smith and Co-Chairman Merkley for convening
    today's hearing on the People's Republic of China's detention of
    American nationals. Unfortunately, I am unable to attend in person, and
    so I submit my remarks for the record.
        According to the Foley Foundation, there are 11 U.S. nationals
    wrongfully detained in China. Others believe there could be as many as
    200. Wrongful detention is a human rights violation. Even one wrongful
    detention is too many.
        The Biden Administration has demonstrated a clear commitment to
    obtaining the release of wrongfully detained Americans around the
    world, with some notable successes. In March 2023, the Administration
    brought Paul Rusesabagina home from Rwanda. In April 2023, Russia
    released Brittney Griner. In September 2023, five Americans jailed for
    years by Iran were finally freed. In December 2023, 10 Americans held
    by Venezuela came home.
        And just a few weeks ago, the Administration achieved the release
    of 16 individuals, including 3 U.S. citizens and 1 green-card holder,
    who were unjustly detained in Russia. It was wonderful to welcome home
    Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsu Kurmasheva, Evan Gershkovich, and Paul
    Whelan, and to see them reunited with their families. This is what we
    want for every wrongfully detained American.
        The Administration is making good use of available tools, including
    those authorized in the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-
    Taking Accountability Act, and President Biden's 2022 Executive Order
    intended to bolster efforts to bring wrongfully detained nationals
    home. Roger Carstens, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs,
    has led the delicate diplomacy, often with staunch adversaries of the
    United States, that has made releases possible. But there are still
    many U.S. nationals wrongfully detained around the world, held on
    dubious charges, and denied due process--like the cases the Commission
    will hear about today. My heart goes out to the families of Kai Li,
    Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt, all unjustly detained in China for
    eight or more years.
        Today is the opportunity to hear their stories, and their ideas for
    what more the U.S. Government should be doing to free their loved ones.
    I understand that U.S. officials have raised the cases with the Chinese
    authorities. We also know that, so far, the Chinese government has
    failed to respond.
        I hope this hearing serves to identify additional approaches that
    could help bring these Americans home. Thank you.
                           Submissions for the Record

                        Submission of Jason Ian Poblete,
                       President, Global Liberty Alliance

