[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DISSIDENTS WHO HAVE SUFFERED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA: A LOOK BACK AND
A LOOK FORWARD
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 7, 2016
__________
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House
Senate
CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Cochairman
ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina TOM COTTON, Arkansas
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona STEVE DAINES, Montana
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
DIANE BLACK, Tennessee BEN SASSE, Nebraska
TIM WALZ, Minnesota DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
MICHAEL HONDA, California GARY PETERS, Michigan
TED LIEU, California
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
CHRISTOPHER P. LU, Department of Labor
SARAH SEWALL, Department of State
STEFAN M. SELIG, Department of Commerce
DANIEL R. RUSSEL, Department of State
TOM MALINOWSKI, Department of State
Paul B. Protic, Staff Director
Elyse B. Anderson, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
CO N T E N T S
----------
Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S.
Representative From New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-
Executive Commission on China.................................. 1
Statement of Hon. Marco Rubio, a U.S. Senator From Florida;
Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China........ 3
Statement of Hon. Randy Hultgren, a U.S. Representative From
Illinois;...................................................... 5
Tsering, Penpa, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
Office of Tibet, Washington, DC................................ 8
Yang Jianli, Initiatives for China/Citizen Power for China....... 10
Chen Guangcheng, Chinese Legal Advocate; Distiguished Visiting
Fellow, Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies,
Catholic University of America................................. 12
Fu, Bob, Founder and President, ChinaAid Association............. 14
Wei Jingsheng, Chairman, Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition.... 16
Kadeer, Rebiya, President, World Uyghur Congress................. 18
Wang, Xiaodan, Falun Gong practitioner and daughter of former
political prisoner Wang Zhiwen................................. 20
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Tsering, Penpa................................................... 32
Yang Jianli...................................................... 42
Chen Guangcheng.................................................. 51
Statement submitted by the 709 Lawyers Wives, dated December 5,
2016........................................................... 53
Fu, Bob.......................................................... 55
Wei Jingsheng.................................................... 59
Kadeer, Rebiya................................................... 60
Wang, Xiaodan.................................................... 62
.................................................................
Smith, Hon. Christopher, a U.S. Representative From New Jersey;
Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.......... 67
Rubio, Hon. Marco, a U.S. Senator From Florida; Cochairman,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 68
Submissions for the Record
Statement Submitted for the Record by Enghebatu Togochog, of the
Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC),
dated December 7, 2016......................................... 70
Letter to Cui Tiankai, the Ambassador of the People's Republic of
China to the United States from Representative Christopher
Smith and Senator Marco Rubio, dated December 7, 2016.......... 73
Witness Biographies.............................................. 75
DISSIDENTS WHO HAVE SUFFERED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA: A LOOK BACK AND
A LOOK FORWARD
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2016
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:11 p.m.,
in Room HVC-210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Christopher
Smith, Chairman, presiding.
Also Present: Senator Rubio and Representatives Walz and
Hultgren.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chairman Smith. The Commission will come to order. Let me,
first of all, say I am sorry for the lateness. There is a
series of votes on the House floor. We just finished, so other
Members should be streaming in.
Senator Marco Rubio and the other Senators also have a vote
right now. So you never plan these things. I want to thank you
for your patience, forbearance.
This has been another dark and difficult year for Chinese
rights defenders and democracy activists and nobody knows that
better than our distinguished witnesses at this table who have
lived and suffered for their beliefs, for their convictions,
and now others in like manner are suffering today in China.
Under President Xi Jinping's version of the rule of law, the
law is being used to more effectively curb freedom of
expression, civil society, religious freedom, the forced
abortion policy, and other fundamental rights.
Chinese courts have convicted rights activists and lawyers
of ``subversion of power'' for simply seeking to represent
religious groups, petitioners, and democracy activists. China's
diverse religious communities, faced with even more
restrictions, as new regulations, and ``sinicization'' campaign
continues, will further politicize religious life and it leads
to more repression.
In Hong Kong, mainland China's political interference and
its abduction of booksellers threatens the rule of law and Hong
Kong's promised autonomy, contributing to a growing climate of
fear and insecurity. Internationally, China continues to push a
relativistic vision and version of human rights, characterizing
universal values as ``Western'' values that do not apply to the
Chinese national situation. Even though what we espouse here
and what others are pushing both within and from without China
are all based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to
which China and others have acceded to.
The next Administration faces major challenges in dealing
with China. A new approach is needed that learns the lessons of
the past and listens to those who have suffered prison and
persecution to advance fundamental freedoms in China. The
problem is that U.S. diplomacy is stuck with policies that no
longer match--and maybe never did match--Chinese realities.
For the past two decades--or a little more than that--U.S.
policy was based on the belief that China's growing prosperity
would somehow bring political reforms and the rule of law; that
trade matriculates into fundamental freedoms. Many of us argued
from the beginning, including me and I am not the only one,
going back to 1994, that it was a mistake when President Bill
Clinton delinked most-favored-nation status with human rights,
and by doing so said that profits trump fundamental freedoms
and fundamental rights.
That was the beginning in my opinion. The Chinese took the
measure of the United States and said they care more about
money than they do about values. But that is not the case,
certainly on this Commission, and that is a bipartisan belief
that we have.
During those times, we focused on integrating China into
the international system, ignoring clear evidence that China,
under the Communist Party's leadership, would play by its own
rules.
China has not become a ``responsible stakeholder'' in the
international system as predicted. I would note parenthetically
that I also chair the Africa, Global Health, Global Human
Rights subcommittee; frequently travel to Africa and other
parts of the world on human rights missions, and I could tell
you the bad governance model that they promulgate is being
accepted by certain autocratic governments, if not
dictatorships, on those continents. So they are not acting as a
responsible stakeholder.
To the contrary, despite decades of remarkable economic
growth, Beijing's leaders are increasingly dismissive of
``Western influence'' and outright hostile to both free
societies and democratic capitalism.
A strategy of engagement through trade, investment, and
people-to-people exchanges has not lead to a freer China and
remains cold comfort to China's repressed human rights lawyers,
religious and ethnic minority groups, journalists, and civil
society leaders. The United States must recognize that China's
internal repression drives its external aggression and develop
new policy approaches that intertwine our principles and
interests in the pivotal Asia-Pacific region.
Working with the Congress, the next Administration should
be prepared to bolster U.S. strategic advantages in the Asia-
Pacific region. This will mean improving military readiness,
insisting on a freer and fairer trade, strengthening relations
with regional partners, and making more robust commitments to
advancing democratic institutions, human rights, and the rule
of law.
This last point will require the United States to push
China to embrace greater transparency and a better adherence to
universal standards. It will require the next Administration to
shine a bright light on human rights abuses and level
meaningful sanctions in response to these abuses which I say
with great sadness, that this Administration, the Obama
Administration, has not done for the last eight years. The
United States must also find ways to support China's reformers,
their dissidents, and its champions of liberty and the rule of
law.
The bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China
[CECC], which Senator Rubio and I cochair, recently issued its
2016 Annual Report with specific recommendations for ways to
pursue human rights and the rule of law within U.S.-China
relations.
This report is the ``gold standard'' of human rights
reports on China. I want to publicly commend the CECC staff for
their Herculean efforts in producing this important report. It
is a big task and we appreciate their hard work. The report
should be required reading for Members of Congress interested
in things related to China, journalists writing on China, and
for Administration officials looking to develop strategies to
engage with China.
The need for a principled and consistent American
leadership is more important than ever, as China's growing
economic clout, and persistent diplomatic efforts, have
succeeded in dampening global criticism of its escalating
repression and failures to adhere to universal standards. We
owe a new approach to the great people like Liu Xiaobo, who
continues as a Noble Peace Prize winner to sit in prison,
people like Gao Zhisheng, and the thousands of others suffering
as prisoners of conscience.
Now, we owe it to future generations of Americans, whose
security and prosperity will depend on a U.S.-China
relationship that is open and transparent, free of censorship
and persecution, based on adherence to universal standards,
and, hopefully, increasingly democratic.
It is my honor to turn to Cochair Senator Marco Rubio.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO, A U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA;
COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Cochairman Rubio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank all of the witnesses gathered here today. This is an
impressive group of men and women who have important stories to
share about their own personal suffering and that of their
family members and associates at the hands of both the Chinese
Government and the Chinese Communist Party.
Their experiences must not be viewed in isolation, but
rather they are representative of untold numbers of other
Chinese, Tibetans, and Uyghurs who daily face repression at the
hands of their own government.
Today I joined our Chairman, Representative Smith, in
sending a letter to the Chinese Ambassador to raise our concern
and seek additional information about a spate of detentions
involving prominent Chinese human rights advocates, as well
American citizen Sandy Phan-Gillis who has been arbitrarily
detained for 21 months now. I submit a copy of that
correspondence for the record.
Before going any further, I would also like to take a
moment at this hearing, the last CECC hearing of the 114th
Congress, to recognize Chairman Smith for his capable and
principled leadership of the Commission. He is an unrelenting
advocate for human rights and rule of law everywhere in the
world, especially in China, and I look forward to continuing to
partner with him in the new Congress, because as today's
testimony will no doubt make clear, the mandate and the mission
of this Commission remains as vital as ever.
The Commission, as you just heard a moment ago, recently
released its Annual Report and it painted an undeniably bleak
picture regarding the deterioration of human rights and the
rule of law in China, with especially grave consequences for
civil society, religious believers, human rights lawyers, and
labor activists. Since the Report's release in October of this
year, those abuses have continued apace in the last two months.
As the Report documents and as news stories from the last
several weeks underscore, Beijing has become increasingly
brazen in exerting its extraterritorial reach. This was
especially true in the outrageous abductions of the Hong Kong
booksellers last year, including Swedish national Gui Minhai,
who is still being held by Chinese authorities at an
undisclosed location.
And now more recently in China's unprecedented intervention
in Hong Kong's legal system in the cases surrounding two
democratically elected politicians who won seats in the
Legislative Council on platforms calling for democratic self-
determination for Hong Kong. The ripple effects of this ruling
are not fully known yet as the Hong Kong Government has now
taken additional steps targeting opposition lawmakers. This is
gravely concerning and something which the Commission, and the
Congress, will be watching closely in the coming year
especially as it relates to the Hong Kong Policy Act.
Returning to the focus of today's hearing, we are at a
critical juncture in U.S.-China relations, and there is much
wisdom to be gleaned, for the incoming administration, from
dissident voices.
December will mark 15 years since China gained entry into
the World Trade Organization. It is past time to take stock of
our approach and recognize that despite what proponents at the
time believed would happen, China has in fact used the
international rules-based system to fuel vast economic growth,
while further restricting freedom and increasing repression.
Quite simply, many of the principles which have undergirded
U.S.-China relations during Democrat and Republican
administrations alike in recent decades have simply not yielded
the desired outcomes. A perennial critique from those who care
about human rights issues has been that the U.S. foreign policy
apparatus risks ghettoizing human rights concerns, only giving
them the prominence they merit during infrequent, and often
ineffective, human rights dialogues and then relegating these
issues to the sidelines in high-level bilateral engagement.
The Obama Administration struggled to integrate human
rights issues at the highest levels sending unmistakable
signals early on, as was famously reported during then
Secretary Clinton's inaugural trip to China in 2009 that human
rights issues, ``can't interfere with the global economic
crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security
crisis.''
Words have consequences. Mid-level appointees at the State
Department and elsewhere take them to heart. As such, it will
be critical, during the early days of the new administration,
for the Secretary and other senior diplomats to put down
markers on these issues which are of central importance not
only to the Chinese people, but to U.S. national interests. For
as history has shown us, where rule of law fails to take root,
where human rights abuses are committed with impunity, where
international obligations are violated, the United States
should not expect to find a responsible global stakeholder.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on this
important topic. Today's hearing was scheduled to coincide with
the commemoration of Human Rights Day this weekend, and also
with the sixth anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Peace
Prize to Chinese dissident and writer Liu Xiaobo--an honor that
he has not been able to rightfully claim given that still today
he languishes unjustly in prison, serving an 11-year sentence
handed down for his essays criticizing the Chinese Government.
The United States must commit anew to standing with China's
reformers and dissidents, embracing their aspirations and
consistently pressing the Chinese Government and its Communist
Party to respect basic human rights and uphold the rule of law.
It is my hope that this new administration will appoint an
ambassador to China that reflects these priorities, not simply
someone that is going there to catch up with old friends.
I look forward to today's testimony and to today's policy
recommendations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just as a note, the Senate is
in the midst of a series of votes. I know it is shocking the
Senate is voting today. I am going to take my second vote and
try to get back here as quickly as possible. Thank you,
Chairman.
Chairman Smith. I want to thank the Cochair for his
leadership over the last two years, and really over the
entirety of his tenure in the U.S. Senate on behalf of human
rights everywhere, including and especially in China. Next
Congress, God willing, you will serve as Chair. The Commission
could not be in better hands. You are just an extraordinary
leader.
I would like to now yield to Mr. Hultgren.
[The letter appears in the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. RANDY HULTGREN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ILLINOIS
Representative Hultgren. It is so good to be with all of
you. I especially want to thank our wonderful Cochairmen,
Congressman Smith and Senator Rubio, two people who could not
be more passionate and more effective at fighting for the value
of every single person, no matter where they are.
As I look out in the audience, truly we are among heroes. I
want to thank you. You have lived your lives fighting for
freedom, fighting for those who are being persecuted, being
imprisoned, and we are so grateful that through you, we are
able to make sure that their voices are heard, that no one is
forgotten, and that no country, or leader, or person is left
unaccountable for unacceptable actions.
So this is appropriate, certainly to look back on what has
happened over the last few years, some successes, but also
somethings that did not happen that should have happened, and
to take that and to look forward to what can we do next. It is
my commitment, along with the Cochairmen and other members of
this Commission, to say that this is our responsibility.
There is opportunity, I think, in a new year and a new
administration to make sure that, again, no one is forgotten,
no voice is left unheard. My hope, my prayer, my commitment is
to do everything that I can to make sure that we have that kind
of accountability and that we are holding other nations
accountable; that we are doing all that we can to say that
every person deserves to be treated with respect, with dignity,
and with the ability to pursue their dreams, their religion,
and their passions that is their right.
So thank you. Thank you Chairman Smith. Thank you for your
incredible work, and thank you all for being here today.
Again, I appreciate the work that has been done, but even
more so, looking forward to greater impact that we can have
coming into the new year.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Randy, very much. Thank you for
your leadership as well.
I would like to invite to the witness table our other three
panelists. We have seven extraordinary women and men who have
stood up for human rights in China, most of whom have spent
considerable time in prison on behalf of their core
convictions, and belief in human rights and religious freedom.
I would like to now begin introducing them one-by-one, and
then invite you to present your testimony.
We will begin with Mr. Penpa Tsering who is the
Representative of the Office of Tibet in Washington, and a
member of the Tibetan Parliament. During his student days, he
served as the General Secretary of both the Tibetan Freedom
Movement and Nigerian Tibet Friendship Association.
Later, he served as General Secretary of the Central
Executive Committee in Do-mey. He then worked as executive
director of the Tibetan Parliamentary and Research Centre in
New Delhi before being sworn in as the speaker of the 14th
Tibetan Parliament in 2008. During the 15th Tibetan Parliament-
in-exile in 2011, he again held the speaker's post. So thank
you, Mr. Speaker, for being here.
We will then hear from Dr. Yang Jianli who is president of
Initiatives for China/Citizen Power for China. Dr. Yang is a
scholar and democracy activist internationally recognized for
his efforts to promote democracy in China. He has been involved
in the pro-
democracy movement in China since the 1980s and was forced to
flee China in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
In 2002, Dr. Yang returned to China to support the labor
movement and was imprisoned by Chinese authorities for alleged
espionage and illegal entry. Following his release in 2007, he
founded Initiatives for China, a non-governmental organization
that promotes China's peaceful transition to democracy.
We will then hear from Mr. Chen Guangecheng, a Chinese
legal advocate and extraordinary activist. Mr. Chen is from
rural China where he advocated on behalf of people with
disabilities and exposed and challenged abuses of population
control and defended women--as well as their children--from
forced abortion and forced sterilization.
Mr. Chen was imprisoned for his activism for four years,
followed by an extra two years of extrajudicial confinement at
his home. Chen Guangcheng escaped in 2012, in an escape that
still defies imagination, how he was able to pull that off,
then came to the United States with his family.
In addition to his position as a distinguished visiting
fellow in the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic
Studies at Catholic University, Mr. Chen is a senior
distinguished fellow in human rights at the Witherspoon
Institute, and also advisor to the Lantos Foundation for Human
Rights and Justice.
