[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHINA IN 1989 AND 2015: TIANANMEN, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND DEMOCRACY
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HEARING
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 3, 2015
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Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House
Senate
CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Cochairman
ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
TIM WALZ, Minnesota GARY PETERS, Michigan
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
MICHAEL HONDA, California
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
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Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S.
Representative from New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-
Executive Commission on China.................................. 1
Teng, Biao, a Well-known Chinese Human Rights Lawyer; a Harvard
University Law School Visiting Scholar; and Co-founder, the
Open Constitution Initiative................................... 5
Peng, Lisa, Daughter of Chinese Democracy Activist Peng Ming;
Freshman, Harvard University; and TEDx Speaker................. 7
Ho, Pin, President and CEO, Mirror Media Group................... 9
Horowitz, Michael, CEO, 21st Century Initiative, a Washington, DC
Think Tank..................................................... 14
Yang, Jianli, President, Initiatives for China/Citizen Power for
China.......................................................... 18
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Teng, Biao....................................................... 38
Peng, Lisa....................................................... 40
Ho, Pin.......................................................... 41
Yang, Jianli..................................................... 46
Smith, Hon. Christopher, a U.S. Representative From New Jersey;
Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.......... 56
Rubio, Hon. Marco, a U.S. Senator From Florida; Cochairman,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 57
Submission for the Record
Witness Biographies.............................................. 59
CHINA IN 1989 AND 2015: TIANANMEN, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND DEMOCRACY
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2015
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:02
a.m., in room HVC-210, Capitol Visitor Center, Representative
Christopher Smith, Chairman, presiding.
Also present: Representatives Randy Hultgren and Trent
Franks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chairman Smith. The meeting of the Commission will come to
order, and good morning to everybody. Thank you for being here.
Twenty-six years ago, the world watched as millions of
Chinese gathered to peacefully demand political reform and
democratic openness. The hopes and promises of those heady days
ended with wanton violence, tears, bloodshed, arrests, and
exile. Mothers lost sons, fathers lost daughters, and China
lost an idealistic generation to the tanks that rolled down
Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize the persistent and
brutal lengths the Chinese Communist Party will go to remain in
power. This event has done more to negatively shape global
perceptions of China than any other in recent history.
We remember the Tiananmen Square massacre here in Congress
because of its enduring impact on U.S.-China relations. We
remember it also because an unknown number of people died, were
arrested, and exiled simply for seeking universally recognized
human rights and freedoms.
We also remember Tiananmen Square because so many people
were arrested last year for trying to commemorate the
anniversary in China. We remember this date each year because
it is too important to forget and because it is too dangerous
to commemorate in the People's Republic of China.
The Chinese Government should allow open discussion on the
Tiananmen protests and end the enforced amnesia surrounding the
events of 1989, and more importantly, the Chinese Government
should take responsibility for this needless national tragedy
that occurred on June 3 and 4, and continued as people were
hunted down. Those who had fax machines were followed,
arrested, and incarcerated.
Sadly, it seems that a China led by President Xi Jinping
will not take such responsibility. President Xi and top
Communist Party leaders regularly unleash bellicose attacks on
universal values, Western ideals, and revisionism of the
Party's history.
The domestic screws on dissent have tightened considerably
since Xi Jinping assumed the presidency. Over 230 people have
been detained for their human rights advocacy and peaceful
efforts at political reform. A number of rights groups are
calling this the largest crackdown in two decades.
The Chinese Government rounds up not only reformers, but
those who defend them. It views most Uyghurs as security
threats and then jails Uyghur intellectuals peacefully seeking
ethnic reconciliation. It not only smothers Internet freedom
and its domestic media, but threatens foreign journalists and
spurs self-censorship from Harvard Square to Hollywood.
The Chinese Government also threatens foreign citizens or
foreign institutions who speak out for greater human rights.
The family members of Canada's Miss Universe, for example, were
threatened for her outspokenness about human rights.
Also, China's new and troubling NGO [non-governmental
organization] law could bar an American university from China,
or even detain its representatives in China, if a campus
student group stages a protest in the United States against the
Chinese Government's treatment of Tibetans, Christians, or
Falun Gong, the detention of Liu Xiaobo, or the criminal
tragedy of China's 35-year one-child-per-couple policy, with
its reliance on forced sterilization and forced abortion.
U.S. policy must support Chinese advocates who promote
human rights and political reform and stand firm for U.S.
interests and greater freedom and democracy in China. Our
strategic and moral interests coincide when we support human
rights and democracy in China. A more democratic China, one
that respects human rights and is governed by the rule of law,
is more likely to be a productive and peaceful partner rather
than a strategic and hostile competitor.
We should remember this fact as we watch China building
bases and threatening free and open sea lanes in the East and
South China Seas. The United States must also make strong
appeals to China's self-interest; the rule of law, freedom of
the press, and independent judiciary; a flourishing civil
society; and accountable officials who would promote all of
China's primary goals: economic progress, political stability,
reconciliation with Taiwan, good relations with America and the
rest of the world, and international stature and influence.
At the same time, the United States must also be willing to
use political and economic sanctions to respond to gross
violations of human rights in China, torture, prolonged and
arbitrary detention, forced abortions, psychiatric
experimentation or organ harvesting from prisoners.
That is why I introduced yesterday the China Human Rights
Protection Act of 2015, H.R. 2621. This bill will deny U.S.
entry visas and issue financial penalties to any Chinese
official who engages in gross violations of human rights.
I would note parenthetically that in 2000 I authored a
Foreign Relations Act and it contained a provision that we put
in that said that anyone who is complicit in forced abortion
and forced sterilization can be denied, and must be denied,
entry into the United States.
Sadly, the administration has not--and I repeat, not--
enforced that law. We will continue to ask them to simply
follow the rule of law here and preclude access to the United
States by those who abuse women in such a horrific way.
The United States must show leadership in this regard and
it must send a very strong message. The worst violators of the
rights of the Chinese people, those who abuse universal freedom
with impunity, should not prosper from access to the United
States and our economic or political freedoms. Again, this new
bill would cover all the gross human rights violators and,
again, preclude their entry to the United States.
It is tempting to be pessimistic about China's future and
the future of U.S.-China relations. I am not a pessimistic
person, but I am hopeful. Constant repression has not dimmed
the desires of the Chinese people for freedom and reform. While
the hopes of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators have not yet
been realized, their demands for universal freedoms continue to
inspire Chinese people today and it has passed on to a new
generation.
We have with us today participants of the Tiananmen
protests of 1989 and new generations of advocates for
democratic openness and for human rights. They fight for
universal freedoms. They fight for the release of their
families, their fathers. And they fight for reform and a future
China that protects human rights. It is the new generation that
will inspire change in China.
I believe that someday China will be free. Someday the
people of China will be able to enjoy all of their God-given
rights, and a nation of free Chinese men and women will honor,
applaud, and celebrate the heroes of Tiananmen Square and all
of those who sacrificed so much, for so long, for freedom.
I would like to now introduce our very distinguished panel
to this Commission hearing, beginning with, first, Dr. Teng
Biao, who is a well-known Chinese human rights lawyer, a
Harvard University Law School Visiting Scholar, and Co-founder
of the Open Constitution Initiative.
Dr. Teng holds a Ph.D. from Peking University Law School.
As a human rights lawyer, he is a promoter of the Rights
Defense Movement and a co-initiator of the New Citizens
Movement. In 2003, he was one of the ``Three Doctors of Law''
who complained to the National People's Congress about
unconstitutional detentions of internal migrants, and he has
provided counsel in numerous other human rights cases.
We will then hear from Lisa Peng, who is the daughter of
Chinese human rights and pro-democracy activist Mr. Peng Ming,
who was kidnapped in Burma by Chinese secret police and
sentenced to life in prison in 2004. Lisa is currently a
freshman at Harvard. She was born in Beijing and suffered
doubly as a second child by being denied official legal
recognition. As we all know, that is one of the ways that they
impose sanctions on those who have a second-order birth, as
they call it.