        Chairman and Members of the Commission, I want to thank you again
    for the opportunity to address this critical issue, not just as a
    lawyer and advocate but as someone who has witnessed firsthand the
    devastation that these unjust detentions bring to American families.
        Today, my brief remarks are focused primarily on discussing the
    case of Mr. Mark Swidan, a U.S. citizen who has been unjustly detained
    in China for close to 12 years. Mark's case is an alarming example of a
    broader and more disturbing pattern of American citizens being caught
    in the web of China's deeply flawed and in-
    humane legal system.
        You heard from Mark's mother, Ms. Katherine Swidan, through a
    prepared video statement recorded at her home in Luling, Texas. Her
    health challenges, sadly compounded by the strain of her son's
    prolonged detention, prevent her from being here in person. She carries
    her physical burdens and the emotional weight of this injustice that
    has continued for many years. For the Swidan family, every day Mark
    remains in detention is another day of unimaginable anguish.
        I became involved with Mark's case just two years ago, and frankly,
    I was shocked--not only by the details of Mark's unjust detention--
    recognized by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention--but by how
    little had been done for him up until that point.
        Even though Mark is an American citizen who is held under
    conditions that violate basic international human rights standards, his
    case has received little attention. There was minimal public awareness,
    and the focus was scattered and in-
    adequate within government circles.
        What I quickly realized, though, was that Mark's case is not
    isolated. It is just the tip of the iceberg. As I dug deeper into
    Mark's situation, I was stunned to learn that many other Americans are
    suffering similar fates in China--imprisoned under dubious
    circumstances, subjected to an unfair legal process, and cut off from
    the protection they should be entitled to as American citizens. This
    problem extends far beyond what is typically covered in human rights
    reports prepared by the State Department.
        Mark and Katherine are grateful that Congress has passed two
    resolutions on this matter, one in the House and another in the Senate,
    and of course, this hearing. They appreciate the work done by many in
    the executive branch and civil society to help in this case. Yet Mark's
    case and others like it should never last a decade or more. It is
    unconscionable that Americans are locked up in Communist China for this
    long. That is a national failure, and we can and must do better.
        For years, I have read countless human rights reports funded by
    U.S. taxpayers and U.S. assistance to NGOs that do essential work on
    human rights issues in China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and
    many other nations. The Global Liberty Alliance has also done that work
    and continues to do so. However, these reports overwhelmingly focus on
    the human rights abuse of foreign nationals in faraway lands, not the
    plight of Americans and other U.S. nationals unjustly detained in these
    nations.
        While advocating for human rights in China is essential, our first
    responsibility must be protecting our citizens. If we fail to
    prioritize the safety and freedom of Americans and U.S. legal permanent
    residents, it becomes much harder to secure their release and
    undermines our credibility as a global advocate for human rights. We
    cannot effectively tell others how to address their injustices when we
    neglect to care for our people.
        Chinese diplomats see this perceived lack of focus on our nationals
    as a weakness, and they exploit it, knowing we are distracted by
    broader issues. Protecting our people first strengthens our position to
    hold others accountable for their actions and influence fundamental and
    individual rights globally.
        American citizens like Mr. Swidan should be at the forefront of our
    human rights and foreign policy agenda. Too often, we see the rights of
    U.S. citizens sidelined in discussions about broader geopolitical or
    humanitarian issues. This must change. The U.S. Government, including
    the State Department, needs to refocus its priorities to ensure that
    Americans wrongfully detained abroad, especially by hostile regimes
    like China, receive the highest level of attention and advocacy.
        China's legal system is not comparable to our own. It lacks
    transparency, due process, and the rule of law. These are basic
    principles that the United States upholds, and we must hold China
    accountable for its failure to do the same. When American citizens are
    detained in China, they are subjected to a system that we, by our own
    assessments, have deemed abusive and unjust.
        Therefore, every American detained in China, regardless of the
    alleged crimes, must be treated as unjustly detained under U.S. law. We
    cannot afford to accept Chinese court rulings at face value, especially
    when we know their legal process is fundamentally broken.
        One of the most troubling aspects of this issue is the tendency to
    equate the plight of Chinese nationals imprisoned in the U.S. with
    Americans detained in China. Let me be clear--these are not the same.
    The U.S. legal system, while not perfect, is governed by the rule of
    law, fairness, and transparency. China's system is arbitrary,
    politically motivated, and often used as a tool of state control. We
    must stop treating these two situations as morally or legally
    equivalent. Americans detained in China deserve better, and we must
    advocate for them with that understanding firmly in mind.
        Additionally, it is time for a more aggressive approach to holding
    Chinese officials accountable for these unjust detentions. We must
    impose real consequences on those responsible, including sanctions and
    visa bans for Chinese diplomats and officials involved in these cases.
    But sanctions and visa bans are tools, not a policy. We must redouble
    efforts to make clear what it means to ``bring Americans and other U.S.
    nationals home.'' It must be more than slogans, or a routine oversight
    and reporting issue.
        We must also reconsider the privileges regime officials and their
    families enjoy in the United States. Far too often, we see the family
    members of these same officials vacationing in the U.S., conducting
    business here, or even accessing our healthcare system. This is
    unacceptable.
        Access to the United States should be considered a privilege, not a
    right, and those who are complicit in the unjust detentions of
    Americans should not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of our country
    while denying fundamental rights to our citizens. Reciprocity is
    earned, not freely given.
        The U.S. Government must protect its people, both at home and
    abroad. This means enforcing and perhaps improving current law, and not
    throwing more money at the challenge. Some political and moral courage
    can do wonders.
        While we continue to champion human rights in China and elsewhere,
    we must maintain sight of the fact that our citizens are suffering
    under regimes that do not respect the rule of law. The time for half-
    measures and cautious diplomacy is over. We must take decisive action
    to bring Mark Swidan and other Americans home.
        In conclusion, Mark's case exemplifies a much larger problem and,
    perhaps, a crisis. I say probably since we do not have complete
    information about the scope of the problem. Yet there is no doubt in my
    mind that the U.S. Government must commit itself fully to protecting
    its citizens abroad. This has yet to happen in Mark's case and many
    other cases like it in China, Venezuela, Cuba, and other nations.
        We need more transparency about how many Americans are currently
    detained in China, and we must ensure that all of them are treated as
    unjustly detained under U.S. law because there is no rule of law in
    Communist China. This demands a shift in priorities at the State
    Department and across the government, placing the safety and freedom of
    American citizens above all else. Our ambassadors and diplomats are on
    the front lines as America's strongest advocates in these cases. Are
    they receiving the training and resources they need? What can we
    improve to support their efforts better?
        While the SPEHA office or process is a topic for another hearing,
    the success or failure of these cases ultimately hinges on political
    will and moral courage from the highest levels of leadership--the
    President and Congress. Their commitment is what truly makes a
    difference, as does listening to people who have worked on these cases
    a long time, including experts in the private sector. Simply growing
    the government or throwing more money at the problem is not the answer.
    Solutions come from effective leadership, not expanding bureaucracy. If
    the President prioritizes it, good things will happen sooner rather
    than a decade or more later.
        We also need real accountability for the Chinese government, which
    means imposing sanctions, visa bans, and other measures on those
    responsible for these injustices. Until we stand firm and demand
    justice for Americans detained in China, we will continue to see our
    people used as pawns in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical game.
        Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. I look
    forward to working with the Committee to bring about meaningful change.
                                     ______

                        Submission of Benedict Rogers,
                    Co-founder and Trustee, Hong Kong Watch

        Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley,
        I am a writer and human rights activist specializing in Asia,
    particularly China and Hong Kong as well as Burma/Myanmar and North
    Korea. I am a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch, an advisor to
    the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and the Stop Uyghur
    Genocide Campaign, co-founder and Deputy Chair of the UK Conservative
    Party Human Rights Commission and author of many articles and reports
    on the human rights situation in China, and of a book, ``The China
    Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party's
    Tyranny,'' published in 2022.
        I warmly welcome the hearing you are holding on unjustly detained
    Americans in China and thank you for doing so. In June 2023, the UK
    Conservative Party Human Rights Commission held a hearing which I
    helped to organize in the British Parliament, chaired by Tim Loughton
    MP, Chair of the Commission at the time, focused on foreign prisoners
    detained in China and the abuse, forced labor and denial of human
    rights which they face. The hearing drew on testimony from Mr. Peter
    Humphrey, a British citizen detained in prison in the People's Republic
    of China (PRC) from 2013-2015, and Mr. Marius Balo, a Romanian citizen
    imprisoned in the PRC from 2014-2022.
        Rather than repeat or quote from the report published by the
    Conservative Party Human Rights Commission in July 2023, following the
    Commission's hearing, I would prefer to attach the report in full--
    available also on our website here:
    https://conservativepartyhumanrightscommission.co.uk/wp-content/
    uploads/2023/07/CPHRC-Foreign-Prisoners-in-China-briefingFINAL.pdf.
        The report details the complete lack of justice in the PRC's legal,
    judicial, and prison system, the complete absence of judicial
    independence or fair trial, the lack of fair or proper police
    investigations into alleged crimes, and the widespread use of prison
    labor, including by foreign prisoners, in the production lines of major
    international corporations. I hope that the Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China (CECC) will study this report carefully as part of
    the hearing and inquiry being held, and that the full report by the
    Conservative Party Human Rights Commission may be entered into the
    Congressional Record.
        In conclusion, I respectively urge the U.S. Congress and the CECC
    to call on the government of the United States of America to do more to
    seek the release of prisoners incarcerated in China who have not
    undergone fair and transparent trials, and especially to intervene more
    robustly to protect the human rights of U.S. citizens and other foreign
    nationals detained in the PRC. In particular, I highlight the cases of
    three American citizens, David Lin, Kai Li and Mark Swidan serving long
    sentences in China.
        The PRC's use of arbitrary detention is widespread and systematic,
    and much more needs to be done to call it out. I wholeheartedly support
    calls for the use of Magnitsky sanctions against those involved in
    arbitrarily detaining prisoners, including foreign nationals, and
    against those within the PRC system involved in torture, mistreatment
    or other cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners and in the use of
    forced labor.
        I thank you, Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley, for your focus
    on this urgent and critical topic.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                           Submission of Cedric Witek

        Dear Mr. Chairman, dear members of this Commission,
        I make this statement at the suggestion of Peter Humphrey, a friend
    and former colleague also testifying to this Commission. I am a French
    national and a corporate-crime investigator of 25 years' standing with
    a long experience of Asia and especially China, where I lived and
    worked for many years investigating all manner of wrongdoing including
    fraud, corruption and human-rights abuses both on behalf of private
    clients and pro bono. I am fluent in the Chinese language.
        I write this in my capacity of having helped Peter advocate for
    David McMahon, an American citizen imprisoned in China. Peter first
    contacted me about this in the fall of 2016, when he first told me of
    McMahon and his conviction in Shanghai three years previously for the
    alleged sexual abuse of children at the French School of Shanghai.
        At the time, Peter asked me as a personal favor to review materials
    relating to McMahon's conviction in Shanghai and provide analysis and
    input on any potential actions that might help raise awareness of what
    Peter believed was McMahon's wrongful imprisonment. Repulsed by the
    routine Chinese-regime practice of imprisoning the innocent, I agreed
    to do this.
        In doing so I came to believe--as Peter himself did--that McMahon
    was innocent of the charges levied against him, which seemed to me
    poorly supported by questionable allegations and evidence gathered in a
    sloppy and partial manner. My belief in McMahon's innocence has only
    been strengthened by his behavior ever since: despite spending over a
    decade in the hell of the Chinese prison system, he has always refused
    to make a confession even though it is the surest way to leniency and
    even release.
        But I also became convinced that McMahon was denied due process at
    every stage, and perhaps even deliberately framed by parents who were
    utterly convinced of his guilt, acting in collaboration with French
    government authorities. The materials I reviewed suggested deliberate
    collusion between the families accusing McMahon of sexual abuse in
    making sure he was convicted, for example, to the extent of arranging a
    so-called ``secret meeting'' to plot a legal offensive against McMahon
    and even contacting the FBI.
        What also struck me was the sheer amount of effort that seemed to
    have been put in by the French consular authorities in Shanghai to help
    convict David McMahon. Not only did the French Consul-General in
    Shanghai get involved, but so did the Ambassador as well as the Agency
    for French Schooling Abroad (``AEFE''), a French government organ under
    supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I understood
    from the materials given to me that French consular officials went as
    far as to threaten staff at the French School of Shanghai, including
    its principal, into withdrawing their support for McMahon and
    withholding statements that might have exonerated him.
        This seemed to me unusual as well as highly improper. The consular
    authorities of a third country have of course no business actively
    prejudging the merits of a criminal case on Chinese soil, much less
    threatening witnesses or otherwise tampering with the investigation and
    influencing the outcome of the case.
        What I believe really happened based on the materials at my
    disposal at the time is that the parents of the allegedly abused
    children, already deeply traumatized by their children's prior abuse at
    the hands of convicted sex offender Hector Orjuela at the same school
    the previous year and acting under the mistaken belief that McMahon was
    a friend of his, overreacted to their children's routine manifestations
    of affection to McMahon, a common reaction in parents of victims of
    sexual abuse. The parents then likely raised the matter with the school
    in terms brooking no opposition, and probably even threatened to go
    public.
        The French School of Shanghai, like most French international
    schools, was affiliated to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
    received partial funding from the French government. The reputation of
    French schools abroad is generally seen to be tied to that of the
    French state itself. It is clear that a second child abuse scandal at
    the school in less than a year would not have served French interests
    as the Consulate understood them.
        So I believe the French Consulate may have set out deliberately to
    build a case against McMahon and then delivered an entirely prejudged
    and prejudiced case to the Chinese government, which would have been
    only too eager to take receipt of a pre-packaged foreign scapegoat and
    be seen as a resolute enforcer of justice.
        Needless to say, the Chinese regime's actual record in enforcing
    justice is wholly laughable. The overriding objective of the
    prosecution process in China is to vindicate its judiciary, which is
    controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party and operates entirely
    at the discretion of the executive. Nearly a hundred percent of the
    cases end in conviction and criminal lawyers are largely there for
    window-dressing, deliberately denied access to the materials necessary
    to mount a proper defense. No conviction in China is sound.
        I believe that McMahon's accusers, some animated by a sincere
    belief in his guilt and others by a simple urge to head off a looming
    scandal, took full advantage of this fact. If that is indeed what
    happened, then I am deeply ashamed that the authorities of my country
    colluded in this dishonorable outcome. France was birthed in the
    struggle against despotism and then gave the world the first
    declaration of human rights. True French values--my values--prize the
    life of an innocent man above the reputation of an institution, let
    alone some warped conception of national prestige that would involve
    sandbagging the powerless in cahoots with a heinous dictatorship which
    still today harvests the organs of political prisoners and sells them
    to the highest bidder.
        In conclusion, I am making this statement so that it might help a
    man, and others like him, who was denied the most basic due process and
    then left to rot in a prison manned by one of the world's worst
    autocracies. Yet it is only fair to recognize that for many years now
    and despite the always praiseworthy efforts of certain virtuous
    individuals, the record of Western governments as a whole in standing
    up for the rights of their citizens wrongfully imprisoned by
    dictatorial regimes has been poor. Beset by what the retired Australian
    general Mick Ryan recently called ``strategic timidity,'' a polite term
    for cowardice, Western governments in the past generation have
    preferred to avoid awkwardness in their relations with outright
    tyrannies.
        In rolling over for those despotic regimes in the past and taking
    their spurious convictions of our citizens at face value by default, I
    believe we in the democratic West have weakened ourselves and emulated
    the dictatorships. The most essential role of the state is to protect
    its citizens, and the most fundamental mark of a democracy is that it
    honors the inherent dignity of the individual. Unlike the tyrants of
    Russia and China who see their own people as nothing more than faceless
    kindling to be heaped on the bonfire of their twisted ambitions,
    democracies recognize that the individual is endowed with unique and
    unquantifiable worth. We recognize that the rights of the individual,
    even and indeed especially when naked against the lofty designs of the
    mighty and the hulking machinery of the state, are paramount.
        Yet as things stand, unless a Western victim of the Chinese regime
    happens to be famous or connected, they stand little chance of their
    government rallying forcefully behind them. They too become faceless
    kindling. And it then befalls their distraught friends and relatives--
    ordinary people with ordinary lives and means, some of them ill,
    elderly or barely adults--to fight long, grim and lonely campaigns only
    to face the cold, slippery marble of their own government, at times so
    remote and Olympian that it can feel little different from the
    heartless mandarinate of Communist China. Meanwhile the months and
    years pass. And the victims and their loved ones can hardly be blamed
    for emerging from the ordeal as embittered about their own country as
    they are about the thuggish regime that mauled them in the first place.
    Being wantonly attacked is bad enough. Being left to bleed by the
    roadside is a moral injury.
        I write this in humble hope for change. Many thanks to all of you
    for reading my statement and for choosing to work for this change.