This Commission, parenthetically, had four hearings on his
behalf during that crisis. We are so glad he is free today.
We will then hear from Pastor Bob Fu who was a leader in
the 1989 democracy movement in Tiananmen Square and later
became a house church pastor. In 1996, authorities arrested and
imprisoned Pastor Fu and his wife for their work.
After their release, they escaped to the United States, and
in 2002, he founded ChinaAid Association. ChinaAid monitors and
reports on religious freedom in China and provides a forum for
discussions among experts in religion, law, and human rights.
Pastor Fu is frequently interviewed by media outlets around
the world, has been before the European Parliament and the
United Nations, and has been a particularly effective advisor
to me and others, especially during Chen Guangeheng's crisis,
but also on religious freedom. When Frank Wolf and I made our
way on one of many trips to China, right before the Olympics in
this case, we were in constant contact with Bob Fu as to which
house pastors we might be able to meet with. So again, I want
to thank him for his counsel and insight then.
Then we will hear from Wei Jingsheng, a longtime leader of
the opposition against the Chinese Government dictatorship. He
was sentenced to jail twice for a total of more than 18 years
due to his democracy activism, including a groundbreaking and
well-publicized essay he wrote in 1978, ``The Fifth
Modernization: Democracy.''
After his exile to the United States in 1997--and I
remember meeting him in Beijing when he was let out--one time,
he was such a high-value political prisoner that the Chinese
dictatorship thought that if they let out one man to get the
Olympics for Beijing--this was the one that was held later on,
this would have been Olympics 2000--they let Wei Jingsheng out.
Then when the Olympics did not go their way, they rearrested
him and tortured him.
He is an incredible, incredible man, president of both the
Wei Jingsheng Foundation and the Asia Democracy Alliance. I
remember meeting with him during that short respite when he was
out of prison in Beijing, and he told me--and I tell everybody
that I can ever meet with, particularly on this Commission,
that one of his pieces of advice to us was that when you
kowtow, when you placate, and treat with weakness the
dictatorship in China, they beat the prisoners more. But when
you are predictable, and tough, and transparent, and lay down
clearly what you want to accomplish as a U.S. Government or
Western power, they then respond and they beat the prisoners
less.
We will then hear from Rebiya Kadeer who is a prominent
human rights advocate and leader of the Uyghur people. She is
the mother of 11 children. She spent six years in a Chinese
prison for standing up to the authoritarian Chinese Government.
Before her arrest in 1999, she was a well-known Uyghur
businesswoman. Ms. Kadeer has been actively campaigning for
human rights for the Uyghur people since her release from
prison in 2005.
She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several
times. Despite Chinese Government efforts to discredit her,
Rebiya Kadeer remains a pro-democracy Uyghur leader and heads
the World Uyghur Congress, which represents the collective
interest of Uyghurs around the world.
We will then hear from Danielle Wang, who was born in
Beijing. Danielle Wang began practicing the exercise of
meditation known as Falun Gong in her youth with her father,
Wang Zhiwen.
In 1998, she moved to America for her studies. The
following year, the Chinese Communist Party began its
persecution of the Falun Gong practitioners. This put her
father in prison and set her on a path for calling for help in
the hopes of rescuing him for the next 17 years. He was
released in 2014, but was denied exit from China when Danielle
and her husband attempted to bring him to the United States in
August 2016.
A very, very incredible group of leaders. I would like to
now turn to Mr. Tsering to begin the testimony.
STATEMENT OF PENPA TSERING, REPRESENTATIVE OF HIS HOLINESS THE
DALAI LAMA, OFFICE OF TIBET, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Tsering. Thank you Chairman Smith, Senator Rubio, and
Congressman Hultgren for providing me this opportunity. This is
my first testimony before the Commission after assuming the
responsibility of the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration.
I think this testimony is very timely because it is just
before the International Human Rights Day, and also when you
are going through a transition to a new administration at the
helm of affairs in your country.
Following the results of your presidential election, His
Holiness the Dalai Lama has written both to President-elect
Donald Trump and to Secretary Clinton and has expressed his
wish to meet them. I am sure the President-elect and Secretary
Clinton will meet with His Holiness as American presidents have
done in the past.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people are very
concerned about the well-being of the Nobel Laureate, Liu
Xiaobo, and demand his immediate release from incarceration.
As I present the case of Tibet before you, we Tibetans
stand with Chinese, Uyghur, and Falun Gong friends who are
represented here and also our Southern Mongolian friends who
are, unfortunately, not represented here. We all suffer the
same fate under the repressive Communist Government of the
People's Republic of China.
While completely endorsing the findings and recommendations
of the 2016 Annual Report of the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, I wish to briefly touch on the following
points.
Religious freedom. Having to seek the PRC Government's
approval for recognition of reincarnated Lamas is the ultimate
political tool to undermine existing Buddhist religious
practices. Just as is the case of the Chinese appointed Panchen
Lama, and even though the present Dalai Lama has not been
included in the list of so-called living Buddhas, the Communist
government wants to be responsible for the reincarnation of the
14th Dalai Lama and they said it is an important issue
concerning sovereignty and security of the nation.
There are many cases, but the ongoing destruction of Larung
Gar, the biggest center of Buddhists learnings, not only for
Tibetans, but also to scores of Chinese and repatriation of
thousands of monks and nuns from the center forced to pledge
never, ever to return is a case in point as to how China views
religious freedom in Tibet.
Freedom of movement. Apart from the enormous restrictions
on Tibetans to move from one part of Tibet to another,
particularly into or out of Tibetan autonomous regions,
Tibetans face tightening control to travel abroad. Tibetans who
have obtained passports are being recalled. Tibetans who are
already in India to receive the Kalachakra teachings from His
Holiness the Dalai Lama in January 2017, have been ordered to
return home before the end of December or face consequences.
This includes denial of visas to Tibetan Americans to travel to
Tibet.
The use of counterterrorism as a tool to control Tibetans
and branding allegiance to the Dalai Lama as separatists are
the four things I want to outline.
The diplomatic and political actions that have worked in
the past:
Number 1. Presidential meeting with His Holiness the
Dalai Lama.
Number 2. Appointment and the role of Special
Coordinator for Tibet.
Number 3. Hearings and reports of the Commissions.
Number 4. Financial aid.
Number 5. Bills and resolutions.
Number 6. Congressional and State Department visits to
Tibet and Dharamsala.
Suggestions to the new Administration and the Congress:
Number 1. As an integral part of U.S. policy on China,
the United States should play a pivotal role in
highlighting the human rights situation in China,
Tibet, Xinjiang, and Southern Mongolia.
Number 2. The United States should advocate for the
release of all political prisoners, including the
Panchen Lama and Liu Xiaobo.
Number 3. The new Administration should implement U.S.-
Tibetan Policy Act of 2002, including early appointment
of a senior level State Department Special Coordinator
for Tibet.
Number 4. The Administration should impress on China
the need to establish a U.S. Consulate in Lhasa.
Number 5. Preserve and increase economic, educational,
and humanitarian funding for Tibet, including radio
broadcasts.
Number 6. The incoming president should meet with His
Holiness the Dalai Lama at the earliest opportunity in
keeping with precedence.
Number 7. The Administration should monitor misuse of
counterterrorism in Tibet.
Number 8. The Administration and the Congress should
urge the Chinese Government to resume dialogue with the
representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama without
preconditions.
Number 9. The Administration and the Congress should
emphasize to the Chinese leaders the need to teach in
the Tibetan language.
Number 10. The Administration and the Congress should
raise discriminatory policies of the PRC toward
Tibetans in matters relating to religious freedom and
freedom of movement.
Number 11. The Congress should support and adopt the
Reciprocal Access to Tibet Bill to promote access to
U.S. officials, journalists, and citizens into Tibet,
Uyghur, and other minority nationalities.
Number 12. The Congress should organize more
bipartisan, bicameral visits to Tibet and Dharamsala.
Thank you Chairman, Representative Chris Smith and Cochair,
Senator Marco Rubio for the opportunity.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Speaker, thank you so very much for
your testimony and for your very specific recommendations,
because all of this will be given to the next Administration.
So thank you. This is a very important set of recommendations
you have made.
Dr. Yang?
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tsering appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF YANG JIANLI, INITIATIVES FOR CHINA/CITIZEN POWER
FOR CHINA
Mr. Yang. Mr. Chairman, I want to first thank you for your
leadership and your moral courage and--in speaking out on human
rights--so consistently and persistently, even when it is not
always easy or convenient to do so. Thank you so much, Mr.
Chairman.
By any standard, America's China policy has been a failure
for the past three decades. The primary cause of the failure
has been a fundamental misunderstanding of China's strategic
objective, along with an inability on the part of the United
States to respond to it with strategic and moral clarity.
Regime security is the number one concern for China's
Communist Party. It wants to maintain a permanent rule in
China, replace Western capitalism with socialism with Chinese
characteristics and substitute its so-called civilization in
the place of democracy.
The Trump Administration must take a different approach in
dealing with the Chinese regime by returning to American values
by focusing the foreign policy, then by striking directly at
the vulnerable spots of the regime to enable a democratic
transition. A democratic China will avoid inevitable conflict
with the United States and assure a long-lasting peace in the
region and in the world.
I recommend the following specific actions for the next
administration.
Number 1. Use the U.S. market as leverage and threaten
to withdraw China's permanent trade status unless
serious improvements are made in the areas of human
rights, political reform, and demilitarization of the
South and East China Seas.
Link continued progress on all three to all future
relations, including trade. Deny foreign tax credits to
companies that invest in the localities with gross
human rights violations, and other similar measures to
address the unfairness of one-way free trade that is
resulting in China's huge trade surplus of $3 trillion
with a resulting loss of millions of American jobs--all
of which will not only bring back jobs from China, but
allow the United States to take the moral high ground.
Number 2. Use Taiwan and Hong Kong as leverage. Modify
the Taiwan Relations Act and the six assurances to
reflect a full democratic country status and affirm its
legitimacy by allowing Taiwan to be a normal member of
the international community. Support Hong Kong's
struggle for universal suffrage by making it a major
bilateral issue with China.
Number 3. Use Japan as leverage. Encourage Japan to
take the lead in promoting democracy in the Asia
Pacific and return it to a normal status of a great
power.
Number 4. Use the Chinese regime's lack of legitimacy
and moral standing as leverage, engaged with the
democratic forces in China, the Chinese, Tibetans,
Uyghurs, Falun Gong Practitioners, Christians,
representative of this panel as a new level by passing
the China Democracy Act to ensure all U.S. Government
agencies are resolute and consistent in advancing a
democracy agenda when engaging with China.
And by passing China's Defense of Human Rights and
Civil Society Act, a China-specific Magnitsky-like
legislation that would ban travel and freeze the assets
of Chinese human rights abusers. And pass the act to
rename the plaza in front of the Chinese Embassy after
imprisoned Nobel Laureate Dr. Liu Xiaobo.
Number 5. Use the UN human rights mechanism as leverage
because both the Chinese Government and its people
regard the United Nations as a legitimate world-
governing authority, and the Chinese Government has
taken the United Nations as the stage on which it seeks
to compete with the United States to build a bi-polar
world order in its own way. The Trump Administration
must strengthen the U.S. leadership role in forming an
alliance of democracies to collectively confront China
on human rights issues.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Dr. Yang, thank you very much for your
testimony and recommendations. As usual, you have been a great
leader.
I would now like to ask Mr. Chen Guangcheng to present his
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yang appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF CHEN GUANGCHENG, CHINESE LEGAL ADVOCATE;
DISTINGUISHED VISITING FELLOW, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
AND CATHOLIC STUDIES, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
Mr. Chen. Thank you. Greetings to the Chair people, to all
the human rights Congressional representatives. Ladies and
gentlemen, hello.
In China, people know me as the ``barefoot lawyer.''
Despite having no formal training as a lawyer, I did the work
of a lawyer, bringing officials to court and asking that the
party respect China's own Constitution and laws. As a result, I
endured seven years of kidnappings, house arrest, secret
detention, and imprisonment.
After I was let out of prison, my family and I were put
under illegal house arrest and conditions even worse than
prison, including torture, until I finally escaped.
My own experience tells me that one should not hold out any
hope in the Communist Party. This is a fascist regime that
destroys the essential goodness of humanity.
The Communist Party has been persecuting its own people for
years.
Last year it began the infamous 709 Crackdown, persecuting
human rights defenders and lawyers, torturing people and
implicating family members by association. Some attorneys and
activists in detention have been forced to make confessions of
guilt in the state-controlled media, and have subsequently been
sentenced to prison.
But some, like Li Heping, Li Chunfu, Wang Quanzhang, and
Xie Yang, and other attorneys refuse to admit guilt, and hence
continue to be held illegally. Two weeks ago, Attorney Xie Yang
was tortured by prison police, and Attorney Jiang Tianyong has
been disappeared. Activists Huang Qi and Liu Feiyue have been
taken by public security. Countless netizens have been blocked
online, and their speech censored.
Under Party control, the Chinese people have long lived in
a state of suffering and fear. It should be clear that
Communist authoritarian control is the enemy of humanity. We
must put a stop to its destruction of humanity's civilized
values.
On the other hand, America is a great nation that truly
stands out in its commitment to universal values. There is
simply no way to compare the United States and China on this
front. Hence, America must be a model for human rights, and a
leader in the global push to democracy. The American system has
the strongest immunity against corruption, and the greatest
capability for correcting its mistakes.
Democracy, freedom, and human rights are America's founding
principles. After many injurious years of appeasement and self-
belittling, the time has come for the United States to
reinvigorate its core values and to protect universal human
rights.
I would like to make the following recommendations to the
incoming Administration and Congress regarding human rights:
Number 1. Correct the mistaken policy of separating
trade from human rights. Human rights are like clean
water, clean food, and clean air--they are an
indispensable part of life, and cannot be separated
from anything we do.
The essence of the policy of separating trade and human
rights is to focus solely on making money, without care to
justice or ethics. In addition, the reality is that a country
with strong human rights and rule of law is a better business
partner for American companies.
Number 2. In its position as a global leader, the
United States should express a position of leader
support for the universal values of freedom, democracy,
and human rights.
When a dictatorial regime uses force to suppress its
people, the United States should act decisively to stop it. In
addition, we should reconsider NATO's function, to transform
NATO from a hedgehog quill to a heroic sword.
Number 3. Prevent human rights abusing officials from
entering the United States. Investigate and where
illegality is found, freeze the U.S. assets of
Communist Party officials.
Number 4. Prevent the Communist Party from infiltrating
U.S. academia, media, and other institutions.
Number 5. Demand that the Chinese Communist Party
respect the UN International Treaty on Human Rights.
Change the policy of speaking with the CCP [Chinese
Communist Party] on issues of human rights behind
closed doors, otherwise we will continue the useless
conversations we have now.
Number 6. Ensure reciprocity of visas for journalists,
and prevent the CCP from using visas to punish
journalists who expose the crimes of the party.
Number 7. Invest in tools to get past Internet blocking
mechanisms, to assist those who seek freedom in getting
past the Great Firewall [Internet Berlin Wall].
Establish direct communication with the Chinese people,
instead of just with the party.
Number 8. Establish international, collaborative
mechanisms to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from
persecuting its own people internally, and from
breaking down international procedures externally.
Great nations have great responsibility. In Chinese there
is an ancient saying: ``Bring out the best and eliminate the
worst under heaven.'' This should be the principle to follow.
As long as we join together, we can banish dictatorships,
and make the world a better place.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Chen, thank you very much for your
eloquent statement. I would note that we have had--I have
chaired 61 Congressional hearings on human rights in China. One
was about you, four were with you when you spoke Chinese, and
this is the first time you have presented your testimony in
English. [Laughter.]
So, I thank you for that.
Mr. Chen. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Bob Fu, our next speaker, was the one who
translated when you called in from your hospital bed in Beijing
and got you on the phone through some mysterious way I will
never understand, but I would like to now yield to Pastor Bob
Fu for his testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chen appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF BOB FU, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, CHINAAID
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Fu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you Congressman
Hultgren for your leadership, too. Thank you Cochairman Rubio
for the leadership.
Mr. Chairman, your persistency, perseverance, and constant
attention on the human rights, religious freedom, and rule of
law globally, including my motherland, China, has, I think,
already made a lot of differences. Sometimes, we have some
setbacks, but I do think ultimately we will see a free and
democratic, constitutional China.
