[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHINA'S WAR ON RELIGION:
THE THREAT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND WHY IT MATTERS
TO THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 20, 2025
__________
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
62-143 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Senate House
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chair CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Co-chair
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ELISE STEFANIK, New York
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois DALE STRONG, Alabama
ANDY KIM, New Jersey JEN KIGGANS, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
THOMAS SUOZZI, New York
SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM, Virginia
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
To be appointed
Scott Flipse, Staff Director
Piero Tozzi, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Statements
Opening Statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan, a U.S. Senator from
Alaska; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China..... 1
Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a Representative from New Jersey
and Co-chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China...... 3
Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a Senator from Oregon............ 5
Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern, a Representative from
Massachusetts.................................................. 5
Statement of Sam Brownback, Ambassador at Large for International
Religious Freedom (2018-2021), Governor of Kansas (2011-2018),
U.S.
Senator (1996-2011)............................................ 8
Statement of Ismail ``Ma Ju'' Juma, Hui Muslim human rights
advocate....................................................... 10
Statement of Bhuchung K. Tsering, leader, International Campaign
for Tibet Research and Monitoring Unit......................... 12
Statement of Bob Fu, founder and president, ChinaAid............. 14
Statement of Grace Jin Drexel, daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin....... 15
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Brownback, Ambassador Sam........................................ 31
Juma, Ismail..................................................... 34
Tsering, Bhuchung K.............................................. 36
Fu, Bob.......................................................... 41
Drexel, Grace Jin................................................ 65
Sullivan, Hon. Dan............................................... 69
Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 70
McGovern, Hon. James P........................................... 71
Submissions for the Record
Questions for the Record from Hon. Dan Sullivan and Hon. Dale
Strong......................................................... 73
Statement of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin
Gyatso,
affirming the continuation of the institution of Dalai Lama,
July 2, 2025,
submitted by Bob Fu............................................ 79
Statement of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin
Gyatso, on the issue of his reincarnation, September 24, 2011,
submitted by Bob Fu............................................ 81
Translation of oral statement of Bob Fu (Chinese)................ 91
``CCP's Growing Threats to Religious Freedom in Hong Kong,'' by
Frances Hui, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Committee for
Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation................................ 95
Statement of Cynthia Sun and Danielle Wang, Falun Dafa Info
Center......................................................... 101
``The Situation Facing the Catholic Church in China,'' by Nina
Shea, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, and Director of its
Center for Religious Freedom................................... 109
``The U.S. Response to China's War on Uyghurs,'' by Omer Kanat,
Executive Director, Uyghur Human Rights Project................ 117
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form.......................... 125
Witness Biographies.............................................. 126
(iii)
CHINA'S WAR ON RELIGION:
THE THREAT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND WHY IT MATTERS
TO THE UNITED STATES
----------
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was held from 9:32 a.m. to 11:13 a.m., in room
106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, Senator
Dan
Sullivan, Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China,
presiding.
Also present: Representative Smith, Co-chair, Senator
Merkley, and Representatives McGovern and Kiggans.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
ALASKA; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chair Sullivan. The Commission will come to order. Thank
you to our witnesses and to all who are following this hearing
online. I want to thank my fellow commissioners, Senators, and
Congressmen, a bipartisan group, by the way--a very important
part of this Commission's history. Today's message is
straightforward: The Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, is
waging a systematic campaign to bend every faith in China to
Party rule. CCP authorities aim for the complete subordination
of religious belief to state ideology, re-engineering doctrine,
leadership, education, architecture, and even online worship.
The CCP is not content to police behavior. It wants to control
the conscience and intrude on the most powerful and personal
relationship there is--the one individuals have with God.
The title of this hearing asks, Why does religious freedom
in China matter to the United States? We certainly want to hear
our witnesses answer this question, and we have a very
distinguished panel here. But let me offer one reason why this
hearing matters, by reading part of a sermon by detained Pastor
Wang Yi, who met with President George W. Bush in the Oval
Office in 2006 and was just awarded one of NED's highest
prizes. In one of his last sermons before being detained,
Pastor Yi said, ``The rulers of this country are waging a war
in the Uyghur region, in Tibet, in Shanghai, in Beijing. And
the rulers who are waging this war have chosen for themselves
an enemy that can never be imprisoned, an enemy that can never
be destroyed, an enemy that can never be controlled or
subdued--namely, the soul of human beings.''
Pastor Wang Yi may now be in prison, but he and millions of
others like him are not subdued. That is why this hearing
matters. Not just for one community or one country or one
faith, but for the defense of human dignity and conscience
everywhere. The CCP wants believers in China to feel isolated
and forgotten. Our responsibility is to show them, and to show
Beijing, that they are neither. There are currently 1,647
documented religious cases in the CECC's Political Prisoner
Database, though that number may be 10 times higher when we
consider all those detained in the Uyghur region. At least a
dozen bishops and priests from my own Catholic Church and
Catholic faith are detained. We have documented imprisonment,
torture, and worse for such simple acts as owning a prayer
book, growing a beard, or gathering for worship.
My mother was a very devout Catholic. Very early on in the
1980s--it's a long story--but she went to the Soviet Union on a
trip. My courageous mom brought a bunch of Bibles to hand out
to the long-suffering people of Russia. Courageous. My mom's no
longer with me today, but that was one of the stories I told at
her funeral. Courageous Catholic, bringing the faith to
starving Russians who longed for the faith and couldn't get it.
And she brought them small Bibles.
Freedom of religion is under assault worldwide. Witness
what is happening in Nigeria. But nowhere is the scale of the
threat greater than in China. There are an estimated 500
million in China whose faith traditions face some form of
restriction or control. Think about that number, 500 million.
And the CCP's grip on religion does not end at its borders.
Through transnational repression, it harasses exiled believers,
infiltrates religious communities abroad, and intimidates
diaspora groups to remain silent. Some of our witnesses have
personal experience with intimidation or transnational
repression right here in America. Since Xi Jinping came to
power, he has pushed an aggressive agenda to roll back what
little space for independent religion once existed and to
assert CCP dominance over all aspects of religious life.
Christian pastors are prosecuted for fraud for accepting
charity, Uyghur Muslims are punished for reading the Qur'an at
home, Tibetan Buddhists are targeted for honoring the Dalai
Lama. Falun Gong practitioners are tortured for peaceful
meditation the Party cannot control. Across China, the Party
has closed churches, imprisoned pastors and priests, and
ordered the removal of Islamic and Tibetan Buddhist symbols
from buildings. We're here today because the right to believe
according to one's own conscience is not a privilege government
may grant or withhold. It is a universal human right, central
to human dignity and human flourishing. We now know that
religious freedom is a critical element in societies that are
stable and prosperous.
Our own history, from the earliest colonies to the First
Amendment, reflects a simple truth--societies are freer,
fairer, and more stable when people are free to worship, to
practice their faith, and to live, speak, and act according to
their beliefs. The CCP fears the power of faith because it is a
source of values and moral authority it cannot control. That is
why it demands that crosses come down and portraits of Xi
Jinping go up. It is why Catholic priests must preach party
slogans alongside sacred texts. It is why so many religious
leaders and religious believers are jailed. To the CCP, faith
is not just a challenge, it is an existential threat to its
grip on power, and why it must be controlled or destroyed.
These brave witnesses at our hearing today send a message to
China that the U.S. Congress takes note. We are watching. The
soul of these human beings will not be subdued.
I want to next turn to my co-chairman, Chairman Smith, for
his opening statement. Then I will also ask Senator Merkley and
Representative McGovern to make a statement, if they so choose.
Gentlemen, thank you, and again, to our courageous witnesses,
thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Chair Sullivan appears in the
Appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
JERSEY AND CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Co-chair Smith. Mr. Chairman, thank you so very much for
convening this very important hearing, and for the sense of
urgency you and our distinguished witnesses are bringing to the
further deterioration of religious freedom in the People's
Republic of China. I say ``urgent'' because the Chinese
Communist Party, directed by General Secretary Xi Jinping, is
engaged in one of the most extensive crackdowns on the
Protestant Christian house church in 40 years. I also say
urgent because, as I look around the room, I see friends and so
many loved ones who have people who are either languishing in
prison or under house arrest. I look at Bob Fu. I mean, Bob Fu
has been a mentor to me personally, to my Subcommittee on Human
Rights, and to this Commission, for decades, speaking truth to
power eloquently and effectively, giving us so many insights--
and that goes for many of us in the House and Senate as well.
I remember Frank Wolf and I, just parenthetically, were
once in Beijing meeting with house church leaders. Who were we
talking to on the line? Bob Fu from the embassy, as well as
from the van, getting further insight. So, Bob, thank you so
much. And of course, Ambassador Sam Brownback, who has
literally written the book on how--writing a book right now--on
how to combat this and to make it clear. What an ambassador at
large Sam Brownback has been, and his voice is incredibly
important. All of you have made such a difference. Sam, thank
you.
I would note again, parenthetically, you mentioned, Mr.
Chairman, about Nigeria. Through a little snafu in scheduling,
I'm chairing a hearing on Nigeria at 11. So I'm going to have
to leave. But Sam testified at our last hearing on that and
made powerful statements about how not just Christians, but
Muslims are being killed, as the President just said,
conferring CPC status on Nigeria. And how very eloquently Sam
did it. This is an existential threat to the Christians, but
it's also the Muslims who are being killed if they don't
comport to Boko Haram and others. So Sam, thank you for that.
And we'll be doing more. We look forward to your voice at
future hearings to defend that.
At its core, religious freedom is about the right of
conscience--what George Washington called that little spark of
celestial fire which is the inviolable domain of the heart of
every human being. I'm proud to say that--working with Mr.
McGovern as well as Senator Merkley--we've chaired 14 hearings
on religious freedom, or the lack of it, in China. I've worked
with my friends--and you, Chairman, are doing a great job, and
I do thank you--we all do--for that. When we say religious
freedom is a universal human right, it's because it's
guaranteed by a sovereign God who created human beings in his
own image and likeness, and imbued in all of us an inalienable
dignity and worth whether we were born in Washington or Wuhan.
It is thus not a Western construct but a universal one.
Yet the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party,
leader of the world's largest atheistic state, would force his
own people to think otherwise. He would have the Chinese people
believe that religious freedom is not for them, that religion
itself is not for them, because the Party that he leads is
terrified of religious faith. They fear and they're scared of
any moral or spiritual authority outside the control of the
Party. And they punish worship of anyone but Xi Jinping.
Instead, the Chinese Communist Party wants to take control over
the heart, mind, and spirit of each citizen of China. And one
particularly ludicrous, yet equally insidious, example--in
September, the Cyberspace Administration of China launched a
two-month Clear and Bright Campaign that polices pessimism and
negative emotions, among other thought crimes. I mean, this is
theater of the absurd. It's also totalitarianism, pure and
simple. And totalitarian governments cannot abide freedom of
religion or belief, yet they cannot extinguish it. The church,
the believers, the Uyghurs, the Falun Gong practitioners, the
Tibetan Buddhists, all of them redouble their efforts to move
forward in their faith tradition. And this Commission, and this
Congress, and our country, and so many others do everything we
can to help them.
When authorities shut down the Zion Church in Beijing, then
one of the city's largest, Pastor Ezra Jin took the church
nationwide by moving online, reaching more people than it ever
could have before. We are proud to have as one of our witnesses
Pastor Jin's daughter, Grace, who worked for the CECC. We thank
her for her tremendous insight and leadership, and her father
is another great hero.
In Fujian province, authorities confined underground
Catholic Bishop Guo Xijin to his residence. And how did he
respond? He joyfully celebrated the 40th anniversary of his
priestly ordination by serving communion to pilgrims through
the bars of the chained gate outside his home. I mean,
irrepressible--will not give up. We need to stand in solidarity
with him and everyone like him. These are only a few examples.
We will continue on this Commission, I know, to push hard for
religious freedom.
Again, we are inspired and informed by these tremendous
witnesses, Mr. Chairman, that you have assembled for this
hearing. I look forward to their testimony. I regret that I
will have to leave to chair the other hearing at 11, so I
apologize in advance.
[The prepared statement of Co-chair Smith appears in the
Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Chairman Smith.
Now to my other co-chair, Senator Merkley.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Merkley. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. I'm always
humbled when I'm at these gatherings because our witnesses have
experienced so much in their personal lives, their families,
often their community, in terms of the challenges that they
have faced carrying the torch of religious freedom. I'm
particularly delighted to have a couple of you back who have
Senate connections. Senator Brownback--then became an
ambassador but certainly served here with distinction. Good to
have you back, Ambassador. And Grace, as mentioned by my
colleague, Congressman Smith, worked on this very Commission,
this Congressional-Executive Commission on China. So she is in
that place of carrying both the academic knowledge portfolio
but also the very personal advocacy with her family so affected
by the crackdown on religion in China.
We have seen such suppression and oppression directed
against Christian congregations and leaders in China. We have
seen oppression against the Muslims and the genocide against
the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. We've seen the attempted erasure of
Tibetan culture and Buddhist religious practice. Under
President Xi's sinicization campaign, the Chinese government is
using pressure and coercion to do all they can to extinguish
religious communities and suppress the human soul. The U.S. has
in our very founding the aspiration for religious freedom, a
spirit we have carried for centuries. Certainly it brings us to
this type of advocacy today, for religious freedom not just
here in the United States but around the world. So welcome. And
like my colleague, we have another hearing on China upstairs at
the Foreign Relations Committee related to Taiwan. I apologize
I'll not be able to be here for the full testimony, but I will
be reading it all, hearing about it from my team, and
partnering with you as we go forward. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Merkley appears in the
Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Great. Thank you, Senator Merkley.
Congressman McGovern.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN,
A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Representative McGovern. Well, thank you. Good morning,
everybody. I want to thank Chair Sullivan and Co-chair Smith
for convening this important hearing. I want to thank Senator
Merkley and Representative Strong for their leadership on these
issues as well. You know, we have different political
philosophies, but we are together in championing human rights
and religious freedom. Religious freedom has been at the core
of the Commission's work since its founding, and it has been
the subject of numerous hearings and well-documented reporting.
I understand that the 2025 annual report is close to
finalization, and I look forward to its publication so that all
members can benefit from its analysis and its recom-
mendations. I commend the dedicated nonpartisan staff of the
Commission for their hard work in getting this 300-plus-page
report researched, written, and released. It's a lot of work,
and it's good work. And it's important work.
Religious freedom is protected under Article 18 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which
affirms that every person has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion. In the United States, it is protected
by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof. We Americans are very proud of this
protection of our rights. As a practicing Catholic, I feel a
deep personal connection to the right to worship and believe
according to one's conscience. Defense of this fundamental
right in both national and international law is essential to
our work as public servants.
China's constitution also provides that the state cannot
compel citizens to believe in or not to believe in any religion
or discriminate against citizens who believe in or do not
believe in any religion. But, as we will hear today, such
protection is honored in the breach. They don't respect that.
They don't follow it. This is a reminder that even the
strongest constitutional provisions on paper cannot protect
citizens' rights if those in power choose to disregard them for
political ends. You know, in 2022 I was honored to co-chair
this Commission's hearing on how Chinese authorities were
expanding digital tools to surveil and suppress online
religious expression. I am pleased that today's witnesses will
update us on the PRC's policies and tactics for coercive
control of religion and their impact on individuals and
communities.
I welcome Ambassador Sam Brownback, who headed the State
Department's International Religious Freedom Office and remains
a powerful leader in the field. I look forward to the testimony
of those who will speak to the experiences of Hui Muslims,
Christians, and Tibetans under the PRC's ongoing repression. In
July, several U.N. special rapporteurs and working groups
issued a statement on the Chinese government's interference in
the succession of the Dalai Lama, and the enforced
disappearance of the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.
This is a U.S. priority, as Senator Marco Rubio and I put into
law in the Tibetan Policy and Support Act.
We will also hear very personal testimony. Last month,
Chinese authorities launched a multicity crackdown on the
unregistered Zion Church and detained several individuals,
including Pastor Ezra Jin. Many of us condemned this violation.
His daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, joins us today to speak about
her father and call for his release. Grace was recently a staff
member at the CECC, helping raise awareness about prisoners of
conscience persecuted for their faith. Now her own father is
one. We stand with Grace and her family and join in their call.
We must commit our voices loudly and clearly to defend the
rights of those targeted for exercising their right to freedom
of thought, conscience, and belief, but to be effective, our
voices must carry moral credibility. I worry that we are not
living up to what is expected of us. The United States is best
when we lead by example. When we do not, we do a disservice to
those overseas we are trying to help.
Earlier this week--you may have read this in the news--
congregants of a church in Charlotte, North Carolina scattered
into the woods when masked Federal agents arrived and detained
one of their members. The church has suspended services until
members feel safe to gather again without the threat of Border
Patrol raids. In July, the Bishop of the Diocese of San
Bernardino, California told 1.2 million people in his diocese
to stay home from mass on Sundays to avoid being questioned or
detained by ICE. I spoke with three Catholic bishops yesterday
who, again, reinforced the concern that they have about members
of their church being afraid to go to church. Ayman Soliman,
who fled persecution in Egypt and served as a chaplain at the
Cincinnati Children's Hospital, spent two and a half months in
ICE detention.
So our message to the Chinese government is that it is
wrong for them to round up members of the Zion Church, to force
worshipers to go underground, and to put clergy in jail. Our
voice would have much more credibility if our own government
were not acting in a similar way. The freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion is universal. This right exists
regardless of one's beliefs or national or citizenship status,
so let us be clear and consistent in this message that we are
sending to the people of China.
Again I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership. I
yield back my time.
[The prepared statement of Representative McGovern appears
in the Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Congressman McGovern.
Now it is my honor to introduce our distinguished panel.
Let me begin with a very distinguished American, Ambassador Sam
Brownback. It's hard to figure out whether to call him
Ambassador, Governor, Senator. He's held all these positions.
Very, very impressive. He served as the Ambassador at Large for
International Religious Freedom from February 2018 to January
2021, where he was the State Department's chief diplomat on the
issue of protecting the right to religious liberty around the
world. He served as Governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018.
Ambassador Brownback currently serves as a co-chair of the
International Religious Freedom Summit and chairman of the
National Committee for Religious Freedom.
Next we have Mr. Ismail Juma. Mr. Juma is a human rights
activist with a background in the study of religious history.
He fled China with his family in 2011 after being detained by
PRC authorities. As the founder of Hope Umbrella International
Foundation, he works to protect freedom seekers, assist new
immigrants, and foster reconciliation between different ethnic
and religious groups.
Our next distinguished witness is Bhuchung Tsering. Mr.
Tsering was born in Tibet. His family fled to India in 1960 in
the wake of the Chinese Communist invasion. He studied in India
and worked as a journalist before joining the Central Tibetan
Administration and serving in the offices of the Dalai Lama. He
currently leads the Research and Monitoring Unit at the
International Campaign for Tibet, where he has worked since
1995. He was awarded the Truman-Reagan Freedom Medal by the
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in 2023.
Our next witness is Mr. Bob Fu. Dr. Fu was a student leader
during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. Dr. Fu led
a house church in Beijing until he and his wife were imprisoned
for ``illegal evangelicalism.'' They fled to the United States
as religious refugees, founding ChinaAid in 2002 to shine light
on China's human rights abuses and to promote religious freedom
in China. Dr. Fu currently serves as the Family Research
Council's senior fellow for international religious freedom. He
is the author of ``God's Double Agent.''
Finally, Grace Jin Drexel. I had the honor of meeting Grace
a couple weeks ago here in the U.S. Senate. She is the daughter
of Pastor Mingri Ezra Jin of Zion Church in China, one of the
country's largest and most influential houses of worship. In
October 2025, Pastor Jin and dozens of other leaders were
detained as part of the largest crackdown against independent
house churches in the last 40 years. Grace has been advocating
for her father ever since. She serves as a national security
research analyst in the U.S. Senate and previously worked for
this Commission on China issues.
Welcome to all our witnesses. For each we will have a 5-
minute opening statement. If you have a longer statement, a
written statement, we will certainly put that in the record. We
begin with Ambassador Brownback.
STATEMENT OF SAM BROWNBACK, AMBASSADOR AT LARGE FOR
INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (2018-2021), GOVERNOR OF KANSAS
(2011-2018), U.S. SENATOR (1996-2011)
Ambassador Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm honored to be here, and honored to be with you all and to
see several of you I've worked with for many, many years. It's
been important work and maybe no more important than now. I
think that the ground that you've laid on dealing with China,
and now in our conflict with China, this is important for us to
really move forward in our policy.
What I'm going to suggest today is that we really take a
shift in our strategy toward religious freedom. I think for too
long we've looked at it mostly as a human rights issue, and
often kind of a boutique human rights issue, not really a
central one. To me now and in our conflict with China, this is
a national security issue. It's a national security imperative.
And we need to shift our thinking away from, ``This is a human
rights issue'' to ``This is a national security issue'' and put
it really and squarely in that category. China is at war with
faith. And it's at war with us. We should unequivocally and
clearly be on the side of their opponents. We should stand, and
stand clearly, with them.
I think it's also quite clear that China fears religious
freedom far more than they fear our aircraft carriers or our
nuclear weapons. They're far more concerned. They spend
billions of dollars annually harassing everybody up and down
the line. I just finished a book that's at the publishers on
China's war on faith. They treat everybody the same. You will
either submit to us or we're going to eliminate you. You
choose, but it's one of the two. And Xi Jinping is God, not
whoever you're believing in. And the stories are very, very
consistent on this. So I look at religious freedom, honestly,
as our greatest weapon in this battle that we're in today. And
China's weakness is their governance. We really need to take
this into our strategy.
So that's what I'm putting forward here today. My
recommendations are that we make religious freedom in China a
part of our national security objectives toward China, and we
develop a national security strategy for the U.S. and other
nations to support religious freedom inside of China. Use
economic sanctions, like in the Frank Wolf International
Religious Freedom Act, toward China. They've been a CPC country
since we started that designation. They've not paid a cent for
that--not a cent. We should ask President Trump, Vice President
Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, Secretary of Defense Hegseth
to meet with exiled leaders from the various communities that
have been persecuted--the Falun Gong, Christians, Muslims, the
Buddhist community.
And then specifically in these communities--I would just
say, like Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party fears Falun
Gong more than anybody. And I've puzzled at that for the
longest time, why? But it's the most indigenous of all of them.
It's like sowing wheat on the Kansas soil. It just grows.
They've got to 90 million adherents in seven years. Well, that
scares the pants off of the Chinese Communist Party. So we
should really be working with them. The Falun Gong has a
registry of millions of people that have left the Chinese
Communist Party.
I think we should do the following: Recognize a genocide
against the Falun Gong being done by the Chinese government.
They have sought to wipe them out. Meet with key leaders that
are in exile to support their right to religious freedom in
China, Falun Gong members, and support their effort to break
the great Chinese internet firewall, which many of us have been
about for a long time. Christians, we obviously need to
strongly advocate for the release of people like Pastor Ezra
Jin of the Zion Church, Pastor Wang Yi, who is really the
Martin Luther King, Jr. of China. His statements from jail have
been poetic. They're beautiful. And the 10 Catholic bishops
that Nina Shea identified in an article, that are imprisoned or
held somewhere in China. Ten bishops. And what do we hear about
it? Do people even know they're arrested?
We should also encourage private sector entities with
significant ties to China to advocate for prisoners of
conscience and human rights lawyers. Groups like the NBA,
Hollywood, major businesses. Tibetan Buddhists, there is a
cultural genocide in Tibet going on today, and we need to call
it out. We should categorically reject China's government's
claim to the right to appoint the next Dalai Lama. Talk about
something that's ridiculous. Send Vice President Vance or
Secretary Rubio to Dharamshala to meet with the Dalai Lama. I
believe we should announce our support for the Dalai Lama's
Middle Way approach.
For Tibet, genuine autonomy for Tibet within China. Now, I
have significant doubts that this will work, but if China will
not agree to this within a set period of time, say 60 days, we
should announce our recognition of an independent Tibet. If
they're not going to go with this route that he's put forward,
we should announce our support for an independent Tibet. Tibet,
and for that matter Xinjiang, has never been a part of China,
no more than Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan were a part of Russia.
They never were. They never have been. And we should call this
out.
For the Uyghurs, they've been moved from forced labor,
confinement, incarceration, from concentration camps to forced
labor. Same incarceration, different setting. Transnational
repression. We've got to pass legislation to address
transnational repression and prosecute people that have done
it. We should start addressing Xinjiang as East Turkestan in
our government documents. It's not new frontier for China. It's
East Turkestan. And we should aggressively enforce our laws
against the use of forced labor.
In summary, it's time to support religious freedom inside
China. We've noted it for a long time. And we've got to get
past it. And Mr. Chairman, I would submit for the record a map
of China that was put in The Washington Examiner that actually
shows what China looks like, map-wise, when you take East
Turkestan, Tibet, and the occupied territories out. I think we
need to start showing this. Sorry I went over my time.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Brownback appears in
the Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Without objection. Thank you, Ambassador
Brownback.
Our next witness we want to hear from is Mr. Ma Ju.
STATEMENT OF ISMAIL JUMA,
HUI MUSLIM HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE
Mr. Ma. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today. It is an honor and a solemn responsibility to speak on
behalf of tens of millions in China who cannot speak for
themselves.
Interpreter. I will now read the prepared English statement
from Mr. Ma Ju today.
As a member of the more than 10 million Hui Muslims of
China, and as a human rights advocate and survivor of religious
persecution, I appear before you today to present a truth that
has been systematically concealed. China's Muslim communities
are facing the most severe, widespread, and systematically
engineered crisis threatening their physical survival and basic
freedom since 1949. On the CCP's reengineering project, many
have misunderstood the CCP to be merely restricting religion.
This is patently false. The CCP is a political organization
founded on a commitment to eradicate all religion. Its doctrine
views organized faith, moral systems, and independent community
structures as existential threats to totalitarian control.
When it does not yet possess the capacity to destroy
religion outright, it restricts it. And when it does acquire
the capacity, it moves to eliminate it without hesitation, just
as it has done to NGOs and civic groups. Under the veneer of
what is called a reengineering project, the CCP seeks to
reshape faith into ideological appendages to the Party state
and to stoke fear in Chinese communities in China and beyond.
Across Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and other regions,
thousands of mosques have had their domes demolished, minarets
removed, Qur'anic inscriptions erased, and Arabic calligraphy
scraped away. Many mosques have been forcibly converted into
cultural plazas, civilization practice centers, interiors
stripped of religious symbolism, exteriors sanitized.
This is not merely physical destruction. It is surgical
removal of the Muslim spiritual landscape. Acts that are
entirely normal in Muslim societies are maligned and redefined
as crimes, such as fasting under Ramadan, teaching the Qur'an
privately, wearing a hijab or traditional attire, growing a
religious beard, children learning at mosques, and family
religious gatherings. These practices can result in police
interrogation, fines, detention, or being sent to reeducation
camps. This is a systematic project to redefine faith as
illegal.
On cultural eradication and the destruction of religious
knowledge, the lifeblood of Hui, Uyghur, Kazakh, and other
Muslim communities, and centuries-old Islamic educational
tradition, have been deliberately dismantled. Imams arbitrarily
have been detained or forced into political indoctrination.
Arabic instructions have been severely restricted. Religious
texts have been censored and rewritten. CCP-approved political
reinterpretations of the Qur'an have been mandated. A people's
deepest moral and cultural inheritance has been uprooted at its
source. Repression in Xinjiang has also not ended; it's just
become more covert. There's a dangerous misconception that
repression in Xinjiang has eased. The truth is the repression
has not stopped. It has evolved.
What was once mass internment has transformed into
pervasive surveillance and control. Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz,
Hui, as well as Han Chinese who have converted to Islam,
continue to endure forced labor, family separation, mosque
demolitions, digital surveillance, reproductive restrictions,
and stabilization policing systems. Xinjiang today exists in a
reality of systematic totalitarian social engineering. The CCP
also deploys digital tools and influence operations to
intimidate overseas Muslims by monitoring them abroad through
social media, by coordinating bot attacks and character
assassination campaigns, using family members in China as
hostages, and creating an atmosphere of fear in diaspora
communities.
A classic example, a respected Islamic scholar visiting
Chinese Muslim migrants in Malaysia told them he planned to
meet Mr. Ma Ju in the United States. Their reaction was a
mixture of excitement and dread. Their fear was simple. If
their names appear alongside Mr. Juma in any report, their
relatives in China would face retaliation. The fear is real,
widespread, and rational.
Why does this matter to the national interests of the
United States? China's war on religion is not a domestic
Chinese issue. It directly impacts American national security,
values, and international standing. It strikes at the
foundation of America's identity. If the world's largest
authoritarian state can eradicate religious freedom without
consequences, it undermines the authority of America's founding
values and global leadership. CCP trans-
national repression violates U.S. sovereignty. Their
intimidation and surveillance of individuals in the U.S. is a
direct assault on U.S. rule of law. It also weakens American
standing within the Muslim world. Beijing is persecuting
Muslims at home while courting Muslim majority countries
abroad, reshaping geopolitical alignments to America's
detriment.
Digital surveillance and authoritarianism are new and
growing threats. China's export of AI surveillance and
religious profiling systems is transforming autocracies
worldwide. Religious oppression is also fueling radicalization.
Freedom of religion is a proven safeguard against extremism.
Protecting Chinese Muslim religious freedom strengthens global
and U.S. security. By preventing a global shift toward
authoritarianism, if we are to allow the CCP's model to become
a global norm, it will erode the international order and
freedom.
In conclusion, and apologies for going over time, Mr. Ma Ju
today is speaking for those who cannot. He speaks today to
honor those who have been silenced, to expose an ongoing system
of religious persecution, to defend the universal right to
religious freedom, and to urge the United States and the
international community to act. If we remain silent today,
tomorrow there will be no one left to speak. Thank you for your
time.
[The prepared statement of Ismail Juma appears in the
Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Ma.
Our next witness is Mr. Tsering.
STATEMENT OF BHUCHUNG K. TSERING, LEADER, INTERNATIONAL
CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET RESEARCH AND MONITORING UNIT
Mr. Tsering. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
the CECC for giving me this opportunity to testify about
China's religious policies in Tibet, and how it matters to the
United States.
Tibetan Buddhism is linked to the security of the Indian
subcontinent through its historical ties and its cultural and
ethnic connections across the Himalayan region. The cultural
influence of Tibetan Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent has
also been a factor in regional stability. The Indian
subcontinent is also a major player in the Indo-Pacific region
and matters to the United States due to its massive economic
importance, strategic security interest, and its role in global
stability and the rules-based order. I would like to submit my
full text for the record and will summarize here.
Chair Sullivan. Without objection.
Mr. Tsering. Thank you. Opinion polls have clearly showed
repeatedly here in the United States that the majority of
Americans embrace His Holiness the Dalai Lama not just as a
religious leader, but also as an international statesman.
Americans have also shown that they care deeply about what
happens in Tibet. And successive congresses and administrations
have passed legislative initiatives on Tibet. China has been
blatantly using Tibetan Buddhism as a vehicle to not only
control the Tibetan people, but also to influence the
international community, including citizens of India, Nepal,
Bhutan, as well as here in the United States.
Over the years, China has been increasing pressure on Nepal
to restrict Tibetan religious activities, leading to a climate
of fear and limited freedom for Tibetans there. Lhasa, the
capital of Tibet, is a sacred place for pilgrimage for all
followers of Tibetan Buddhism. The Chinese government is using
access to Tibet and Lhasa to serve its political agenda.
American citizens who wish to travel to Tibet, including
Tibetan Americans, are being faced with obstruction by the
Chinese government, while at the same time the Chinese allow a
select group of journalists to go to Tibet and ful-
fill China's narrative on Tibet and to serve it for its
propaganda
material.