                       Submission of the Foley Foundation

                                     ______

                               Executive Summary

        China is currently holding the most wrongfully detained Americans
    of any other country.\1\ A substantial portion of this number is driven
    by China's use of exit bans. The length of detention is concerning, as
    the Americans wrongfully detained in China today have been held for, on
    average, more than 8 years. Other western countries have also struggled
    in recent years to address China's use of hostage diplomacy.\2\ The
    United States has traditionally relied on diplomatic engagement to
    secure the release of Americans from China.\3\ Given the number of
    Americans detained in China, the length of prison sentences, and
    China's apparent willingness to engage in hostage diplomacy, more
    creative and coordinated international approaches are needed to better
    counter this threat.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
    governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and
    the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy
    Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
    report/.
        \2\ Hostage diplomacy is defined as the use of a country's criminal
    justice system to hold foreigners hostage. Gilbert, D. (2023, September
    22). Biden's hostage diplomacy, explained. Center for Strategic &
    International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/bidens-hostage-
    diplomacy-explained.
        \3\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
    governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and
    the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy
    Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
    report/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                  The Number of Wrongfully Detained Americans

        The number of known Americans wrongfully detained in China has
    climbed over the last 10 years. In 2014, six Americans were wrongfully
    detained by China.\4\ That number grew to eight Americans in 2016,
    reaching a peak in 2019, with 20 Americans assessed as wrongfully
    detained by the Foley Foundation. Since 2022, we have not seen new
    cases of Americans being wrongfully detained by China; however, until
    this past weekend, releases have also stagnated.\5\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \4\ Based on a database maintained by the James W. Foley Legacy
    Foundation.
        \5\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
    governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and
    the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy
    Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
    report/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The U.S. Department of State classifies Americans as wrongfully
    detained in China: Mark Swidan (detained since November 2012) and Kai
    Li (detained since September 2016). Pastor David Lin, held 18 years,
    was recently released on Sept. 15 of this year. The Foley Foundation
    assesses that an additional nine Americans meet the wrongful detention
    criteria as specified in the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and
    Hostage-Taking Accountability Act based on the publicly available
    information.\6\ This number still likely underestimates the extent of
    Americans wrongfully detained in China, as the Foley Foundation
    monitors several other cases that might, with additional evidence, meet
    the criteria for wrongful detention. Further complicating the problem
    is China's refusal to recognize dual-national citizens. The State
    Department warns that dual nationals may have their access to consular
    services denied by China, limiting the assistance the U.S. Government
    is able to provide.\7\ The problem of accurately reporting the number
    of Americans detained in China is exacerbated by underreporting,
    pressure on families to not come forward because of retaliation
    concerns, and China's use of exit bans.\8\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \6\ The Foley Foundation includes three individuals placed on exit
    bans in our count.
        \7\ State Department. (2024, April 12). China travel advisory.
    https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/
    traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html.
        \8\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
    governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and
    the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy
    Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
    report/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            China's Use of Exit Bans