In 2000, her family fled the government persecution and was
accepted by the United States as UN refugees in 2001. Lisa
continues to work with the ChinaAid Association, the State
Department, and Members of Congress to advocate for the release
of her father and other prisoners of conscience.
We will then hear from Ho Pin, a journalist and director of
the News Department at Shenzhen News, who is originally from
Hunan and participated in the 1989 movement. Ho left China for
Canada after Chinese authorities started investigating him
because of his writings and analysis of political events in
China.
Ho Pin established the Mirror Media Group in Canada in 1991
and the Chinese news website Duowei News in 1999. Mirror Media
currently includes five independent publishing houses, five
magazines, three websites, a bookstore, and an online
bookstore. Ho Pin has worked in mainland China, Hong Kong, and
Taiwan with news as a reporter, editor, and executive.
We will then hear and welcome back for a return trip, a man
who has been a great staunch defender of human rights and a
great thinker, strategic thinker, Michael Horowitz, CEO of the
21st Century Initiative, who has led a broad range of human
rights coalitions and has played major roles in the passage of
such human rights legislation as the International Religious
Freedom Act, the North Korea Human Rights Act, the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act, and the Sudan Peace Act, just to name a
few.
Mr. Horowitz has been especially active on behalf of
Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Falun Gong believers, and Uyghur
Muslims. He has also provided vital assistance to the
organizations dedicated to fighting Internet censorship and
penetrating China's Great Firewall.
He served as general counsel of the Office of Management
and Budget during the Reagan administration and again has
provided this Commission and the Human Rights subcommittees in
both the House and the Senate with tremendous insight and
counsel over the many years.
We will then hear from Dr. Yang Jianli, who 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 the Chinese authorities for alleged
espionage and illegal entry.
Following his release in 2007 and his subsequent return to
the United States, Dr. Yang founded Initiatives for China, also
known as Citizen Power for China, a non-governmental
organization that promises China's peaceful transition to
democracy. Again, he, too, has provided tremendous insights
over the years to this Commission, as well as to the Human
Rights committees in the House and the Senate.
I would like to now ask Dr. Teng Biao if he would proceed.
STATEMENT OF TENG BIAO, A WELL-KNOWN CHINESE HUMAN RIGHTS
LAWYER; HARVARD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL VISITING SCHOLAR; AND CO-
FOUNDER, THE OPEN CONSTITUTION INITIATIVE
Mr. Teng. Thank you very much. Twenty-six years have
passed, but the killing did not end in 1989. Many interested
citizens labeled ``Tiananmen thugs'' have been executed in
custody and repatriation centers, detention centers, prisons,
reeducation through labor camps, and various black jails;
countless deaths have been due to state violence.
Citizens die at the scenes of forced demolitions or enter
the iron face of civil city management. Since 1999, at least
3,860 Falun Gong practitioners have been clearly tortured to
death. Since 2009, at least 140 Tibetans have self-immolated in
protest of the authorities' brutal domination.
As the activists are captured and tortured, the gunfire of
Tiananmen is echoing in the background. The Tiananmen massacre
sustained the Party system, since the Party showed its two
faces in 1989, and its rough treatment of the Chinese people
has become even more brazen.
Partly because of not having unions and not having the
freedom to assemble and go on strike, there is the advantage of
the lack of human rights through government collusion and
extreme eco-redistribution, China has achieved rapid economic
rise. But many social and political problems are behind this
economic growth: pollution, ecological crises, and widespread
unsafe food products, corruption, and clashes between citizens
and authorities.
The Chinese Government has never stopped its crackdown on
people's resistance. Since Xi Jinping came to power, he has
issued a harsh, comprehensive crackdown. More than 1,500 human
rights defenders have been arrested and detained. Some of them
were brave enough to promote political activities, but many
focus only on rural libraries, LGBT rights, and so on.
Internet censorship is increasingly strict. Document No. 9
reflects the severe control over ideology in universities, the
Internet, and the media. Gao Yu, a 70-year-old renowned
journalist, was sentenced to seven years, accused of leaking
state secrets.
Three important laws have been drafted and will pass soon.
The State Security Law, Ccounterterrorism Law, and Foreign NGO
Management Law. This law legitimizes human rights violations.
Foreign NGOs will be seriously affected and many will have to
leave China.
Public security bureaus inside of the civil affairs bureaus
will be given the power to ratify and supervise foreign NGOs.
The counter-terrorism law requires Western IT companies to
provide encryption keys and source codes.
More recently, a Uyghur Muslim was sentenced to six years
in Kashgar for refusing to shave off his beard and his wife was
imprisoned for two years for wearing a burqa.
The Panchen Lama has been disappeared for 20 years. Some
relatives and friends of Tibetan self-immolators were detained
and sentenced for assisting in the self-immolation.
Christian churches were destroyed and some pastors were
jailed. Falun Gong and other religious group members were
detained and tortured, imprisoned in legal education centers
and other black jails. Many lawyers were harassed when
challenging the legal education centers, with at least four of
them suffering broken ribs from beatings. More forced
demolitions have happened and petitioners are facing harsher
punishments than before.
In general, the current comprehensive crackdown is seen as
the worst since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. I do not
deny that there are some improvements and reforms, but the
major driving force for these changes and reforms has been the
people, as a result of probing, pressure, and prices paid by
the rights lawyers, democracy activists, and other human rights
defenders.
There must be something wrong with the petitioners and
business people. So as to not inflame the Chinese Communist
Party, they do not dare to meet with the Dalai Lama. To gain
Chinese markets, they disregard violations of human rights. To
receive large orders for goods, they, one after another, adopt
appeasement policies toward the Communist autocratic regime.
Democratic countries join in the AIIB [Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank].
Beijing watchers and the researchers self-censor, even to
the point that they defend despotism. But now is the time for
the West to re-think and adjust its policies toward China. A
strong, repressive political power is threatening not just the
Chinese people, but the entire world. Only promoting a truly
free China comports with the long-term interests of humanity.
The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] will not last forever,
but the Chinese people will continue to live on that soil. The
day will come when the United States must deal with today's
Chinese prisoners of conscience locked away and filled with
suffering, Liu Xiaobo, Xu Zhiyong, Ilham Tohti, Pu Zhiqiang,
and others.
Last, some recommendations. First, pass an act to prohibit
Chinese perpetrators who are responsible for human rights
violations from entering the United States and other democratic
countries. Support Chinese human rights defenders, political
prisoners, and real NGOs. Give a voice to permanent activists,
just as the West has done with the Dalai Lama, Liu Xiaobo, and
Hu Jia.
Stop the cooperation with the Chinese Government's
organized NGOs, or GONGOs, which are helping the Chinese
Government to suppress human rights and freedom, for example,
the All China Lawyers Association and the Chinese Human Rights
Association.
Make sure that the Confucius Institute, scholars and
students, federations and other government-sponsored programs
do not violate academic freedom and human rights. Punish the
American companies and individuals who have cooperated with the
CCP to suppress freedom and human rights. Help to develop
technology to circumvent Internet censorship.
After 26 years, the symbolism and meaning inherent in that
world-famous picture still needs understanding. A young person,
solitary, standing in front of a tank has communicated the
terror and blackness of tyranny and communicated the Chinese
people's brave resistance to tyranny. History will require us
to answer one question: Do we stand on the side of the tank man
or on the side of the tank? Thank you very much for hearing me.
Your ideas, your voices, and your votes will influence China
and bring more freedom and human rights to this planet.
Chairman Smith. Dr. Teng, thank you very much for your
testimony, for your very specific recommendations, and again,
we deeply appreciate, on the Commission, your input, especially
as we prepare the next iteration of our report, which hopefully
will bear truth to power and speak truth to power in Beijing
and anywhere else where there is a willing listener. So, thank
you so very much.