As my other distinguished friends and witnesses have
already said, we can pretty clearly see that today's China, the
human rights situation, and the situation on religious freedom
and rule of law should be recognized as the worst, perhaps,
since the Cultural Revolution.
Just to give you two latest illustrations, as my friend,
Chen Guangcheng, just mentioned, just barely 16 days ago a
friend, prominent human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, went
missing and presumably was kidnapped based on his past
experiences, for visiting a family member of another imprisoned
human rights lawyer, Xie Yang.
Mr. Jiang Tianyong--remember in 2009, when I organized a
rule of law delegation with a group of human rights lawyers to
the U.S. Congress, and it was you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Wolf,
who actually organized two congressional hearings. I still
remember when we asked those fellow human rights lawyers and
defenders who were willing to really testify for two hearings:
one on the rule of law in China; one on the forced abortion and
forced sterilization in China.
Attorney Jiang Tianyong attended and testified twice. That
really takes courage to do that. Today is the 16th day he is
missing.
So I hope you could really exercise your leadership and
continue to push for his freedom. I want to recognize that Mr.
Jiang Tianyong's wife, Ms. Jin Bianling--I invited her to be
here today, really to witness this, and she is here today
behind me. Ms. Jin Bianling is here.
So we just visited the State Department and also the
Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi. We hope that Mr. Jiang
Tianyong's whereabouts could be, at least, revealed, if not
freed. But he has committed nothing wrong, just the visiting of
fellow family members of human rights lawyers.
Another example--on November 29, just barely a week ago,
another human rights and democracy leader, Mr. Peng Ming. He
was suddenly declared dead by the prison authority after he was
kidnapped from Burma as an American refugee and permanent
resident and was sentenced to life in prison. So, for the last
12 years, he has been suffering imprisonment in China, and
suddenly he was declared dead.
The government even confiscated his death certificate. His
three children, who are all American citizens; several of them
actually testified and met with you, like Lisa Peng, and they
live in Cleveland, Ohio. They want to visit Peng Ming's
funeral; and to bring his ashes back and his belongings. Yet,
the day before yesterday, the Chinese Embassy and Consulate
rejected their visa application even to visit their dead
father.
So these are just the latest examples to show that really
the situation is becoming very worrisome. I think it is time to
have a major paradigm shift in the whole approach to the China
policy in the next administration. The so-called laid on the
back, or behind, or acquired diplomacy is nothing but a real
miserable failure.
Here are just a few of my recommendations. Besides the
recommendations, I really agree with the previous speakers on
the--I think to help pass the global Magnitsky Act, to hold
those human rights and religious freedom abusers and the
corrupted officials accountable.
Another one I agree with is to really develop and push down
the 21st century Berlin Wall, the Internet firewall. The other
four, I would just very briefly mention that I want to
encourage the Trump Administration officials and President-
elect Trump to really--to not only raise these human rights
abuse cases behind closed doors, but really, more importantly,
to raise them publicly.
Second, I think it is time to use a multifaceted approach
on human rights and religious freedom. The so-called annual
Human Rights Dialogue is just nothing but a waste of time and
taxpayers' money and should be abolished. I think human rights
should be on the center and front. Overall, our strategy, no
matter business, economic policy, strategic dialogue, this
should be on the frontline.
Third, I encourage the incoming Trump Administration to
adopt a concerted, internationally coordinated effort by
working jointly with our allies in Europe and other regions. I
think the release of imprisoned lawyer Zhang Kai and Pastor Wen
Xiaowu were good examples--showing a concerted, coordinated
effort globally could produce real fruit.
Fourth and finally, I think to really--this is important
that the United States should unequivocally condemn the Chinese
brutal violation of international laws by overstepping their
own nation's boundaries to kidnap and detain citizens, I think,
as Chairman Smith just mentioned in his opening remarks. The
dissidents, like Jiang Yefei and Dong Guangping--they were
already under UNHCR [UN High Commissioner for Refugees]
protection, and the Canadian Government already put them on the
resettlement list. Yet, the Chinese Government--under pressure,
the government expatriated them and paraded them on TV, so-
called confessing their crimes. Now, we do not know where they
are being held and they have not been tried for over a year.
Of course, we have all known about the treatment of the
Hong Kong--the Causeway Bay bookstore owners. I am so glad that
today one of the managers from that bookstore flew from Hong
Kong yesterday to come over to tell the stories. He was the
only witness, Mr. Hu Zhiwei. He is 75 years' old and the author
of 120 books. He witnessed how the bookstore owner, Mr. Lee Bo,
was kidnapped by nine mafia-like men, by the Chinese military.
They also confiscated over 250,000 copies of the books and
secretly transported them back to China and destroyed them into
pieces.
The value of monetary loss is over 30 million Hong Kong
dollars. I hope our congressional leaders could shake hands
with him, encourage him afterward and our media friends can
continue to interview him.
He is the only witness, and today is his first time he
showed himself with courage. Even in Hong Kong, he was being
photographed by the Chinese special agents. When he reported it
to the Hong Kong police, that special agent was taken to the
police station. An hour later, that agent was released and the
Hong Kong police said, ``No, we cannot deal with a higher
authority from Beijing.''
So that is the situation in China today. So thank you very
much for your patience.
Chairman Smith. Pastor Fu, thank you very much.
I just want to point out we have been joined by Ranking
Member Walz. Would you like to----
Representative Walz. No. I will wait.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, and thank you for your
leadership.
I do want to note that the selection as to the order of the
panel is completely arbitrary. This is a panel of extraordinary
men and women, heroes, one and all. Again, I want to thank you
all for--seven members on a panel is quite large, but you have
made the difference and will make a difference going forward.
Our next witness will be Wei Jingsheng. Again, a man who
spent 18 years suffering cruelty that is just beyond the pale.
And I would like to yield to him.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fu appears in the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF WEI JINGSHENG, CHAIRMAN, OVERSEAS CHINESE
DEMOCRACY COALITION
Mr. Wei. [With the aid of a translator.] I think during the
Trump Administration the trade relationship with China will be
a major policy he has to force China to improve its human
rights conditions, and to increase its open market. I think it
will be a very important policy. I think in this regard, CECC
could be able to have a very important function.
So to save time, I will let my English be read by my
assistant.
When Donald Trump becomes President of the United States,
he is planning to abolish the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership]
and to begin a trade war with China in order to save the U.S.
economy. Some people say that this is a disaster. I would say
this is the right way that should have started even earlier.
The reality after 16 years well explains my position--
granting China permanent most-favored-nation status, that is a
permanent normal trade relationship, was a huge mistake. It did
not promote the development of the U.S. economy, but was a
blood transfusion from the United States to the Chinese
economy. It gave China the opportunity to engage in a trade war
with the United States.
The reason is as follows. The so-called free trade, refers
to a unified law based on the domestic market, thus allowing
the free trade. Such a free trade can be carried out normally
between countries with a similar legal system. There cannot be
normal free trade between countries with completely different
legal systems.
For example, after trade with China liberated, there were
two main problems: one was cheap labor; one was its uncertain
laws that always change.
Since Chinese law does not guarantee human rights, it is
able to keep labor prices at a very low level. This has led to
the relocation of the U.S. companies to foreign countries,
while it also allows Chinese goods to enter the U.S. market
with low prices, resulting in unfair competition. It is an
important cause of unemployment in the United States.
China's precarious legal system creates serious non-tariff
barriers. Any local government can develop their own laws and
regulations, without the need to implement the signed treaties
and agreements between the Chinese central government and the
foreign countries. So they can actually close their targeted
import market.
Coupled with the manipulation of the currency by the
Chinese central government, those actions increased the exports
and created a huge trade surplus for China. This is an
important reason causing the economic recession in the United
States.
Some people say, for the United States, fighting a trade
war with China will end in defeat, at least a lose-lose result.
I think such statements are to confuse the U.S. policymakers. I
think the United States will win this trade war, while China
can only succumb to the rules developed by the United States,
otherwise it will accelerate the collapse of the Chinese
Communist regime.
My reasons are as follows. First, for the majority of the
goods are in the buyers' market. The United States holds the
markets, thus it has the power to develop rules, instead of
forcing itself to comply with that so-called global free trade
rule that cannot be enforced. The United States can formulate
its own fair trade rules, to replace the invalid so-called free
trade rules.
Second, the Chinese domestic market is narrow and cannot
afford the disaster of losing the U.S. market. So China can
only compromise on the rules thus to protect part of the market
share.
Third, in the past, due to over-expansion of export
production of shoddy goods, the quality of Chinese enterprises
is very poor. In order to adapt to a fair market in the
competition, Chinese companies must quickly upgrade. Therefore,
there will be great demand for technology and services from the
United States to open up the import market in the United
States. This will help expand the U.S. exports and reduce its
trade deficit with China.
Fourth, after improving human rights in China, the income
of the Chinese working class will increase, therefore the
domestic consumer market will expand. This expansion would
benefit the U.S. exporters after fair trade, therefore,
reducing the U.S. trade deficit and even eliminating it.
So I think that the United States will win the trade war,
and in the long run will also be beneficial to the economic
normalization in China. China must accept and should accept it.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Wei, thank you so very much for your
leadership and for your testimony today, recommendations.
I would like to now yield to Ms. Rebiya Kadeer.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wei appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF REBIYA KADEER, PRESIDENT, WORLD UYGHUR CONGRESS
Ms. Kadeer. [With the aid of a translator.] Thank you.
Chairman Smith and Cochairman Marco Rubio, and respected
Members of the Commission, I would like to thank you for
holding this timely and important hearing, and thank you for
inviting me to testify. I also thank all the people who
attended.
So I am trying to learn English so I cannot read my
statement. I have prepared a statement. So I would like to ask
my assistant to read my written statement.
Since my release from a Chinese prison in 2005, I have
reported to the Commission the continuing human rights
violations targeting the Uyghur people. As the Commission has
noted in its annual reports, political freedoms in East
Turkestan are among the most limited in China. The right to
association and assembly is prohibited and freedom of speech is
punished severely, as the case of imprisoned Uyghur academic
Ilham Tohti illustrates. Economic discrimination, erosion of
language rights and religious restrictions add to the already
depressing condition of Uyghur human rights.
President Xi Jinping has attempted to codify these
violations in a series of repressive laws, such as the ones on
counter-terror and cybersecurity. Implementation measures of
the counter-terror law at the regional level in East Turkestan
are a clear indicator of who China intends to target with these
draconian measures.
Nevertheless, China believes it should go further with its
suppression. Arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, and
extrajudicial killings continue.
Recent media reports indicate that the Chinese Government
has implemented a policy to confiscate passports in East
Turkestan to limit the international movement of Uyghurs. This
is the formalization of a policy that Uyghur human rights
groups have documented since 2006.
Islam is a cornerstone of the Uyghur identity. China has
adopted a series of religious laws at the national and regional
level that curb Uyghur rights to freedom of worship. Private
religious education has been targeted for several years under
these measures. However, this year Chinese authorities adopted
rules to report parents who encourage their children to
undertake religious activities.
During the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations
my colleagues and I have worked hard to bring Uyghur issues to
the attention of the U.S. political community. Our
organizations regularly brief State Department officials and
legislators at the U.S. Congress. We have managed to mainstream
the Uyghur issue into U.S. Government reporting on human
rights.
China's heavy-handed policies toward Uyghurs are creating
instability and desperation among the Uyghur people. These
policies have become self-fulfilling in some respects, as some
Uyghurs have become radicalized in their effort to oppose
China's oppression.
The United States should be concerned about these
developments as it is in the Nation's interest to support the
democratic aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the
Uyghurs. Stability in East Turkestan, China, and the Central
and East Asian regions offers the opportunity to spread
American values such as freedom and human rights.
The Administration of President-elect Donald Trump should
continue support for the Uyghur struggle for human rights and
democracy and step up public concern over rights conditions in
East Turkestan with Chinese officials. Any sign that the United
States is ready to relinquish its commitment to raising human
rights concerns in favor of achieving policy gains elsewhere
will be a victory for the Chinese regime.
Furthermore, the incoming administration should exercise
extreme skepticism regarding China's narrative that increased
militarization and securitization in East Turkestan are
justified in fighting radical Islam. The repression that
accompanies security measures enables China to keep firm
control of the region and suppress legitimate Uyghur claims for
greater political, economic, social, and cultural freedoms.
The Trump Administration should understand the situation in
East Turkestan in similar terms to Tibet. It is a struggle for
cultural survival in the face of formidable assimilative
actions by the Chinese state.
Let us be clear. Pressure works. My presence here today is
testament to the success of pressuring Chinese officials. My
colleagues and I will continue to put forward the Uyghur case
to the international community. It is the responsibility of
concerned governments to take this case directly to China and
urge reform.
The Uyghur people greatly appreciate the United States'
support of our plight. However, we ask the incoming
administration to publicly raise the Uyghur issue with China.
In conclusion, I offer these recommendations to the Trump
Administration:
First, prioritize Uyghur issues, especially during the
human rights dialogue and the strategic and economic dialogue
with China.
Urge China to allow foreign diplomats and journalists
unrestricted access to East Turkestan and Tibet to
independently document the conditions in the regions.
Call on China to free Ilham Tohti, Li Xiaobo, and all
Uyghur, Chinese, and Tibetan political prisoners.
Ask China to change its repressive policies, which are the
root cause of all bloody incidents in the Uyghur region.
Meet Uyghur, Chinese, and Tibetan leaders and human rights
activists at the White House.
Create a special coordinator office at the State Department
for the Uyghurs.
Finally, ask the Chinese Government to allow my children to
leave China.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you so very much, Ms. Kadeer.
I would like to now go to our final witness and thank her
for being here. Xiaodan Wang, thank you for speaking out so
faithfully on behalf of your dad, especially. The floor is
yours. Please?
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kadeer appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF XIAODAN WANG (DANIELLE WANG), FALUN GONG
PRACTITIONER AND DAUGHTER OF FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER WANG
ZHIWEN
Ms. Wang. Hello everyone. First, I would like to thank the
Honorable Representative Smith and Senator Rubio and other
honorable Members of the Commission for having me as part of
this important hearing.
I am the daughter of Zhiwen Wang, a loving father and kind
spirit who has endured the persecution of Falun Dafa since it
started on July 20, 1999.
My husband and I returned from China this year empty-
handed, shocked, and heartbroken after experiencing the
persecution firsthand as U.S. citizens. My story is one of the
millions, but I hope it will shed some light on why the U.S.
Government's continued role is so critical in ending this
atrocity.
In 17 years, there has never been a moment of relief from
constant worry about my father's safety. He was arrested and
sentenced in December 1999 because he practiced Falun Dafa.
Over the next 15 years, he suffered tremendously; lost his
teeth, and had his collar bone broken, and even suffered a
stroke in prison one month before his release. Then he was sent
to a brainwashing camp in a final attempt to break his spirit
in October 2014.
When he made it back home, he was subject to surveillance
by police video cameras and neighborhood watch. Even today, he
has four agents outside of his front door 24/7.
After my father received his passport in January 2016, my
husband and I prepared his immigration and traveled to China in
July. This should have been a straightforward trip, but what we
encountered was just a small taste of the persecution my father
had endured for 17 years.
We were followed by an undercover agent and harassed by
police. They tried to intimidate us and get under our skin.
They taunted us and abused their power, and ultimately, they
slammed the door in our face as we attempted to take the last
step to freedom.
We experienced firsthand the discrimination and injustice
Falun Dafa practitioners face every day. Regardless of what the
Chinese law states, practitioners are treated as criminals,
purely for their existence.
The night before our flight home, a group of 30 police and
agents showed up in our place in Guangzhou trying to force
their way in. They shouted in my face and tried to scare us.
Although they relented eventually, they stationed spies
outside of our place to monitor us. We had no choice but to
continue on with no one to turn to and no one to protect us.
We left the next morning and drove an hour and a half south
of Guangzhou to the city of Dongguan only to be greeted by
spies waiting for us at the ferry terminal.
In the end, we could not even make it through Customs. They
canceled his passport by cutting it.
To think all of the years of struggle, sleepless nights,
and thousands of miles traveled all ended with a pair of
scissors is unbelievable. It is still hard for me to bear that
I had to leave my father behind in China to face this cruel
environment alone. If my father and I did not practice Falun
Dafa, I may have broken down completely right there.
I know that not all in China are in support of this
persecution. It is the former Chinese Communist Party leader,
Jiang Zemin, behind it. Zeng Qinghong, Jiang Zemin's right
hand, is also in power in south China and played an important
role in denying my father's departure to America.
In addition, the Chinese regime continues its efforts to
spread the persecution via propaganda, misinformation, and
infiltration.