        China leverages exit bans to coerce cooperation with government
    investigations, pressure family members to return from abroad, settle
    civil disputes, and exert political leverage on foreign governments.\9\
    In its investigation of China's use of exit bans, the Associated Press
    noted that individuals do not receive an official notification that
    they have been placed under a ban.\10\ Additionally, exit bans do not
    have clearly defined time periods, nor a method for remediation.
    Because China does not provide an official count of the exit bans in
    use, it is difficult to ascertain an exact number. China President Xi
    Jinping has expanded the authorities of and use of exit bans.\11\ A
    perception that China is increasing its use of exit bans is shared by
    diplomats from multiple countries.\12\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \9\ Department of State. (2024, April 12). China travel advisory.
    https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/
    traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html.
        \10\ Kinetz, E. (2020, May 5). `No remedy, no rights': China blocks
    foreigners from leaving. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/
    shanghai-suburbs-international-law-only-on-ap-china-
    5d59ce2a8442d6511cb9e7d8a3494679.
        \11\ Smith, A., & Austin, H. (2023, July 27). China's use of exit
    bans leaves Americans at the risk of being arbitrarily detained. NBC
    News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-exit-bans-detentions-
    travelers-businesses-xi-jinping-covid-rcna95264.
        \12\ Kinetz, E. (2020, May 5). `No remedy, no rights': China blocks
    foreigners from leaving. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/
    shanghai-suburbs-international-law-only-on-ap-china-
    5d59ce2a8442d6511cb9e7d8a3494679.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            An International Problem

        The United States is not unique in its struggle to secure the
    release of its citizens from China. In recent years, Australia and
    Canada have also seen their own citizens used as political pawns to
    secure concessions favored by the Chinese Communist Party (e.g., the
    release of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou).\13\ \14\ \15\
    National security and foreign policy experts warn of China's
    willingness to flout international norms and engage in hostage
    diplomacy to achieve its aims.\16\ \17\ Given this international
    threat, more creative thinking and tools are needed to counter it.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \13\ Needham, K. and Tian Y. K. (2023, October 11). Australian
    journalist Cheng Lei back home after China release. Reuters. https://
    www.reuters.com/world/australian-journalist-detained-by-china-arrives-
    home-2023-10-11/.
        \14\ McGuirk, R. (2024, February 21). China-born Australian
    democracy blogger won't appeal suspended Chinese death sentence.
    Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/yang-hengjun-china-
    australia-espionage-d8ebca29783d0eae30a99b55f11c5b61.
        \15\ Slisco, A, (2021, Septmeber 24). Canadian diplomats detained
    in China since 2018 finally returning home, Trudeau says. Newsweek.
    https://www.newsweek.com/canadian-diplomats-
    detained-china-since-2018-finally-returning-home-trudeau-says-1632670.
        \16\ Cecco, L. and Davidson, H. (2021, September 29). Meng and the
    Michaels: Why China's embrace of hostage diplomacy is a warning to
    other nations. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/
    sep/29/meng-wanzhou-michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-china-analysis.
        \17\ Klass, A. (2020, July 9). Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor, and
    China's history of hostage diplomacy. The China Project. https://
    thechinaproject.com/2020/07/09/michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-and-
    chinas-history-of-hostage-diplomacy/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                Recommendations

        The United States needs a robust strategy, using multiple tools, to
    secure the release of Americans held in China. This strategy should
    include cooperation with countries, as other nations are also working
    to secure the release of their own citizens from China. Additionally,
    after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Dui Hua, a nonprofit focused
    on political prisoners in China, noted that ``the Chinese government
    often makes gestures when a new American president is elected.'' \18\
    Dui Hua encouraged then President-elect Joe Biden to use his election
    to request the release of Mark Swidan.\19\ The 2024 Presidential
    election represents another possible opportunity for the president-
    elect to request the release of Americans wrongfully detained in China
    as an act of goodwill.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \18\ Dui Hua. (2020, November 30). American citizen Mark Swidan:
    Eight years in Jiangman detention center. Dui Hua. https://duihua.org/
    american-citizen-mark-swidan-eight-years-in-jiangmen-detention-center/.
        \19\ Dui Hua. (2020, November 30). American citizen Mark Swidan:
    Eight years in Jiangman detention center. Dui Hua. https://duihua.org/
    american-citizen-mark-swidan-eight-years-in-jiangmen-detention-center/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Diplomatic engagement is still needed, and the State Department
    should use the full range of its tools, including facilitating
    humanitarian releases and prisoner exchanges, as appropriate. Finally,
    the United States should evaluate how it can better leverage the
    authorities and capabilities of Executive Order 14078, Bolstering
    Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States
    Nationals Home (e.g., use of designations, and sanctions against
    foreign government officials directly or indirectly involved with
    wrongful detentions) against China.\20\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \20\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
    governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and
    the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy
    Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
    report/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           Submission of Cynthia Sun