I would like to now ask Lisa Peng if she would provide her
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Teng appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF LISA PENG, DAUGHTER OF CHINESE DEMOCRACY ACTIVIST
PENG MING, FRESHMAN AT HARVARD, AND TEDx SPEAKER
Ms. Peng. Honorable Chairman and members of the Commission,
thank you for inviting me to testify at today's hearing on
Chinese authorities' treatment of democracy and human rights.
These are the values all of us here have the freedom to discuss
today, but the same values for which my father, Peng Ming, is
serving a life sentence in China.
Two years ago, I debated at the City Club of Cleveland's
High School Debate Championship on the topic of whether the
United States is justified in intervening in the internal
political processes of other countries to stop human rights
abuses.
Each year, the City Club of Cleveland provides two high
school debaters the opportunity to debate in a room
historically renowned for celebrating the freedom of speech. As
I researched the topic of human rights abuses in preparation
for the debate, I learned about the moral obligation of
countries to protect human rights and the fundamental role
human rights ought to play in foreign relations.
I realized that despite such a moral obligation, it is easy
to stand by as human rights are abused; it is easy to passively
accept human suffering. This topic was personal for me because
my father is serving a life sentence in a Chinese prison,
branded a criminal by the Chinese Government because of his
work advocating for human rights.
My journey to advocate for the release of my father and for
human rights in China began two years ago with a debate topic
that piqued my interest in learning about those rights and
about my own father. I had always known that I am his mirror
image and that we both share a love for the art of debate, but
beyond that I did not know much else; after all, my last memory
of him is from 11 years ago. Thus, I began to piece together a
timeline of my father's life and my family's journey of escape
to America.
My father is an environmentalist, an economist, and a human
rights activist. He is the author of ``The Fourth Landmark,'' a
book on China's economic and political growth that was
sponsored by the Ford Foundation. He was also the founder of
China Development Union, a think tank established to address
the censored topics of rule of law and human rights.
However, in 1999, the Chinese Government shut down his
think tank and sentenced him to 18 months of labor camp. His
crime? Passionately advocating for human rights and freedom in
China.
Upon his release, the government wire tapped our house,
began following our car, and even threatened my father with a
second arrest. It became too dangerous to continue living in
China and so my family decided to flee political persecution.
We eventually made it to Thailand, where we were granted UN
refugee status. On August 29, 2001, we landed in the United
States, the land that stood for us as a beacon of freedom,
human rights, and rule of law. For the first time, we
experienced freedom of expression and justice, not as values
confined to an underground think tank, but rather as values
championed by a nation.
In the United States, my father continued his human rights
work. In 2004, he went to Thailand to establish a safe haven
for political refugees. However, he was lured to Myanmar,
kidnapped by Chinese secret police, and quickly sentenced to
life in prison.
The UN Working Group for Arbitrary Detention has determined
that the deprivation of my father's liberty is in contravention
to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, my
father is a U.S.-based dissident with UN refugee status who
escaped political persecution in China, therefore, his
kidnapping is in violation of non-refoulement which forbids the
return of a victim of persecution to his persecutor.
My father has also been deprived of his right to due
process, as he was denied access to a lawyer and a jury of his
peers, rights we take for granted here in the United States.
That debate resolution two years ago prompted my journey to
discover who my father is and the values for which he stands.
While I had the privilege to debate in a room that celebrates
the freedom of speech, my father remains locked in a room built
to silence and punish prisoners of conscience.
It has been a decade during which I have been privileged to
receive an American education and learn about freedom,
democracy, and justice, but a decade during which my father has
remained in prison with no medical care for fighting to secure
those very same values.
As an American citizen, I cannot merely stand by and
passively accept the denial of these fundamental freedoms. In
the past two years, I have worked with Members of Congress to
advocate for my father's freedom and for the freedom of
thousands of other political prisoners in China.
Although the support from U.S. Congressmen has given me
great hope for my father's release, I know that his case is
only the tip of the iceberg. There remain thousands of
prisoners of conscience and innocent Chinese civilians who
suffer the same denial of basic freedoms. If we do not speak
up, there will remain no hope for human rights in China and
activists like my father will continue to suffer.
Sadly, the human rights issue is one that is easily ignored
in light of pressing economic and political concerns. China has
become the world's second-largest economy and a major trading
partner of the United States. Powerful economic interests want
us to turn a blind eye to China's human rights record.
Respecting America's values and standing up for human
rights has never been easy and it is not easy now, but is that
not what the promise of America is really about? Though I am no
politician or expert in this field, I have learned through
debate that human rights are the foundation from which
meaningful and effective discussions of economics and politics
must proceed. The values and interests are so often not just
parallel, but the same.
In fact, these are the same values and fundamental freedoms
on which our great nation was founded. As someone who was
rescued, raised, and educated by this country, I feel that I
owe the United States my utmost gratitude.
However, gratitude for one's country is not demonstrated by
passive acceptance of our country's actions, but in active
scrutiny. We show our love and gratitude for our nation by
holding it to the highest of standards, the standards on which
it was founded.
In doing so, I have realized that the issue of human rights
is not only political, it is personal. It is a personal
commitment to speak up, it is a refusal to remain silent, it is
acting on the principles that we read about, write about, and
talk about at hearings like these.
It is the efforts of the Congressional-Executive Commission
on China, Congressman Smith and Senator Rubio, who speak up and
take a stand on human rights that give me hope for the future.
They give me hope for the possibility of telling my father in
person how much we have all cared about him and his dream for
China's future. They give me hope for the possibility of
securing human rights in China and for paying the utmost
respect to the values on which our own great country was
founded, the values for which I hope it will always stand.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Peng, thank you so very much. I can
only say, as a father of two daughters just a little bit older
than you, your father has to be so very proud of you. Thank you
for, as you said, your refusal to remain silent. You have not
remained silent. Frankly, I would never want to debate you. You
really are very articulate and very persuasive. Thank you so
much.
We now will turn to Mr. Ho Pin for his testimony.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Peng appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HO PIN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, MIRROR MEDIA GROUP
Mr. Ho. Representative Smith and Senator Rubio, thank you
for giving me the opportunity to stand here today and to give
voice to a brave Chinese journalist, Ms. Gao Yu, who has
recently been imprisoned on fictitious charges for the third
time. The 71-year-old Gao Yu merely fulfilled her duty as a
journalist and shared the truth that she knew with the public.
Gao Yu's case is not isolated. More and more writers, thinkers,
and human rights lawyers are being illegally detained or
imprisoned. This includes the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu
Xiaobo, economist Ilham Tohti, writer Xu Zhiyong, lawyer Pu
Zhiqiang. The list goes on.
Over the years, many people have stood in this very spot,
urging the world to pay attention to China's human rights
abuses. But, this solitary light in the darkness has not been
able to illuminate China's blatant violations or pierce through
the smog shrouding all the injustices. Therefore, I do not want
to take that route again and focus solely on China's human
rights issues or to condemn the Chinese Government like others
have done before. I want to raise some questions instead.
With its deteriorating human rights records, why is China
getting stronger by the day? Why are Chinese leaders getting
more popular in the international community? Is China building
its national strength for the sole purpose of jockeying for the
number one position with the United States? Will China engage
in a war with the United States and its Asian neighbors such as
Japan and the Philippines? Will the world return to a cold war?
These are not new questions. American experts have already
provided some answers. Some scholars believe that there is a
secret ``bamboozling'' department within the Communist Party.
It has designed strategies that have successfully deceived the
world and gained China several decades of time to develop.
Some say the rule of the Chinese Communist Party is already
approaching its end and the regime is on the verge of
collapsing. Others claim that U.S.-China relations have
deteriorated to a critical point and that the United States
should throw China some candies to lure it back to the right
track.
So what are my views?