I ask the new administration, and all officials interacting
with their Chinese counterparts to let no opportunity pass by
without pushing them on the persecution on Falun Dafa, and the
monstrous practice of organ harvesting.
It is crucial that the United States remain true to the
role of human rights champion in the world and bring human
rights to the center stage in dealing with China.
And finally, I urgently request that the new
administration, Department of State, Congress, and all relevant
departments help me bring my father home for medical attention
so we can finally have our happy ending and a new beginning.
I want to conclude with my dad's thanks. He said, he would
like to tell the U.S. Government it actually put his heart at
ease when he was in jail because he knew that I was studying in
the United States. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wang appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Smith. Thank you so very much for your testimony.
The love of a daughter for her father is just truly inspiring.
Just a couple of things I will mention, ask you a few
questions, and yield to my good friend, Mr. Walz.
Pastor Fu, you mentioned the case of Jiang Tianyong who has
gone missing. For the record, I would ask unanimous consent
that we include this in the record.
Marco Rubio and I sent a letter to the Ambassador of China
to the United States on December 7, expressing our deepest
concern regarding the recent disappearances of three Chinese
citizens, Jiang Tianyong, Liu Feiyue, and Huang Qi and we are
hoping for an answer, and we will follow it up with the Embassy
to try to get to the bottom of it, and to advocate for them.
But, thank you for bringing attention to this.
You did make the point, Pastor Fu, that the human rights
situation is the worst in China since the Cultural Revolution.
That is the best-kept secret in Washington and in capitals all
around the world, as we continue what Chen Guangcheng said in
his testimony is an attitude of appeasement toward China that
manifests itself all over the United Nations, among nations,
and certainly in capitals around the world, including
Washington.
So I want to thank you for being bold enough to say
exactly--we perhaps, have naive misconceptions about the
Chinese dictatorship under Xi Jinping, but as our report this
year clearly chronicles, when you look at all of the changes,
the new laws, draft laws, and the like that have gone into
effect, whether it be on cybersecurity, whether it be on NGOs,
and the tightening of the noose around NGOs, which is really
a--harbinger of a crackdown, what is happening with regard to
religion of all kinds, including the officially recognized
churches like the Patriotic or Three Self movement which are
being increasingly crushed. The underground is already crushed.
It is time for a significant reappraisal, which you all
have helped provide to the Commission, which we will convey to
policymakers and also enlighten ourselves.
There are things that could be done immediately by the
President-elect when he becomes president. It was not done
during President Obama.
On visas, I wrote the law in 2000, The Admiral Nance, Meg
Donovan International Foreign Relations Authorization Act of
2000, which is a permanent law that says anybody who was
complicit with the barbaric one-child--now, maybe, two-child--
per couple policy, but the enforcement mechanisms of coercion
remain unabated, can be precluded from issuance of a visa by
the United States. It is reason for denial. It has not been
implemented in the 16 years that it has been in effect since
2000.
The Global Magnitsky Act is in route to becoming law. It
has passed as part of the NDAA [National Defense Authorization
Act]. It is in a very good form, I believe. And it can be
immediately applicable to Chinese torturers and violators of
human rights in our admonition to the administration. When that
is signed the next steps would be to start chronicling the
names, produce lists of human rights abusers, and then hold
them to account. A visa denial is one modest, but meaningful
way of doing that. So we will be pushing that, so thank you for
raising those issues as well.
Mr. Speaker, you mentioned the worsening of the
mistreatment of a Tibetan Buddhist. The New York Times, ``China
Takes a Chainsaw to a Center of Tibetan Buddhism'' by Edward
Wong. You are talking about what has gone on in Larung Gar.
You might want to speak to that, because I think that is a
highly visible manifestation of the hatred with which the
dictatorship holds for faith-filled believers, including
Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghurs, Falun Gong, Christians--I mean, it
is one thing to profess to be an atheist. You have every right
to be an atheist, but you have absolutely no right--and
certainly international law is clear on this--to so
aggressively suppress, torture, and hurt those who believe in
God or in a spiritual practice like Falun Gong.
So you might want to speak to that, if you would. Any of
you who would like to speak to the visa ban, and the fact that
it should be teed up right now for President Trump to say, we
are going to be serious about denying visas to those
individuals who commit these atrocities. And also, CPC [Country
of Particular Concern]--on religious issues, China has been on
the CPC list on a law that was written by former Congressman
Frank Wolf, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
And Bush did not do much. Obama has done nothing with regard to
sanctioning.
As you know, there are prescribed in the International
Religious Freedom Act some 18 specific actionable items, the
least of which is a demarche, but then there are some very
serious ones dealing with trade, security matters, sharing,
like cultural exchanges and scientific exchanges that a serious
administration could apply to say, ``We are not kidding. You
have got to let the dissidents go. You have got to end the
torture.''
We had a hearing in this room recently in which we talked a
lot about the torture chair--again, another one of the best-
kept secrets in Washington--that is routinely deployed against
dissidents to try to break them. So, Mr. Speaker and others, if
you want to speak, and then I will yield to Mr. Walz, and then
go to Randy Hultgren.
Mr. Tsering. Thank you, Chairman. The ongoing destruction
of residences of monks and nuns in Larung Gar is a very serious
problem that is facing Tibetan Buddhism today. Larung Gar--some
estimate that there are about 20,000 monks and nuns, but nobody
has the exact number, but I think it is beyond 10,000 which
makes it the largest center of Buddhist learning in the world.
Larung Gar also faced the same fate in the early 2000s,
when some part of it was destroyed by the Chinese Government
and people started coming back. In fact, if the Chinese
Government wanted to destroy it, then why did they allow
settlement of monks and nuns in the first place?
So this has resulted in the present problem. Now, the
destruction in the case of Larung Gar could be a precursor to
many of things that could come, if it is not condemned and
stopped, then I am sure the Chinese Government will take this
matter to other monasteries. There are already indications that
Yargar which is also a monastery linked to Larung Gar may also
face the same fate.
In the rest of Tibet, particularly, in the Tibet Autonomous
Region, the restrictions of monks and nuns have come down.
Those days when Tibet was free and independent, we used to have
7,700 and 5,500, and 3,300 in three big monasteries in Lhasa.
Monks and nuns could come from different parts of Tibet to
learn in the capital Lhasa, and then go back to their
respective regions to teach, preach. They have now brought the
numbers down to 500, and still less in those big monasteries.
So Larung Gar is outside of the Autonomous Region, and the
learning of Buddhism has increased over the years, not just for
Tibetans coming from different parts of Tibet, but also a lot
of Han Chinese who have interest in studying Buddhism. In fact,
Larung Gar is supposed to have a large number of Han Chinese,
and they are also becoming victims of the destruction that is
taking place inside Tibet.
This one example can exemplify how the Chinese Government
abuses religious freedom inside Tibet. We have been appealing;
the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala has released
and you must have seen videos of monks and nuns being forced to
go back and asked to sing and forced to dance. They were forced
to dance and sing praises of the Communist Party after they
were sent back to their respective region.
So certain things which are unimaginable are happening, and
we hope the U.S. administration will express their concern on
the ongoing situation. So we hope the new administration will
definitely pay attention to this and bring it to the attention
of the Chinese authorities that this is not acceptable to the
U.S. Government.
I think the Congress should also adopt resolutions to
condemn these kinds of actions by the Chinese Government.
Mr. Yang. I am thrilled. I think that every member of the
human rights community is thrilled that the Global Magnitsky
Bill actually was passed in the House as part of a National
Defense Authorization Act.
We cannot wait to see it signed by the President into law.
After that becomes law, we will work closely with CECC and
other Congressional organization committees, and the State
Department, and the White House.
With the least of these, we think we should ban their
travel to the United States. I think this is just the beginning
of the paradigm shift as my friend and colleague, Bob Fu, just
said--paradigm shift. So I think I have been advocating--this
is the second time for me to speak about it at a Congressional
hearing--China Democracy Act.
That is the Act that we all stated expressly that advancing
human rights in China is in the national interest of this
country, and to regulate every Federal agency to promote human
rights in China while engaging with China. And also require a
presidential report to the Congress about the progress.
The parallel example would be recent because of Taiwan
President Tsai Ing-wen's call with President-elect Donald
Trump. So Taiwan has been in the headlines, but 37 years back,
in Washington, everybody saw the Taiwan situation as
inconvenient, just as nowadays. A lot of people present--prime
ministers everywhere, see funding human rights issues as
inconvenient. So they do not want to do it.
As a policy, we can change--it is very situational. When
the situation is not good, they want to change. The major
mentality among the policymakers here 37 years ago was to
abandon Taiwan altogether because the Taiwan issue had become
very inconvenient. But a few Congressional Members insist that
we have to defend Taiwan. We have to pass a law to regulate the
President of the United States, every one of them have to take
the responsibility as a duty of law to defend Taiwan.
So 30-some years passed--then we looked back. This Act
actually worked very well for the long-term interest of this
country. But at that time, everybody found this inconvenient.
This is just as a parallel to the human rights situation here.
The president may find it very inconvenient, but we need
the law. We need a China Democracy Act to be passed so that--
advancing human rights in China would become a duty of law for
every president, and for every Federal agency in this country.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Dr. Yang, I would look forward to working
with you on that----
Mr. Yang. Yes.
Chairman Smith (continuing).--legislation. We have talked
before. I think your point about U.S. policy failures, we need
a different approach. U.S. policy failures need not be forever.
It is time to change.
Yes, Mr. Wei?
Mr. Wei. I want to say that the CECC should play an
important role in the future trade war with China. During this
trade war, human rights and religious rights are a very good
reason.
The CECC should really put human rights as a very important
target during the future trade war. One side is, it is
important to improve human rights. The other side is, to
improve human rights would be beneficial to open the Chinese
market to U.S. companies.
As a matter of fact, I want to remind you that back 16
years ago when there was a passing of this act about the normal
trade relationship, it really has the condition as stipulated,
CECC was really in the prospect to determine if this favorable
trade relationship is suitable or not when Chinese human rights
conditions are really bad.
So we really should remind Donald Trump's team that, yes,
the CECC could have used it--to use it for this trade war, but
in the meantime, to improve human rights conditions in China.
So I think CECC should become a very important tool for this.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you Mr. Wei. Pastor Fu, and then
Rebiya Kadeer.
Mr. Fu. I want to go further a little bit from what Dr.
Yang Jianli just said. We are so happy to see the passage of
the Global Magnitsky Act as you have been leading with your
colleagues.
I think after this passage we also need to encourage our
allies and regional partners to use their influence through the
inter-parliamental mechanism to encourage other like-minded
parliaments or like a European Parliament to pass a similar
measure so that those human rights, religious freedom, rule of
law corrupted abusers cannot find any safe sanctuary or haven
in any part of the free world.
So we have been working with our partners in Taiwan. I
think even the Taiwan Parliament had great momentum with
bipartisan, actually tripartisan now, support to make this
happen.
Also, I want to illustrate another barring sign about
religious freedom. As you know, earlier this year, the Chinese
Communist regime made a proposed new regulation on religious
affairs. According to this new regulation, those who were fond
of so-called illegally organized religious meetings or
underground training, like my wife and I did 20 years ago--at
that time we received two months' imprisonment, but, according
to the newly proposed regulation, if it is passed, those
leaders could be subject to up to the equivalent of US$33,000
fine. And of course, point for criminal prosecution, including
those who attend overseas religious training or a kind of
conference overseas are liable to be punished this way.
We just finished a training conference on kind of a
biblical--on law and the government on Hong Kong with 400
Christian leaders from mainland China there. This is the first
time I found out the Chinese security agents even went to our
conference and warned the conference--some of our Hong Kong
partners which speakers should be allowed to speak.
The two organizers in Hong Kong were violently beaten up
when they returned to China a couple of weeks ago. So you can
see the aggressiveness. I think it is a time to have a new
paradigm to handle and deal with this kind of worsening
situation.
Chairman Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Kadeer?
Ms. Kadeer. So I would like to make a comment about a
section in the Uyghur region. It is really very similar to what
is happening in Tibet.
There is now new regulations introduced by the Chinese
authorities. According to these new regulations, the religious
worship outside of the government-designated areas would be
considered an illegal religious activity.
So according to Uyghur tradition, according to our
religion, we can worship at home. So we can pray at home.
According to this new regulation, worshiping at home in private
will be considered an illegal religious activity and be
punishable by the government.
And also now, Chinese authorities encourage the children to
report about their parents' activities at home. Every week,
even elementary school children are being questioned by
authorities on what their parents have been doing at home,
whether they are worshiping at home.
So there are many families who are destroyed by this, you
know, reporting because the children told the school
authorities that their parents worshiped at home, so then their
parents have been arrested by the Chinese authorities.
And the same thing that happened in Tibet also happened in
East Turkestan. The imams of the mosques have been forced to
take to the streets and dance and sing praising the Communist
Party. Cultural Revolution came back to East Turkestan, so
women and men all get forced to take to the streets and sing
songs praising their Communist Party and the Chinese
Government.
If anybody refuses to take part in these actions, they will
be punished or fired from their workplaces. So there are
thousands of people who are in Chinese prisons now, suffering
in Chinese prisons. All of them have been arrested, detained
because of these so-called illegal religious activities.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Chen Guangcheng?
Mr. Chen. Mr. Chairman, I have two questions. One is before
President Obama leaves office, we should press him to call Mr.
Xi Jinping about the whereabouts of the attorney, lawyers that
disappeared.
And from the performance of the president during his eight
years in office, we see that he never met any democracy
activists, and dissidents from China. But actually, he spared
his very valuable time to meet with Jack Ma, the billionaire of
the Chinese.
I wonder why the president has forgotten his duty to
preserve the founding principle of the United States as a human
rights protector and defender? And I hope that the new Trump
Administration will adopt an agenda to end authoritarian regime
with the help of the Chinese people there.
I think that before Chinese human rights improve, I do not
think America has any other choices.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Chen, on that question--it was part
rhetorical, but I think it deserves at least some focus.
In not meeting with the dissidents, and we have asked the
President to meet both in Beijing when he travels there, and in
the White House with dissidents--when Bush went to the
Olympics, we asked him to meet with dissidents like Rebiya
Kadeer and others, and he did. Wei, you will remember that. And
he spent a considerable amount of time before setting foot into
Beijing getting insights from the people who had suffered.
The one that has troubled me the most is that after we had
our Five Daughters hearing--we had five precious daughters of
dissidents who are, today, still languishing in prison,
including the daughter of Gao Zhisheng, who appealed to the
President. Each of the five said, ``Mr. President, you have two
daughters. You will understand. We want to meet with you and
ask that you raise our father's cases by name with the
President of China.''
We sent over that request. They made it themselves. The
Washington Post did an outstanding article on it, by the
editorial page editor. It was December 2013, on the House
Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing, the Five Daughters
hearing. We called repeatedly down to the White House. Will you
meet, please, Mr. President with the five daughters who are
young ladies?
One wrote a beautiful piano song. She is a great pianist,
but she wrote a song to her dad, and she just wanted to look
the President in the eye and say, ``Please advocate for our
dads' release, to the end of the torture.''
After six months, we got back from the White House, he does
not have the time.
Mr. Chen. I would like to add one more thing.
As we mentioned Mr. Jiang Tianyong, disappearing attorney,
it was him who showed up at 2 a.m., at the wee hours in
Beijing, during the President's visit because they learned that
the President's office released a statement and said, ``Oh, no
human rights advocates showed up during his visit.'' But that
was not the case. So I want to emphasize that too.
Chairman Smith. I would just add, Danielle was one of those
five daughters. And, again, all we wanted was a face-to-face
meeting so that the President could hear their appeals.
I yield to my good friend.
Representative Walz. Yes. Thank you to the Chairman.
I would suggest, then, we put in a formal request to
President-elect Trump to make that meeting from us as
Commissioners. I would certainly be glad to sign that because I
think it is what we ask for.
I think maybe Yang Jianli brought up the idea of
inconvenience. I think sometimes the Chinese Government feels
like we will--we are not persistent, or we will lose our focus,
or things that are inconvenient we will put aside.
I would suggest to them that they have not met Chairman
Smith, because he will not give up. He will be persistent, and
I think that is what we need. So I think that is exactly what
we should do.
To each of you, it is a privilege to be here with you, and
every time I come, I am inspired, I am encouraged, and I
realize that the fight goes on. At times thinking, as a Member
of Congress, what can I do? Then I watch extraordinary people
in circumstances sometimes beyond imagination rise up on those
very issues that are our core foundation issues of human
rights, and that is truly inspiring.