China not only restricts Tibetan religious freedom but also
attempts to interfere in the activities of Tibetans and Tibet
supporters abroad. In a report on Chinese transnational
repression of Tibetan diaspora communities, the Tibetan Center
for Human Rights and Democracy says China is attempting to
control the actions of exiled Tibetans. Chinese authorities
weaponize their relatives in Tibet by harming, threatening, or
otherwise manipulating them. The looming threat resulting from
ubiquitous surveillance also forces a constant feeling of
unease that spreads fear and disempowers exiled communities.
The head of the Central Tibetan Administration, Sikyong
Penpa Tsering himself, said how, when he went to Australia, the
Chinese government tried to obstruct him from having an
interview by Australian TV. The Chinese government was not
successful there. More egregiously, in July this year the
Chinese authorities disappeared Zhang Yadi, a Chinese student
and a follower of Tibetan Buddhism who had been advocating
peacefully in France for Tibet and Tibetan rights. Zhang had
been on a visit to China when she was disappeared in Yunnan.
Reports indicate that she was taken away by state security
officials and is being held incommunicado.
The Chinese government's policy on Tibetan religion has
moved from total destruction to one of control and annihilation
of Tibetan identity. Over the years, the Chinese government has
promulgated various regulations to bring Tibetan monasteries
under tighter security control. The Buddhist Association of
China is being used as a key instrument in this vehicle. China
failed to place the current Dalai Lama under its control and is
now trying to use the occasion of the next Dalai Lama to impose
its authority on Tibet, now and in the future, by trying to
claim authority--or the right--to the reincarnation of the
Dalai Lama. They have done that in the case of the Panchen
Lama, which they have failed to legitimize even today. The
Chinese government interference with the Dalai Lama has clear
geopolitical implications for many Tibetan Buddhist
institutions here in the United States, and in the Indian
subcontinent, and in Mongolia.
I would like to end by making some recommendations. I would
like to echo two of the recommendations by Ambassador Brownback
about cultural genocide and about having Vice President Vance
and Secretary Rubio visit Dharamshala to meet His Holiness. The
Trump administration should implement the TPSA, other
legislation, and sanction Chinese authorities who deny Tibetan
religious freedom. They should engage multilaterally with other
countries on Tibetan religious freedom. They should demand the
release of Tibetan political prisoners, including the 11th
Panchen Lama and Zhang Yadi. China should stop transnational
repression. They should stop denying Tibetans their religious
freedom. But more important, they should resolve the Tibetan
issue politically. As Ambassador Brownback said, if they don't
do that, merely making superficial changes will not be a
lasting solution for the Tibetan people. Tibet has served as a
buffer in the past. If this is not resolved, it will continue
to be a national security risk for American policy. Thank you
very much.
[The prepared statement of Bhuchung K. Tsering appears in
the
Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Tsering.
Our next witness is Dr. Fu.
STATEMENT OF BOB FU,
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, CHINA AID
Mr. Fu. Chairman Sullivan, Co-chair Smith, and Congressman
McGovern, and distinguished panelists and friends, thank you
for this opportunity to testify before you. I speak as a former
prisoner of conscience and founder of ChinaAid, and an American
citizen whose own family was targeted on U.S. soil by the CCP.
China's war on faith has entered a new and dangerous phase. I
totally agree with Ambassador Brownback that we, the U.S.
Government, should shift our treatment of religious freedom to
a national security matter instead of purely a matter of human
rights.
The CCP is no longer satisfied with just controlling
churches and mosques. It now seeks to control the entire inner
life of its citizens. Its goal is nothing less than to
eliminate all independent faith and replace it with absolute
loyalty to the CCP and Xi Jinping thought. So I want to
highlight four trends. The first, the CCP is now criminalizing
normal Christian life. Pastors are now being sentenced to 10 to
15 years for receiving tithes and offerings. No case
demonstrates this more clearly than the shocking sentence
handed down to Pastor Yang Rongli, who received 15 years, and
her husband, Pastor Wang Xiaoguang, who received nearly 10
years back in June of this year, along with 10 other church
leaders who received various sentences--for simply managing
church donations at Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi province.
Christians are also arrested for worshiping or praying online.
Christians who attend overseas Bible conferences or mission
training are now being arrested. Earlier this year, a Christian
woman from Beijing, Dong Yumei, was arrested and has still not
been assigned for trial.
The second trend is the CCP targeting the next generation,
children's access to the Bible. Essentially, they've declared
war on the Bible. Children are totally banned from entering the
church. Youth ministries are shut down. Parents are threatened
for teaching the Bible at home. And 71-year-old sister Wang
Honglan from Inner Mongolia received nearly five years'
imprisonment for handing out free Bibles. A third trend is the
CCP continuing to disappear and imprison most courageous
religious leaders, such as my good friend Ezra Jin and Pastor
Wang Yi. And, of course, other religiously motivated civil
society leaders, including Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer
known as the conscience of China, who has been missing for over
eight years. Dead or alive, nobody knows. And Dr. Wang
Bingzhang, a Christian democracy advocate, is still serving
life imprisonment after being kidnapped from Vietnam. A woman
named Zhang Yadi, a Chinese convert to Tibetan Buddhism, also
vanished upon returning to China after studying in Europe.
The fourth trend is that the CCP's persecution actually
does not stop at China's border. It already extends its long
arm overseas,
especially on free world soil. In 2020, my own home in Texas
was surrounded by as many as 100 CCP agents and hired thugs,
day and night, surrounding my home, issuing threats against my
family, my ministry, and my children. They said if I stopped
the ministry of ChinaAid they would leave. For three months
they
surrounded my home. And Chinese churches in the U.S. and Canada
have even been pressured to raise the CCP's own flag in their
churches, congregations, pulpits. Videos have already shown a
Chinese church pastor in Los Angeles raising the Chinese
Communist Party flag, singing the red songs--the red,
revolutionary songs of the CCP during the Chinese so-called
national day in Los Angeles. And certainly they won't raise the
American flag to celebrate the Americans' Independence Day.
I will leave my recommendations for the Q&A time. Thank you
so much.
[The prepared statement of Bob Fu appears in the Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Dr. Fu. Very powerful testimony.
And frustrating. I don't know why we allow Chinese communist
thugs to protest and harass American citizens. They should all
be thrown in jail, in my view, or kicked out of the country.
Our last witness is Grace Jin Drexel. Grace, you have the
floor.
STATEMENT OF GRACE JIN DREXEL,
DAUGHTER OF PASTOR EZRA JIN
Ms. Drexel. Thank you so much. On October 10th, my father,
Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, was arrested by the Chinese
authorities, along with 27 other church pastors and leaders of
Zion Church. Seventeen church leaders now remain in prison with
him, and all 18 have been formally arrested this week. This
crackdown has been reported as the largest takedown of an
independent church in China since the Cultural Revolution.
Because of the prominence of the church and the brazenness of
the Chinese repression, this case has become an international
incident and has been profiled extensively in the international
press, attracting a number of statements of public support
across the U.S. Government and beyond--thank you so much--
including from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Many of these church leaders were taken in front of their
young families, who they now leave behind. My father and
several other older leaders struggle with various health
issues, and we are deeply concerned about their treatment in
prison. I urge the Chinese government to release all these Zion
Church members immediately and unconditionally. My father's
church, Zion Church, was founded in 2007 with the mission to be
faithful to God's word and to serve the families and
communities around us. By God's grace and power, within just
one decade, Zion grew rapidly into the largest emerging urban
house church in China, with more than 1,500 members at the
time.
Since Chairman Xi Jinping came into power he has refocused
the Chinese Communist Party and the state to strengthen
ideological purity and consolidate control of society. In 2016,
Xi rewrote the regulation on religion in China and emphasized
the need to sinicize religion. However, at its core this is not
about making religion more Chinese. Christians in China already
have Chinese Bibles, indigenous hymns, their own church
history, and unique theology grown from years of persecution.
Our churches are not led by foreign missionaries but by Chinese
Christians themselves. Instead, the campaign is truly about
forcing socialist core values into the religion. It's less
sinicization; it is more ``Party-fication'' of religion.
Beginning in 2018, a wave of persecution and a crackdown on
all religion began under the auspices of this sinicization. In
2018 Zion Church was also targeted because the church
leadership refused to install facial recognition cameras inside
the sanctuary. The government harassed hundreds of church
members, threatened to take away their jobs, their rented
houses, their children's education, and even their parents'
retirement accounts. Many of the congregants did, in fact, pay
the consequences of keeping their faith. On September 9th,
hundreds of police brutally seized and shuttered the church
buildings, took hold of church assets, and briefly detained and
closely surveilled the pastors and leaders. And since 2018, my
father has been under an exit ban and consequently has been
forcibly separated from my family in the U.S. for more than
seven years.
However, as powerful as the Chinese Communist Party is, it
will never be able to take our faith and belief from us. In
Zion's own church history, we've already seen how the
government's attempt to coerce the faith, and control the
faithful, has backfired, laying bare the hollowness of
authoritarian ideology and the strength of faith, and
ultimately growing the church. Because the church lost its
place of worship, it pushed my father's church to develop a
hybrid online/offline model that went nationwide, launching 100
new church plants across 40 cities across China, growing the
church to the largest it has ever been, reaching 10,000 people
daily.
A new wave of religious persecution is brewing across
China. Earlier this year, multiple Zion Church sites in dozens
of cities were frequently disrupted during our Sunday services,
with over 150 pastors and elders and church members being taken
to the police station. They were harassed, threatened,
interrogated, and some briefly detained. In May of this year,
Pastor Gao Quanfu, a dear friend of my father's based in Xi'an,
was detained on criminal charges of ``using suspicious
activities to undermine the implementation of law,'' and fraud.
His son is also here with us in the audience today, seeking to
speak out about his parents and their church. In June, multiple
co-workers of Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen were imprisoned
for ``fraud,'' including Pastor Yang Rongli, who has received a
15-year sentence. Many more churches in China are suffering
ongoing persecution this year.
Chinese independent house churches are seen as a threat not
because they are evil or dangerous, as authorities so often try
to paint them. They are a threat because they often care deeply
for the society and serve the community out of love and not
control. The church also brings a uniquely connected civil
society organization in China, bringing people from different
economic, education, and social strata. Churches often model
transparency in leadership, including democratically selecting
church elders, rotation of church board members, and clear and
independent financial structures. Christians in China do not
oppose authority. And the church has always sought to enrich
Chinese society. They merely ask it to be free from the control
of the Chinese Communist Party, a self-identified atheist
organization, in the sacred decisions of the church--
including things like who can attend and be baptized, what kind
of sermons can be preached, what songs of worship they can
sing.
My father started Zion in order to worship freely in a
church that put God as the sole head of our church. Like many
faithful Christians everywhere, my father's church seeks to
give unto Caesar what is Caesar's but hold on to the position
that thou shalt have no other gods before me. Since I began
advocating for my father and the release of other church
leaders detained around a month ago, my family has also
experienced transnational repression. A week after we began
speaking out about my father's detention, my mother received a
threatening phone call from someone impersonating a U.S.
Federal agent. I have also been watched and followed in
Washington, D.C., as I met with friends and mentors who have
been helping me. I'm sometimes indeed fearful. After all, I
know that I seek to expose and hold to account the second most
powerful country in the world.
Yet as a Christian, I believe that we are asked to take
courage and speak truth. And that God, who created heaven and
Earth, will stand by our side. Similarly, I urge the leaders
here today to take similar courage, to use the authority with
which you've been entrusted, and to not forget us. Speak our
names--Pastor Ezra Jin, Pastor Gao Yinjia, Pastor Wang Lin,
Pastor Yin Huibin, and all the leaders of Zion Church in China,
and others as well--Pastor Gao Quanfu of Light of Zion Church
in Xi'an, Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church, Elder
Zhang Chunlei of Guiyang Ren'ai Reformed Church, and many
others. Do not signal defeat and acceptance of this trampling
of human rights with your silence.
We are praying for the full release of all Zion imprisoned
church leaders today. And despite not knowing why this is
happening and experiencing the despair of seeing my father and
others wrongfully imprisoned, I can draw strength in knowing
that my God is a good God, and even in these bleakest moments
might be used for bigger things and our work is not in vain. My
father wrote in a letter from prison just a week ago that ``God
has indeed used his power to uphold us. . . . I believe that
during this time, like silver being refined, we are being
tested by God, which is painful but full of love. But God will
not abandon us.'' Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Grace Jin Drexel appears in the
Appendix.]
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Ms. Drexel, for that very
powerful testimony.
I want to thank all the witnesses for their very powerful
testimony. I know Chairman Smith has another commitment soon so
I'm going to turn to him to begin the questioning.
Co-chair Smith. I'll be brief. And Grace, thank you. What
moving testimony on behalf of your dad. And we do have to
respond.
I would ask the panel, I mean, in 2008 right before the
Olympics in Beijing, not only did Frank Wolf and I go over--and
I was shocked that all the administration, including Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, were talking about was what venue--
did they go to track and field, basketball? I said, Human
rights! So did Frank. Raise human rights. They rounded up
people all over Beijing so they couldn't talk to the press.
Human rights. Now, Bush was talking about, what, opening
ceremonies? Is he going to go? We said, ``You can't. And
certainly, if you do go, you've got to meet with a
representative group of great human rights defenders from
China,'' just like we have in this panel--like you, Grace, and
Bob, and the others. And so I think we should maybe do a letter
and ask, before his meeting--certainly well before his meeting
in April--that our President, current President, meet with you
and listen. I mean, really allocate enough time to really let
both the substance and your hearts be conveyed to him.
So Mr. Chairman, I ask that we do that in a bipartisan way.
But it makes a difference. You know, there's a culture of
indifference and a culture of denial that pervades all of our
human rights work, including and especially with religious
freedom. They say, It's not really going on. Well, it is going
on. And you're bearing witness so powerfully. So I think we
really need to get the President, because he will be eyeball-
to-eyeball with Xi Jinping sometime, maybe in April. We're not
sure when. And I think he needs to see all of you before he
does that.
And second, last night--you know, I do have this big
hearing, I'm sorry that there was a conflict--on Nigeria. And
you know, last night I met with a large delegation from
Nigeria. They're here to say, Nothing to see here. Again, the
culture of indifference. And maybe not so much indifference,
but more denial. Their attorney general, Ribadu, who's the
national security advisor, was there. And I said, after we had
a long discussion about Nigeria and the killing of moderate
Muslims and the slaughter of Christians--and they are a Country
of Particular Concern (CPC), which Sam Brownback pushed so hard
for and got in the last administration, during Trump's first
term--but I asked him, ``What are you doing?'' You know,
there's this currying favor with Xi Jinping. ``Do you raise
what's going on in Xinjiang and the genocide against the Muslim
Uyghurs?'' And--crickets--nothing.
I said, you know, is it lack of information? Do you not
know what's going on there? Genocide is, you know, the worst of
the worst. And it's happening against co-religionists, your
fellow Muslims. We all speak out for every faith, but you know,
here you are getting closer to China. And that ought to be
absolutely preconditioned. So I just raised that at the
meeting. And I think the President would be moved by meeting
with all of you, as we are moved listening to your testimony,
looking you in the eye, and knowing, Grace, we need to speak.
God hasn't forgotten nor should we, nor should the President of
the United States--your dad and all the rest. So thank you,
Chairman, for letting me go first. I do have to run over to the
other hearing. But thank you so much.
Chair Sullivan. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good luck
at the next hearing. Thank you for your passion.
I'm going to begin the questioning. By the way, it's great
to have Representative Kiggans here. Welcome and we're glad
you're here. I want to get to Dr. Fu. You said you had
recommendations. I'd like to--if you can succinctly provide
those to the Commission right now, I'd like to hear what those
are.
Mr. Fu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to submit my
written testimony for the record.
Chair Sullivan. Without objection.