First, I believe that China has risen, and it has, as
advertised, risen peacefully. China is the world's No. 2
economy and has splashed huge amounts of investment across the
globe. Millions of wealthy Chinese travelers flock to every
famous tourist site and the most expensive department stores.
It would be impossible to close your eyes and ignore China's
rise. The only thing China has yet to achieve is the No. 1
position in the world.
At the same time, China's rise has not led to any wars.
Even though the Chinese Army has been acting like a belligerent
hormone-raging teenager in the South and East China Seas over
the last few years, I don't think the Chinese leadership has
plans or the desire to start a war in Asia. Especially when
they are not psychologically prepared to lose a war. The most
arrogant and bold military commanders can merely strike a pose
through minor incursions or the intimidation of the militarily
weak Philippines. With the exception of its strategic missile
defense systems, which aim to deter, rather than invade, the
Chinese army does not yet have the ability to project its power
around the globe. Even in the Pacific region, Chinese Navy and
Air Forces are not capable of a sustaining war against Japan
and the United States.
In other words, China lacks the ability to launch a large-
scale war in the Pacific theater in the foreseeable future, not
to mention launching a world war like Nazi Germany did. China
does not have the capability, nor the guts. It is not their
intention. There is no Adolf Hitler in China. More importantly,
the Chinese leadership does not see the necessity.
In addition, China has no plans to engage in a cold war
with the West, the United States included. The current
political system in China cannot be defined in conventional
terms. It is neither socialism, nor capitalism. It is not an
empire in the traditional sense. It is a mongrel. One of the
most famous maxims of Deng Xiaoping states that ``It doesn't
matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches
mice.'' Therefore, the end justifies the means. While this
pragmatic philosophy has contributed to China's rapid economic
growth, it also turned the Chinese political system into a two-
faced monster the likes of which one normally sees only in
computer games. Like the legendary cat that has nine lives, it
is adaptable and resilient.
As a consequence, many incomprehensible things have
happened--the ruling Communist Party has defied expectation and
lived on. The government can blatantly repeat something that is
universally acknowledged as lies. For example, the Communist
Party is promoting an anti-West agenda in its internal
documents. The Communist Party's propaganda machine distorts
truths about Western democracies to prevent the pursuit of
democratic values by its citizens and to threaten its citizens
who are trying to demand the rights to select their own
leaders, criticize their governments, and use the law to
protect themselves. On the other hand, the Communist Party has
long abandoned socialist theories. Many leaders are big fans of
Western democratic societies. They send their children to study
in the West or secretly help their relatives who intend to
emigrate. Some view the fact that they can visit the West as a
badge of honor. I have met and talked with many Chinese
officials when they traveled in the United States, and hardly
anyone was a true opponent of Western values. On the contrary,
they all agree that a democratic system can guarantee fairness
and bring stability to the country.
In other words, the Chinese leaders have no intention of
building another Berlin Wall. Neither do they plan to start a
cold war with the West. They have no desire to impose their
systems on the West because they cannot even define the kind of
political system China has. There is no Stalin in China and
nobody wishes to be his disciple. President Xi Jinping has
heaped praise on Putin, but his praise has its own purpose.
President Xi admires Putin's personal power. It is true that
the Chinese president stood side-by-side with Putin to inspect
the troops in the Red Square a few days ago, but that doesn't
mean that China and Russia can establish an alliance against
the United States. Mistrust of Russia by the Chinese Government
and people is deep-seated and hard to dispel.
Third, the conflicts between China and the West are not
about ideology or cultures. The mainstream religion, in China
has long served as a tool to unite all factions of society.
Religion, a tamed pussycat, is becoming an integral part of the
Communist Party. The Chinese are not capable of starting a holy
war against the West. They would not even dare. Nationalism is
nothing more than lip service. The Chinese leaders use this
type of neurotic nationalism to cover up their empty and phony
ideology. No leaders would want nationalism to become fanatical
and get out of control. Overheated nationalism could set the
house of the Party on fire.
If the above are true, why are we worried? We should not
only be concerned but also alarmed. It's not a matter of which
country will be the world's number one. The changes in China
will impact the world. If China can integrate itself into the
civilized world, in which people's rights and self-
determination are respected, the world will enter a new era.
Mankind can truly base their thinking and policies on a common
destiny. If the Chinese Communist Party, with its terrible
records on human rights and stellar results in economic
development, is allowed to continue, it will not only bring
disaster to the Chinese people, but also destruction to the
whole world. It is neither an actual war with weapons, nor is
it a cold war between two ideological camps. It is not a
conflict of cultures and value systems. China's mongrel and
pragmatic nature has made its system more adaptable and more
powerful. Its ability to destroy the world's political and
biological environments and to spread such destructive power is
beyond even its own expectation. A virus starts with just a few
patients. Soon, it spreads to every corner, causing a worldwide
outbreak. This is what China will do to the world--destroy the
very foundation of human freedom.
What I want to emphasize is that this is not what the
Chinese leadership envisioned 30 years ago. Neither is it the
political ambition of the current leadership. The current
situation is the consequence of human weakness, the short-
sightedness of politicians of the West, the insatiable greed of
unscrupulous capitalists, and the distorted social and
political structure in China. Together, they have created such
a virus, or at the very least, they have provided opportunity
for it to mutate and spread.
Two months after the Chinese Government brutally cracked
down on the student movement in China on June 4, 1989,
President George Bush provided prompt support for Deng Xiaoping
through his secret envoy. The collapse of the former Soviet
Union and East European Communism made many politicians in the
West complacent. They forgave and accepted the paranoid and
humble Chinese leaders. In return, Deng Xiaoping and his
successors initiated open door and economic reform policies.
These reforms did not bring any political progress. Instead,
China took advantage of the technology from Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and the West and the benefits of the WTO to boost its economy
at the cost of social equality and its environment. Once the
Communist Party strengthened its power through its strong
economy, it went on to undermine Western opposition to China's
human rights practices.
Now, the Chinese leadership practically does not care at
all about the pressure from Western public opinion because
politicians and businessmen from around the world are
salivating at China's immense purchasing power, investment, and
markets. It is no exaggeration to say that today, Chinese
leaders are the most well-received, honored guests in a
majority of countries worldwide; China is the destination for
many of the world's elite who thirst for gold.
Beijing tightly controls the freedom of the press. They
could cut off Google and Yahoo! anytime; they had refused visas
for New York Times journalists, and blocked access to Twitter
and Facebook. All without impunity. While at the same time,
they can set up any media they would like in the United States.
They provide free trips to Chinese language media chieftains in
the West to receive training in China, and they even hire
secret hackers to attack independent Chinese media outlets
overseas. Ironically, China, which screens, censors, and bans
any print and electronic publication, has been invited to serve
as the country of honor at book fairs in Frankfurt, London, and
New York.
Hollywood is the epitome of free American culture;
filmmakers are free to ridicule, mock, and criticize American
politicians and government officials such as senators, judges,
and the president, without fear of persecution. But in their
pursuit of China's box office dollars, Hollywood executives
have consciously decided to steer clear of any criticism of the
Chinese Government. Despite this, American movies are still
censored in China, and some are not allowed at all.
Given these circumstances, does China's leadership have to
risk it all and start a war? Does China have to close its doors
once again and restart the cold war against the West? They can
get everything they need and they can reject everything they do
not want.
The problem lies in the fact that the West pursues short-
term economic interests by ignoring the worsening of Chinese
people's rights. Western corporations scrambled to do business
with China regardless of the record of human rights violations.
A desire for profit with no social conscience encourages the
growth of this new style of politics in China. It is tantamount
to striking the core of every lesson Chinese officials learned
about conducting their political business worldwide. Meanwhile,
the cash that the Communist Party waves in their hands has made
it possible for the China virus to spread unencumbered in the
world, causing the value of Western freedom to grow weaker,
feebler, and more and more susceptible to illness.