It is from these hearings, and it is from each of you who
have testified before--some of us have become friends over the
years--that told us you need to continue to talk. I think we
have spoken on this, and to let some of you know last year we
traveled to Hong Kong, to Tibet, and then met with Premier Li
in the Forbidden City.
I can assure each of you it was something I thought I would
never witness. Sitting in the Forbidden City with the Premier
of China and him answering questions about His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, him asking questions and answering questions about
Falun Gong, about the Uyghurs, about freedom of religion, in
Hong Kong. And I can tell you this, that Ambassador Baucus
along with Leader Pelosi, myself, and other Members of Congress
did meet with those dissidents in Beijing in the U.S. Embassy,
and it is a good thing we have divided government because we
have a voice. We continue to speak out on these issues, we
continue to find common ground.
So I cannot tell you the courage you give me, the
instruction that you give me to continue talking because many
of us up here worry the inconvenience, or more importantly, it
is one thing for us to say what we are going say, and then go
to our homes while your families are still in Chinese prisons,
while your families are still under threat, the feedback we
have gotten from you is, continue to make this issue.
I will just ask, or maybe make a statement, maybe
rhetorical a little bit. Wei Jingsheng brought up this point
about tying trade to human rights. Those of us in here know
going back to President Clinton, most-favored-nation status and
some of the changes--I certainly was under the illusion that
liberalizing trade and openness would have a significant impact
on liberalization of personal freedoms.
I have now seen that is not the case. As I told someone--
again, it is anecdotal, but I can tell you this. I have been to
Hong Kong dozens, and dozens, and dozens of times, both going
from Fosan as a young teacher to Hong Kong, and coming here.
The last time I went--and certainly it was the first time
as a U.S. Congressman, Hong Kong is significantly different.
Hong Kong feels different, and it feels different in one of
those most basic ways of personal freedoms, religious freedoms,
freedom of expression. And those should be concerns of ours.
I think going--I would say this, just as a suggestion, I am
not sure President-elect Trump would characterize it as a trade
war, but I do think he should probably characterize it as a
recalibration of fair trade. I think as a Nation, this is an
important discussion we should have.
We may get cheaper products at our local big box store, but
it comes at a price. It comes at a price as workers as Wei
Jingsheng said. It comes at a price in wages. It comes at a
price in our economy, but it also comes at a price to human
rights for those workers. It comes at a price that we have lost
our leverage.
I would say this. I am very encouraged that it appears that
incoming Defense Secretary, General Mattis has impressed upon
President-elect Trump that torture is not something that we do,
and it is not something that we accept from others.
I think this does give us a chance to reset. This does give
us an opportunity because of a peaceful transitioning
government here to highlight those things, and I would say that
each of you said this, I think this Commission can be a place
for that to start again.
I think you have got a Chairman that has been dogged about
it. You have got a Chairman that has been consistent across
administrations. When they fail or fall short, he has called
them out. When they have done something right or leading in
that right direction, he has praised them for that.
I think I do not speak for all of the Commissioners, but I
agree with that. I, for one, am serious. I think we send a
letter and ask the President-elect to meet with the five
daughters if that is what we are going to ask.
We should be prepared that that may not happen, too. I
think as a Commission, it may or it may not, but our
responsibility is clear and it comes from each of you saying
this. We need to continue to press these issues. We need to
continue to recalibrate how we do this.
I think we underestimate the leverage of both--by our
actions--this was a fascinating thing, and I never thought this
would happen. Premier Li was really fascinating because I told
them I had been to Tibet before. And I said I had been to Tibet
in 1989. And they said, ``No, it was February of 1990.'' They
are very good at remembering when I was there, better than I.
[Laughter.]
They said, ``Has it not improved? '' And I said, ``Well, it
was easier than going by bus for seven days from Chengdu,
because now we could fly in or take the train. There were more
hospitals. There were more shops.'' But I told them candidly,
speaking face-to-face, I said it is very different. The culture
is very different.
And he said, well, you saw a village or whatever. Yes, a
Potemkin village that they showed us that was not there.
But he brought up something very interesting that showed me
that this relationship is changing a little bit. He said,
``Congressman, I know when you were a young man, you taught on
the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota. How
did America treat the Native Americans? ''
And I answered to him, ``I would not use us as an example
of the right way to do it because many of us know there are
things we could do differently. We are asking you in the spirit
of friendship, cooperation, human rights to work with these
issues and to understand all of us have to go through that.''
And it was fascinating to me that the Premier was gracious,
he engaged in this conversation. I did not have any
expectations there would be a change, but I think it did show
if we continue to bring these issues up, if we continue to lead
with our values, and tie those to our economic policies, not
separate them from that, that there is potential here for us to
get to a common ground.
I think for all of us, we have to continue to believe that
because whether it is our father, whether it is our relatives,
whether it is our own family being asked to make gripping
choices, we have to see a better day.
So again, I thank each of you. I do not have a question of
you, but I think it is important to stress the inspiration you
bring to others, the courage that you bring to others, and to
speak about an issue from the United States, I know does not
take courage. To stand up and say it in Beijing or in Foshan,
or in Guangdong, those take courage understanding there will be
repercussions. This issue of basic human rights, it unites all
of us.
So I thank the Chairman once again for putting together a
remarkable panel. I do think it needs to be said, your
persistence on the issue of human rights is something
incredibly admirable. It is something that every day I am glad
you are still here, because I do think--and the Chinese know
this--they just want to wear you down over time. They want to
wear you down. I have seen it. They found the one person they
are not going to wear down. So I am glad to be with him.
I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much. I thank you for your
leadership for decades on behalf of human rights in China, and
I think the idea that you suggested is a great one. We will
follow it up, and it will be a letter from you and I, and, of
course, the other--the Cochair and I am sure Marco will readily
agree with that.
Is there anything else anybody would like to say before we
conclude? [No response.]
For the record, I would ask unanimous consent that
statements from the 709 Lawyers' Wives and the Southern
Mongolian Human Rights Information Center be made a part of the
record. Without objection, so ordered.
Again, thank you all for your insights. This is a new
beginning. The failed policies by any previous administration
need to be matriculated to something that works. You have given
us the blueprint.
Thank you so very much. The hearing is adjourned.
[The statements appear in the appendix.]
[Whereupon the hearing was concluded at 4:08 p.m.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Penpa Tsering
december 7, 2016
Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Congressional-
Executive Commission on China regarding on our recommendations to the
next United States Congress and Administration on human rights in
Tibet. This is my first testimony before the United States Congress
following my appointment as Representative of H.H. the Dalai Lama to
the Americas. Therefore, I would like to begin with offering the
gratitude of the Tibetan people to the United States Congress for your
consistent and strong support to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the
Tibetan issue.
Through its elections the United States and the American people
have shown democracy in practice. Following the results, His Holiness
the Dalai Lama has written to both President-Elect Donald Trump and
Secretary Hillary Clinton. His Holiness further looks forward to
meeting with the new President, just as he has done with the previous
several presidents.
At the outset, for those who don't much about Tibet, I wish to
present few basic facts. Some people feel that Tibet is a very small
country nestled in the Himalayas. Factually, Tibet with close to 6
million Tibetans live on 2.14 Million Sq. Kms, roughly 23 percent of
China's total landmass. Tibet has an average altitude of 4641 meters or
15226 feet above sea level. Tibetans call Tibet as the Land surrounded
by snow mountains; westerners called Tibet as the roof of the world;
Asians call Tibet as the water tower of Asia and today Chinese
environmental scientists call Tibet as the third pole because of the
amount of glaciers and permafrost that feeds all the major rivers of
Asia.
issues
On the matter of our recommendations, while there has been a clear
deterioration in the overall human rights situation in Tibet, I would
like to raise the following four points that can have grave impact
during the term of the next Congress and Administration.
1. Religious freedom of the Tibetan people
Several developments in recent times, which follow decades of
oppressive policies, indicate that in order to fulfil their political
agenda, the Chinese authorities are undermining the very existence of a
genuine Tibetan Buddhist tradition in Tibet.
These include adopting regulations that give the Chinese Communist
Party the absolute decision making authority on matters concerning
Tibetan Buddhism, including promulgating legislation requiring all
reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist leaders to obtain government approval.
These measures are aimed at controlling and managing the process of the
Dalai Lama's next reincarnation, in order to ensure the dominance of
the Party state in Tibet. Chinese official media reports have confirmed
that the CCP authorities view the matter of the Dalai Lama's
reincarnation as ``an important issue concerning sovereignty and
national security.'' What the Chinese government has done to the
Panchen Lama, who was kidnapped when he was 5 years old and has no
longer been seen since then and replaced him with someone appointed by
the Chinese Communist Party, is a stark reminder of what China intends
to do.
Secondly, there has been increased and intrusive interference in
the affairs of the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and institutes. The
most recent case is the demolition process taking place at the Tibetan
Buddhist Academy of Larung Gar in Tibet--one of the world's largest
monastic institutions with a population of thousands of Chinese and
Tibetan practitioners - and the forced expulsion of several hundreds of
monks and nuns from there. Larung Gar has in recent years become a
vital center for the study, practice, and promotion of Buddhist
teachings.
The most recent demolitions of monks' and nuns' dwellings began in
July due to restrictions put in place by the Chinese government.
According to information received from Tibet, hundreds of monks and
nuns from Golog (Chinese: Guoluo) and Jyegudo (Chinese: Yushu) in
Qinghai, Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) in Sichuan, and the Tibet Autonomous
Region were among those forced to leave Larung Gar in late October this
year. Officials and police arrived from their home areas to escort
them. Many monks and nuns were compelled to put their thumbprints or
sign a document which stated the following in Chinese: In accordance
with the requirements of promoting regulation work in the Serthar
County Larung Five Sciences Buddhist Academy, I left the Larung Five
Sciences Buddhist Academy and will, after returning home, as always
continue to love the country and love religion, and abide by the law. I
solemnly promise not to return to the Serthar County Larung Five
Sciences Buddhist Academy, except to carry out relevant formalities
during large-scale Buddhist activities.''
If we do not send a strong message to the Chinese authorities on
this, it could be a precursor to many such demolitions of other Tibetan
religious institutes.
2. Restrictions of Freedom of Movement
From 2012, following the imposition of tough new measures
restricting travel in Tibetan areas since the 2008 protests, Tibetans
began to face tightening restrictions on their travel abroad, through
restrictions on the issuance of passports, including to receive
Buddhist teachings from the Dalai Lama, or to study abroad. This is in
contrast to the increasing number of Chinese citizens being granted
passports and being able to travel abroad with ease.
Since the Dalai Lama is giving an important Tibetan Buddhist
teaching in India in January 2017, many Tibetans in Tibet wanted to
travel there. In addition to the already existing restrictions for
Tibetans in getting a passport, in the last few weeks, Chinese
officials have confiscated passports from those Tibetans who have
managed to secure one.
Some Tibetans who have already arrived in Nepal and India for
pilgrimage and for attending the Buddhist teachings in January have
already been ordered to return, and the authorities are as well
pressuring their families in Tibet.
China's discriminatory policy on Tibetan freedom of movement also
includes Tibetan Americans who wish to travel to Tibet for pilgrimage
or to meet their relatives. The Chinese Embassy and consulates in the
United States adopt a different processing system for Tibetan Americans
that includes intensive investigation and often end up with denial of
visas.
3. Use of Counter-terrorism measures to control Tibetans
In Tibet, despite the absence of any violent insurgency, an
aggressive ``counter-terrorism'' drive has been underway resulting in
the militarization across the Tibetan plateau. By conflating the
expression of distinct religious and ethnic identities with
``separatism'', and blurring distinctions between violent acts and
peaceful dissent, the Chinese government is using counter-terrorism as
a justification to crackdown on even mild expressions of religious
identity and culture in Tibet.
In line with a ``counter-terror'' campaign, the Chinese authorities
have rolled out new systematic and long-term security measures in Tibet
as part of an intensified control agenda.
While rigorous and oppressive measures, including an increase in
Communist Party personnel at ``grass roots'' levels, have been in place
since the 2008 protests in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), these
measures to eliminate dissent and enforce compliance to Chinese
Communist Party policies are now being increasingly observed in the
eastern Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo.
Since October 2011, Chinese authorities have sent tens of thousands
of government and party cadres to thousands of villages, religious
institutions and neighborhood to monitor and surveil local Tibetans,
organize anti-Dalai Lama themed political indoctrination campaigns, and
entrench and expand the influence of the CCP in Tibet.
4. H.H. the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan issue
On the overall issue of Tibet, the position of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama remains unchanged in key areas. His is commitment to the
Middle Way is unwavering. He is not seeking independence for Tibet but,
rather, genuine, meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people within the
People's Republic of China reached through a negotiated settlement with
the Chinese leadership. He has strengthened democratic values within
the Tibetan community in exile, including in handing over all his
political authority to the elected Tibetan leadership.
Diplomatic and Political Actions that have worked:
1. Presidential meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Successive Presidents of United States have met with His Holiness
the Dalai Lama and expressed their support for the Middle Way Approach.
This sends a very strong signal to the Chinese authorities that the
Issue of Tibet is on the highest of agenda in US-China relations.
2. Appointment and the role of Special Coordinator on Tibet
Having a special coordinator on Tibetan Issues in the State
Department as mandated by the US Tibet Policy Act of 2002 and its
annual report on the status of Sino-Tibet negotiations indicates the
importance that US Administration attaches in resolving the Tibetan
issue in a non-violent, mutually beneficial negotiated solution without
pre-conditions.
3. Hearings and reports of the commissions
Meetings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Sikyong, and the Speaker
of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile with bipartisan, bicameral
congressional Foreign Relations Committee; hearings and reports by CECC
and Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission helps in informing the congress
of the Tibetan perspective of the situation inside Tibet and possible
solutions.
4. Financial Aids
Financial Aids from State Departments to the Tibetans through
USAID, PRM and Scholarship Programs for education, health, social and
economic development of Tibetans helps in the preservation and
promotion of Tibetan identity.
5. Bills and Resolutions
We believe that the introduction of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet
bill has built some traction in allowing congressional delegation and
journalists visits to Tibet.
6. Congressional and State Department visits to Tibet and
Dharamsala
The congressional delegation's visit to China and Tibet provided
first hand understanding of the situation inside Tibet and more
intimate dialogue with the local leaders. Similarly, visits to
Dharamsala also sends a strong signal to China.
Suggestions to the new Administration and the Congress:
1. The United States has played a pivotal role in highlighting the
human rights situation in Tibet and in encouraging the Chinese
Government to improve them. Human rights will be respected if China
implements internal reform. US Government need to publicly express
concern for the human rights situation in Tibet to send a clear signal
to China that this is an integral part of US policy on China
2. Advocate for the release of Tibetan political prisoners. The US
should advocate for the release of specific Tibetan political prisoners
languishing in Chinese prisons. In the past, efforts by the United
States and other governments have led to the Chinese authorities
releasing some Tibetan political prisoners who were able to come to the
United States for medical treatment and rehabilitation. My office will
be pleased to provide some names of Tibetan political prisoners.
3. An early implementation of the Tibetan Policy Act, including the
designation of the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues at a
senior level within the State Department so that the new Administration
has its contact person on Tibet in place for effective coordination of
work.
4. The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act before the House could also
help to promote access to Tibetan areas for U.S. officials,
journalists, and citizens. Currently, travel restrictions imposed by
the Chinese government on Tibet are more severe than for any other
provincial-level entity in China. The approval of the Global Magnitsky
Act by the US Congress will send the right message to Chinese officials
responsible for human rights violations in Tibet.
5. The Administration should impress on China the need to establish
US Consulate in Lhasa.
6. The incoming President should meet with His Holiness the Dalai
Lama at the earliest opportunity in keeping with precedents.
7. The congress and the Administration could raise with the Chinese
leadership their discriminatory policies towards the Tibetan people,
particularly in the matters of religious freedom and freedom of
movement.
8. The Administration should monitor China's misuse of counter
terrorism policies in Tibet leading to the denial of fundamental rights
of the Tibetan people. As and when necessary this needs to be raised
publicly.
9. Preserve funding for Tibet-related programs in the Department of
State & Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, including economic
development; humanitarian assistance; Tibetan language broadcasts
through Voice of America and Radio Free Asia; and scholarship and
exchange programs. These small but indispensable investments in Tibetan
communities support the Dalai Lama's vision of preserving Tibetan
identity during these difficult times until a negotiated agreement is
reached.
10. The congress should organize more bipartisan, bicameral visits
to Tibet and Dharamsala.