Mr. Fu. A few recommendations. First, I know Congress has
been discussing the counter-CCP Transnational Repression Act,
several bills. I really recommend that both the Senate and the
House take this on. And the second one--Senator Ted Budd has
already proposed the Combating the Persecution of Religious
Groups in China Act. So I also really advocate for that.
The third one, I think we should apply the Global Magnitsky
sanctions to officials involved in persecution of the Zion
Church and Golden Lampstand; you know, the long sentences, the
arrest of these who are just basically traveling overseas for
religious conferences, and sanctions against those who
engineered the enforced disappearance of lawyer Gao Zhisheng
and Zhang Yadi.
The fourth one I think is also very bipartisan, and which I
really want to raise especially for the Trump administration.
That is to protect these religiously based Chinese asylum
seekers fleeing religious persecution, including those who are
actually already vetted but because of the change in
administration since President Trump took office, are stuck
overseas in Thailand, for instance. I'm very, very concerned
that we have overreacted--really throwing the baby out with the
bathwater, because there are many who validly claimed to be
under religious persecution, who were in some cases already
vetted by the previous administration--some literally about to
board a flight, but were stopped. I think we should urge the
administration to seriously consider them and protect them. And
we can't just use the word ``illegal'' and compromise our
country's principles by not protecting religious freedom and
religious refugees who seek asylum in the United States. I
think I also agree with both the Co-chair and Ambassador
Brownback that religious freedom must be raised in every high-
level diplomatic meeting with the PRC.
Chair Sullivan. Thank you. Let me--sorry to interrupt,
because I do want to take the time to get to some of the other
panelists. You did a good job of laying out the shifts and
trends that have happened with regard to the CCP to control
religion over the last 10 years. I want to ask all the other
witnesses what you have seen, what your views are in that
regard; the trends and the tactics that the CCP has used to
control religion, particularly during the Xi Jinping era. And
if you also want to add, how does PRC intimidation against
religion, against groups outside of China, impact what's
happening around the world? And if you have any personal
experience with this, I would appreciate it.
But why don't we begin with you, Ambassador Brownback, on
the trends that you've seen. And why do we think the Chinese
Communist Party is clamping down so hard? And I'll ask all of
the witnesses, except for Dr. Fu. He talked about that in his
testimony.
Ambassador Brownback. Thanks. I think it's a good question
to ask. They have grown in their fear of people of faith.
Chair Sullivan. So it's a weakness we're seeing.
Ambassador Brownback. It is a weakness.
Chair Sullivan. We always think of it as a strength, but
you're saying it's actually a weakness of theirs. They're very
scared of people of faith.
Ambassador Brownback. Completely fearful of it. Much more
fearful of that, as I said, than of our aircraft carriers or
nuclear weapons. They fear their own people. Why? Well, because
they are afraid of losing control. They're not acting like a
confident country at all. And so why are we even ever hesitant
about backing these people of faith? There can be nothing more
American than religious freedom. This is at the core of who we
are. And look at the lineup you have of Muslims and Christians,
Falun Gong, Buddhists, that they are deathly scared of. And
that's the way they're acting. And the oppression has
intensified.
And then they've invented these security systems and
perfected them that truly are mindboggling, the quality of
them. And then freely dispersing them. In the book ``Where We
Are Now,'' they've dispersed these systems to 80 different
authoritarian countries--handed them out like candy to help in
the oppression. So I just think if they're spending so much
time and effort doing this, we ought to be backing these
people.
Chair Sullivan. Thank you. I only have a few seconds left
but I want all the witnesses to answer that question that I
posed. And then we'll turn to Rep. McGovern. Mr. Ma, do you
have a view on that question that I just posed?
Mr. Ma. I believe that the CCP is showing fear of the
people. And the trend that we're seeing is trending toward
nationalism. You can see from the groups that they're
oppressing, this is part of a larger chess game.
Chair Sullivan. Thank you.
Mr. Tsering, do you have a view on the question I posed?
Mr. Tsering. Yes, very much. Mr. Chairman, I think one
single issue is that they fear the Dalai Lama and his influence
in Tibet. They look at Tibetan Buddhism as a challenge to the
continuation of the Chinese Communist Party, and therefore they
use the United Front Work Department, a CCP organ, to control
Tibetans, inside Tibet as well as outside, including American
citizens, through the use of visa permission, whereby the
United Front, whose whole mission is to confront the Dalai
Lama, controls the Tibetan American visa process. Here, I would
like to submit for the record, please, two statements that the
Dalai Lama had issued, in 2011 and 2025, regarding his
reincarnation.
Chair Sullivan. Thank you.
And Ms. Drexel, do you have a view on this? And again,
thank you for your very powerful, courageous testimony.
Ms. Drexel. Thank you so much. I agree with Ambassador
Brownback. And just a quick anecdote, when they came to
imprison my father or detain my father, there were 30 police
that came into my father's house to imprison a 56-year-old
pastor, who can't karate chop his way out of anything. And so
there was no need--there could have been two policepersons, one
policeperson that could have come. Instead, they had 30 people
surround the entire house in order to detain him. And that just
shows how much they fear this faith. And I think part of it is,
again, because of the resilience of the faithful, that they
can't take away something that is so intimate and so core to
oneself.
And in terms of signaling, they also want to show the world
that there's no one there to help you, that your God is not
there, your church is not there, there's no one there. And
therefore, you are always under my, and solely my, control. And
I think that is wrong. And I think this is a universal human
rights issue and that we need to stand together with those that
are persecuted for faith.
Chair Sullivan. Well, this Commission is here, right?
That's our point. Let me just make a comment here. I think this
is really insightful testimony because we all see Xi Jinping is
a strongman. He's getting stronger. And he's getting control.
But this is happening because they're actually weak, and
scared, and afraid. That's really important for all of us to
remember.
Representative McGovern.
Representative McGovern. Thank you very much.
Let me thank all of you for your incredibly powerful
testimony. And Grace, on this Commission, we're not going to
forget about your dad, and we're going to continue to advocate
for his release. You know, Mr. Chairman, among my most
treasured possessions are these Tibetan prayer beads that I
wear. About a year and a half ago I was in India, Bhuchung--you
were there--and we met with the Dalai Lama. And he blessed
these and gave them to me. And told me that they will have a
calming influence, that they will help me deal with my fears
and anxieties and my worries about the world. And I'm anxious
to meet with the Dalai Lama again to tell him that they're not
working.
And listening to the testimony here today, I mean, the
issue of religious freedom is more urgent than ever. I share,
by the way, Ambassador Brownback's impatience on the Tibetan
issue. The Middle Way is something that has been talked about
for decades now. And we've been led to believe that maybe the
Chinese government might be receptive. Maybe they might be
willing to negotiate certain things. And they just keep on
stringing everybody along. So I do think we need to be thinking
in terms of consequences, you know, of responses that are more
than just words of condemnation, but that have an impact.
I actually like the idea of basically putting deadlines on
some of this stuff. And if China doesn't comply, then we
formally recognize Tibet as an independent country. And we have
to insist also, you know, that the Tibetan people be able to
decide their religious future. The Tibetan Policy and Support
Act of 2020, which I authored with then-Senator Rubio, makes it
United States policy to support the right of Tibetan Buddhists
to select their own leaders, and rejects China's interference
in recognizing a successor or reincarnation of the 14th Dalai
Lama, and any future Dalai Lama.
So I just have a couple of questions here. How would you
assess the U.S. Government's implementation of this provision,
including under the current administration? In addition, TPSA
also authorizes sanctions such as those under the Global
Magnitsky Act against those officials who interfere in the
reincarnation decisions under Tibetan Buddhism. Has this
authority been used? And how would you assess its
effectiveness? And finally, we have discussed the value of
creating an international norm in support of Tibetan Buddhists'
right to determine their religious leaders, including the next
Dalai Lama, including coordination by like-minded governments.
Is that happening? And can the U.S. Government play a
leadership role?
Mr. Tsering. Thank you, Congressman. I think, on the three
points, first on what this administration is doing on Tibet.
When Secretary Rubio, soon after he took over the Secretary of
State position, he used the occasion of the Tibetan New Year to
issue a statement reiterating American policy on Tibet--which
is positive. We want to see action to follow that policy
statement, which we hope that this administration will take.
Second, on the matter of the reincarnation, as you rightly
say, there is this policy of the U.S. Government to say that it
only respects the authority of this Dalai Lama and the Tibetan
Buddhists on reincarnation, not the Chinese government. We want
the United States to reiterate its policy and follow up on this
implementation to say that if the Chinese government violates
Tibetan religious freedom, they will be sanctioned. On the
issue of sanctions, there is the Reciprocal Access to Tibet
Act, which you did, and TPSA also has provisions. The Magnitsky
Act also has provisions.
So what the administration--not just this administration,
the previous administration too--has been saying is that they
do sanction Chinese officials. But it is not announced publicly
who they are sanctioning. So we would recommend that the
government administration here identify these people publicly
so that the concerned Chinese authorities get the right
message.
In terms of the future of Tibet, which you refer to, I
believe that the Dalai Lama and the elected leadership of the
Tibetan people have been earnestly working for a win-win
solution for both the Chinese and the Tibetans. Therefore the
path for a peaceful struggle they have led needs international
support for this to be fulfilled. If there is enough
international pressure on the Chinese, whether through such
acts that you describe or any other way of strengthening
American policy, that can only help if the Chinese government
responds by sitting down and resolving the issue of Tibet.
Representative McGovern. I know. I appreciate that. I guess
one of my worries--and again, the Dalai Lama is 90. And I hope
he lives to be 190. But I think the Chinese government is
calculating that when he passes on, that maybe the interest in
Tibet will wither, that there won't be as much attention. And I
think we need to make it clear that that will not be the case.
And again, I think all of us--I think on the Tibet issue in
particular, we need to step it up here in Congress. And we need
to encourage the administration to use the tools that we have
given them to pressure China even more.
And to everybody here, I've known Bob Fu for many years.
Thank you for your incredible courage and your leadership. We
are all deeply concerned about not only people that are being
repressed in China, but Chinese transnational repression
happening here. And I'm with the Senator here that, again, we
can't tolerate that. I mean, you're in the United States. You
should be able to express your views and say what you want. You
shouldn't have to fear that there are repercussions coming from
China.
Ambassador Brownback, again, thank you, thank you, thank
you for your consistent leadership on these matters. I look
forward to your book. I agree with you. This is not just a
human rights issue. It's a national security issue. And I do
think China's lack of acceptance of religious freedom is a sign
of their own weakness. And so I thank you all, and I thank the
Senator for yielding.
Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Congressman McGovern.
Representative Kiggans.
Representative Kiggans. Thank you very much for holding the
hearing. It's just a privilege to be here. And I would argue
with Mr. McGovern that maybe his prayer beads are working,
because we see so much interest, and just the encouraged faith
that all of you have and the stories you've shared. So maybe
they're continuing to work in the background. But thank you for
sharing your stories. My apologies for being a few minutes
late.
I would love to hear from each of you, just to provide some
context for myself, but how are the religious leaders in China
still able to conduct their services, and grow their
congregations, and practice? What type of support system
surrounds them? Because I'm sure the fear is real and the
threats are real. And not just in China, but the congregations
that they have here, because we know that it is expanding to
other countries, including our own. I just am curious about
that support system, how they're still even able to have a
presence and operate and grow their religions in a place like
China. If you could maybe each answer.
Ms. Drexel. Well, thank you so much. I will quickly just
talk about Zion's own church network. We are still able to meet
on Zoom. There are several pastors who just so happened to be
abroad. Several of them were studying in the U.S., or they were
at a meeting and conference in South Korea when this takedown
happened. So they are still able to host our hybrid Zoom
meetings, or sermons and worship. Unfortunately, there are a
lot of consequences. It requires a lot of bravery for those who
still come to services, either in person or online.
And again, many people have already suffered consequences.
But I think that, even during the Cultural Revolution, people
held on to their faith even if it meant hiding in the kitchen
and quietly singing to their families and their kids. And even
during that time they were not able to wipe out Christianity.
And I don't think that they will be able to wipe out
Christianity today. But I do think that a lot of people in
China, the Christians in China, are suffering, and are dealing
with the consequences of being faithful to their faith.
Representative Kiggans. Thank you.
Mr. Fu.
Mr. Fu. Thank you. Before answering your question, may I
just also suggest that the Senate, especially, take the vote
for the ambassador at large--and designate former congressman
Mark Walker. I think the State Department--the IRF Office, that
position is still vacant. I mean, if we are really serious on
religious freedom, we should vote for the ambassadorship first.
And in terms of support for the religious communities,
countering the CCP's war--even against the cross--the CCP
declared the cross a national security threat. A wooden or
metal cross is an enemy of the state. Many government-
sanctioned church pastors were also being arrested or
decommissioned simply for refusing to take down the cross from
the rooftop of the church building. Some were sentenced to 12
to 14 years' imprisonment. But the cross--it's not just a
visible cross. It's really a universal symbol.
And when Xi Jinping basically declared a war against
scripture, access to the Bible, to the children, this year
alone--with one small organization based in West Texas--we
printed over 40,000 copies of the children's Bible and got them
into China, distributed in 20 provinces, to benefit a lot of
children. I think the CCP's war ultimately will fail and is
doomed to fail. I really applaud both the international
community's support, including, of course, today's hearing, and
the global religious community's continuous solidarity with
those who are persecuted.
Representative Kiggans. Thank you.
Mr. Tsering. Thank you. In Tibet, the Chinese authorities
have changed the policy from the physical destruction of
Tibetan monastic institutes to control of the Tibetan monastic
system. Today, monasteries are allowed ritualistic activities,
but at the same time, they are trying to sinicize Tibetan
Buddhism. So while they don't allow the monasteries to have the
Dalai Lama's portrait, all monasteries must have the Chinese
leader Xi Jinping and others' portraits in them. And they have
to have political education. But in real Tibetan Buddhist
study, the Chinese authorities do not allow Tibetan Buddhist
students to study with their teachers, some of whom, including
the Dalai Lama, are outside. And any contact is prohibited.
Representative Kiggans. Interesting. Thank you.
Interesting.
Mr. Ma. I think we have presented evidence that the CCP is
systematically trying to destroy all religion, whether that is
Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity, Islam. And we have covered that
all these religions are under attack. This religious war that
the CCP is waging on us, we have taken all these attacks. But
we have not retaliated. So I would like everyone here to think
about what we can do in response, rather than just tell our
stories here. We have suffered enough. And we have suffered
beyond tolerance. I think now is the time to think about how we
defend ourselves.
Ambassador Brownback. I would agree with that statement,
and Bob Fu's too about getting the ambassador for religious
freedom confirmed, Mark Walker. Excellent guy. He will do a
wonderful job. But you need that point person in the
administration so that they can really push these things inside
the administration. Thank you.
Representative Kiggans. Can I just ask a quick follow-up
question to Ambassador Brownback? Since you've had time as
Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, what
have you seen work in the past? And what perhaps didn't work as
well? Do you have any other direction you can provide?
Ambassador Brownback. Real consequences. Words just don't
cut it. You've got to get at the money, or you've got to make
them scared. And if you don't, it's not going to work. The
thing about it is, you've got right here, we've got the most
American thing possible--religious freedom--that they are
scared to death of. And we back up and say, Well, I guess we
won't talk about that, because it might offend the Chinese.
Well, they're at war with us. Whether we want to admit it or
not, they've already moved that way. And so we're just laying
out here today clear, consequential things that the United
States could do, or even start talking about, that'll get their
attention. You get President Trump and the White House meeting
with a few people that have been persecuted for their faith
from China, and telling their stories--particularly if it's
Falun Gong members or Tibetans--heads will blow up in Beijing.
They are deathly scared of this.
Representative Kiggans. I agree. We certainly win on the
religious freedom front. And that's a powerful weapon. So thank
you all very much for being here.
Chair Sullivan. Well, I'm going to end with just one final
round of questions here. And so Dr. Fu, that's a very powerful
story of getting Bibles to China. Again, it reminds me of the
story of my mom bringing Bibles to the Soviet Union as a daring
young American. We talk about this issue of fear. Dr. Fu, Ms.