China was never a threat before. It was the Western world
that has made the Chinese leadership think the West could
easily be threatened.
So what can we conclude? No one can figure it out, because
no one is consciously aware; to a certain extent, we have all
been infected by the virus. Otherwise, we would not feel so
confused and lost, so powerless. And because of our inaction
and complacency, Gao Yu, Liu Xiaobo, Ilham Tohti, Wang
Bingzhang, Xu Zhiyong, and Pu Zhiqiang are languishing in
prisons. Chinese citizens who died 26 years ago in Tiananmen
Square and now lie in the ground have turned into lonely ghosts
wandering in the wild. Dawn has yet to arrive in China. If we
continue along this muddy, murky road, we will also be
swallowed by the darkness.
The reason that I'm standing here today is that the scene I
saw 26 years ago in Tiananmen Square still has not faded from
my memory. I share the pain of those who lost friends and
relatives in Tiananmen Square. I firmly believe that things
could change if America were to wake up from its vacant and
passive view of China. America is not a narrow-minded
nationalist empire. America represents the values established
by people who pursue the dream of freedom. This means that
America is destined to be responsible for people who are
pursuing similar dreams in other countries. I am not advocating
war between China and the United States. I absolutely do not
want confrontation between China and the United States. I do
not think it is necessary for another Pearl Harbor to wake up
the American people. I hope that America will become the
driving force for democracy and human rights in China. The very
least we can do is to take actions that will not encourage the
continued growth of a dangerous political virus in China that
values cash more than freedom and human rights. We can, and
should, work to assure the Chinese people their dignity, to
assure a long-term friendship between the United States and
China, and to assure the security of the cornerstone of freedom
for the whole world.
Chairman Smith. Thank you so very, very much.
Without objection, I would like to put Mr. Ho Pin's April
28 New York Times op-ed, just a few days ago, into the record,
``Gao Yu's Real Crime.'' Without objection, so ordered.
We are joined by Commissioner Randy Hultgren. Randy, thank
you for being here.
We will now go to Michael Horowitz.
[The article appears in the appendix.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ho appears in the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HOROWITZ, CEO, 21ST CENTURY INITIATIVES, A
WASHINGTON, DC THINK TANK
Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an important
hearing because it sends a signal that efforts to cast the
Tiananmen massacre into the memory hole may not--hopefully will
not--succeed. You are keeping the flame, the candle,
flickering, and maybe more than that. That is the purpose of
this hearing, and it means a great deal.
It means a great deal not only because we remember and
think of the bravery and the courage of the people who stood up
for democracy, but Congressman Hultgren, I want to say to you
what I have said to Congressman Smith. It really gets to the
core strategic issue of the 21st century.
We talk about terrorism and we have got to focus on it, but
the 21st century will largely be defined by one question: Will
China become a democracy. If the answer is yes, we will compete
in terms of who builds better cars and computers.
If the answer is no, in a nuclear age particularly, the
risks will be extraordinary, and indeed as to terrorism there
will be a protector and defender and financier of terrorists
throughout the 21st century.
I worked in the Reagan administration when the United
States confronted the Soviet Union. I think the risks of China
remaining a dictatorship, for China itself and for the world,
greater by orders of magnitude than they were during the years
that Ronald Reagan tried to deal with the Soviet Union.
And so this hearing, and some of the people here are the
people standing for the hope that the 21st century will not be,
God forbid, bloodier than the 20th has been.
Human rights is the focus here, and what do we do? You have
heard from some of the witnesses, and I know about this in
personal terms. My wife, a physician, went to China last year
and was detained by the Chinese to give medical attention to Ju
Yufu, a man in jail for seven years for writing a poem.
I just heard yesterday the awful news and the marker of why
this hearing is important and attention is important. Ju Yufu's
wife visited the prison and her visits are being cut down. His
phone calls are not being permitted. They're not even giving
him medication for some of the grave medical conditions he's
confronting, including an aneurysm, vascular sclerosis,
enormously high blood pressure. He is at risk of death and the
Chinese are indifferent to that. And all these other cases--
Lisa's case of her father in jail.
Well, what does one do? Let us begin with the fact I
believe that China is the least ideological country in the
whole world, and that, for China, policy is made on a cost/
benefit analysis basis. If the costs exceed whatever benefits
they get for keeping North Korea alive, for keeping Lisa's
father in jail, if those costs exceed the benefits, China will
change its policy. Ronald Reagan understood that that's how
dictatorships operate and that was the basis on which he dealt
with the--I love the word former--former Soviet Union.
So the first thing it seems to me that needs to happen is
that we must raise our voices about these human rights cases,
as Ronald Reagan raised his voice about the Soviet Refuseniks
and Pentecostals. Add to that, Congressman Smith, your visit to
Perm Camp No. 5. These were the kinds of things--they were not
just blowing in the wind, they were powerful political forces
that ultimately changed history.
Today's silence flies in the face of an American history
where Theodore Roosevelt complained about Soviet pogroms, and
Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter raised human rights issues. The
fact that we have abandoned that history sends a signal to
China that it is free to keep these people in jail. We are a
country with a history where values and interests have been
closely aligned and when we move away from that equation,
dictatorships understand that they are free to do whatever they
want.
So we do not even have the option of silence. Silence is
not a neutral factor, it is a negative factor, and has great
negative weight. So speaking out counts and we can make things
happen when we do. I wish this President did so more and
understood what he could gain by doing so.
The second thing regarding China is, I think, to focus on
the United Nations. We provide--we write the check for, what,
25 percent of its budget. Lisa has talked about how her father
is a designated refugee by the United Nations, entitled under
international law to be free.
The fact that he is in jail is in naked, open Chinese
violation of its UN treaties. This violation is even more
particularly important as China remains the force that keeps
North Korea alive. North Korea is Tiananmen every day. Its
regime stays alive because of the Chinese Government. Well,
there is leverage that we have. The United Nations has been
silent and appeasing of China as, in violation of law, China
sends back North Korean refugees to death camps.
Why do we not use our leverage on the United Nations
through the appropriations process to speak out? There is
evidence that the China-UN treaty actually gives the United
Nations the right to take China to binding arbitration. I have
talked to the High Commissioner for Refugees and they are
scared stiff of doing that.
Well, that is because China is applying the pressure and we
are not. We have leverage to move the United Nations to be a
force speaking out against China's treatment of political
dissidents and North Korean refugees. It will make a great
difference if we do that.
Now let me get to the big one, the Chinese Internet
firewall. Do not take my word that it is the big one. Hu Jintao
has said that if China cannot maintain the ``purity of the
Internet,'' it cannot maintain the ``stability of the socialist
state.''
Tens of thousands of China's ablest IT people are at work
in its firewall bureaucracy, and China spends billions of
dollars to keep its Internet firewalls going. Such firewalls
are the Berlin Walls of the 21st century. It is not bricks and
stones and barbed wire as much as it is electronic firewalls
that isolate and control millions of people in the world's
closed societies, and very particularly in China.
Now I know Congressman Smith knows this, but Congressman
Hultgren, the Board of Broadcasting Governors [BBG] gets $750
million a year and we cannot get them to allocate $20 million
to hold an Internet firewall breakthrough competition. That is
less than 3 percent of its budget.
We cannot get the State Department to do it. We have given
money for Internet freedom and that money has gone down a hole
and has had no immediate effect. But a $20 million breakthrough
competition mandated under the FY 2016 appropriations bill,
which the State Department can fund via access to the Economic
Support Fund [ESF] could make history.
If State and the BBG split the cost of such a competition,
it would take 0.1 percent of the ESF and 1.5 percent of the BBG
budget. Instead, the BBG now thinks its core mission--in the
21st century--is as a radio operation and dedicates 95 percent
to radio and little to Internet firewall circumvention. And it
does so with the GAO [Government Accountability Office] saying
$150 million of its spending is duplicative.