        Thank you to Chairman Smith, Co-Chairman Merkley, and distinguished
    members of the Commission, for holding this hearing. Today, I am
    bringing before you the cases of four U.S. citizens whose families are
    jailed or under house arrest in China.
        In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a violent
    campaign to persecute Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. The ancient
    spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition combines meditation and
    gentle exercises (similar to yoga or tai chi) with a moral philosophy
    centered on the tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.
        A quarter century later, Falun Gong practitioners remain a large
    proportion of prisoners of conscience in China. Included among them are
    multiple relatives of U.S. citizens and residents. These individuals
    have been unjustly imprisoned in China or barred from leaving the
    country, simply for practicing Falun Gong, sharing information about
    it, or exposing the rights abuses faced by others.
        Given the tight censorship and brutality with which Chinese
    security agents treat Falun Gong practitioners, their loved ones in the
    United States are often unable to receive timely updates on their
    condition and are fearful they are being tortured--or even killed--at
    any moment. Indeed, since 2019, at least two Falun Gong practitioners
    jailed in China with family living in the United States have died in
    police custody with signs of abuse (Ms. Meng Hong from Heilongjiang
    whose daughter lives in California and Ms. Ji Yunzhi from Inner
    Mongolia whose son resides in New York).
        The following four U.S. citizens reside in the United States but
    suffer from the trauma of the CCP's persecution by being separated from
    loved ones and fearing for their jailed relatives' well-being.

        New York: Lydia and Steven Wang, a brother and sister who are both
    U.S. citizens, live with their families in New York, where Steven has
    worked for Shen Yun Performing Arts as a principal dancer since 2008.
    Their mother, Ms. Liu Aihua, was sentenced in Hunan Province to 4 years
    in prison on March 10, 2023. She was last seen at the No. 4 Detention
    Center of Changsha City. Ms. Liu was likely sentenced for distributing
    informational pamphlets to raise awareness about the persecution,
    according to family. It is unknown whether she is facing torture in
    prison. She has yet to meet her grandchildren in New York. Lydia and
    Steven's father Wang Guanghui passed away in September 2009 after a
    lengthy detention in China for practicing Falun Gong.
        In a 2021 interview, Steven recalled visiting his parents in prison
    during a prior detention before he left China for the United States.
    ``Every time we went to visit them, they looked like they'd been
    starved,'' he said. ``They never told me what it was like in there.
    They only told me they were doing fine. But you can probably imagine--
    you could tell from their withered faces that they'd been tortured.''
        Lydia Wang previously testified before a congressional briefing in
    2023. Ms. Liu Aihua's case is included in the USCIRF prisoner database.
    For more details, see a page dedicated to her case on the Falun Dafa
    Information Center website.

        Texas: Grace Chen, a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic and naturalized
    citizen. Her parents, Mr. Yang Chen and Ms. Zhimin Cao, were sentenced
    in Hunan Province in 2020 for an unknown length of time. According to
    Grace, the extended family has been unable to reach the couple in
    detention since their arrest. Lawyers hired by the family were
    pressured by their law firms or provincial justice bureaus to withdraw
    from the case and were stonewalled by the Liuyang Police Department and
    the Liuyang Procuratorate from helping the couple. Mr. Chen is
    currently imprisoned at Wangling Prison; Mrs. Cao is at Hunan Province
    Women's Prison.
        Grace Chen previously spoke on a panel at the International
    Religious Freedom Summit. Her parents' case was also covered by the
    Jubilee Campaign. For more details, see a page dedicated to their case
    on the Falun Dafa Information Center website.

        Texas/New York: Danielle Wang, a civil engineer from Texas and New
    York and a U.S. citizen. Her father, Mr. Wang Zhiwen, was sentenced on
    December 27, 1999 to 16 years in a show trial broadcasted live through
    an international CNN newscast. Prior to the CCP's launch of the
    persecution, Mr. Wang had been a volunteer coordinator in Beijing,
    organizing meditation practice sites for teaching Falun Gong's
    exercises. After his release in 2016, Danielle and her husband traveled
    to China to escort her father to the United States. But CCP agents
    surrounded the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou and followed them, taking
    photos and even monitoring their movement inside their hotel. Before
    the trio could board a ferry from Guangdong to Hong Kong, Chinese
    customs officers cut up his passport and rendered it useless. Wang
    remains under house arrest today.
        Danielle Wang previously testified before a congressional hearing
    in 2013 and a CECC hearing in 2016. Her father's case was also covered
    by the USCIRF, Lantos Commission, ChinaAid, and the Houston Chronicle.
    For more details, visit her interview with Friends of Falun Gong or a
    short documentary about her story on Faluninfo TV.