Drexel, do we have a sense of how many Christians live in
China? Any ballpark estimate? And then I'm going to ask the
same thing of Mr. Tsering on Buddhists, and Mr. Ju Ma on
Muslims.
Mr. Fu. Yes. Nobody knows the exact number. But even
according to the analysis from the sociologists from Purdue
University, the estimate of the number of Christians in China,
including those who worship in the government-sanctioned church
venues, has at least reached 100 million to 130 million.
Chair Sullivan. And do we think that number is growing or
declining, despite the pressure?
Mr. Fu. I definitely think it's growing, because--just the
example of Zion Church. In 10 years from 2007 to 2018, before
they were formally banned, they grew from 20 to, like, 1,500.
And then in the past five years, even after Pastor Ezra Jin was
exiled from Beijing, from his own home, the church grew from
1,500 to over 5,000. The devotion--I sometimes sign up for the
daily devotion on their app--has reached at minimum 10,000
every morning--10,000 people. So that's explosive growth.
Chair Sullivan. Mr. Tsering, do you have a sense on
Buddhists?
Mr. Tsering. The total number of Tibetans, not just in the
Tibet Autonomous Region but in the other Tibetan areas which we
call Tibet and Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, etc., it's around 7
million. Of that, more than 90 percent would be Tibetan
Buddhists. But there are also a sizable number of Chinese who
follow Tibetan Buddhism, and Mongolians.
Chair Sullivan. All right. Mr. Ju Ma, do you have a sense
on----
Mr. Ma. According to our and the government's estimate,
there are 35 to 45 million Muslims. And that includes Hui
Muslims and Uyghurs, as well as Chinese people who have
converted to Islam.
Chair Sullivan. Great. Let me ask another question. Dr. Fu,
this issue of intimidation, and people surrounding your house.
Do we know who these people were? I mean, do you have any
sense? Were they Americans? Were they Chinese sent to the U.S.?
And when you called the authorities in Texas, what did they do?
My view is if they're not Americans, they should be booted out
of the country, like these ``police stations'' in New York City
and everything. There's just no way we should tolerate any of
this thuggish behavior by commies in our own country. So who
were they? Do you know?
Mr. Fu. Some are--I mean, those who surrounded my home, the
3-month nonstop threat, the law enforcement, including the FBI
agents, they did arrest two.
Chair Sullivan. But were they Americans? Do we know who
they were? Were they deported?
Mr. Fu. Both of those arrested are American citizens. One
from San Francisco, one from----
Chair Sullivan. So they're just brainwashed.
Mr. Fu. And they came with financial aid or support, or as
guests of the Chinese Embassy--publicly. So you can tell
they're associated with the Chinese government.
Chair Sullivan. Okay. Ambassador, I have kind of a tough
question, but I'm going to ask you anyway because you have a
lot of knowledge in this area. The Vatican had an agreement
with Beijing in 2018. I don't think it's been made public, but
it seemed to cede a lot of authority in the Catholic Church to
the Communist Party, to some criticism, with the last pope. I
think they have a difficult balance because they want to expand
the number of Chinese who are practicing Christianity and
Catholicism. So I think sometimes the balance is, well, maybe
we'll just accommodate the Chinese Communist Party. But at the
same time, when you have 9 or 10 bishops who are gone,
disappeared, certainly the accommodation policy doesn't appear
to be working very well.
I had the opportunity to talk about these issues with
senior Vatican officials pretty recently. And you know, my
message was, maybe you need to rebalance here and speak out a
little bit more. I mean, America is a beacon, of course, for
religious freedom, but so is the Vatican. I mean, they've been
around a lot longer than we have--2,000-plus years. So what's
your sense--you have real good insight on this and you've
probably dealt with them--on what the Vatican should be doing
on these topics? Because again, it's not an easy topic. You
know, if you speak out really strongly you probably would
expect Xi Jinping to arrest 30 bishops. But the accommodation
policy, which I believe was the policy of the last pope--we
have a new American pope whom I'm very impressed with--but it
didn't seem to work. So do you have a sense of that? And you
know, it's a little tough to tell the Vatican what to do, but
we tell a lot of countries our views. I'm wondering what your
view is on this topic.
Ambassador Brownback. We need the Vatican's moral voice.
Chair Sullivan. It's a big moral voice. You're right.
Ambassador Brownback. On China.
Chair Sullivan. And do you think it was--I'm not talking
about the current pope. He's just getting started. But the last
pope, it seemed like it was a very muted voice. Would you agree
with that?
Ambassador Brownback. It was. I traveled several times to
the Vatican to meet with officials about it. Secretary Pompeo
and I both had a public conference there about the agreement
and about how this is not working. If you negotiated this
agreement to get these bishops free, they're not free. And you
know, who knows their internal decisionmaking, but we really
need their moral voice on religious freedom for everybody.
Chair Sullivan. Yes. For everybody. Not just for
Christians.
Ambassador Brownback. No. I mean, they need to be out there
speaking up for Uyghur Muslims and on the forced labor
situation. And they need to be speaking out for Christians. And
it's my hope that this new pope--actually, I would love to see
him fly to--this isn't going to happen--but he ought to fly to
Taiwan and give the John Paul speech of, Be not afraid, that he
did in Poland. Wow. That would be beautiful, to have that moral
voice saying Be not afraid.
Chair Sullivan. Yes. That was very powerful, when Pope John
Paul II had that stand. It helped bring down the Soviet Union.
There's no doubt about it.
Ambassador Brownback. It changed Eastern Europe. It changed
the mentality of the whole place. They said, because there are
more Catholics there in Poland--even though they hadn't gone to
mass in decades--it was still in their heart.
Chair Sullivan. Great. Good answer. Well, listen, I want to
thank all of the witnesses. I know it takes a lot of courage.
Many of you have suffered your own personal tragedies because
of this issue of religious freedom. And I just want to thank
all the witnesses here today. It's a great hearing. Very
informative. I learned a lot. I think it's important that we do
this, and that people not just in America but around the world
see this. Because our voice is very important. And as you've
all mentioned, it's been a part of the founding of this great
republic, and a core element of who we are as Americans.
The hearing record will remain open for an additional week
for members to revise and extend remarks and to submit
additional written statements and additional questions for the
witnesses.
And we respectfully ask the witnesses to get those additional
answers back to the Commission within the next three weeks. And
with that, I want to thank the witnesses again. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m., the hearing was concluded.]
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A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
------
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Sam Brownback
Mr. Chairman:
China is at war with faith. It is a battle for control of their
people. The CCP annually spends billions of dollars in their own
country to suppress, contain, control, deceive or eliminate all
religious entities that do not have the CCP as their leader. Religious
freedom is seen as an existential threat to the Communist leadership.
We should strongly back these oppressed people of faith. A cause our
country was founded on.
Ultimately, the battle is over authority. The Kingdom of God versus
the Kingdom of Man--who will be supreme in the hearts and minds of the
people. Communism makes no space for the people's pursuit of the Divine
that in any way could challenge the authority of the government.
Thus, the battle is engaged.
Our national interest, our global ideological confrontation with
authoritarianism, and our hearts are with the souls of the religious
people of all faiths in China who are oppressed, but still resisting
the Dragon. They are our brothers and sisters of faith. They are also
our most powerful ally against the CCP. We should embrace their cause.
They love their nation but despise what over 70 years of Communist
dictatorship has done to their ancient civilization.
It is in our national interest to strongly back the Falun Gong
practitioners, Christians, and Buddhist and Muslim adherents in China.
The Chinese people are a very spiritual people. To back their religious
affiliation is to back them against the foreign ideology of Communism.
The CCP often rails against ``foreign influences'' in their country but
blindly forgets that Communism itself is a ``foreign ideology'' from
industrial era Europe.
I recommend the following actions:
1. Make religious freedom in China a part of our national security
objectives toward China. Develop a National Security Strategy for the
U.S. and other nations to support the religious communities inside
China.
2. Use economic sanctions provided in the Frank Wolf International
Religious Freedom Act against China for ongoing and egregious religious
freedom violations.
3. President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio
and/or Secretary of War Hegseth should meet with exiled leaders and
those from the Falun Gong, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist communities
in China who have been persecuted.
Specifically for each religious community, I recommend:
Falun Gong
This is the community the CCP fears the most because they are the
most natural and indigenous to the Chinese people. They went from
introduction in 1992 to 90 million practitioners in seven years, before
being banned by the CCP.
They have a registry of millions of Chinese who were members of the
CCP and have now renounced it. Their objective is to bring back the
Chinese culture that existed before Communism.
We should:
1. Recognize a genocide against the Falun Gong by the Chinese
government.
2. Meet with their key leaders in exile to support their right to
freedom of religion in China.
3. Support their work to break the Great Chinese Internet
Firewall.
Christians
One of the places where Christianity is growing the fastest.
We should:
1. Strongly advocate for the release of Christian hostages being
held by the CCP. People like Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of the Zion Church,
Pastor Wang Yi of the Early Rain Covenant Church and the ten Catholic
Bishops identified in an October 17, 2024 article by Nina Shea.
2. Encourage private sector entities with significant ties to
China to advocate for the release of prisoners of conscience and human
rights lawyers. Groups like the NBA, Hollywood, and major businesses
with ties to China.
Tibetan Buddhists
China continues to aggressively push forward a cultural genocide in
Tibet, doing everything possible to remove Tibetan language and culture
from the next generation and to distance the people from their
reverence for the Dalai Lama.
We should:
1. Categorically reject the Chinese government's claim to the
right to appoint the next Dalai Lama.
2. Send Vice President Vance or Secretary Rubio to Dharamsala,
India to confer with the Dalai Lama and announce our support for the
Dalai Lama's Middle Way approach for Tibet. Genuine autonomy for Tibet
within China. While I have significant doubts this will work, just look
at Hong Kong. If China will not agree to this within 60 days, we should
announce our recognition of an independent Tibet.
3. Tibet, and for that matter, Xinjiang (East Turkestan), are no
more a part of China than Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were a part of
Russia. They are occupied territories and we should see them as such.
Uyghur Muslims
Many of the Uyghurs have now been moved from concentration camps to
forced labor confinement. Same incarceration, different setting. The
transnational oppression experienced by Uyghurs and Falun Gong, in
particular, must be confronted in our own country and Europe.
We should:
1. Pass legislation to address the transnational oppression and do
high-profile prosecutions of those doing the criminal activities.
2. Start addressing Xinjiang as East Turkestan in our government
documents.
3. Aggressively address the enforcement of our laws against the
use of forced labor, particularly of the Uyghurs, and ask our allies to
similarly ban the sale of products made by forced labor in their
markets.
Conclusion
To date, we have failed to recognize and support our most potent
ally in our struggle against the CCP, the religious people of China.
The CCP fears them more than our nuclear missiles or aircraft carriers.
It's time to engage them and their fundamental human dignity and God-
given human right to do with their own souls what they choose. No fight
could be more American than to fight for religious freedom.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2143.001
Prepared Statement of Ismail Juma
Chairman, Co-chairman, and distinguished members of the Commission:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. It is an
honor--and a solemn responsibility--to speak on behalf of the tens of
millions in China who can no longer speak for themselves. I also wish
to extend my deep gratitude to all who continue to defend and uphold
the principle of religious freedom.
As a member of the more than ten million Hui Muslims of China, and
as a humanitarian advocate and survivor of religious persecution, I
appear before you to present a truth that has been systematically
concealed: China's Muslim communities are facing the most severe,
widespread, and systemically engineered crisis threatening their
physical survival and basic freedoms since 1949.
I. The CCP's ``Re-engineering Project'': Not Only Suppression, but
Erasure
A long-term misunderstanding is that the Chinese Communist Party
merely ``restricts'' religion. This is false. The CCP is a political
organization founded on a commitment to eradicate religion. Its
doctrine views organized faith, moral systems, and independent
community structures as existential threats to totalitarian control.
When it does not yet possess the capacity to destroy religion outright,
it restricts it; when it does acquire that capacity, it moves to
eliminate it without hesitation--just as it has done to independent
NGOs, civic groups, and minority cultures.
Under the veneer of what it calls a ``re-engineering project'', the
CCP seeks to reshape all religions into ideological appendages of the
Party-state.
1. Erasure of Islamic Architecture and Sacred Space
Across Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan, and other regions,
thousands of mosques have had their domes demolished, minarets removed,
Quranic inscriptions erased, and Arabic calligraphy scraped away.
Many mosques have been forcibly converted into ``cultural plazas,''
``civilization practice centers,'' or political education sites.
Interiors are stripped of religious symbolism; exteriors made to
resemble secular government facilities.
This is not mere physical destruction--it is the surgical removal
of the Muslim spiritual landscape.
2. Normal Religious Life Criminalized as ``Illegal'' or ``Extremist''
Acts that are entirely normal in Muslim societies are redefined as
crimes:
Fasting during Ramadan
Teaching the Qur'an privately
Wearing the hijab or traditional attire
Growing a religious beard
Children entering mosques
Family religious gatherings
These practices may result in police interrogation, fines,
detention, or being sent to ``re-education camps.''
This is a systematic project to redefine faith as illegality.
3. Destruction of Religious Knowledge: Cultural Eradication
The lifeblood of Hui, Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Muslim
communities--the centuries-old Islamic educational tradition--has been
deliberately dismantled:
Imams arbitrarily detained or forced into political
indoctrination
Arabic instruction severely restricted
Religious texts censored or rewritten
CCP-approved political reinterpretations of the Qur'an
mandated
A people's deepest moral and cultural inheritance is being uprooted
at its source.
4. Repression in Xinjiang Has Not Ended--It Has Become More Hidden
There is a dangerous misconception that repression in Xinjiang has
``eased.'' The truth: It has not stopped. It has evolved.
What was once mass internment has transformed into totalized
surveillance and control:
Forced labor
Family separation
Mosque demolitions
Ubiquitous digital monitoring
Birth prevention policies
``Stabilization'' policing systems
Xinjiang today is a laboratory of totalitarian social engineering.
II. My Personal Experience: A Survivor of Transnational Repression
Because of my humanitarian work, my efforts to promote ethnic and
religious reconciliation, and my advocacy for persecuted Muslims, I was
placed on China's watchlist.
After I fled China, the repression followed me across borders:
Surveillance and threats
Cyberattacks and coordinated bot harassment
Pressure and intimidation directed at my family
Abuse of legal systems to wage transnational repression
I possess evidence of:
Hui religious figures imprisoned after secret trials
simply for sharing or reposting my social media content
Minors prosecuted for attempting to contact me
Cross-border legal actions initiated immediately after I
submitted a human rights brief to the United Nations, supported the
protection of Najiaying Mosque in Yunnan, and helped international
media expose the destruction of thousands of mosques
My uncle--whom I had not spoken to for more than a decade--was
coerced into calling me with a message from the authorities: ``Turn
back before it is too late.''
It is now evident that the CCP is exploiting legal loopholes in the
United States to conduct transnational repression. America's judicial
system--ironically a symbol of the rule of law--has become one of the
CCP's most effective weapons to burden dissidents with:
reputational smearing
endless malicious lawsuits
crushing legal bills
Meanwhile, here on U.S. soil, I have experienced stalking,
intrusions into my residence, online and email threats, and explicit
death threats. These are not isolated events--they are part of an
ongoing campaign.
III. Digital Authoritarianism: Extending Control to Overseas Muslims
The CCP deploys digital tools and influence operations to
intimidate overseas Muslims:
Monitoring Chinese Muslims abroad through social media
Coordinated bot attacks and character assassination
Using family members in China as hostages
Creating an atmosphere of fear in diaspora communities
A telling example: A respected Islamic scholar visiting Chinese
Muslim migrants in Malaysia told them he planned to meet me in the
United States. Their reaction was a mixture of excitement and dread.
Their fear was simple: if their names appeared alongside mine in a
report, their relatives in China would face retaliation.