I have friends at the BBG and know that there is an
internal struggle to move the agency into the 21st century, and
they are good people. But the present bottom line is what
Senator Tom Coburn said: That the BBG is ``the most worthless
organization in the Federal Government.'' That is saying an
awful lot. We cannot get them to hold a competition to achieve
an Internet freedom breakthrough.
Now, why is that important? Hear me, Congressman Hultgren.
The two most senior people at the Board of Broadcasting
Governors have said in writing that $20 million would be ``very
likely'' to achieve such a breakthrough, and they have been
even more affirmative in private conversations. They
acknowledge that $20 million will permit, within eight months,
the following: 25 million closed society residents a day would
have access to the same Internet that you and I have. The
President of the United States would have an at-will capacity
to speak to the people of any country at any time of his
choosing on their cell phones.
Now to get to this hearing: 500,000 house church Christians
in China would be able to participate in a worship service
hosted in the United States and do so interactively. We could
have 200,000 Iranians in a town meeting in and out of Iran and
we could do it within eight months for 0.1 percent of the ESF
and 1.5 percent of the BBG budget, where 20 percent of it right
now is spent for waste and duplication. This is the real stuff
of history and we can make it happen.
Congresswoman Granger sits on the Appropriations Committee
for the BBG. Under the current appropriations bill, the FY 2015
bill, the BBG is clearly authorized to do this. Well, a letter
was sent two years ago by former Congressman Wolf, whose role I
hope you will take, Congressman Hultgren, as the amigo to Chris
Smith standing up for human rights. He can almost do it alone,
but not quite. Frank Wolf wrote that letter, along with Roy
Blunt and Jean Shaheen and John Boozman to the BBG saying, do
that $20 million competition.
So we really need to achieve Internet firewall
breakthroughs--and you have seen demonstrations of what field-
tested systems can do, Congressman Smith.
And by the way, the State Department was asked why we are
not doing this and the answer was because China would ``go
ballistic'' if we did. Internet firewall circumvention is the
most cost-effective peaceful means of advancing American
national interests and it has not happened.
Now, let me just say, if I may, that people like former
Senator Joseph Lieberman understands this, as does former
Congressman Frank Wolf. They have seen demonstrations of what
can be done just to scale up field-tested systems that have now
survived billion-dollar attacks by China. It is just a question
of getting more IP addresses and servers for those systems.
We can have 25 million by May 2016, at the latest. Let us
assume that somehow it does not happen. How in the world can we
not spend $20 million as against the Chinese spending tens of
billions of dollars and the Iranians the same? We have dropped
out of a peaceful war that the Iranians and Chinese say is
critical to their survival.
So I hope from out of this hearing will come renewed
determination. Let me add that Senator Lindsey Graham writes
the checks on the Senate side and I hope he, too, will play
that role to allow a free Internet to make history. I think it
is there to be made. Taking China's word--not mine, not anyone
else's--taking Iran's word, can allow for the Berlin Wall of
our time to be peacefully brought down.
That is what we can do to honor those people who are now in
jail, Lisa's father and all the people in those photos over
there, and I hope it will be done. Thank you for hearing me.
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Horowitz, for that
very impassioned and insightful presentation. I, too, have seen
the demonstration, about a three-hour demonstration on how the
Great Firewall can be pierced. It is gross negligence on our
part that we have not availed ourselves of that technology and
others that do exist or potentially could exist and the $20
million, as you said, is a mere drop in the bucket.
The reason for the ``no,'' I do believe, is that there is
that undue fear, a cowering, if you will, by BBG and others
where they do not want to infuriate the Chinese dictatorship.
It is just that simple. If we pierce, as you said, the modern-
day equivalent of the Berlin Wall, although 21st century, it
could make a huge difference. So, thank you.
Dr. Yang?
Mr. Horowitz. May I just say one thing for the record? You
spent three hours watching the demonstration, Congressman
Smith. I do not want to frighten other Members of Congress into
thinking it will take that long to learn what can be done. We
could not stop you from taking the three hours. We wanted to
leave the room and you wanted to see more of the demonstration,
but I would say we could do it in 20 minutes. If we can get
some of your colleagues to watch this demonstration for 20
minutes they would understand how close we are to making
history.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.
Dr. Yang?
STATEMENT OF YANG JIANLI, PRESIDENT, INITIATIVES FOR CHINA/
CITIZEN POWER FOR CHINA
Mr. Yang. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Commission. Thank you for hosting this important hearing.
Today we the panelists want to cover three distinct but
related points. First, when it comes to Tiananmen, why we must
never forget and why we must counter, as your Commission has
persistently done, China's desperate attempt to infect both its
people and the outside world with amnesia about these tragic
events.
Second, we want to stress the need to pierce the facade of
President Xi Jinping's phony reforms. Third, we want to address
the ultimate question of what can the Congress and the
administration do to strengthen human rights and democratic
values in China?
Since both my long written statement and my fellow
panelists have covered the first two, I will focus on the third
in the rest of my opening remarks. After the Tiananmen
massacre, Americans of all political persuasions and faiths
joined in the protest of the slaughter of innocents.
Their outreach showed that human rights issues are not
partisan issues, but when it came to trade relations with China
there was a big debate. One side of the debate led by
Representative Nancy Pelosi asserted that U.S. trade relations
with China must be linked to China's human rights record. This
idea was embodied in Pelosi and Mitchell's legislation in 1993.
When President Clinton reversed the policy in
Representative Pelosi's proposal, he made a terrible mistake.
The reversal was based on the theory which was widely upheld by
corporations, columnists, pundits, and policy makers that trade
would inevitably result in more political freedom and
guaranteed basic human rights. In order to test that confident
prediction, Congress established this Commission which
Congressman Smith chairs.
Under its mandate, the Commission has annually examined
just how much China's economic growth and interaction with the
world has led to real civil liberty and political freedom for
its citizens and each year the Commission's clear conclusion
has been: not very much.
That finding is consistently echoed in the annual human
rights records of the State Department, U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom, international human rights
groups, and by the testimonies of my fellow panelists today.
The lessons are very clear. We must abandon the delusion
that economic growth will bring human rights and democracy in
China in the foreseeable future. Instead, Americans of
conscience should insist that their government confront China
on human rights issues. They should demand that their
government openly condemn China's violation of basic human
rights and demand the release of its prisoners of conscience.
They should express support for those in China briefly
asserting or defending the human rights of others and receiving
brutal punishment for their good deeds, They should support
such congressional bills as the China Human Rights Protection
Act that you, Congressman Smith, just introduced yesterday, and
the Global Magnitsky legislation that you and Representative
McGarver introduced earlier this year.
We applaud and fully support these worthy initiatives, but
in closing I would like to suggest you carefully consider
another proposal that is at the same time more fundamental.
Congress should pass a simple, short and sweet China Democracy
Act.
We, Initiatives for China, recently hosted our 10th annual
Inter-Ethnic Inter-Faith Leadership Conference. It was attended
by a great many members of faith groups, ethnic minorities, and
advocates in China and abroad of democracy, civil liberties,
and human rights.
At its conclusion, we passed a resolution which I want to
expand on today. It calls on Congress to enact a China
Democracy Act, recognizing that advancement of human rights and
democracy in China is in America's national interest and
calling for an annual assessment of whether the American
Government is advancing or actually undermining those goals.
In the early 1990s, I and many others believed that it
would take only a few years and not much outside physical
assistance from the U.S. Government to achieve those goals. But
we over-estimated how soon those briefly resisting in China
could educate the people about the need for a peaceful
transition when their voices were being silenced by prison and
brutal torture and their speech was blocked by modern
technology.
At the same time, the Chinese Government has never stopped
discrediting China's democracy movement with the claim of
American policy to provide it with secret assistance. In fact,
the U.S. Congress has never passed something as simple as a
China Democracy Act, stating American policy to advance human
rights and rule of law and democratic values in China. It is
shocking to me that there is no such law at the present time.