                                Recommendations

        It is vital that the U.S. Government do more to free these
    prisoners of conscience. Doing so would reunite families of U.S.
    citizens across multiple generations and demonstrate to the CCP that
    the U.S. takes these cases seriously, potentially deterring future
    prosecutions of Falun Gong practitioners with American relatives. Once
    released, these individuals would be able to offer first-hand
    information on detention conditions in China, including potentially
    forced labor linked to exports to the United States. Moreover, their
    release could inspire hope for millions of Falun Gong practitioners and
    other religious prisoners in China, even those without U.S. ties who
    would benefit from the increased scrutiny and advocacy for their
    plight. Specifically:

        1. The U.S. Government should urgently ask Chinese officials for
    information about the whereabouts and expected release dates for Mr.
    Yang Chen and Ms. Zhimin Cao, permission for relatives or lawyers of
    Ms. Liu Aihua to visit her; and for Mr. Wang Zhiwen to receive a
    passport. The U.S. should call for the immediate release of Ms. Liu
    Aihua, Mr. Yang Chen, Mrs. Zhimin Cao, Mr. Wang Zhiwen, and for all
    four of these individuals to be permitted to leave China and come to
    the United States to reunite with their family. The U.S. should further
    bar entry to Chinese official Zeng Qinghong, who was reportedly
    involved in the decision to block Danielle Wang's father from leaving
    the country.

        2. Senators should schedule a vote and pass S. 4914, the Falun Gong
    Protection Act, which would increase transparency, accountability, and
    deterrence surrounding the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners
    specifically, and lethal organ transplant abuses in China more broadly.

        3. Members of Congress should write to the U.S. State Department
    asking the Ambassador to China and top officials to raise these three
    cases in meetings with Chinese counterparts, including at the highest
    levels of diplomacy.

        4. The CECC should add Ms. Liu Aihua, Mr. Yang Chen, and Ms. Zhimin
    Cao to the Political Prisoner Database.

        5. Ambassadors, government officials, and NGO experts on China
    should meet with these U.S. citizens to better understand conditions in
    China and identify ways to support their families' quest for freedom.
    Include them in private hearings, events, or roundtables regarding
    religious persecution, freedom of expression, or political prisoners in
    China.

        ``I don't know if I will ever see my mother again,'' recalls Lydia
    Wang. ``As long as the persecution of Falun Gong continues, my mother
    remains at risk of further harm if she stays in China. I request the
    United States Government's assistance in securing her release. We would
    like to bring her safely home to New York.''
        For more information on these and other family rescue cases in the
    United States, please visit the Falun Dafa Information Center website.
                                     ______

         Submission of Bill Browder, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign

        Dear Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley,
        My name is Bill Browder, and I am the head of the Global Magnitsky
    Justice Campaign and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management.
        Until 2005, I was the largest foreign investor in Russia. My firm
    worked to expose corruption within Russian companies to improve
    corporate governance. In retaliation for my efforts to shed light on
    illicit activities in Russia through my shareholder activism, the
    Russian authorities declared me a threat to national security and
    banned my entry to Russia. The situation escalated with the wrongful
    arrest, torture, and murder of my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in 2009.
    Since then, I have been deeply involved in advocating for human rights
    and justice. This led to the establishment of the Magnitsky Act, a
    piece of legislation that imposes visa bans and asset freezes on human
    rights violators globally. I am honored to provide testimony for this
    critical hearing on Unjustly Detained Americans in China.
        First, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Chairman Smith for
    his unwavering support and leadership in sponsoring the Global
    Magnitsky Act. Your longstanding commitment to human rights and justice
    has been instrumental in our shared efforts to hold human rights
    abusers accountable worldwide. I commend the Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China for organizing this bipartisan hearing on unjustly
    detained Americans in China. It is a vital initiative that highlights
    the plight of Americans arbitrarily imprisoned in China, and I fully
    support your efforts to bring new light to this pressing issue.
        This hearing highly resonates with my own experiences since Sergei
    Magnitsky's unjust detention, as I have fought against wrongful
    imprisonment and judicial abuse through the Global Magnitsky Justice
    Campaign. The campaign successfully brought widespread global attention
    to human rights violations, and led to significant legislative
    outcomes, including the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Since
    then, I have successfully advocated for the adoption of Magnitsky Acts
    in 35 countries. Through asset freezes and visa bans, Magnitsky Acts
    seek to hold accountable those who commit human rights abuses and
    corruption worldwide.
        The issue of arbitrarily detained individuals is not complicated,
    and democratic governments' response to this ongoing issue highlights
    the difference between right and wrong. It is more important now than
    ever for legislators across the aisles to defend the rights of citizens
    wrongfully detained abroad in authoritarian regimes such as China and
    Russia. At the core of the values of a rule-of-law democracy is the
    fundamental belief in justice and due process, including the right to a
    fair trial in an impartial court. Uniting to protect these principles
    is not just a matter of policy, but a reaffirmation of what a democracy
    like the U.S. stands for.
        Congress must exert sustained and significant pressure on the U.S.
    Government to ensure the protection of Americans detained in China, who
    have long been overlooked at the political level. While consular
    support, such as welfare visits, is beneficial, it falls short of what
    is truly needed. There must be a firm commitment and active
    intervention to confront and challenge the unjust judicial system in
    China.
        Just as in Russia, which I have experienced firsthand on numerous
    occasions, in China there is no such thing as a free and transparent
    trial in front of an impartial judge in an independent court. This is
    because there is no separation of powers within the judicial system.
    The Chinese Communist Party controls the entire judicial system,
    including the police, prosecution, judiciary, and penal system and even
    the legal profession, making fair and transparent trials impossible.
    Verdicts are decided by party committees, not independent judges,
    leaving no opportunity for a proper legal defense. Chinese judgments
    would not withstand scrutiny under the rule of law, and most Chinese
    prosecutions would fail if retried in a Western court.
        I urge the U.S. Government to set aside diplomatic niceties and
    take decisive action by intervening in the judicial cases of all
    Americans detained in China. Research by former prisoner Peter Humphrey
    indicates that up to 300 Americans are currently detained in China
    under various conditions, often on dubious charges. Some American
    prisoners have already been held in China for over 10 years on opaque
    and unjust convictions.
        The arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the potential for exit
    bans without clear legal processes pose significant risks to American
    citizens. It is therefore crucial for the U.S. Government to move
    beyond standard diplomatic protocols and actively engage in protecting
    its citizens, challenging the unjust system, and advocating for fair
    treatment and due process for all detained Americans.
        Governments committed to the rule of law have a moral and legal
    obligation to defend their citizens, especially those considered by the
    State Department to be arbitrarily detained, affording them the
    diplomatic attention of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage
    Affairs (SPEHA). Many of these people are detained for the sole reason
    that they are Americans, effectively handing China a vast supply of
    prisoners to use as diplomatic leverage whenever they please.
        All citizens deserve unwavering support from their home government.
    The large number of Americans arrested on allegations of minor offenses
    merit the same level of advocacy as the select few who have been placed
    on the SPEHA list of arbitrarily detained persons. In China, American
    prisoners often receive disproportionately long sentences for their
    alleged crimes and endure cruel and inhumane conditions, including
    inadequate nutrition, lack of medical care, and restricted access to
    fresh air and sunlight. Their communication with loved ones is
    obstructed or censored entirely.
        For many years, American administrations from both parties have
    shied away from intervening directly in the unfair and biased Chinese
    judicial system on behalf of U.S. citizens caught in legal ordeals. The
    U.S. Government seems to overlook--or deliberately ignore--a crucial
    fact: the 2018 Chinese International Criminal Judicial Assistance Law
    provides a clear mechanism for transferring ``convicted'' prisoners
    from China to their home countries, even without a bilateral prisoner
    transfer agreement. This law offers a potential pathway for action that
    has been largely unexplored. It is time for a change in approach--the
    U.S. Government must leverage this legal framework to more actively
    support and potentially repatriate American citizens unjustly held in
    Chinese prisons.
        The Chinese government is not stopping their practice of arbitrary
    detention anytime soon and has no intention of complying with
    international legal standards. I urge the U.S. Government to take
    seriously the cases of all Americans imprisoned in China, in addition
    to the three Americans, David Lin, Kai Li, and Mark Swidan, on the
    SPEHA list, and to consider Magnitsky sanctions against those
    responsible for these injustices. The U.S., as a global leader, must
    set an example in upholding human rights and the principles of justice
    globally.
        Thank you for your attention to this critical issue.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              Witness Biographies

