[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 214 (Monday, December 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9103-S9104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 China

  Madam President, I come today to the floor to address another 
tragedy--a tragedy unfolding in China, where the Olympic Games are 
scheduled to begin on February 4.
  I come to the floor to applaud President Biden for speaking out and 
announcing a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 February Beijing Olympic 
Games. This is absolutely the right thing to do, and as Beijing's 
response has shown, it sends a clear signal to the world that the world 
will not silently stand by as human rights are so dramatically abused.
  For 2 weeks in February, the world will join together in the bask of 
the spectacle of the Winter Games. We will experience the highs and 
lows, as athletes from around the globe experience themselves the 
thrills of victory and the agony of defeat.
  Athletes heading to the Games dream of thrilling the world and 
winning medals, but they also dream of contributing to the Olympic 
spirit, a spirit often spoken of in terms of working to build a better 
world through sports, which is why it is so offensive that these Games 
are set to take place in the shadow of some of the world's most 
egregious assaults on human rights and human dignity.
  It is mind-boggling to me that the International Olympic Committee 
chose just this past March to characterize their strategic roadmap of 
the 5 years using such lofty goals as the Games will ``contribute to 
more inclusive society and to peace,'' and yet allowing the Games to go 
on in a nation where genocide is taking place at this very moment. It 
is mind-boggling because it is not some small abuse that is taking 
place but one of the worst the world has ever seen.
  The Chinese Government has been committing, and is continuing to 
commit, genocide against a religious minority, and they are stripping 
away the political rights of Hong Kong's citizens, and they are 
suppressing the free-rights speeches of Chinese activists and advocates 
and journalists and bullying China's critics at home and abroad.
  We cannot allow China to use the shine of the Olympic medals to blind 
the world to these facts. We have seen this before, and philosophers 
say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
  So let's return to 1936, the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic flag flying 
proudly not just in the stadium but throughout the city of Berlin for 
the summer Games right next to Nazi swastikas. It still shocks me to 
think of the world watching and cheering on as the Olympic torch was 
lit in a stadium filled with men and women giving the Nazi salute as 
Adolf Hitler watched on.
  The Nazi regime had already started carrying out their racist, 
genocidal policies. They had already persecuted Jewish, German, and 
LGBTQ men and women, and labor activists and other minorities. They had 
already rounded up and jailed political opponents other nondesirables, 
including some 800 Roma in and around Berlin, who, just weeks before 
the start of the Games, were locked away in a camp outside the city.
  But the world chose to look away from that unfolding horror. For 2 
weeks during the Games, the Nazis took down their anti-Semitic signs, 
the propaganda ministry made newspapers ease up on hateful rhetoric, 
and the world praised the German government, legitimizing their regime 
with such fawning declarations as when the New York Times observed that 
the Games put Germany back in the fold of nations.
  The world allowed itself to be beguiled by the Nazi facade. Behind 
that facade stood a violent, racist regime. Behind that facade was a 
government that controlled what the people living within its power 
could do and what they could say. Behind that facade was a regime that 
had no belief in anyone's basic human rights and that within 3 years 
was seeking to conquer the world while simultaneously murdering 6 
million Jewish individuals and millions of other non-Jewish men, women, 
and children.
  What if, instead of being taken in by the spectacle of the Games, and 
what if, instead of allowing the Nazis to use those Games for 
propaganda, the leaders of the world had stood up and pushed back? How 
much death and destruction might have been prevented? We will never 
know.

