[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.