        Nelson Wells, Sr., father of detained American citizen Nelson
    Wells, Jr.

        Nelson Wells, Sr. is the father of Nelson Wells, Jr., and a native
    of New Orleans, Louisiana. He and his wife Cynthia now live in
    Haughton, Louisiana. Mr. Wells is a 20-year U.S. Army veteran,
    stationed all over the country and globally, including a stint in the
    Middle East during the Gulf War. His wife Cynthia worked as an Army
    recruiter for the Department of Defense for 28 years. Both are retired
    and are now advocating full-time for their son's release.

        Harrison Li, son of detained American citizen Kai Li

        Harrison Li is a doctoral student studying statistics who has
    begrudgingly had to become a political advocate for his father, Kai Li.
    He is originally from Long Island, New York and currently lives in the
    San Francisco Bay area. He serves on the steering committee of the
    Bring Our Families Home Campaign, an advocacy group of families of
    Americans wrongfully detained around the world working together to try
    to cut through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting assistance and
    information for the families of wrongfully detained Americans. His
    greatest wish is for his father to be home and in good health to see
    him graduate next spring, after missing his college graduation in 2018.

        Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn Michelle Hunt

        Tim Hunt is the brother of Dawn Michelle Hunt and a native
    Chicagoan. He attended Whitney Young Magnet School and DePaul
    University and served as a Chicago police officer for 28 years, working
    on the beat, and in plainclothes, bicycle, mounted, and forensic unit
    roles. Serving and protecting the public is a family business, as his
    mother, father and three uncles were all Chicago police officers as
    well. Tim retired in 2017 and has been advocating tirelessly for his
    sister's release from prison.

        Peter Humphrey, journalist, due diligence specialist, Sinologist,
    and former prisoner of China

        Peter Humphrey is a British sinologist who has spent half a century
    working and studying China and who has lived there for 25 years, as a
    student, teacher, journalist, philanthropist, corporate due diligence
    detective--and prisoner. In 2013 Peter and his American wife Yingzeng
    Yu were wrongfully imprisoned on false charges of illegal information
    gathering--their only ``crime'' was to have offended someone with
    connections in the Chinese Communist Party.
        Upon his release in 2015, Peter created a support network for the
    families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their welfare and release.
    Through his work he has become a specialist on justice and imprisonment
    in China and is undoubtedly the leading authority on foreign prisoners
    in China.
        In addition to his work with families of the wrongfully detained,
    he is also an external research affiliate of Harvard University's
    Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, an occasional columnist and
    documentary adviser, and has been a guest speaker at universities and
    think tanks on China's judicial and penal system.

                                     [all]