IV. Religious Tolerance: A Core American Value and a Universal Moral
Principle
Christianity
``Love your neighbor as yourself.'' (Matthew 22:39)
``Judge not, that you be not judged.'' (Matthew 7:1)
Buddhism
The Metta Sutta: ``May all beings be happy and secure.''
Islam
``There shall be no compulsion in religion.'' (Qur'an
2:256)
``We made you nations and tribes so that you may know one
another.'' (Qur'an 49:13)
The Constitution of Medina established one of the
earliest multi-faith systems of coexistence.
V. Why This Matters to the National Interests of the United States
1. It strikes at the foundation of America's identity
2. CCP transnational repression violates U.S. sovereignty
3. It weakens America's standing with the Muslim world
4. Digital authoritarianism is a growing threat
5. Religious oppression fuels radicalization
6. Preventing a global shift toward authoritarianism
Conclusion: Speaking for Those Who Cannot
I speak today:
to honor those who have been silenced
to expose an ongoing system of persecution
to defend the universal right to religious freedom
to urge the international community to act
If we remain silent today, tomorrow there may be no one left to
speak.
______
Prepared Statement of Bhuchung K. Tsering
I would like to thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on
China for giving me the opportunity to testify on China's policies and
tactics for coercively controlling Tibetan Buddhism and its relevance
to the United States.
Tibetan Buddhism has a sizable following throughout the world,
including here in the United States, as well as in the Indian
subcontinent. Tibetan Buddhism is linked to the security of the Indian
subcontinent through its historical ties and its cultural and ethnic
connections across the Himalayan region. The cultural influence of
Tibetan Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent has also been a factor in
regional stability. The Indian subcontinent is also a major player in
the Indo-Pacific region and matters to the United States due to its
massive economic importance, strategic security interests, and its role
in global stability and the rules-based order.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is revered by communities in the Indo-
Pacific region, as well as in the United States, where opinion polls
have clearly shown that a majority of Americans embrace him as both a
religious leader and globally respected statesman. Americans have shown
that they care deeply about what happens in Tibet and successive
congresses and administrations have reflected that through legislative
and policy initiatives.
The Chinese government's actions in Tibet have created a complex
security dynamic, with India attempting to stabilize a sensitive
frontier with Chinese-
controlled Tibet. For its part, China has been blatantly using Tibetan
Buddhism as a vehicle to not only control the Tibetan people, but also
to influence the international community, including the citizens of
India, Nepal, and Bhutan, as well as the United States.
Over the years China has been increasingly putting pressure on
Nepal to restrict Tibetan religious activities, leading to a climate of
fear and limited freedom for Tibetans in Nepal. This pressure includes
having Nepal crack down on protests, surveillance of the community,
refusal to register refugees, and increased security cooperation with
Chinese authorities.
Lhasa is the most sacred place of pilgrimage for all followers of
Tibetan Buddhism throughout the world, and Chinese authorities are
politicizing access to Tibet to further their agenda. China continues
to impose restrictions on Tibetan Buddhists, including American
citizens, who wish to travel to Tibet. At the same time, it is
providing selective access to journalists and other influencers to
drive its own narrative. China has also used the Confucius Institutes
in the United States to spread its propaganda on Tibet.
China not only restricts the religious freedom of Tibetans in Tibet
but also attempts to interfere in the activities of Tibetans and Tibet
supporters abroad. In a report on Chinese Transnational Repression of
Tibetan Diaspora Communities, the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for
Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) says that in attempting ``to control
the actions of exiled Tibetans, Chinese authorities weaponise their
relatives in Tibet by harming, threatening, or otherwise manipulating
them. The looming threat resulting from ubiquitous surveillance also
fosters a constant feeling of unease that spreads fear and disempowers
exiled communities. Knowing that spies are planted among their members
undermines the trust essential to the survival of diaspora networks.
Transnational repression poses increasing threats to Tibetan diaspora
communities and, thereby, to the future of the Tibetan freedom
movement.''
The head of the Central Tibetan Administration, Sikyong Penpa
Tsering, also said he faced transnational repression from China, which
tries to stop his visits to different countries, including a direct
attempt to stop a major Australian TV station from broadcasting a
discussion program with him. More egregiously, in July this year, the
Chinese authorities disappeared Zhang Yadi (Tara), a Chinese student
and a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, who had been advocating peacefully
in France for Tibet and Tibetan rights. Zhang had been on a visit to
China when she was disappeared in Yunnan. Reports indicate she was
taken away by state security officers and is being held incommunicado
on suspicion of inciting separatism.
Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party's attitude towards religion
in general and on Tibetan Buddhism in particular becomes a national
security interest for the United States.
In this testimony I will highlight China's policy of altering the
very identity of the Tibetan people as part of President Xi Jinping's
overall strategy to co-opt and eventually eliminate Tibet's unique
religious, linguistic, and cultural identity.
I am submitting the full text of my testimony for the record and
will provide an overview at the hearing.
The Chinese government's policy on Tibetan religion has moved from
total destruction of Tibetan religious institutions and systems to one
of insidious control and erosion. Initially, China launched major
attacks on the physical structure of Tibetan Buddhism, destroying
almost all of the monasteries and temples. Subsequently, China altered
its policy to allow a semblance of Tibetan Buddhist practice, while
simultaneously using it as a vehicle to exert influence over the
Tibetan people, as well as followers of Tibetan Buddhism throughout the
world.
Over the years, the Chinese state has promulgated various
regulations to bring Tibetan monasteries and monastics under tighter
control by the state. To be clear, while these measures apply to all
religious communities in the People's Republic of China, in Tibet the
effect is increasingly intense due to the defining role religion plays
as the cultural and social foundation of Tibetan society. The
mechanisms of control inflicted by the Xi Jinping regime are designed
to contort genuine Tibetan Buddhism and its institutions into another
tool of autocratic control and eventual replacement of the Tibetan
people's unique civilization with one defined by the Communist Chinese
Party.
The Buddhist Association of China (BAC), a supposedly non-political
organization, is becoming a key instrument in the Chinese Communist
Party's strategy to assimilate and transform Tibetan Buddhism. This
process is intended to break down Tibetan Buddhism's unique
characteristics and to change it into a tool of the Chinese state.
The most critical area where the BAC contributes to the CCP agenda
is in the search for and recognition of Tibetan reincarnations. The CCP
has a strategy to use the opportunity of the ageing of the Dalai Lama
to use the deeply spiritual process of his reincarnation to promote its
political agenda in Tibet and the region.
Since China has failed to place the current Dalai Lama under its
control, it plans to ensure the next incarnation will be subservient to
the Communist Party of China. China's atheist, authoritarian government
is claiming authority to select the next Dalai Lama. They attempted
this identical strategy with the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the
second most well-known Tibetan Buddhist leader, by kidnapping him when
he was six years old (the youngest political prisoner ever). The CCP
subsequently appointed a patently false substitute in his place. Not
only do the Chinese government's claims completely disregard centuries-
old Tibetan religious tradition, they also violate the universal
principle of religious freedom.
The Chinese government's interference in the Dalai Lama
reincarnation issue has clear geopolitical implications for many
Tibetan Buddhist institutions in the United States, the Indian
subcontinent, Mongolia, and other parts of the world. If not challenged
vigorously by free countries, this decision threatens religious
freedom, not only of Tibetans, but also of millions of followers of
Tibetan Buddhism worldwide, including in the United States. If China
achieves its goal of co-opting and controlling Buddhism in the region
and globally with impunity, then it will only embolden Beijing to
further its other expansionist and authoritarian ambitions.
The CCP has introduced the following measures, regulations, and
initiatives to exercise control over the recognition of reincarnations.
In 2019, the Chinese spokesperson responded to the Dalai Lama's
assertion about his authority to decide on his reincarnation by stating
that the process must adhere to Chinese law.
The ``Management Measures for the Reincarnation of Living
Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism'' (Order No. 5) passed by the State
Administration of Religious Affairs on July 18, 2007, that came into
force on Sept. 1, 2007. It articulates in detail the CCP role in
selection, installation, and education of reincarnate lamas.
The 2010 ``Tibetan Buddhism Living Buddha Certificates''
provided by the BAC to reincarnations who have been approved by the
Chinese government.
The 2016 ``Tibetan Buddhism Living Buddha Inquiry
System'' launched by the BAC to verify legitimacy of reincarnations. In
January 2016, the database started with 870 names, while in April the
same year, it increased to 1,300.
The ``Revised Religious Affairs Regulations'' (Order No.
686) passed by the State Council on June 14, 2017 that came into force
on Feb. 1, 2018. It mandates that the religious community shall
``practice the core socialist values; and preserve the unification of
the country, ethnic unity, religious harmony and social stability.''
The ``Measures for the Administration of Religious
Clergy'' (Order No. 15) passed by SARA on Jan. 8, 2021, regulating the
administration of religious clergy. The measures, which came into force
on May 1, 2021, standardize state management of clergy to serve the
ideological and political interests of the state and legally underpin
the ``Sinification'' of religion policy in China. Article 15 in the
regulation explicitly reaffirms the state's role in management and
approval of Tibetan reincarnate lamas.
``Administrative Measures for Religious Activity Venues''
(Order No. 19) that came into force on Sept. 1, 2023.
The Chinese authorities realize that Tibetan Buddhism is the core
of Tibetan identity. Thus, to the CCP, Sinification serves to make
Tibetan Buddhism conform to the CCP ideology and be an active agent of
its promotion and implementation.
In a formal statement on September 24, 2011, the Dalai Lama
categorically maintained that only he can make a decision regarding his
reincarnation and the process by which he intends to handle the issue
of his succession, and on July 2 this year he reiterated his position.
I would like to submit these two statements for the record.
In the past more than 60 years, the Chinese authorities have
adapted from a policy of destruction of the Tibetan religious
institutions and system to one of controlling them to serve its own
political objectives. For the first several years leading to and after
the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet, there was a policy of
complete annihilation of Tibetan religion, including its institutions.
After the Cultural Revolution, there was a brief period of
liberalization in the 1980s, leading to a resurgence of Tibetan
religious expression. In an apparent realization of the failure of its
policy to eliminate Tibetan Buddhism, the Chinese leadership slowly
began to change its policy to one of subversion and mounting erosion.
Tibetan Buddhists inside and outside Tibet will not accept China's
plans to control the Dalai Lama's reincarnation. Nor will the
international community endorse such a blatant assault on not only
Tibetan religious freedom, but also the fundamental right of any
religion to choose its own leaders.
Tibet is within the parameters of U.S. security interests in the
Indo-Pacific region. Tibet occupies an Asian fault zone of clashing
cultures and big power politics. Tibet is where Russia, China, and
British India played the Great Game in the past. A stable Tibet where
the human rights and religious freedom of Tibetans is respected would
contribute greatly to peace and stability in this sensitive region.
recommendations
1. The Trump administration must monitor, as per the Tibetan Policy
and Support Act of 2020, Chinese officials' violation of Tibetan
religious freedom, including interference in recognizing a successor or
reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama and any future Dalai Lamas and
consider imposing sanctions with respect to such officials under the
Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 2656 note)
and applying the relevant section of the Immigration and Nationality
Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(G)) with respect to such officials.
2. The Trump administration should continue to engage
multilaterally with like-minded countries and international bodies to
undertake coordinated initiatives and develop a united policy on
religious freedom of the Tibetan people, including within the European
Union and at the United Nations.
3. The administration should publicly demand the release of Tibetan
political prisoners, including those who have been imprisoned for
upholding their religious rights, including the 11th Panchen Lama,
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.
4. China should be asked to stop transnational repression and
release those who have been detained for peaceful advocacy of Tibetan
rights, including Zhang Yadi.
5. The State Department should make greater use of the Reciprocal
Access to Tibet Act by publicly releasing the names of Chinese
officials sanctioned under the Act in the hopes of gaining greater
access to monitor the conditions in Tibet, in-
cluding the practice of Tibetan Buddhism and the situation in Buddhist
monastic
establishments.
6. Relevant congressional committees should request access to Tibet
and ask American diplomats as well as organizations, including
representatives of multi-
lateral organizations, to seek access to Tibet as part of the
implementation of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act.
7. Denial of religious freedom for Tibetans is merely a symptom of
a bigger problem, which is political, and needs to be addressed. The
United States has a policy of encouraging unconditional negotiations
between the Tibetan leadership and the Chinese leadership. The Trump
administration should urge Beijing at senior levels, both privately and
publicly, to return to substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his
representatives, without pre-conditions, to negotiate a resolution to
the Tibet-China conflict, in line with the 2002 Tibetan Policy Act and
2020 Tibetan Policy and Support Act.
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Prepared Statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan
Good morning. The Commission will come to order. Thank you to our
witnesses and to all who are following this hearing online.
Today's message is straightforward: the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) is waging a systematic campaign to bend every faith in China to
Party rule. CCP authorities aim for the complete subordination of
religious belief to state ideology--re-
engineering doctrine, leadership, education, architecture, and even
online worship.
The CCP is not content to police behavior; it wants to control the
conscience and intrude on the most powerful and personal relationship
there is--the one with God. We have documented imprisonment, torture,
and worse for such simple acts as owning a prayer book, growing a
beard, or gathering for worship.
There are currently 1,647 documented religion prisoner cases in the
CECC's Political Prisoner Database, although that number may be ten
times higher when we consider all those detained in the Uyghur region.
At least a dozen bishops and priests from my own Catholic Church are
detained.
Make no mistake about it, freedom of religion is under assault
worldwide--witness what is happening in Nigeria. But nowhere is the
scale of the threat greater than in China. There are an estimated 500
million people in China whose faith traditions face some form of
restriction or control.
And the CCP's grip on religion does not end at its borders. Through
transnational repression, it harasses exiled believers, infiltrates
religious communities, and intimidates diaspora groups to remain
silent. Some of our witnesses have personal experience with
intimidation or transnational repression right here in America.
Since Xi Jinping came to power, he has pushed an aggressive agenda
to roll back what little space for independent religion once existed
and to assert CCP dominance over all aspects of religious life.
Christian pastors are prosecuted for fraud for accepting charity.
Uyghur Muslims are punished for reading the Qur'an at home. Tibetan
Buddhists are targeted for honoring the Dalai Lama; Falun Gong
practitioners are tortured for peaceful meditation the Party cannot
control. Across China, the Party has closed churches, imprisoned
pastors and priests, and ordered the removal of Islamic and Tibetan
Buddhist symbols from buildings
We are here today because the right to believe according to one's
own conscience is not a privilege government may grant or withhold. It
is a universal human right, central to human dignity and human
flourishing. We know now that religious freedom is a critical element
in societies that are stable and prosperous. Our own history, from the
earliest colonies to the First Amendment, reflects a simple truth:
societies are freer, fairer, and more stable when people are free to
worship, to practice their faith, and to live, speak, and act according
to their beliefs.
The CCP fears the power of faith because it is a source of values
and moral authority it cannot control. That is why it demands that
crosses come down and portraits of Xi Jinping go up. It is why a
Catholic priest must preach Party slogans alongside sacred texts. It is
why so many religious leaders and religious believers are jailed.
To the CCP, faith is not just a challenge, it is an existential
threat to its grip on power--and why it must be controlled or
destroyed.
The title of this hearing asks why religious freedom in China
matters to the United States. We certainly want to hear our witnesses
answer this question. But let me offer one reason why this hearing
matters by reading part of a statement by detained pastor Wang Yi, who
met with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office in 2006. The
National Endowment for Democracy just awarded Wang Yi one of its
highest prizes.
In one of his last statements before being detained, Pastor Yi
said: ``the rulers of this country are waging a war--in the [Uyghur
region], in Tibet, in Shanghai, in Beijing--and the rulers who are
waging this war have chosen for themselves an enemy that can never be
imprisoned, an enemy that can never be destroyed, an enemy that can
never be controlled or subdued, namely, the soul of human beings.''