11. Above all, proactive support at the highest level of Government
to encourage the Chinese authorities to resume dialogue to resolve the
Tibetan issue, as mandated by the Tibetan Policy Act, will eventually
improve the human rights situation of the Tibetan people.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify before your Commission
and look forward to answering any questions you have.
______
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Prepared Statement of Chen Guangcheng
december 7, 2016
Greetings to the Chair people, to all the human rights
Congressional representatives, ladies and gentlemen: Hello!
In China, people know me as, ``the barefoot lawyer:'' despite
having no formal training as a lawyer, I did the work of a lawyer,
bringing officials to court and asking that the party respect China's
own Constitution and laws. As a result, I endured 7 years of
kidnappings, house arrest, secret detention sites, and imprisonment.
After I was let out of prison, my family and I were put under illegal
house arrest under conditions even worse than prison, including
torture, until I finally escaped.
My own experience tells me that one should not hold out any hope or
possibility in the Communist Party. This is a fascist regime that
destroys the essential goodness of humanity.
The Communist Party has been persecuting its own people for years.
Last year it began the infamous 709 crackdown, persecuting human rights
defenders and lawyers, torturing people and implicating family members
by association. Some attorneys and activists in detention have been
forced to make confess guilt in the state-controlled media, and have
subsequently been sentenced to prison. But some, like Li Heping, Li
Chunfu, Wang Quanzhang and other attorneys refuse to admit guilt, and
hence continue to be held illegally. Two weeks ago, Attorney Xie Yang
was tortured by prison police, and Attorney Jiang Tianyong has been
disappeared. Activists Huang Qi and Liu Feiyue have been taken by
public security. Countless netizens have been blocked online, and their
speech censored.
Under Party control, the Chinese people have long lived in a state
of suffering and fear. It should be clear that Communist authoritarian
control is the enemy of humanity: we must put a stop to its destruction
of humanity's civilized values.
On the other hand, America is a great nation that truly stands out
in its commitment to universal values. There is simply no way to
compare the US and China on this front. Hence, America must be a model
for human rights, and a leader in the global push to democracy. The
American system has the strongest immunity (against corruption), and
the greatest capability for correcting its mistakes. Democracy,
freedom, and human rights are America's founding principles. After many
injurious years of appeasement and self-belittling, the time has come
for the US to reinvigorate its core values and to protect universal
human rights.
I would like to make the following recommendations to the incoming
administration and Congress regarding human rights:
1. Correct the mistaken policy of separating trade from human
rights. Human rights are like clean water, clean food, and
clean air: they are an indispensable part of life, and cannot
be separated from anything we do. The essence of the policy of
separating trade and human rights is to focus solely on making
money, without care to justice or ethics. In addition, the
reality is that a country with strong human rights and rule of
law is a better business partner for American companies.
2. In its position as a global leader, should express a
position of clear support for the universal values of freedom,
democracy, and human rights.When a dictatorial regime uses
force to suppress its people, should act decisively to stop it.
In addition, we should reconsider NATO's function, to transform
NATO from hedgehog quill to heroic sword.
[NATO is now an organization primarily concerned with its own
member nations and their security. The US should recognize that
authoritarian regimes pose an existential threat to democracies
everywhere. The US, for example, is already experiencing infiltration
into many areas of civic and government life, including its media,
academia, government offices, and electoral process by the largest
dictatorships in the world. If this continues unabated, the US will
find its democratic institutions substantially weakened. By supporting
democratic movements through clear statements, the US and NATO will put
a check to violent repression of innocent people and reclaim the
importance of universal rights for all.]
3. Prevent human rights abusing officials from entering the
United States. Investigate and where illegality is found,
freeze the US assets of Communist Party officials.
4. Prevent the Communist Party from infiltrating US academia,
media, and other institutions.
5. Demand that the Chinese Communist Party respect the UN
International Treaty on Human Rights. Change the policy of
speaking with the CCP on issues of human rights behind closed
doors .otherwise we will continue the useless conversations we
have now.
6. Ensure reciprocity of visas for journalists, and prevent
the CCP from using visas to punish journalists who expose the
crimes of the party.
[At the moment, the US allows roughly 800 journalists from China
into the US, the majority of whom are from party media outlets, but
China only allows 100 US journalists into China.]
7. Invest in tools to get past internet blocking mechanisms,
to assist those who seek freedom in getting past the Great
Firewall [Internet Berlin Wall]. Establish direct communication
with the Chinese people, instead of just with the party.
8. Establish international, collaborative mechanisms to
prevent the Chinese Communist Party from persecuting its own
people internally, and from breaking down international
procedures externally.
Great nations have great responsibility. In Chinese there is an
ancient saying: ``Bring out the best and eliminate the worst under
heaven.'' This should be the principle to follow. As long as we join
together, we can banish dictatorships, and make the world a better
place.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Bob Fu
Religious Freedom and Rule of Law Under Xi Jinping 2016
december 7, 2016
Dear Chairman Congressman Smith and Co-Chair Senator Marco Rubio,
As China regresses into a more Maoist regime, the Communist Party
continues to place restrictive measures on human rights and religious
freedom and executes its control over all forms of dissent by arresting
or otherwise harassing those who oppose the strictures.
According to current president Xi Jinping, religion must conform to
and benefit a socialist society. At a national conference on religion
held in April of this year, he urged his administration to ensure that
religions ``merge religious doctrines with Chinese culture, abide by
Chinese laws and regulations, and devote themselves to China's reform
and opening up drive and socialist modernization in order to contribute
to the realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation,'' and
argued that the role of the Party was to ``guide and educate the
religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values . .
..''
His words reinforced a pre-existing nationwide crackdown on
religious institutions, including an ongoing cross demolition campaign,
arbitrary arrests of pastors and lawyers, and the suppression of
Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims. Because China Aid receives
reports on Christian persecution, this summary will spotlight their
cases as examples indicative of a much wider repression of belief.
In its 2015 Annual Report, Chinese Government Persecution of
Christians and Churches in China, China Aid noted a 4.74 percent
overall increase in persecution, based on how statistics gathered in
2015 compared to those collected the previous year. The various
categories accounted for include: number of religious persecution cases
(up 10.84 percent), number of persecuted individuals (up 8.62 percent),
number of unjustly detained persons (up 6.14 percent), number of abuse
cases (up 174.65 percent) and number of abused people (up 91.32
percent).
Persecution campaigns made 2016 one of the most tyrannical years
since the Cultural Revolution. As imprisoned human rights lawyers still
fight for the right to defend their clients without legal
repercussions, officials in Zhejiang province carry out the third
consecutive year of a beautification movement that targets church
crosses for demolition, Henan province launched a movement focusing on
forcing ``illegal'' Catholic and Protestant churches to conform to
socialist ideals, and authorities arrested and detained church members.
Trials for lawyers rounded up in the 709 incident, the nationwide
crackdown on human rights defenders named for the day it started, July
9, 2015, commenced on August 2 with the sentencing of Zhai Yanmin, a
rights activist who received a three-year suspended prison term for
coordinating protests against government rule. A day later, a Tianjin
court condemned Beijing church elder Hu Shigen to seven-and-a-half-
years' incarceration and five years' deprivation of political rights
for allegedly ``subverting state power'' by using Christianity to
``spread subversive thoughts and ideas.'' The tribunal presented photos
of his baptism as evidence of his guilt, and Hu was forced to confess
to his crimes, after which he accepted his sentence and did not appeal.
Hu, a Beijing University alumnus and former instructor at the
Beijing Language Institute, formerly served 16 years of a 20 year
prison sentence for founding an organization that opposed the Communist
Party.
On August 4, Zhou Shifeng was coerced into confessing to his
crimes. Zhou, a Christian attorney, was arrested on suspicion of
``subverting state power'' on January 8, 2016. In an attempt to
publicly authenticate their charges against him, authorities pressured
Zhang Kai, a human rights lawyer known for his defense of more than 100
churches affected by the cross demolition campaign, to travel from his
home in Inner Mongolia, attend the trial, and conduct an interview in
which he denounced Zhou and the other imprisoned human rights lawyers.
Zhang later recanted his statements, saying he had been too frightened
to stand up to the authorities. Consequentially, officials barred him
from social media and attempted to arrest him again.
On the night of August 25, 2015, government personnel broke into a
church in Wenzhou, Zhejiang and took Zhang and his two legal assistants
into police custody. After holding him incommunicado for six months in
an unofficial prison known as a ``black jail,'' China forced Zhang to
confess on television on February 25, 2016. A few days later, he was
taken into criminal detention and released on bail on March 23. Since
then, he has lived with his parents in Inner Mongolia.
Another Christian lawyer, Li Heping, vanished into police custody
on July 10, 2015, followed by his brother, attorney Li Chunfu, on
August 1 of that year. Li Heping was formally arrested on January 8,
2016, on suspicion of ``subverting state power.'' Since their
disappearance, family members have not been able to contact either of
the men.
The cross demolition movement, which began in 2014 as part of a
beautification campaign known as ``Three Rectifications and One
Demolition,'' continued in Zhejiang province during 2016. Although
official rhetoric claims the operation intends to address ``illegal
structures,'' it specifically discriminates against Christian churches
and imposes strictures on the crosses that adorn the exterior of their
buildings. In 2016, the number of crosses demolished surpassed 1,800.
Zhang Chongzhu, a pastor who was placed under ``residential
surveillance in a designated location,'' otherwise known as a ``black
jail,'' in September 2015, was originally held in police custody for
his opposition to the cross demolitions,. On February 5, he was
criminally detained for ``stealing, spying, buying, or illegally
providing state secrets or intelligence to entities outside China.'' He
was formally arrested on March 9 for the same crime. On May 9, he was
released.
Now, Zhang faces a new challenge; on October 29, the Zhejiang
Provincial China Christian Council and the Zhejiang Provincial Three-
Self Patriotic Movement, China's two state-run Christian organizations,
expelled him from the clergy and revoked a certificate proving that he
was licensed to preach. This triggered outrage among local Christians,
one of whom speculated that the government terminated Zhang Chongzhu in
order to keep citizens from attending house churches.
In addition to previous restrictions on religious activity, Henan
province published a work plan devising to bring ``illegal'' Catholic
and Protestant churches in line with the Party's ideologies. According
to the official document, the authorities plan to manage church
meetings and force the congregations to eradicate all religious symbols
and become more socialist. The timeline outlined by the official
document stated the plan was to be implemented on September 4 and run
until October 15. The government mandated that the village and sub-
district government branches investigate churches, submit reports to
their superiors, assist the religious affairs bureau in distributing a
notice about the expected changes to the churches, shut down non-
compliant congregations, and record how satisfactorily they were able
to complete the job as part of their year-end assessment.
Prompted by this decision, the Bo'Ai County Religious Affairs
Bureau issued a notice to a house church. Claiming that the church was
unauthorized, the bureau ordered it to immediately disband and remove
any religious materials within three days. They urged the attendees to
conduct religious activities at the local official churches, with which
many of them have deep, theological disagreements. Failure to comply
with these measures will result in further government interference.
This campaign echoes the new political trend set out in a proposed
revision of the Regulations on Religious Affairs, which was introduced
by the State Council earlier this month. The revision introduces
tighter control on peaceful religious activities, such as punishing
house church meetings by imprisoning Christians or heavily fining the
church leaders, forbidding religious adherents from attending
conferences or trainings abroad, and barring minors from receiving
religious education. By passing these regulations, China violates its
own Constitution, which guarantees religious liberty and condemns
discriminating against religious and non-religious citizens, and
breaches the country's pledges to adhere to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, and the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Paraphrasing and quoting an unnamed expert on the Regulations on
Religious Affairs, Christianity Today published the following
statements on October 3 in an article entitled ``Red Tape: China Wants
to Constrict Christian Activities with 26 New Rules,'' referring to
China's State Administration on Religious Affairs as SARA:
The draft law opens with the assurance that all Chinese
citizens are free to believe whatever they want and to engage
in religious activity--as long as it's within the tighter
limits. One Chinese religious policy expert, who asked to
remain anonymous, summed up some of what the regulations
include:
No religious activities that are not approved
by SARA.
No one may provide a venue for religious
services that are not approved by SARA.
No one may use their home for religious
practices that are not approved by SARA (including home
or family Bible studies).
No publishing religious materials without
approval from SARA.
No foreign or domestic donations may be made
to any religious organization that hasn't been approved
by SARA.
No one may call themselves a pastor without
the approval of SARA.
No international religious exchanges may
happen without the approval of SARA.
No one may study theology at school without
the approval of SARA.
``As you can imagine, these amendments to the administration of
religion in China by SARA would in effect leave no space for
the house or unregistered church in China, and will
significantly curtail many of the activities of the TSPM
[Three-Self Patriotic Movement] as well,'' the expert told
ChinaSource.
In 2015, a major developing case emerged as authorities increased
pressure on Huoshi Church, the largest house church in Guiyang, Guizhou
province. Though preluded by a police presence when the church moved
into a new building in 2014 and the 2015 arrest of Zhang Xiuhong, an
accountant and chairwoman at the church who was apprehended when she
withdrew church funds at her beauty shop, the situation escalated when
Pastor Su Tianfu received an administrative penalty notice on October
21, 2015. It indicted himself, Zhang and a church member named Liang
Xuewu for ``changing usage plans'' of the office space the church rents
for its services and ordered them to stop holding religious activities
there, despite the church continually reporting its services to the
government. Originally, the building was approved for business
operations. When they neglected to heed the orders, officials imposed a
fine that accumulated 12,960 Yuan (U.S. $2,030) daily.
Su, who is currently released on bail, has been under constant
surveillance since December 19 and must use government-arranged
transportation for all outings. He is expected to stand trial soon.
Additionally, administrative offices dispatched uniformed and
plainclothes personnel to raid the church on several occasions. On
December 9, 2015, Pastor Li Guozhi, better known by his alias, Yang
Hua, was taken into police custody and sentenced to two consecutive,
five-day administrative detention terms a day later for the ``crime of
obstructing justice'' and ``gathering a crowd to disturb public order''
after he attempted to prevent officials from confiscating a church hard
drive. When his wife came to collect him on December 20, she witnessed
him donning a black hood and being herded into an unlicensed vehicle.
Upon further inquiry, she learned that her husband had been charged
with ``illegally possessing state secrets'' and was being transferred
to another facility for criminal detention. She was not allowed to
contact him. On January 22, she received a notice announcing his formal
arrest and changing his charge to ``divulging state secrets.''
Even with his impending trial, which is expected to take place this
month, authorities only permitted Yang to convene with his lawyers
beginning in March. During one meeting, lawyer Chen Jiangang and his
co-counsel, Zhao Yonglin, noted that he appeared fearful and began to
suspect that he had been tortured. On their next visit, Zhao
transcribed an interview with Yang in which he described how the
prosecutors assigned to his case had stepped on his toes and threatened
to kill him and harm his family in order to extract a confession from
him. After hearing this, Chen and Zhao filed a lawsuit against the
prosecution team and asked that they be criminally punished for ``using
torture to extort a confession.''
During one of his pre-trial meetings, Yang requested that Zhang
Wei, one of the prosecutors in his case, be disqualified from hearing
the trial on account of his torture allegations. Chen and Zhao have
furthered this request by submitting a document requesting both the
disqualification of Zhang and a transferal to a new court.
In the highest profile case of Christian persecution since the
Cultural Revolution, China ousted Gu Yuese, chairman of the Hangzhou
branch of the China Christian Council, from his position as the head
pastor of China's largest Three-Self Church on January 18. Later that
month, Gu was arrested on a falsified charge of ``embezzling 10 million
Yuan (US$1.6 million) in funds,'' although many Christians believe
authorities incarcerated him for his opposition to the cross demolition
campaign. On April 1, he was released and placed under ``residential
surveillance.'' His case demonstrates the rampant spread of religious
persecution as China clamps down on both house and state-run churches.
As 2016 progressed, religious persecution continued to intensify.
In Xinjiang, a politically and ethnically restive region wrought with
religious tension, authorities apprehended dozens of Christians in the
last two months. One of them, Ma Huichao, was taken from her home in
September, where she and four other Christians were gathering for a
church service. As a result of the service, she was charged with
``gathering a crowd to disturb public order,'' and her trial of the
first instance commenced in mid-November. According to Li Dunyong, her
defense attorney, he was barred from pleading innocent on her behalf.
Currently, the court is adjourned.
Recently, two Hong Kong residents, Lin Haixin and his wife,
vanished into police custody for running a church that specialized in
offering assistance to individuals suffering from addictions and mental
health problems. The church was raided, and officials confiscated its
computer and religious materials, banned it from holding religious
services and dispersed Christians gathered there.
