[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 2 (Tuesday, January 4, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S17]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 China

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, we have started a new year, 2022, filled 
with opportunities and possibilities. Yet, even as we contemplate new 
beginnings, many things remain the same, especially when it comes to 
the crimes and atrocities being carried out by the Chinese Communist 
Party.
  The genocide against the Uighur Muslims is still ongoing--a million 
individuals enslaved. The attacks on democracy and the silencing of 
free speech in Hong Kong continue. In fact, it was just announced that 
one of Hong Kong's last remaining pro-democracy news outlets, Citizen 
News, is shutting its doors because it cannot continue operations under 
the current climate of repression under China's national security law. 
In spite of all that, just 31 days from today, leaders and athletes 
from across the world will gather in Beijing to celebrate the opening 
ceremonies of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
  The Olympic Games are meant to inspire and to bring people together 
to build a better world, using sports to foster what the Olympic 
movement describes as a peaceful society, concerned with the 
preservation of human dignity, but China is not using these games to 
advance human dignity; it is using the games to polish its 
international image and hide its crimes and abuses. A peaceful society, 
concerned with the preservation of human dignity, would not idly stand 
by and allow its government to silence those who speak out for the 
rights of their fellow workers. Yet we see that happening time and time 
again in China.
  This picture is of Fang Ran. He is a 26-year-old Ph.D. student in 
Hong Kong University's Sociology Department, where he studies Chinese 
labor relations and the Chinese labor movement. It is reported that 
Fang, while conducting fieldwork on his thesis about labor empowerment 
in China, in his hometown on the mainland last August, was taken into 
custody by the Chinese authorities under the phrase ``residential 
surveillance at a designated location.''
  What is ``residential surveillance at a designated location''?
  It is a coercive measure that allows authorities to hold individuals 
for up to 6 months, with no access to lawyers and no access to family 
at all.
  Apparently, his research, as well as frequent social media posts 
about workers' rights, sexual harassment, and the displacement of 
migrant workers, put him on Beijing's radar.
  According to one article, this young man roamed the factory towns of 
southern China, immersing himself in workers' lives and supporting them 
while they tried to strike or seek compensation for work injuries.
  Even the fact that he is a loyal member of the Communist Party did 
not save him from officials' ire. One of his friends said that, in the 
months leading up to his disappearance, Fang had repeatedly been asked 
to drink tea. ``Drink tea'' is a code word for being summoned for 
questioning and harassment by Chinese security services. It has now 
been 4 months since the last time he was invited to ``drink tea,'' and 
he has not been seen again. He has been detained because of his 
advocacy for workers in China--workers, in fact, like 31-year-old Chen 
Guojiang, a gig delivery worker. Gig delivery workers were essential 
during the pandemic to deliver food, groceries, and other needed items.

  While delivering scores of takeout orders a day, Chen would film 
short videos that showed the dangerous working conditions of the 
delivery workers, and he used those videos to advocate not just for 
better pay but for action against powerful Chinese e-commerce companies 
that benefit from fostering dangerous work conditions. Whether he 
intended it or not, this man, driving along on his electric scooter, 
wearing his bright, windproof jacket, became a rarity in China--a labor 
leader and organizer.
  Then, suddenly, last February--almost a year ago--he disappeared. 
Over the course of the COVID pandemic, a movement for labor rights had 
begun to grow and gained mainstream traction, and delivery workers like 
Chen, who were lifelines for untold millions, could be seen outside 
every apartment building and every office building. There were symbols 
of this growing movement.
  So, in the eyes of the Chinese Government, individuals like Chen had 
to be stopped--stopped from advocating, in even the smallest way, for 
any sort of collective effort to improve the condition of Chinese 
workers. So, almost a year ago, he was detained and given the catchall 
charge of ``picking quarrels and provoking trouble.'' So many 
dissidents in China have been detained over the last few years for 
picking quarrels and provoking trouble because Chen believed, as he 
said in one of his videos, that ``delivery workers are humans, too, not 
robots, though the system wants to make us like cogs in a machine.'' 
His case is being handled with great secrecy by authorities.
  About a month into his detention, friends and supporters began 
collecting donations to cover his legal fees. They raised about 
$20,000, but then the Chinese officials contacted every person who 
donated, warning them not to help Chen. When the officials visited his 
parents to deliver a notice of his detention, they demanded his father 
sign the notice even though it was impossible for his father to read 
what was on the notice because of several lines being smudged out. So 
the father had no idea what he was actually acknowledging on that 
paperwork. Chen, for advocating for improvements in worker conditions, 
is facing up to 5 years in a Chinese prison.
  His status and his future are unclear, but I call on the Chinese 
Government: Release those you have detained, like this young man who 
was working to make conditions better for workers in China.
  Well, here we are, just 31 days from the start of the Winter Olympics 
in China--Olympics that the International Olympic Committee says are 
about a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human 
dignity.
  I say to the Chinese Government: Wouldn't it be the right thing to do 
for human dignity to release individuals who have simply spoken up like 
these two young men did for their fellow workers?
  I say to the International Olympic Committee: Wouldn't it be the 
right thing for you to call on the Chinese Government to release 
individuals like these two young men who have simply spoken up to 
improve the condition of their fellow workers? Wouldn't that be 
consistent with human dignity?
  I will tell you what is not consistent with human dignity, and that 
is Chinese genocide against the Uighur community, enslaving near a 
million people. What is not consistent with human dignity is striking 
down the free press in Hong Kong. The slogan of the Washington Post is, 
``Democracy Dies in Darkness,'' and that is the goal of the Chinese 
Government--to drive a stake through the democratic rights of Hong Kong 
citizens.
  As we approach these games, let us not allow the Chinese Government 
and the Communist Party to hide their repression behind the glitz and 
glamour of Olympic Gold. Let's, instead, dedicate ourselves to calling 
out, time and time again, the oppression the Chinese Government is 
engaged in and demand justice that delivers human dignity.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Iowa.