That brings me to the resolution proposed by our conferees
a few weeks ago for the China Democracy Act. This would not be
a non-binding resolution. Instead, it would be binding
legislation flatly stating congressional judgment that
advancing human rights and democratic values in China is
decidedly in America's national interest.
That precludes the currently widespread but inaccurate
claim that the Congress must balance on the one hand its claim
to support the universal value of human rights and on the other
hand America's national interests.
The bill also would require a report from the President to
Congress every year on how government programs, policy, or
action during the prior 12 months has strengthened human rights
and democratic values in China and, equally important, how any
program, policy, or initiative has weakened human rights and
the democratic values in China.
All Federal departments of government, every single one,
should have to report on what they are doing to bring democracy
to China by advancing human rights and the rule of law there.
The act also put them on notice to take no action, adopt no
policy, and implement no program that would undercut the
democracy movement or weaken human rights in China.
Such a China Democracy Act and annual presidential report
would give us a better idea of what success we have had so far,
what caused them, and how we should increase the financial
resources and deploy them to promote democracy and human rights
in China. Without such legislation, I very much doubt we will
be on track and on course to succeed in what we dreamed of back
in 1989.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Dr. Yang, thank you very much, again, for
your steadfast support for human rights defenders and for
democracy and freedom in China for all of these years, for the
personal sacrifice you have made, and for this recommendation.
As you know, with the China Human Rights Protection Act, it
would specifically sanction Chinese Government officials,
create a China human rights documentation center for NGOs [non-
governmental organizations], and require a report to Congress.
So I think we are paralleling, but any additional ideas you
might have on how we can beef that up, I think you just, in
your written testimony, have provided some of that. We will
absolutely take it into consideration. So, thank you for that
very important input that you have provided.
Let me just ask a couple of questions and I will yield to
my good friend and colleague, Commissioner Hultgren.
First, Lisa Peng, when you testified before the committee,
my subcommittee a couple of years ago before Xi Jinping's first
trip, you and the other four, five daughters in total--we
actually called it the five daughters. It was a hearing of five
daughters, all of whom--and Michael, you will remember that
hearing very, very well--have a dad who is incarcerated, is a
human rights defender, and you were all very eloquent that day,
as you were again today.
You had asked--all of you had asked--to meet with President
Obama and I will never forget. It was so touching. You said,
``Well, he has two daughters, he will understand and he will
listen to us when we make an appeal on behalf of our fathers.''
We tried for six months through letter, phone calls, and every
other way we could think of to get the President to meet even
for 15 minutes with the five daughters, and Xi Jinping came, a
missed opportunity if ever there was one when he was here.
But he will be coming again and I will again reach out to
the President. I hope he will hear that appeal that he meet
with you and the other four daughters before he again meets
with Xi Jinping to raise the cases of your dads.
So we will do that by way of letter, we will include your
testimony from today, and then the other five testimonies from
that last hearing. You know what the answer was that we got
back from the President of the United States, which I find
absolutely appalling? He said--or they said on his behalf--he
does not have the time.
When you say you do not have time for something, you have
not stated a fact, you have stated a priority. The fact that
five wonderful daughters was not a priority, that needs to
change and the President needs to find his voice. I am glad--
when it comes to human rights--I do not care who is in the
White House.
I have never shied away, and I have been here 35 years.
When there was a Republican that was being neutral--and there
is no such thing as being neutral. I think your point, Dr.
Yang, a moment ago about pushing forward or not, neutrality is
being on the side of enabling and complicity. I was very glad
that you pointed out, Ho Pin, in your testimony--I believe it
was yours. Let me just find it again--yes.
When you talked about how George Bush sent a special envoy.
It was Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor, to reassure
Deng Xiaoping that we were okay maybe not with what was
actually happening, but that we would not create ripples and
problems.
When Frank Wolf and I went a couple of years ago to Beijing
Prison No. 1 where Tiananmen Square activists, 40 of them with
heads shaved, looked just like a concentration camp from the
news reels from the 2nd World War in Nazi Germany, very gaunt
men who were doing slave labor in Beijing Prison No. 1, 40 of
them were Tiananmen Square activists. Even then we thought, how
could President Bush have reassured the dictatorship that all
is well?
As you also pointed out, it was Clinton, Dr. Yang, who
first linked most-favored-nation status with progress,
significant progress--operative phrase--with regard to human
rights and then infamously de-linked it when there was
significant deterioration which gave the cue, gave the nod to
the dictatorship that profits trump human rights every day of
the week.
So to me, that was a reneging that said that it was not a
priority for us. We need to regain our voice and we need to do
smart things like Mr. Horowitz is advocating to break the
Chinese firewall. Again, we will ask again that the President
meet with you and with the other four daughters, five in total,
to bring up these issues.
I would point out for the record that on June 25 we are
going to be chairing--in my subcommittee, I am going to be
chairing--a hearing on American universities in China and
academic freedom. We have invited NYU and they have said
``yes.'' It has been a year--in invitations--for them to come.
Dr. Jeffrey Lehman will be testifying, as will others, to
raise this issue of whether or not we are on the side of
promoting democracy, human rights, and freedom or whether or
not we are enabling the dictatorship in that country and
actually making them even more effective in their dictatorship
and their repression.
Mr. Horowitz?
Mr. Horowitz. Congressman Smith, may I make one
recommendation to you as in advance to the Xi Jinping visit?
Get in touch with George Schultz, would be my recommendation.
He tells this great story of Reagan's great breakthrough of
when the Soviet Ambassador came to him and said, ``What is
going on with your boss? I try to talk to him about ruble
stabilization and nuclear war and whatnot, and all he wants to
do is talk about Jewish Refuseniks and Pentecostals. I can't do
any business with him.'' And Schultz, who was very shrewd, said
``I have got the same problem. If you want to deal with Ronald
Reagan you have got to start releasing Pentecostals and you
have got to start treating Refuseniks differently.'' Of course,
that happened and with it cracks began to develop in what was
thought to be a 10-foot thick Russian Iron Curtain wall.
So former Secretary Schultz, one of the most distinguished
Americans, understood what speaking out for dissidents in
dictatorships can produce. I think if he could speak out and
tell the story about this simple bargaining 101 strategy and
its effectiveness, he could be a great ally before the Xi visit
if you could get him to tell that story.
Chairman Smith. That is a great story. The lessons learned
from the Soviet Refuseniks and the Jewish Refuseniks is a great
one. I went to Moscow many times during the Soviet dictatorship
and Schultz always met with the dissidents first, then met with
his Soviet interlocutors. We have asked President Obama to do
the same thing on his trips to China: meet with the dissidents,
listen to them, provide an umbrella of protection and concern
and empathy for their plight.
Mr. Horowitz. But here is the point: Even if you did not
empathize a fig about fingernails getting pulled out of pastors
or life sentences of dissidents like Lisa's father and so
forth, history teaches you that if you want China--Reagan
understood this with the Soviet Union--to talk about weapon
systems, to talk about all the bilateral issues that the State
Department regards as important, the best bargaining technique
to make this happen is to start talking about human rights.
They then change the subject and start to bargain on those
other issues.
So the lesson to be learned here is that this is not just--
they put your efforts down, the efforts of the three of you
here, as some knee-jerk reaction. That is very nice, thank you
very much, they tell you, but we are big boys talking about the
big issues, and human rights controversy gets in the way.
They do not understand history in the way Ronald Reagan did
and the way it has happened, in the way Teddy Roosevelt talked
about pogroms on the Soviet Union in 1900. Human rights
advocacy is a great power tool to get dictatorships to start
coming to terms on all the issues. They fear it most, are most
vulnerable, if we talk about human rights. So it is a
Bargaining 101 issue here and it is that history that ought to
be communicated to the Obama administration, I think.