For two days, local Christians tried unsuccessfully to contact
them. Some speculate that they were taken away for holding so-called
``illegal religious activities'' without registering.
Concerns over the safety of human rights lawyers spiked in the past
weeks as Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer turned
activist following his disbarment in 2007, disappeared, believed
detained. He contacted his wife shortly before boarding a train from
Changsha to Beijing, after which no one has been able to successfully
reach him. He had been returning from a trip to visit the wife of Xie
Yang, another human rights lawyer who was imprisoned during the lawyer
crackdown last year, and helped her petition for his release. In the
past, Jiang has been incarcerated for his work and suffered torture at
the hands of the authorities.
On the morning of November 29, the brother of veteran human rights
activist Peng Ming received a call from prison authorities saying that
Peng had suddenly collapsed while watching television and was found
dead. However, three days earlier, Peng had received a visit from his
brother, who reported that the prisoner was in satisfactory health.
When he arrived at the hospital and tried to place a call to his
sister, who lives in California, officials took the phone from him and
related their version of the story. Peng's family has since demanded an
autopsy to confirm the cause of his death, and the Chinese government
has warned them not to travel to China for the funeral.
At the time of his death, Peng was serving a lifelong prison
sentence that began on May 28, 2004, when Chinese agents lured him into
Burma while he was visiting his parents in Thailand and abducted him.
After arriving in China, he was charged with leading a terrorist
organization and kidnapping and possessing counterfeit money and given
a life sentence. Upon investigation, the U.N. Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention concluded in 2005 that authorities arbitrarily
detained Peng, violating his right to freedom of expression and
association.
China is unwilling to commit to furthering religious freedom and
human rights, which caused both a significant demise of human rights
under the Xi Administration. Western policies can hold the country
accountable for abuses of basic freedoms.
It is time for the West to shift their paradigm from appeasing
China to truly principled engagement. Like what happened before in the
West during Hitler's rule of Germany in the 1930s, the current policy
of ignoring China's anti-democratic system of governance in pursuit of
economic opportunity will likely produce irreparable damage for the
fundamental interests of the free world.
Recommendations:
I urge the Trump Administration and members of Congress, including
President Trump himself, to meet with religious leaders and family
members of prisoners of conscience and visit religious sites-
especially churches, mosques and Tibetan Buddhism temples when visiting
China in order to:
1. Raise cases not only behind doors, which has proved non-
effective so far, but in public as well. Look at what happened
to the prompt release of the ``China feminist 5'' after
interventional outcry, including public demands by Secretary
John Kerry and United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Samantha Power.
2. Use multi-faceted approaches to religious freedom and human
rights. The ``human rights dialogue'' mechanism has failed, be
it bilateral or multilateral. After all, FoRB is a universal
value. If the Chinese regime only sees the West as interested
in talking about this issue behind closed doors in a
compartmentalized way, it's nothing but a green light for the
abuses to continue.
3. Adopt a concerted, internationally coordinated effort by
working jointly with our allies in Europe and other regions.
The release of imprisoned human rights lawyer Zhang Kai and
Pastor Wen Xiaowu, who were freed after the Communist Party
received enormous international pressure, are good examples of
how well this method works.
4. Pressure China to stop committing violations of
international law by overstepping their own nation's boundaries
to detain dissidents such as Jiang Yefei and Dong Guangping,
who were taken back to China from a detention center in
Thailand; Peng Ming, who was kidnapped after being lured into
Burma by Chinese special agents and died on November 29 while
serving a life sentence; and five Hong Kong booksellers, who
disappeared into police custody for selling gossip books about
the private lives of Chinese officials.
In conclusion, China continuously violates its own laws and
international statutes safeguarding religious freedom and human rights
in favor of promoting a socialist agenda, forcing dissidents and
religious devotees to choose between certain persecution and
disregarding their deeply-held beliefs. Additionally, it prosecutes
lawyers who attempt to defend the rights of religious practitioners and
activists, completely disregarding the rule of law. International
governments must publicly and proactively organize efforts to persuade
China to free those it unjustly holds behind bars and refrain from
unproductive, behind-closed-doors conversations on these matters.
Should the international community fail to do this, they will be
communicating to China that they care more about trade than human
rights, permitting these abuses to continue.
______
Suggestions on the Future Sino-US Economic and
Trade Relations and the Reasons
Prepared Statement of Wei Jingsheng
december 7, 2016
When Donald Trump becomes president of the USA, he is planning to
abolish the TPP and began a trade war with China in order to save the
US economy. Some people say that this is a disaster, I would say that
this is the right way that should have started even earlier. The
reality after sixteen years well explain my position: granting China
permanent MFN status, that is PNTR, was a huge mistake. It did not
promote the development of the US economy, but was a blood transfusion
from the USA to the Chinese economy. It gave China the opportunity to
engage in trade war with the United States.
The reason is as follows. The so-called free trade, refers to a
unified law based on the domestic market, thus allowing free trade.
Such free trade can be carried out normally between countries with
similar legal systems. There cannot be normal free trade between
countries with completely different legal systems.
For example, after trade with China liberated, there were two main
problems: one was cheap labor, one was its uncertain laws that always
change.
Since Chinese law does not guarantee human rights, it is able to
keep labor prices at a very low level. This has led to the relocation
of US companies to foreign countries, while also allows Chinese goods
entering the US market with low prices, resulting in unfair
competition. It is an important cause of unemployment in the United
States.
China's precarious legal system creates serious non-tariff
barriers. Any local government can develop their own laws and
regulations, without the need to implement the signed treaties and
agreements between the Chinese central government and foreign
countries. So they can actually close their targeted import market.
Coupled with the manipulation of the currency by the Chinese central
government, these actions increased exports and created a huge trade
surplus for China. This is an important reason causing the economic
recession in the USA.
Some people say: for the USA, fighting a trade war with China will
end in defeat, at best a lose-lose result. I think such statements are
to confuse the US policy makers. I think the USA will win this trade
war, while China can only succumb to the rules developed by the United
States, otherwise it will accelerate the collapse of the Chinese
Communist regime. My reasons are as follows.
First: Now the vast majority of goods are in the buyers' markets.
The United States holds the markets, thus it has the power to develop
rules, instead of forcing itself to comply with that so-called global
free trade rule that cannot be enforced. The United States can
formulate its own fair trade rules, to replace the invalid so-called
free trade rules.
Second: The Chinese domestic market is narrow and cannot afford the
disaster of losing the US market. So China can only compromise on the
rules thus to protect part of the market share.
Third: In the past, due to over-expansion of export production of
shoddy goods, the quality of Chinese enterprises is very poor. In order
to adapt to a fair market in the competition, Chinese companies must
quickly upgrade. Thus there will be a great demand for technology and
services from the United States to open up the import market in the
USA. This will help expand US exports and reduce its trade deficit with
China.
Fourth: After improving human rights in China, the income of the
Chinese working class will increase, therefore the domestic consumer
market will expand. This expansion would benefit US exporters after
fair trade, thereby reducing the US trade deficit and even eliminating
it.
So I think that the USA will win this trade war, and in the long
run will also be beneficial to the economic normalization in China.
China must accept and should accept it.
Thank you!
______
Prepared Statement of Rebiya Kadeer
december 7, 2016
Since my release from a Chinese prison in 2005, I have reported to
the Commission the continuing human rights violations targeting the
Uyghur people. As the Commission has noted in its annual reports,
political freedoms in East Turkestan are among the most limited in
China. The right to association and assembly is prohibited and freedom
of speech is punished severely, as the case of imprisoned Uyghur
academic Ilham Tohti illustrates. Economic discrimination, erosion of
language rights and religious restrictions add to the already
depressing condition of Uyghur human rights.
President Xi Jinping has attempted to codify these violations in a
series of repressive laws, such as the ones on counter-terror and
cybersecurity. Implementation measures of the counter-terror law at the
regional level in East Turkestan are a clear indicator of who China
intends to target with these draconian measures.
Nevertheless, China believes it should go further with its
repression. Arbitrary detentions, forced disappearance and extra-
judicial killings continue. Recent media reports indicate the Chinese
government has implemented a policy to confiscate passports in East
Turkestan to limit the international movement of Uyghurs. This is the
formalization of a policy that Uyghur human rights groups have
documented since 2006.
Islam is a cornerstone of the Uyghur identity. China has adopted a
series of religious laws at the national and regional level (2015) that
curb Uyghur rights to freedom of worship. Private communal religious
education has been targeted for several years under these measures;
however, this year Chinese authorities adopted rules to report parents
who encourage their children to undertake religious activities
During the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations my
colleagues and I have worked hard to bring Uyghur issues to the
attention of the U.S. political community. Our organizations regularly
brief State Department officials and legislators at the U.S. Congress.
We have managed to mainstream the Uyghur issue into U.S. government
reporting on human rights.
Most notably, I was privileged to meet President George Bush on two
occasions; the first time in June 2007 and the second in July 2008.
These meetings placed Uyghurs at the center of U.S. policy concerns
over human rights in China.
China's heavy handed policies towards Uyghurs are creating
instability and desperation among the Uyghur people. These policies
have become self-fulfilling in some respects, as some Uyghurs have
become radicalized in their effort to oppose China's repression. The
United States should be concerned about these developments as it is in
the nation's interest to support the democratic aspirations of the
overwhelming majority of Uyghurs. Stability in East Turkestan, China
and the Central and East Asian regions offers the opportunity to spread
American values such as freedom and rights.
The administration of President-elect Donald Trump should continue
support for Uyghur democrats and step up public concern over rights
conditions in East Turkestan with Chinese officials. Any sign that the
United States is ready to relinquish its commitment to raising human
rights concerns in favor of achieving policy gains elsewhere will be a
victory for China.
Furthermore, the incoming administration should exercise extreme
skepticism regarding China's narrative that increased militarization
and securitization in East Turkestan are justified in fighting radical
Islam. The repression that accompanies security measures enables China
to keep firm control of the region and suppress legitimate Uyghur
claims for greater political, economic, social and cultural freedoms.
The Trump administration should understand the situation in East
Turkestan in similar terms to the Tibet. It is a struggle for cultural
survival in the face of formidable assimilative actions by the state.
Let us be clear. Pressure works. My presence here today is
testament to the success of pressurizing Chinese officials. My
colleagues and I will continue to put forward the Uyghur case to the
international community. It is the responsibility of concerned
governments to take this case directly to China and urge reform. The
Uyghur people greatly appreciate the United States' support of our
plight.; however, we ask the incoming administration to publicly raise
the Uyghur issue with China.
In conclusion, I offer these recommendations to the Trump
administration:
1. Prioritize Uyghur issues, especially during the Human
Rights Dialogue and the Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
2. Urge China to allow foreign diplomats and journalists
unrestricted access to East Turkestan to independently document
the conditions in the region.
3. Call on China to free Ilham Tohti and his students and all
writers and reporters.
4. Ask China to change its repressive policy, which is root
cause of all bloody incidents in Uyghur region.
5. Meet Uyghur leaders and activists at the White House.
6. Create a special coordinator office at the State
Department for the Uyghurs.
______
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith, a U.S. Representative
From New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
This has been another dark and difficult year for Chinese rights
defenders and democracy activists. Under President Xi Jinping's version
of the rule by law, the law is being used to more severely curb the
freedom of expression, civil society, religious freedom, and other
fundamental rights.
Chinese courts have convicted rights activists and lawyers of
``subversion of state power'' for simply seeking to represent religious
groups, petitioners, and democracy advocates.
China's diverse religious communities faced even more restrictions,
as new regulations, and a ``sinicization'' campaign, will further
politicize religious life and lead to more repression.
In Hong Kong, mainland China's political interference and its
abduction of booksellers threatens the rule of law and Hong Kong's
promised autonomy, contributing to a growing climate of insecurity.
Internationally, China continues to push a relativistic version of
human rights, characterizing universal values as ``Western'' values
that do not apply to China's national situation.
The next Administration faces major challenges in dealing with
China. A new approach is needed that learns the lessons of the past and
listens to those who have suffered prison and persecution to advance
fundamental freedoms in China.
The problem is that U.S. diplomacy is stuck with policies that no
longer match Chinese realities. For the past two decades, U.S. policy
was based on the belief that China's growing prosperity would bring
political reforms and the rule of law. We focused on integrating China
into the international system, ignoring clear evidence that China,
under the Communist Party's leadership, would play by its own rules.
China has not become a ``responsible stakeholder'' in the
international system as predicted. Quite the contrary, despite decades
of remarkable economic growth, Beijing's leaders are increasingly
dismissive of ``Western influence'' and hostile to both free societies
and democratic capitalism.
A strategy of engagement through trade, investment, and people-to-
people exchanges has not lead to a freer China and remains cold comfort
to China's repressed human rights lawyers, religious and ethnic
minority groups, journalists, and civil society leaders.
The U.S. must recognize that China's internal repression drives its
external aggression and develop new policy approaches that intertwine
our principles and interests in the pivotal Asia-Pacific region.
Working with the Congress, the next Administration should be
prepared to bolster U.S. strategic advantages in the Asia-Pacific. This
will mean improving military readiness, insisting on freer and fairer
trade, strengthening relations with regional partners, and making more
robust commitments to advancing democratic institutions, human rights,
and the rule of law.
This last point will require the U.S. to push China to embrace
greater transparency and better adherence to universal standards. It
will require the next Administration to shine a bright light on human
rights abuses and level meaningful sanctions in response to these
abuses. The U.S. must also find ways to support China's reformers,
dissidents, and its champions of liberty and the rule of law.
The bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC),
which we cochair, recently issued its 2016 Annual Report with specific
recommendations for ways to pursue human rights and the rule of law
within U.S.-China relations.
This report is the ``gold standard'' of human rights reports on
China. I want to publicly commend the CECC staff for their efforts
producing the report. It is a big task and I appreciate their hard
work. The report should be required reading for Members of Congress
interested in China, journalists writing on China, and for
Administration officials looking to develop strategies to engage with
China.
The need for principled and consistent American leadership is more
important than ever, as China's growing economic clout, and persistent
diplomatic efforts, have succeeded in dampening global criticism of its
escalating repression and failures to adhere to universal standards.
We owe a new approach to Liu Xiaobo, Li Heping, and the thousands
of other suffering prisoners of conscience. And, we owe it to future
generations of Americans, whose security and prosperity will depend on
a U.S.-China relationship that is open and transparent, free of
censorship and persecution, based in adherence to universal standards
and, hopefully; increasingly democratic.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Marco Rubio, a U.S. Senator From Florida;
Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
december 7, 2016
Thank you Chairman Smith and thank you to all of the witnesses
gathered here today--this is an impressive group of men and women who
have important stories to share about their own personal suffering and
that of their family members and associates at the hands of the Chinese
government and Communist Party. Their experiences must not be viewed in
isolation, rather they are representative of untold numbers of other
Chinese, Tibetans and Uyghurs who daily face repression. Today I joined
Rep. Smith in sending a letter to the Chinese Ambassador to raise our
concern and seek additional information about a spate of detentions
involving prominent Chinese human rights advocates, as well American
citizen Sandy Phan-Gillis who has been arbitrarily detained for twenty-
one months now--I submit a copy of that correspondence for the Record.
Before going any further, I'd like to take a moment at this
hearing, the last CECC hearing of the 114th Congress, to recognize
Chairman Smith for his capable and principled leadership of the
Commission. He is an unrelenting advocate for human rights and rule of
law in China and around the globe and I look forward to continuing to
partner with him in the new Congress--because as today's testimony will
no doubt make clear, the mandate and mission of this Commission is as
vital as ever.
The Commission's recently released Annual Report painted an
undeniably bleak picture regarding the deterioration of human rights
and the rule of law in China, with especially grave consequences for
civil society, religious believers, human rights lawyers, and labor
activists. Since the Report's release in October 2016, those abuses
have continued apace in the last two months.
As the Report documents and as new stories from the last several
weeks underscore, Beijing has become increasingly brazen in exerting
its extraterritorial reach. This was especially true in the outrageous
abductions of the Hong Kong booksellers last year--including Swedish
national Gui Minhai who is still being held by Chinese authorities at
an undisclosed location--and now more recently in China's unprecedented
intervention in Hong Kong's legal system in the cases surrounding two
democratically elected politicians who won seats in the Legislative
Council on platforms calling for democratic self-determination for Hong
Kong. The ripple effects of this ruling are not fully known yet as the
Hong Kong government has now taken additional steps targeting
opposition lawmakers. This is gravely concerning and something which
the Commission, and the Congress, will be watching closely in the
coming year especially as it relates to the Hong Kong Policy Act.