  But what we do know is that we have the opportunity right now to 
learn from that past mistake and to do better.
  Elie Wiesel once said: ``There may be times when we are powerless to 
prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to 
protest.''
  We cannot fail to protest the Chinese Government's actions that stain 
the mission and purpose of the Olympics Games, because there is 
absolutely no question about the kinds of crimes and atrocities that 
are being committed by the Chinese Government at this very moment--
atrocities like the enslavement and genocide against the Uighur Muslim 
minority being carried out in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. 
That genocide has been documented, it has been recognized, and it has 
been publicly announced by two different Presidential administrations.
  That genocide completely reflects the United Nations' official 
definition of ``a crime committed with the intent to destroy a 
national, ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part.''
  At the direction of President Xi of China, at least a million Uighurs 
are being detained and enslaved in camps in Xinjiang. They are forced 
to toil and work for the Chinese Government, producing cotton and other 
goods while undergoing reeducation programs where they are forced to 
renounce their faith and pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.
  This is a process described in one official Chinese document as 
``washing brains, cleansing hearts, strengthening righteousness and 
eliminating evil.'' It certainly is one of the most dramatic forms of 
evil taking place at this moment. That is what the Chinese Government 
is doing to the Uighur people.
  The crimes against these individuals include torture, sleep 
deprivation, sexual abuse, rape, forced sterilizations, and abortions. 
One woman who fled the country after being released from a camp, who 
resides here now in the United States, recounted stories to reporters 
and human rights investigators of women being taken from their cells 
every night, brought to another room to be tortured and raped by one or 
more masked men. She, and another woman who was forced to help 
facilitate these assaults, have spoken about police officers paying 
good money to have their pick of the imprisoned women and girls. Those 
who are returned to their cells are threatened with even more pain and 
more torture if they say anything.
  And these crimes and this repression aren't contained just to the 
camps. Millions in Xinjiang are subjected to Orwellian surveillance and 
discrimination, restricted from traveling or going to school, from 
freely speaking or freely worshipping. Meanwhile, the Chinese 
Government is systematically ripping children from their parents' arms, 
forcing them to live in state-run facilities where they are being 
indoctrinated to renounce their faith, ethnicity, and culture; to view 
their parents as China's enemies; and to praise the Communist Party.
  All of that has been going on for years, at least since 2017, and all 
of it will still be going on as the International Olympic Committee and 
athletes from around the world gather in Beijing on February 4 for the 
opening ceremonies. And if the world is silent, if there are no 
protests or consequences, all that will serve simply to embolden the 
Chinese Government and their genocidal efforts.
  Beijing's egregious actions don't stop with crimes against the Uighur 
people. We see those crimes in Hong Kong, where the Chinese Government 
is stripping the rights of Hongkongers, one day after another.
  Back in 1998, China promised to adhere to the ``one country, two 
systems'' model. They signed a contract with

[[Page S9104]]

Great Britain to do so. They guaranteed freedom and rights to the 
citizens of Hong Kong. But we have watched in 2019 and 2020 as the 
Chinese Government has systematically dismantled the political rights 
of those in Hong Kong, working to silence any form of dissent, to 
silence any voice of opinion that might disagree with that of the 
Chinese Government. Demonstrators are beaten with batons and tear-
gassed and pepper-sprayed and shot for asserting basic human rights--
rights they were guaranteed when Hong Kong was reclaimed by China.
  It fills me with dismay and rage at what the citizens of Hong Kong 
have lost under this oppression. This time last year, the Hong Kong 
people were still protesting and fighting for their freedom. Hundreds 
of thousands gathered, watching as messages of support for their cause 
came in from around the world and played out on giant screens. There 
was a feeling of hope.
  But that hope lies shattered in the streets of Hong Kong today. 
Today, China has used the heavy hand of the national security law to 
ensure that only patriots loyal to Beijing can hold positions of power. 
They have crushed the hope. They have destroyed the freedom. They have 
destroyed the political rights of the 7.5 million citizens of Hong 
Kong.
  Rarely in the history of the world have so many people been together 
celebrating their elections, celebrating their free speeches, and seen 
it crushed in such short order.
  It is in this context that China is hosting the February Winter 
Olympic Games of 2022. And we, the free world, standing up for the 
rights of every individual to exercise the fundamental freedoms and the 
equal and inalienable right of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights 
that we are all born with, must speak out against these actions.
  None of what China is doing is a major surprise because it has 
unfolded in such a systematic way now for so many years. China engaged 
in a campaign of controlling its citizens and silencing dissent, 
including silencing dissent within its borders. Human rights 
organizations have long and well documented the abuses.
  This picture is of Chang Weiping, a Chinese lawyer who the government 
says was detained for allegedly inciting subversion of state power 
because he participated in a protest. After he was released on bail, 
Chang released a video statement describing the physical and 
psychological torture that he experienced while being detained. So 
authorities arrested him again and charged him with subverting state 
power. He is now one of those heroes who have stood up for the freedom 
of all the people of Hong Kong, and he is being held by the Chinese 
Government for standing up and speaking out for what is right.