Pastor Wang Yi may now be in prison--but he, and millions of others
like him, are not subdued. That is why this hearing matters--not just
for one community, one country, or one faith, but for the defense of
human dignity and conscience everywhere. The CCP wants believers in
China to feel isolated and forgotten. Our responsibility is to show
them--and to show Beijing--that they are neither.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith
Thank you, Senator Sullivan, and good morning, everyone.
I'm very glad the CECC is holding this hearing, and to be working
with you on this critical, and indeed, urgent, issue that is so close
to my heart.
I say ``urgent'' because, as we speak, the Chinese Communist Party,
directed by General Secretary Xi Jinping, is engaged in one of the most
extensive crackdowns on a Protestant Christian house church in 40
years. I also say urgent because, as I look around this room, I see
friends of many faiths with loved ones languishing in Chinese prisons.
Their plight is pressing and we must act and pray with urgency.
At its core, religious freedom is about the right of conscience--
what George Washington called ``that little spark of celestial fire
which is the inviolable domain in the heart of every human being.'' I
am proud to say that this is the fourteenth hearing I have chaired or
co-chaired dedicated to religious freedom in China.
We say that religious freedom is a universal right because it is
guaranteed by a sovereign God who created human beings in his own image
and likeness and imbued them with inalienable dignity and worth,
whether they were born in Washington or Wuhan. It is thus not a
``Western'' construct but a universal one.
Yet the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, leader of
the world's largest atheistic state, would force his own people to
think otherwise. He would have the Chinese people believe that
religious freedom is not for them, that religion itself is not for
them, because he, and the party he leads, are terrified of religious
faith. They fear any moral or spiritual authority outside the control
of the Party; and they punish worship of anyone but Xi Jinping.
Instead, the Chinese Communist Party wants total control over
heart, mind, and spirit of each citizen of China. In one particularly
ludicrous yet equally insidious example, in September, the Cyberspace
Administration of China launched a two-month ``Clear and Bright''
campaign that polices pessimism and ``negative emotions,'' among other
thought crimes. This is totalitarianism, pure and simple, and
totalitarian governments cannot abide freedom of religion or belief.
And yet, neither can they extinguish it.
In Tibet, as Communist authorities seek to stamp out any mention or
memory of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, blanketing religious sites with
surveillance and security forces in the lead-up to his 90th birthday, a
young singer performed a song celebrating the spiritual leader, and
Tibetans inside and outside Tibet shared and re-shared it on social
media.
When authorities shut down Zion Church in Beijing, then one of the
city' s largest, Pastor Ezra Jin took the church nationwide by moving
online, reaching more people than it ever could have before. (We are
also proud to have as one of our witnesses Pastor Jin's daughter,
Grace, who used to work for the CECC.)
In Fujian province, authorities confined underground Catholic
bishop Guo Xijin to his residence, so he joyfully celebrated the 40th
anniversary of his priestly ordination by serving communion to pilgrims
through the bars of the chained gate outside his home.
After removing domes and minarets from thousands of mosques in
China to excise foreign elements, authorities likely believed they
could dismantle two of the remaining mosques targeted for demolition
with impunity, yet whole communities of Hui Muslims in Yunnan province
took to the streets in protest.
And these are only a few examples out of the many we at the
Commission have documented, to say nothing of the countless acts of
quiet faith and steadfast devotion known only to individual believers
and their God. I encourage you to read the statements we will be
posting on the webpage for this hearing, which will feature expert
testimony and inspiring personal narratives from Uyghurs, Catholics,
Falun Gong practitioners, and others.
Today, we will hear directly from brave men and women whose
families and faith communities have suffered in China for their dogged
belief that they, too, are entitled to freedom of religion, and that an
illegitimate and atheistic regime cannot bind the conscience of its
citizens.
In many cases, authorities have pursued beyond China's borders
these believers in an authority above the CCP, attempting to silence
their advocacy. Thus we are especially grateful for their voices here
today. Among those voices is that of Grace Jin Drexel, the daughter of
Pastor Ezra Jin and a former CECC researcher. I heard Grace address the
CPAC Christian persecution summit, and I was deeply moved by her
advocacy for her father. I know we are all eager to hear how we can
support Pastor Ezra and all those detained in the crackdown on the Zion
Church network.
But we are not only here to lament or to cry out for the ``least of
these'' who suffer persecution and injustice, or to call out evil
rulers and bad actors. We speak up
for Falun Gong practitioners, for Uyghur Muslims, for Tibetan
Buddhists, and for
underground Catholics because it is right, but also because robust
religious freedom diplomacy is critical for U.S. national security, as
Ambassador Brownback and I wrote in our recent op-ed for the Washington
Times, ``Why China's War on Religion Matters to the U.S.'' And
Ambassador, I know this is the topic of the book you have coming out
soon, and I really look forward to reading it.
Studies show that religious freedom is strongly correlated with
flourishing societies and nations--it is a security stabilizer, making
countries and regions safer. It is associated with economic growth and
trustworthy institutions, ensuring fairer markets for American and
international business. This unalienable freedom is fundamental to
peace and prosperity for China and for the United States and deserves
our strong and unwavering support. I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses.
Thank you.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern
Good morning. I want to thank Chair Sullivan and Co-chair Smith for
convening this important hearing. I want to thank Senator Merkley and
Representative Strong for their leadership on these issues as well. We
have different political philosophies but we are together in
championing human rights and religious freedom.
Religious freedom has been at the core of the Commission's work
since its founding. It has been the subject of numerous hearings and
well-documented reporting. I understand the 2025 Annual Report is close
to finalization. I look forward to its publication so that all Members
can benefit from its analysis and recommendations. I commend the
dedicated, non-partisan staff of the Commission for their hard work in
getting this 300+ page report researched, written and released. It is a
lot of work. And it is good work. And it's important work.
Religious freedom is protected under Article 18 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which affirms
that every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion. In the United States, it is protected by the First Amendment
to the Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. We
Americans are very proud of this protection of our rights. As a
practicing Catholic, I feel a deep personal connection to the right to
worship and belief according to one's conscience. Defense of this
fundamental right, in both national and international law, is essential
to our work as public servants.
China's constitution also provides that the state cannot ``compel
citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion'' or
``discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in,
any religion.'' But as we will hear today, such protection is honored
in the breach. They don't respect it, they don't follow it. This is a
reminder that even the strongest constitutional provisions on paper
cannot protect citizens' rights if those in power choose to disregard
them for political ends.
In 2022 I was honored to co-chair this Commission's hearing on how
Chinese authorities were expanding digital tools to surveil and
suppress online religious expression. I'm pleased that today's
witnesses will update us on the PRC's policies and tactics for coercive
control of religion and their impact on individuals and communities. I
welcome Ambassador Sam Brownback, who headed the State Department's
International Religious Freedom office and remains a powerful leader in
the field.
I look forward to the testimony of those who will speak to the
experiences of Hui Muslims, Christians, and Tibetans under the PRC's
ongoing repression. In July, several UN special rapporteurs and working
groups issued a statement on the Chinese government's interference in
the succession of the Dalai Lama and the enforced disappearance of the
11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. This is a U.S. priority, as
Senator Marco Rubio and I put into law in the Tibetan Policy and
Support Act.
We will also hear very personal testimony. Last month, Chinese
authorities launched a multi-city crackdown on the unregistered house
Zion Church and detained several individuals including Pastor Ezra Jin.
Many of us condemned this violation.
His daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, joins us today to speak about her
father and call for his release. Grace was recently a staff member of
the CECC, helping raise awareness about prisoners of conscience
persecuted for their faith. Now her own father is one. We stand with
Grace and her family and join in their call.
We must commit our voices, loudly and clearly, to defend the rights
of those targeted for exercising their right to freedom of thought,
conscience, and belief. But to be effective, our voice must carry moral
credibility. I worry that we are not living up to what is expected of
us. The United States is at its best when we lead by example. When we
do not, we do a disservice to those overseas we are trying to help.
Earlier this week--you may have read this in the news--congregants
of a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, scattered into the woods when
masked federal agents arrived and detained one of their members. The
church has suspended services until members feel safe to gather again
without the threat of Border Patrol raids.
In July, the Bishop of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California,
told the 1.2 million people in his diocese to stay home from Mass on
Sundays to avoid being questioned or detained by ICE. I spoke with
three Catholic bishops yesterday who reiterated the concern that they
have about members of their church being afraid to go to church. Imam
Ayman Soliman, who fled persecution in Egypt and served as chaplain at
the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, spent two and half months in ICE
detention.
Our message to the Chinese government is that it is wrong for them
to round up members of the Zion Church, to force worshipers to go
underground, and to put clergy in jail. Our voice would have much more
credibility if our own government were not acting in a similar way.
The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is universal. This
right exists regardless of one's beliefs, or national or citizenship
status. Let us be clear and consistent in this message that we are
sending to the people of China.
Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership. I yield back
my time.
Submissions for the Record
----------
Question for Ambassador Brownback from Hon. Dale Strong
Question. People of faith are experiencing a rise in discrimination
and persecution across the world. Christians in Nigeria and across
Europe. Jews in the United States. Hindus in Bangladesh--and sadly, I
could keep going. 1. How does China's stance on religious freedom
specifically impact global trends or policies? 2. Given that religious
freedom is a founding principle of the United States, what specific
actions can we take to counter China's global influence?
Answer. China's stance on religious freedom as a Country of
Particular Concern and still the second largest economy is highly
damaging to the global human rights movement. They are the greatest
enabler of human rights abuses in the world. They support rogue regimes
and have three genocides going on in their own country right now. Other
nations see this and determine they too can violate religious freedom
fundamental rights with impunity. We must stand up to China and they
must feel actual consequences for their abuses.
We can counter China by deploying religious freedom as a tool of
our national security interest. As I said in my testimony, the CCP
fears religious freedom in their own country more than they fear our
aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons. The CCP spends billions annually
to suppress people of every faith. They fear people of faith. We should
stand boldly and publicly with the Chinese Christians, Tibetan
Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners. They are our
strongest allies against the Chinese regime that seeks global
dominance.
______
Question for Ismail Juma (Ma Ju)
from Hon. Dan Sullivan
Question. Mr. Ma, in your testimony, you referred to repercussions
you have faced for your actions and that others have faced merely for
contacting you. We know from reports that you have been subjected to
lawfare here in the United States, where a Chinese state-owned
enterprise filed a lawsuit against you in a New York state court. Could
you tell us about that case? In your opinion, is the PRC seeking to
weaponize the American legal system against you to silence your
activism? Have you experienced other types of transnational repression
or harassment since you started speaking out about human rights and
religious freedom in China?
Answer. Thank you very much for your thoughtful questions and your
contin-
ued attention to my case. I appreciate the opportunity to provide a
more detailed
response.
Background of the Case and Real Motivations
As I mentioned, this lawsuit is not just a simple legal dispute.
Before the lawsuit was filed, I had received explicit warnings from
individuals connected to the plaintiffs that if I did not stop my
advocacy and exposure of certain truths, there would be consequences.
This lawsuit is essentially a follow-through on those threats. The true
purpose is not to resolve any genuine financial claim, but to entangle
me in a legal battle that drains my time, resources, and energy. It is
a form of ``lawfare'' intended to intimidate and silence me, preventing
me from assisting others, submitting reports to international bodies
like the UN, and revealing further truths about human rights abuses.
The Impact on Others and Broader Context
In fact, some individuals who collaborated with me to submit
reports to the UN have already faced sentencing in China. Others who
tried to provide me with information or evidence have also been
persecuted. This demonstrates a broader pattern of transnational
repression.
Legislative and Sanction Recommendations
Therefore, I would like to suggest that the U.S. consider
legislative measures to address this issue. Specifically, the U.S.
should implement a background and motive review for lawsuits
originating from authoritarian states. Such a review would examine the
political motives and the potential for these lawsuits to be tools of
intimidation rather than genuine legal claims. Without such safeguards,
authoritarian regimes can exploit the legal system to pursue political
ends on U.S. soil.
Additionally, it is crucial not only to impose sanctions on high-
level officials, but also on mid- and lower-level participants who
carry out these acts of repression--such as judges, legal officials,
and local enforcers involved in these transnational cases. By holding
all levels of perpetrators accountable, we send a strong message that
the international community will not tolerate such abuses.
Conclusion
In summary, my case is a clear example of how authoritarian regimes
attempt to leverage foreign legal systems to silence dissent and hinder
human rights advocacy. I hope that through your support, we can
consider legislative actions to scrutinize the motives of such lawsuits
and ensure that all those complicit in these abuses face appropriate
consequences.
Thank you once again for your attention and support. I am grateful
for your commitment to defending human rights and freedom of speech.
______
Question for Ismail Juma (Ma Ju)
from Hon. Dale Strong
Question. People of faith are experiencing a rise in discrimination
and persecution across the world. Christians in Nigeria and across
Europe. Jews in the United States. Hindus in Bangladesh--and sadly, I
could keep going. 1. How does China's stance on religious freedom
specifically impact global trends or policies? 2. Given that religious
freedom is a founding principle of the United States, what specific
actions can we take to counter China's global influence?
Answer. Thank you for your thoughtful questions and for your
commitment to addressing these critical issues. In addition to the
details about my own case, I'd like to provide a broader perspective on
how China's approach to religious freedom is influencing global trends
and what concrete steps the United States can take in
response.
In essence, China is not merely suppressing religious freedom at
home but is also exporting a model where the state fully controls
religion and can tighten restrictions under the guise of security. This
model is being subtly promoted worldwide in several ways. For example,
China is working to redefine human rights and religious freedom in
global discourse by prioritizing ``development-first'' and ``non-
interference'' narratives in international forums. They normalize the
idea that states can reshape religious practices under anti-terrorism
or stability pretexts. They export the ``Xinjiang governance toolkit,''
meaning surveillance tech and big-data policing methods are sold to
other countries, providing a template for controlling religious groups.
There's also a silencing effect in the Muslim world, where Muslim-
majority nations that rely on Chinese investment often remain silent or
supportive regarding Xinjiang, thus weakening collective condemnation
of religious persecution. Finally, by pushing for stronger digital
censorship of religious content, China encourages other states to adopt
similar restrictive measures, making them appear more globally
acceptable.
Given that religious freedom is a core American value, there are
concrete steps the United States can take. At the government and policy
level, it's important to use existing legal tools effectively,
enforcing laws like the IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Act, and updating
sanctions on officials and entities involved in religious repression.
Integrate religious freedom criteria into trade and tech controls by
scrutinizing companies that export surveillance tech for religious
profiling and imposing stricter export controls. In multilateral
arenas, introduce alternative texts that affirm religious freedom and
coordinate with allies to counter China's repressive models. Also,
provide clearer refugee pathways for those fleeing religious
persecution and work with transit countries to prevent forced returns.
At the civil society and professional community level, it's crucial
to preserve evidence and memory, collaborate to document religious
repression, shape academic and media narratives to counter China's
official story, and establish ethical guardrails in the tech sector to
avoid contributing to religious persecution.
Within Muslim and minority faith communities, integrate the Chinese
case into global Muslim discussions using accurate information, and
make ``religious freedom plus China'' a local political issue by
engaging with local representatives. Provide anonymous platforms for
those inside China to share their stories safely and avoid flattening
all Chinese people into a single enemy, so that the narrative remains
focused on the government's policies rather than creating unnecessary
division.
In conclusion, hope comes from the evidence and memory we preserve
today, the individuals within China who still hold on to their
humanity, and those abroad who refuse to remain silent. By using legal
tools, media resources, academic efforts, and interfaith solidarity, we
ensure that China's model does not become the new global norm but
rather remains a cautionary tale.
Thank you once again for your dedication to these principles and
for considering these comprehensive steps. I am grateful for your
support in defending human rights and religious freedom.
______
Questions for Bob Fu from Hon. Dale Strong
Question. People of faith are experiencing a rise in discrimination
and persecution across the world. Christians in Nigeria and across
Europe. Jews in the United States. Hindus in Bangladesh--and sadly, I
could keep going. 1. How does China's stance on religious freedom
specifically impact global trends or policies? 2. Given that religious
freedom is a founding principle of the United States, what specific
actions can we take to counter China's global influence?