Returning to the focus of today's hearing, we are at a critical
juncture in U.S.-China relations, and there is much wisdom to be
gleaned, for the incoming administration, from dissident voices.
December will mark fifteen years since China gained entry to the
World Trade Organization. It is past time to take stock of our approach
and recognize that despite what proponents at the time believed would
happen, China has in fact used the international rules-based system to
fuel vast economic growth, while further restricting freedom and
increasing repression. Quite simply, many of the principles which have
undergirded U.S.-China relations during Democrat and Republican
administrations alike in recent decades have not yielded the desired
outcomes.
A perennial critique from those who care about human rights issues
has been that the U.S. foreign policy apparatus risks ghettoizing human
rights concerns, only giving them the prominence they merit during
infrequent, and often ineffective, human rights dialogues and then
relegating these issues to the sidelines in high-level bilateral
engagement.
The Obama administration struggled to integrate human rights issues
at the highest levels sending unmistakable signals early on, as was
famously reported during then Secretary Clinton's inaugural trip to
China in 2009 that human rights issues, quote, ``can't interfere with
the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the
security crisis.'' Words have consequences, midlevel appointees at the
State Department and elsewhere take them to heart. As such, it will be
critical, during the early days of the new administration, for the
Secretary and other senior diplomats to put down markers on these
issues which are of central import not only to the Chinese people, but
to U.S. national interests. For as history has shown us, where rule of
law fails to take root, where human rights abuses are committed with
impunity, where international obligations are violated, the U.S. should
not expect to find a responsible global stakeholder.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on this important
topic. Today's hearing was scheduled to coincide with the commemoration
of Human Rights Day this weekend, and also with the sixth anniversary
of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident and
writer Liu Xiaobo--an honor he has not been able to rightfully claim
given that still today he languishes unjustly in prison, serving an
eleven-year sentence handed down for his essays criticizing the Chinese
government.
The U.S. must commit anew to standing with China's reformers and
dissidents, embracing their aspirations and consistently pressing the
Chinese Government and Communist Party to respect basic human rights
and uphold the rule of law. I look forward to today's testimony and
policy recommendations.
Submissions for the Record
----------
Statement Submitted for the Record by Enghebatu Togochog, of the
Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC)
december 7, 2016
Dear Chairperson Christopher Smith, Co-Chair Marco Rubio and
distinguished members of the Commission,
It is my great honor to have this opportunity to bring to your
attention the deteriorating human rights conditions and worsening
humanitarian crisis in the Mongolian areas in China.
14 years ago, on August 5, 2002, on behalf of the Southern
Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), I testified before
the Commission and brought to the attention of the Commission the
specific human rights violation cases including the cases of political
prisoners Mr. Hada, Mr.Tegexi and the Chinese authorities' state-
sponsored forced displacement of Mongolian herders from their ancestral
lands.
We are truly grateful to the Commission for its great effort in the
past 14 years to raise public awareness of human rights issues of the
Mongolian people by including a great deal of information we provided
into the Commission's annual reports as well as updating its political
prisoner database with the cases of Mongolian dissidents and activists
who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the Chinese
authorities for promoting and defending their basic human rights and
fundamental freedoms.
Yet, 14 years later today, human rights situations of the Mongolian
people in China have gone from bad to worse. Mr. Hada, President of the
Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, is still under house arrest in
an apartment owned and guarded by the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Public Security authorities, after serving the full term of 15 years
imprisonment and an additional 4-year extrajudicial detention.
Despite the Chinese authorities' cruel torture and inhumane
treatment in the past 21 years, Hada has consistently refused to admit
that he committed any crime. Recently Hada completed his written appeal
to the Chinese Supreme People's Court, demanding the Chinese
authorities retry his case for the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Public Security authorities illegally sentencing him to 15 years in
prison, holding him for another 4 years of extrajudicial detention, and
maltreating and persecuting him and his family members.
Hada's family members including Ms. Xinna and son Mr.Uiles are
still under tight surveillance and subjected to constant harassment by
the Chinese Public Security and State Security authorities after
spending multiple and extended period of extrajudicial detentions for
defending their rights and refusing to cooperate with the authorities.
Xinna, was arrested on December 4, 2010, on a trumped-up charge of
``involvement in illegal business,'' referring to her Mongolian Studies
Bookstore. In April 2012, she was sentenced to three years in prison
with five years reprieve on the same charge.
In 2002, the then 17-year-old Uiles, was arrested and sentenced to
two years in prison for another trumped-up case of ``involvement in
robbery.'' On December 5, 2010, Uiles was arrested for ``illegal drug
possession.'' After nearly a year of detention, he was discharged but
was placed under ``residential surveillance,'' a form of house arrest.
Another case we would like to highlight is the case of Ms.
Huuchinhuu Govruud, a human rights defender, dissident writer and
activist. A month ago, Huuchinhuu died of cancer at the age of 61 in
her home place of Tongliao Municipality. Until her last breath, at her
deathbed she had been monitored and guarded by Chinese State Security
personnel around the clock for her ``possible threat to the national
interest and state security of China.''
Huuchinhuu's son, and only family member, Mr. Cheel Borjigin,
himself has also been diagnosed with brain cancer and is receiving
chemotherapy in Minneapolis, the United States. As an outspoken critic
of the Chinese Government, returning to visit his mother had been
totally impossible for Cheel. His multiple requests to the Chinese
Government to allow his mother to come to the United States for medical
treatment have been turned down.
In early November 2010, Huuchinhuu was arrested by the Chinese
authorities for rallying the Mongolians via the Internet to cheer for
the scheduled release of Hada. After nearly two years of enforced
disappearance and extrajudicial detention, Huuchinhuu was placed under
house arrest in one of her relatives' residences in Tongliao
Municipality. She was denied the right to communication, including by
Internet, phone access and postal service.
On November 28, 2012, Huuchinhuu was tried behind closed doors and
pronounced guilty by the Tongliao Municipality People's Court for
``providing state secrets to a foreign organization.'' Since then, she
has virtually been placed under indefinite house arrest.
In 2007, she was denied a passport for her ``possible threat to the
national interest and state security of China.'' Since then, her
requests to visit her son in the United States and receive medical
treatment abroad have consistently been rejected by the Chinese
authorities.
Mr. Chairman, over the past 14 years, hundreds other Mongolian
dissidents, activists and writers have been arrested, detained, sent to
jail and placed under house arrest for expressing their political
views, promoting and protecting freedom of speech, freedom of press and
freedom of assembly.
In addition to these cases of Mongolian political prisoners,
dissidents and activists, here I would like to turn to the worsening
humanitarian crisis unfolded in rural Mongolian communities as a direct
result of the Chinese authorities' intensifying economic exploitation,
resource extraction, cultural eradication and environmental destruction
in Mongolian areas. The very survival of the Mongolians as a distinct
people is threatened. Their right to maintain their traditional way of
life, and their right to access their land, water and other resources
are completely denied. The Mongolians who maintained their pastoralist
way of life for thousands of years are now forced by the Chinese
authorities to give up their traditional life-style to give way to
expanding Chinese encroachment.
Since 2001, the Chinese government has implemented the so-called
``Ecological Migration'' policy in rural Mongolian pastoralist
communities. This policy was officially instituted to forcibly relocate
the entire Mongolian pastoralist population from their ancestral
grazing lands to the predominantly Chinese populated agricultural and
urban areas in the name of ``protecting the grassland eco-system'' and
``improving the living standard of rural communities.''
Another policy adopted for the purpose of putting an end to the
Mongolian traditional way life was the ``Livestock Grazing Ban'' (or
``jin mu''). Under this policy, Mongolian herders grazing livestock on
their own pastures were considered criminals and subjected to large
fines or confiscation of their livestock.
Mr. Chair, when I testified before the Commission in 2002, these
policies were just adopted. 14 years later today, these policies
achieved their determined goal with the desired outcome: putting to an
end to the millennia-old nomadic civilization within the borders of
China.
According to a statement posted on May 30, 2012 on the official
website of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of
China, the State Council Steering Committee meeting hosted by Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao passed the ``Twelfth Five-Year Plan for the Project
on Resettling Nomadic People within China.'' The announcement marks a
major and seemingly final step toward eliminating the remaining
population of nomad herders and eradicating the thousands of years old
nomadic way of life in China.
According to the statement, the Twelfth Five-Year Plan aimed to
resettle the remaining nomad population of 246,000 households or 1.157
million nomads by the end of 2015. The socio-economic and political
purposes of the plan were stated ``to accelerate the development mode
shift of animal husbandry and grassland eco-system protection in
pastoralist areas, to maintain ethnic harmony and frontier stability,
and to lay a firm foundation for building an all around prosperous
society.''
Another earlier statement posted on August 3, 2011 on the Chinese
State Council website states that the Chinese Ministry of Finance
allocated a special fund of 1.7 billion Yuan to the project of
resettling nomadic herders particularly in ``Xinjiang (including
Xinjiang Development Corps), Inner Mongolia and Tibet.''
With the Mongolian out, now it is time for the Chinese to be in. In
2009, the Chinese Central Government announced in that the Mongolian
regions became the largest ``energy base of China.'' Chinese extractive
industries immediately started to rush to the Mongolian grasslands to
open up coal, gas, oil, and other minerals, not only destroying the
natural environment, but also escalating the tension between the
Chinese and the Mongolians.
Tensions have escalated between the Mongolian herders and the
Chinese authorities as clashes took place almost on a daily basis. In
2011, the brutal killing of a Mongolian herder named Mergen by a
Chinese mining truck sparked a large-scale, region-wide protest by
Mongolian herders and students. Chinese authorities mobilized the
People's Liberation Army and large numbers of police forces to
crackdown on the protest.
Since then violent clashes have been widespread between Mongolian
herders, who are attempting to defend their land, and Chinese miners,
who open up mines recklessly to destroy the grassland for profit.
Defending the interest of the Chinese miners and settlers, Chinese
authorities are using excessive force, including police and prison
system to crack down on the Mongolians. Many herders who defended their
land and demand justice have been assaulted, injured, hospitalized,
arrested, detained, and sent to jail.
As a result of large-scale unregulated mining, unscrupulous
resource extraction and uncontrolled agricultural practices by the
Chinese, Mongolian grassland ecosystem has seriously been destroyed;
lakes and rivers are dried up; underground water is depleted; air and
water is heavily polluted; the Mongolians herders who have been kicked
out of their land have become landless and homeless on their ancestral
land.
In response to these humanitarian crisis and environmental
destruction, Mongolian herders are standing up to defend their right to
survival. In the past year alone nearly 80 major protest and clashes
are reported, and no less than 1000 herders have been arrested,
detained, and sent to jail for defending their land.
We ask the Commission to continue to pay closer attention to the
development of deteriorating human rights situations and deepening
humanitarian crisis in the Mongolian areas of China, and pressure the
Chinese Government to take a prompt action to prevent the situations
from becoming worse.
Thank you.
Enghebatu Togochog
______
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Dissidents Who Have Suffered for Human Rights in China:
A Look Back and a Look Forward
december 7, 2016
Witness Biographies
Chen Guangcheng, Chinese legal advocate; Distinguished Visiting
Fellow, Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies, Catholic
University
Mr. Chen Guangcheng is a Chinese legal advocate and activist. Mr.
Chen is from rural China, where he advocated on behalf of people with
disabilities, and exposed and challenged abuses of population planning
officials, including forced abortions and sterilizations. Mr. Chen was
imprisoned for his activism for four years. Following an additional two
years of extrajudicial confinement at his home, Mr. Chen escaped in
2012 and came to the United States with his family. His courageous
escape from China is detailed in his 2015 memoir, ``The Barefoot
Lawyer: A Blind Man's Fight for Justice and Freedom in China.'' In
addition to his position at the Catholic University, Mr. Chen is also a
Senior Distinguished Advisor to the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights
and Justice.
Penpa Tsering, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
Office of Tibet, Washington, DC
Mr. Penpa Tsering is the Representative of the Office of Tibet in
Washington, DC. He was born in 1967 in Bylakuppe, south India and is a
member of the Tibetan Parliament. He studied at the Central School for
Tibetans, Bylakuppe, and topped the merit list in Class XII. He
graduated with an Economics Major from the Madras Christian College,
Chennai. During his student days, he served as the General Secretary of
both the Tibetan Freedom Movement and Nigerian Tibet Friendship
Association. Later he served as the General Secretary of the Central
Executive Committee of Do-mey. He then worked as the Executive Director
at the Tibetan Parliamentary and Research Centre in New Delhi from
2001-2008 before being sworn in as the speaker of the 14th Tibetan
Parliament in 2008. Penpa Tsering was elected to the 12th, 13th, and
14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. He was elected as the Speaker of the
14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile with Mr Karma Choephel on 31 May 2006.
During the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile in 2011, he again held the
Speaker's post.
Yang Jianli, President, Initiatives for China/Citizen Power for
China
Dr. Yang Jianli is President of Initiatives for China/Citizen Power
for China. Dr. Yang is a scholar and democracy activist internationally
recognized for his efforts to promote democracy in China. He has been
involved in the pro-democracy movement in China since the 1980s and was
forced to flee China in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He
holds Ph.Ds in mathematics from the University of California at
Berkeley and in political economy and government from Harvard
University's Kennedy School of Government. In 2002, Dr. Yang returned
to China to support the labor movement and was imprisoned by Chinese
authorities for espionage and illegal entry. Following his release in
2007, he founded Initiatives for China, a non-governmental organization
that promotes China's peaceful transition to democracy. In March 2010,
Dr. Yang co-chaired the Committee on Internet Freedom at the Geneva
Human Rights and Democracy Summit.
Bob Fu, Founder and President, ChinaAid Association
Pastor Bob Fu was a leader in the 1989 student democracy movement
in Tiananmen Square and later became a house church pastor. In 1996,
authorities arrested and imprisoned Pastor Fu and his wife for their
work. After their release, they escaped to the United States and, in
2002, he founded the ChinaAid Association. ChinaAid monitors and
reports on religious freedom in China and provides a forum for
discussion among experts on religion, law, and human rights in China.
Pastor Fu is frequently interviewed by media outlets around the world
and has testified at U.S. congressional hearings. He has also appeared
before the European Parliament and the United Nations. Pastor Fu holds
a double bachelor's degree from People's University and the Institute
of Foreign Relations, and he has taught at the Central Party School in
Beijing. In the United States, he earned a master's degree from
Westminster Theological Seminary, where he is now working on his Ph.D.
Wei Jingsheng, Chairman, Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition
Mr. Wei Jingsheng is a long-time leader of the opposition against
the Chinese Communist dictatorship. He was sentenced to jail twice for
a total of more than 18 years due to his democracy activism, including
a groundbreaking and well-publicized essay he wrote in 1978: ``The
Fifth Modernization--Democracy.'' He is a winner of numerous human
rights awards and the author of the book ``The Courage to Stand Alone--
Letters from Prison and Other Writings.'' After his exile to the United
States in 1997, he founded and has been the chairman of the Overseas
Chinese Democracy Coalition which is an umbrella organization for many
Chinese democracy groups, with members in dozens of countries. He is
also the president of both the Wei Jingsheng Foundation and the Asia
Democracy Alliance.
Wang Xiaodan (Danielle Wang), Falun Gong practitioner and daughter
of former political prisoner Wang Zhiwen
Ms. Wang Xiaodan was born in Beijing, China. Danielle Wang began
practicing the exercise and meditation system Falun Gong in her youth
with her father, Wang Zhiwen. In 1998, she moved to America for her
studies and the following year the Chinese Communist Party began its
persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This put her father in prison
and set her on the path of calling for help in hopes of rescuing him
for the next 17 years. He was released in 2014, but was denied exit
from China when Danielle and her husband attempted to bring him to the
United States in August 2016.
Rebiya Kadeer, President, World Uyghur Congress
Ms. Rebiya Kadeer is a prominent human rights advocate and leader
of the Uyghur people. She is the mother of 11 children, and a former
laundress turned millionaire. She spent six years in a Chinese prison
for standing up to the authoritarian Chinese government. Before her
arrest in 1999, she was a well-known Uyghur businesswoman and at one
time among the wealthiest individuals in the People's Republic of
China. Ms. Kadeer has been actively campaigning for the human rights of
the Uyghur people since her release from prison in 2005. She has been
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times since 2006. Despite
Chinese government efforts to discredit her, Ms. Kadeer remains the
pro-democracy Uyghur leader and heads the World Uyghur Congress, which
represents the collective interest of Uyghurs around the world.
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