  It is not only lawyers and advocates who are detained when they speak 
out against the Government in China; it is also a three-time Chinese 
Olympic tennis star who disappeared from the public eye after accusing 
a party official of sexual assault.
  ``Where is Tennis Star Peng Shuai?'' The International Olympic 
Committee says that she is safe and well after two video calls with the 
Olympian. Critics say these calls and emails supposedly from her and 
videos of her dining in a restaurant are ``obviously staged'' by the 
Chinese Government to counter criticism. Where is she really? Is she 
OK? Nobody but the Chinese Government can say for sure.
  The International Olympic Committee, as an organization whose 
mission, according to its own president, Thomas Bach, ``to put sport at 
the service of humanity goes hand-in-hand with human rights''--those 
are the very words of the president of the IOC. An organization that 
puts sport at the service of humanity and goes hand in hand with human 
rights should be, like the Women's Tennis Association, refusing to hold 
events in China until human rights are honored. I give great, great 
compliments to the WTA for standing up for this abuse of one of their 
own and more broadly the abuse we see throughout China.
  I am thrilled with the administration's announcement of a diplomatic 
boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics. I am thrilled that Great Britain 
and Canada and Australia and Lithuania have joined in this effort. But 
I say to you right now: Where is the rest of the world? Where is 
France? Where is Germany? Where is Spain? Where are all the governments 
of the world that believe in the rights of free speech and free 
assembly? The chorus must be broader. The free world must join together 
and stand up for the vision of what it means to be in the free world 
and how horrific abuses would involve genocide or the obliteration of 
democratic rights.
  The International Olympic Committee says: Well, the Games are all 
about athletes, so we don't get involved in politics. It is all about 
the athletes.
  Well, I tell you today that staging the Games in the shadow of 
genocide and the stripping of political rights from those in Hong Kong 
is putting the athletes in the position of helping build the facade 
that disguises those assaults on human dignity and human rights. That 
is a horrific thing to do to the athletes of the world. It is an 
unacceptable thing to do to the athletes of the world. You cannot force 
the athletes of the world to be complicit in covering up these crimes. 
It is wrong, and the Olympic Committee needs to stand up and call out 
these crimes and know that they are not in keeping with the Olympic 
spirit. They are not in keeping with human rights, although the 
president of the IOC has said that is their mission.
  It is quite clear the Olympic Committee could have done far more to 
avert this situation because when the Games were awarded, they received 
promises on human rights--promises that were not honored. They could 
have moved the Games years ago. They could have clarified that would 
happen, but they did nothing. They did nothing except help cover up the 
genocide in China by leaving the Games as they are and failing to note 
or criticize or observe the horror that has been unfolding.
  Business as usual is unacceptable in the face of genocide. Business 
as usual is immoral in the face of genocide. Business as usual in any 
dimension in a country committing crimes against humanity is just 
wrong.
  I say to the IOC today: Stand up. Call out this crime and say never 
again will you ever stage Olympic Games in a country committing gross 
violations of human rights.
  That statement would be in keeping with the Olympic spirit. It would 
be in keeping with the Olympic spirit to say that they will defend the 
freedom of every single athlete at the Olympic Games to stand up and 
speak their mind in defense of the oppressed people of Tibet, in 
defense of the enslaved people of Xinjiang Province, in defense of the 
citizens of Hong Kong who have lost their political rights. Lay out 
clearly before the world that the Olympic Games will not be a place 
where freedom of speech is crushed as it is being crushed across China.
  Colleagues, I think this viewpoint I am expressing today of the world 
standing up to the horrors of Chinese atrocities is shared by every 
Member of this Chamber and every Member of the House of Representatives 
down the hall. Not a one of us would rise to defend these horrific 
acts, which is why every one of us should stand together today to 
condemn Chinese genocide and Chinese destruction of political liberties 
and make sure that these Games are not ones where the world leaders are 
silenced; that these Games are not ones where the sponsors look the 
other way; that these Games are not ones where the athletes are not 
free to express how tragic they consider it to be that these terrible 
things are happening and need to end. Let us not repeat the mistakes of 
1936 and look the other way.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Duckworth). The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, the words I just heard from the 
Senator from Oregon are very refreshing, and I thank him for making 
those statements.
  Thank you very much.