Answer. Thank you, Congressman Strong, for that important question.
You are right that religious persecution is rising worldwide. But China
is not just another country on that list--the Chinese Communist Party
is the driving force shaping global trends of repression today.
First, China has built the world's most sophisticated system of
digital control over religion--using facial recognition, big-data
policing, and AI profiling to monitor churches, mosques, temples, and
even private prayer groups. This model is now exported through Chinese
technology companies to parts of Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle
East. As a result, the CCP's assumption that religion is a ``security
threat'' is spreading globally.
Second, China's policy of criminalizing normal religious practice--
Sunday school, tithing, Bible studies, children's education--is now
influencing governments that rely on Beijing for loans or political
cover. The CCP's language of ``subversion,'' ``illegal religious
activity,'' and ``national security risk'' is being adopted in other
authoritarian states to justify their own repression.
Third, China is conducting transnational repression far beyond its
borders. In my written testimony I documented cases where Chinese
police, state security, and online agents have intimidated pastors,
human rights defenders, and families, all living legally in the United
States. This emboldens other regimes to reach across borders to silence
people of faith.
Because religious freedom is a founding principle of the United
States, we have both a moral duty and a strategic interest to respond.
First, the U.S. should lead a global coalition of democracies to
track and counter the export of China's religious-control model--
similar to the Clean Network Initiative but focused specifically on
religious freedom.
Second, we should make religious freedom a core component of trade,
technology, and security agreements--especially where Chinese
surveillance tools are being used to target believers.
Third, we need robust use of Global Magnitsky sanctions, not only
against Beijing but also against provincial security officials, police
chiefs, prosecutors, and prison administrators responsible for
persecuting Christians, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and
others.
Fourth, we must protect diaspora communities here in the United
States--by prosecuting CCP operatives who intimidate religious exiles,
shutting down illegal ``police service stations,'' and expanding
support for asylum seekers fleeing religious persecution.
Finally, we should invest in independent civil society and secure
access to uncensored religious materials--because every time a Bible
reaches a home in China, it pushes back against authoritarian control.
In short, China's repression is not contained within its borders--
it is becoming a blueprint for authoritarian regimes worldwide. But the
United States, by leading with clarity and resolve, can help ensure
that the fundamental right to believe is protected for all people,
everywhere.
Question. The Chinese Communist Party forces its ideology into all
areas of religious life, turning places of worship into tools for
indoctrination and limiting personal faith. How does the overhaul of
religious institutions in China specifically
manipulate and threaten people of faith in China? Can you share some
examples, please?
Answer. Thank you Congressman Strong for your question. China today
represents the most comprehensive attempt by any modern government to
rewrite, control, and ultimately replace religion with loyalty to the
Communist Party. The CCP's overhaul of religious institutions is not
simply regulation--it is a full-scale ideological campaign to transform
faith communities into instruments of state control.
First, the CCP has forced its political ideology directly into the
heart of worship. Churches, temples, and mosques are required to
display Xi Jinping's portraits, national flags, and ``Core Socialist
Values'' above or beside their sacred texts. Bibles and hymnals are
rewritten to reflect Party doctrine. In one well-known example, the CCP
altered the Gospel story of the woman caught in adultery, replacing
Jesus's words of mercy with a claim that Jesus stoned the woman to
death--because mercy was deemed politically ``incorrect.'' This is not
theological debate; it is manipulation designed to erode the
foundations of belief.
Second, religious institutions are being replaced by Party-run
structures. Thousands of churches have been shut down or forcibly
merged into approved ``patriotic associations,'' where sermons must be
submitted in advance, pastors are required to undergo political
training, and children under 18 are forbidden to attend any religious
activity. The goal is to cut off the transmission of faith to the next
generation.
Third, the CCP uses advanced surveillance to intimidate and control
believers. In many regions, entrance to churches requires facial
recognition scans; police sit in on worship services; and digital
monitoring systems flag pastors as ``pre-crime threats'' if they gather
people in homes or conduct discipleship training. This makes normal
religious life impossible and places believers under constant fear.
Fourth, when independent churches resist, the CCP criminalizes
them. In my testimony, I detailed cases such as Early Rain Covenant
Church, Zion Church, and the recent Golden Lampstand Church verdict in
Shanxi. In each case, normal activities like tithing, Bible teaching,
and helping the poor were redefined as ``fraud,'' ``illegal business,''
or ``endangering national security.'' Pastors and elder boards have
been sentenced to years in prison for simply living out their faith.
Pastor Yang Rongli received a 15-year sentence back in June this year
for her leadership in Golden Lampstand Church, under the pretext of
``fraud,'' while her husband, pastor Wang Xiaoguang, was sentenced to
nearly 10 years along with the other 10 church leaders under the exact
same fabricated charge of fraud.
So what does all this mean for people of faith in China?
It means their sacred spaces are turned into political classrooms,
their scriptures are rewritten, their children are barred from belief,
their pastors are treated as criminals, and their faith is monitored by
the state at every moment.
In short, the CCP's overhaul of religious institutions is designed
not just to control religion, but to replace it--so that allegiance to
the Party comes before allegiance to God.
______
Questions for Bhuchung Tsering from Hon. Dale Strong
Question. People of faith are experiencing a rise in discrimination
and persecution across the world. Christians in Nigeria and across
Europe. Jews in the United States. Hindus in Bangladesh--and sadly, I
could keep going. 1. How does China's stance on religious freedom
specifically impact global trends or policies? 2. Given that religious
freedom is a founding principle of the United States, what specific
actions can we take to counter China's global influence?
Answer.
1. China's violation of religious freedom and its attempt to make
religion subservient to the Chinese Communist Party impacts religious
leaders and the followers of religious traditions throughout the world.
China is trying to gain international legitimacy through devious means
and exerting direct and indirect pressure on international religious
institutions to support its agenda. For example, it has impacted the
policies of the Vatican towards Tibetan Buddhism and H.H. the Dalai
Lama, fearing that this might anger the Chinese Government.
2. In general the United States can be proactive and forceful in
standing up for religious freedom of the people under the rule of the
People's Republic of China, at the United Nations and other
international fora, including in the Ministerial to Advance Religious
Freedom. In particular, for Tibetan Buddhism, the United States should
strongly reiterate the spirit of the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of
2020 by asserting its position of supporting the authority of this 14th
Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Buddhists on matters concerning the
reincarnation system. Where
Chinese officials are seen to be interfering in this process, the
concerned individuals should be sanctioned under TPSA.
Question. The Chinese Communist Party forces its ideology into all
areas of religious life, turning places of worship into tools for
indoctrination and limiting personal faith. How does the overhaul of
religious institutions in China specifically
manipulate and threaten people of faith in China? Can you share some
examples, please?
Answer. In terms of Tibetan Buddhism, China is now attempting to
construct a new framework for the Buddhist institutions under which all
spiritual and temporal decision making concerning monastic activities
is in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and not with the
spiritual masters as was the tradition. The
Buddhist monasteries and nunneries in Tibet are governed by a CCP-
appointed
``Democratic Management Committee'' that puts CCP objectives above any
spiritual tradition in the activities of the institutions. For example,
the Tibetan monastic education curriculum, traditionally set by learned
spiritual masters, is formulated by the atheist Chinese government and
political indoctrination has been made part of the mandated study for
the monks and nuns.
Above all, the atheist Chinese government is claiming authority to
control the reincarnation system of Tibetan Buddhism, a deeply
spiritual process, in order to use it for its political objectives.
They have already tried it with the appointment of their own Panchen
Lama and want to do so with the next Dalai Lama.
The teacher-student relationship of traditional Tibetan Buddhism
that has kept the faith alive for centuries has now been broken, with
students not being allowed to follow masters of their choosing.
Similarly, freedom to go on pilgrimages to sacred sites in Tibet are
severely restricted through restrictive permit systems for Tibetans and
denial of passports for those desiring to go to the holiest Buddhist
site in Bodh Gaya, India, where Buddha achieved enlightenment.
______
Question for Grace Jin Drexel from Hon. Dale Strong
Question. People of faith are experiencing a rise in discrimination
and persecution across the world. Christians in Nigeria and across
Europe. Jews in the United States. Hindus in Bangladesh--and sadly, I
could keep going. 1. How does China's stance on religious freedom
specifically impact global trends or policies? 2. Given that religious
freedom is a founding principle of the United States, what specific
actions can we take to counter China's global influence?
Answer. The tragic rise of religious persecution around the world
often occurs because governments are unable or unwilling to stop it--
too often turning a blind eye to prejudice or even subtly encouraging
the repression. But China is unique in the scale and extent to which
the government itself is actively driving the persecution and building
an ecosystem of techno-authoritarian tools that would help other
governments do the same. They are also softening global norms that
would protect religious groups from these abuses. No government today
has so directly and so brutally repressed so many. The United States
has far more power than any other country to hold China to account and
to turn back the rising tide of repressive governments' tools and
momentum in targeting faith. It must be more aggressive in stopping its
own companies from supporting China's techno-authoritarian ecosystem,
and in standing up for the faithful in China to show that China, and
other powers, cannot repress faith with impunity. Members of the U.S.
Government, across all levels and including at multilateral meetings,
should also continue to mention those detained or persecuted for their
faith in every meeting with their Chinese counterparts.
Statement Affirming the Continuation
of the Institution of Dalai Lama
july 2, 2025
(Translated from the original Tibetan)
On 24 September 2011, at a meeting of the heads of Tibetan
spiritual traditions, I made a statement to fellow Tibetans in and
outside Tibet, followers of Tibetan Buddhism, and those who have a
connection with Tibet and Tibetans, regarding whether the institution
of the Dalai Lama should continue. I stated, ``As far back as 1969, I
made clear that concerned people should decide whether the Dalai Lama's
reincarnations should continue in the future.''
I also said, ``When I am about ninety I will consult the high Lamas
of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, the Tibetan public, and other
concerned people who follow
Tibetan Buddhism, to re-evaluate whether or not the institution of the
Dalai Lama should continue.''
Although I have had no public discussions on this issue, over the
last 14 years leaders of Tibet's spiritual traditions, members of the
Tibetan Parliament in Exile, participants in a Special General Body
Meeting, members of the Central Tibetan Administration, NGOs, Buddhists
from the Himalayan region, Mongolia, Buddhist republics of the Russian
Federation, and Buddhists in Asia including mainland China, have
written to me with reasons, earnestly requesting that the institution
of the Dalai Lama continue. In particular, I have received messages
through various channels from Tibetans in Tibet making the same appeal.
In accordance with all these requests, I am affirming that the
institution of the Dalai Lama will continue.
The process by which a future Dalai Lama is to be recognized has
been clearly established in the 24 September 2011 statement which
states that responsibility for doing so will rest exclusively with
members of the Gaden Phodrang Trust, the Office of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama. They should consult the various heads of the
Tibetan Buddhist traditions and the reliable oath-bound Dharma
Protectors who are linked inseparably to the lineage of the Dalai
Lamas. They should accordingly carry out the procedures of search and
recognition in accordance with past tradition.
I hereby reiterate that the Gaden Phodrang Trust has sole authority
to recognize the future reincarnation; no one else has any such
authority to interfere in this
matter.
Dalai Lama
Dharamshala
21 May 2025
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Witness Biographies
Ambassador Sam Brownback, Ambassador at Large for International
Religious Freedom (2018-2021), Governor of Kansas (2011-2018), U.S.
Senator (1996-2011)
Sam Brownback served as Ambassador at Large for International
Religious Freedom from February 2018 to January 2021. He served as
Governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. Prior to that he represented his
state in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. While a
member of the Senate, he worked actively on the issue of religious
freedom in multiple countries and was a key sponsor of the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Prior to his public
service, Ambassador Brownback practiced law and taught agricultural law
at Kansas State University. He earned a B.S. from Kansas State
University and a J.D. from the University of Kansas. Ambassador
Brownback currently serves as co-chair of the International Religious
Freedom Summit and chairman of the National Committee for Religious
Freedom.
Ismail ``Ma Ju'' Juma, Hui Muslim Human Rights Advocate
Ismail Ju Ma is a dedicated human rights activist and community
organizer with a background in the study of religious history. He has
been actively involved in defending the rights of persecuted
communities, supporting refugees, and promoting interfaith dialog. As
the founder of Hope Umbrella International Foundation (HUIF), he works
to protect freedom seekers, assist new immigrants, and foster
reconciliation between ethnic and religious groups.
Bhuchung K. Tsering, Leader, International Campaign for Tibet
Research and Monitoring Unit
Bhuchung K. Tsering was born in Tibet. His family fled to India in
1960 in the wake of the Chinese Communist invasion. He studied in India
and received his B.A. in English literature from the University of
Delhi in 1982. Thereafter, he worked as a journalist with Indian
Express in New Delhi, before joining the Central Tibetan Administration
(CTA) in Dharamsala, India, in January 1984. He worked as the editor of
Tibetan Bulletin, the official CTA journal and served in the Office of
H.H. the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala as well as at the Office of Tibet in
Switzerland. He joined the International Campaign for Tibet in
Washington, DC in 1995 and currently leads the Research and Monitoring
Unit. He was a member of the task force set up by the Central Tibetan
Administration to work on issues relating to the dialog process with
Chinese leadership.
He was also a member of the team led by the envoys of H.H. the
Dalai Lama in the discussions that they had with the Chinese leadership
between 2002 and 2010. He has contributed articles on Tibet and related
issues to Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Swiss, and American journals. He
has also testified before Congress on behalf of the International
Campaign for Tibet and spoken at universities and think tanks. He was
awarded the Truman-Reagan Freedom Medal by the Victims of Communism
Memorial Foundation in 2023.
Bob Fu, Founder and President, ChinaAid
Bob (Xiqiu) Fu is one of the leading voices in the world for
persecuted faith communities in China. Fu was born and raised in
mainland China and was a student leader during the Tiananmen Square
demonstrations in 1989. Fu graduated from the People's (Renmin)
University in Beijing and from 1993 to 1996 taught English to Communist
Party officials. Fu was also a house church leader in Beijing until he
and his wife, Heidi, were imprisoned for two months for ``illegal
evangelism.'' Bob and Heidi fled to the United States as religious
refugees in 1997 and founded ChinaAid in 2002 to bring international
attention to China's gross human rights violations and to promote
religious freedom and the rule of law in China. As president of
ChinaAid, Fu has testified before the congressional Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Congressional-
Executive Commission on China, the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights, the Foreign Press Association, the European Commission, and
European Union Parliament. Fu regularly briefs the State Department and
Members of Congress on the status of religious freedom and the rule of
law in China. In 2008, Fu was invited to brief President George W. Bush
on religious freedom and human rights in China. Fu has a Ph.D. from St.
John's College at the University of Durham and a master's degree from
Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He was awarded an
honorary doctoral degree from Midwest University, where he served as a
distinguished professor on religion and public policy. A member of the
Council on Foreign Relations, Fu currently serves as the Family
Research Council's Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom.
He is the winner of the 2020 Wilberforce Award from the Colson Center
and the Editor-In-Chief of the Chinese Law and Religion Monitor. Fu is
the author of ``God's Double Agent and The Politics of Inclusive
Pluralism.''
Grace Jin Drexel, daughter of Pastor Mingri ``Ezra'' Jin
Grace Jin Drexel is the daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of Zion
Church in China. Zion Church is one of the largest and most influential
house churches in China. In October 2025, Pastor Jin and 22 others were
arrested and are currently detained in Beihai, Guangxi as part of the
largest crackdown against independent house churches in China in the
last 40 years. Grace has been advocating for her father ever since. She
currently serves as a National Security Research Analyst at the U.S.
Senate and previously worked as a Research Associate at the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China, where she focused on
religious freedom and freedom of expression. She has an MA in
Transnational Justice and Human Rights from Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and a BA from UCLA.
[all]