Chairman Smith. Before yielding to Commissioner Hultgren,
let me just say, Dr. Teng, you made a very profound statement
when you said ``History will require us to answer one question:
Did we stand on the side of tank man or on the side of the
tank? '' That is just very profound and unfortunately I will
not even say the jury is out; we have enabled and stood on the
side of the tank as a society and as a government.
Mr. Hultgren?
Representative Hultgren. Thank you. So good to be with you.
I appreciate the incredible work that all of you are doing. I
also am so honored to be with two of my heroes. Chairman Smith
just is a tireless fighter for life and for freedom and for
human rights. It is so powerful. And my good friend Trent
Franks as well. Both are incredible mentors to me and it is a
privilege to be a part of this Commission and know that we
will--absolutely can and will--make a difference together. So,
thank you.
I have a couple of questions, if I could. I apologize, I
had a couple of hearings this morning and so missed some of the
early statements, but wanted just to follow up on that.
Dr. Teng, I wonder if I could ask you quickly about current
crackdowns on freedom of speech, association, assembly, and
religion that have begun after Xi Jinping took office, and why
do you think this crackdown has been so severe?
Mr. Teng. Thank you. Yes. As I have mentioned today, the
Internet, universities, the NGOs, human rights defenders are
facing a very severe crackdown. First, we can see the Communist
Party feels the ideology increasing, especially as we analyzed
Document No. 9.
We can feel the Communist Party is fearing the possible or
the potential color revolution so much and they think the
Western NGOs, the Western information, media, universities are
influencing Chinese intellectuals as well as ordinary people.
Besides the ideology crisis, we know that the Party is also
facing a lot of social and political problems that clashes
between the people and the comments and the Xinjiang Uyghur
area and Tibetan area and the gap between the poor and the
rich.
Many, many mass protests are related to corruption or
pollution or land-taking. So superficially we can see that the
Communist Party is very, very strong and powerful and
confident, but in reality obviously the Party feels insecurity.
They are not confident. Thank you.
Representative Hultgren. Thank you.
Ms. Peng, thank you for being here. I want you to know,
certainly for myself and others, your father and your family
are in our thoughts and prayers and we appreciate so much your
strong voice certainly fighting for him, but for others as
well.
I wondered--and again, I apologize I was not able to hear
your testimony--if you could just give a brief update to me and
to others, and if you have already covered this I apologize,
but how your father is doing, his health, is he getting proper
food and care? When was the last time you communicated with
him, and what your sense is of his current condition?
Ms. Peng. Thank you for being here today. My father is
still suffering from poor health with no medical care. He has
suffered from many heart attacks, kidney stones, bronchitis,
arthritis. He has been serving his life sentence for the past
11 years and, frankly, it is a miracle to me that he is still
surviving and motivated to continue to live.
I think this is because he has faith that the United States
will stand for its own values, the same values for which my
father fought. I think he has faith that the United States will
understand that its values and its interests are one and the
same, and for that he continues to exercise, to write, and to
do whatever he can to push through.
His courage to continue to live is what inspires me to
continue advocating for his freedom here in the United States
because if he who has spent 11 years in prison can still have
hope that the United States will stand for its values, then I
certainly do. Like Mr. Horowitz said, I think it takes
Bargaining 101. I think it requires the United States to speak
up, to mention the names of people like my father, to use to
its advantages China's contempt for international law.
In fact, China has made it easy for us, the United States
and the international community, to take action and make a case
for political prisoners like my father, because much of what
they've done is illegal, even according to their own law. For
example, my father is a U.S.-based dissident with UN refugee
status who fled persecution, so his arrest in Myanmar by
Chinese police violates the principle of non-refoulement. He
was denied his right to due process, he has suffered the past
11 years from no medical care, and his requests for medical
parole have all been ignored. So I think China's contempt for
rule of law makes it easy for us to support cases like my
father's and to bring up his name.
Representative Hultgren. Well, thanks. Your father, his
example, certainly is inspiring and quite honestly convicting
to me and to us, as well. I know we can, and need to do and
must do, more. So thank you again for being a part of this and
being here today.
Can I have time to ask one more question? Is that okay?
First of all, before I have a question, Mr. Horowitz, thank
you. I am in, whether it is the 20-minute version or the 3-hour
version I definitely want to. Let us schedule that and maybe
see if we can get some other colleagues to join in as well,
because that is to me, again, unconscionable and, with such an
incredibly small investment, the world change that could happen
with that, so I definitely want to see that.
I wonder if I could just kind of wrap up, I guess, Dr.
Yang, just to ask quickly. It appears many human rights
advocates and legal defenders in China also belong to religious
institutions that exist outside of state control. I wonder if
you could discuss how China's religious communities play a role
in fostering human rights awareness and political reforms.
Mr. Yang. Thank you for your question. Before I answer this
question I want to follow up with Teng Biao's answer to your
previous question just now. There was a New York Times article
a few days ago. The title is, ``China's Security Laws Elevate
the Party and Stifle Dissent.'' Mao would approve. ``Mao would
approve'' means China is on the way back to the Cultural
Revolution. Mr. Ho Pin, in his opening remarks, mentioned Gao
Yu.
Gao Yu, for your information, is a 71-year-old journalist
who was charged with leaking state secrets. What she gave out
to the international media actually was the CCP's [Chinese
Communist Party] Document No. 9, which actually states the
seven no-speaks or seven perils. I will just give you an idea
of what is in it.
The seven perils are: constitutional democracy, press
freedom, market economy, universal values, civil society,
independent judicial system, and CCP past mistakes. So you can
see that censorship has been brought to another level ever
since Xi Jinping assumed his leadership.
Back to your question. The religious groups are playing a
very important role in China. There is no civil society, nor
any independent organizations allowed in China. The Chinese
Government is suspicious of any organization because if people
organize they can do more than individually. An organized force
is always a threat to the Chinese Government.
But you understand that religious groups are so committed,
they are more committed than other civil groups, so they come
together and become a very important force, demanding freedom.
So they may just begin with a freedom of religion approach, but
in the end they will help China liberalize in other fields as
well. I will just give you one example.
There is a house church organization which is very big in
China, especially in Beijing. When their members form NGOs on
environmental issues, for example, the Chinese Government tries
to target them. But when they understand that there is a big
religious group behind them, they will be more careful dealing
with them.
So I think religious groups are playing a very important
role. But at the same time, religious groups have received
persecutions, severe persecutions in the past two decades.
Falun Gong practitioners are the most severely persecuted in
the past two decades, so we cannot forget them and we should
continue to advocate for the imprisoned religious people in
China.
Representative Hultgren. Is it okay if Mr. Horowitz
comments just quickly?
Mr. Horowitz. I really do apologize, but I think this is so
central. I am doing it because Congressman Franks is here and
you have been the leader on the issue of religious persecution,
and very particularly in China.
I want you to know that in doing so you are not just out
there protecting Christians, you are making a difference for
human rights throughout China. When we first, with Congressman
Smith and former Congressman Wolf, tried to pass the
International Religious Freedom Act [IRFA], the New York Times
was saying how could these right-wing Christians be out there
speaking for this minority sect when all these great Chinese
human rights heroes--I forget, senior moment, the name of the
great one who was in jail for like 15 years. Wei Jingsheng--and
the columnist at the New York Times said why aren't they
focused on Wei Jingsheng?
Well, Wei Jingsheng got out of jail while we were trying to
pass the IRFA bill and he became its No. 1 advocate. He did so
because, he said, if the word goes out to the Chinese people
that the regime cannot even burn down a church, there will be
freedom for political dissidents, for artists, for everybody in
China. That was exactly the story of what protecting
Pentecostals and the Soviet Refuseniks did. It sent out the
word that there was freedom for everybody.
I am a Jew who has worked on Christian persecution. I am in
such awe of these Christian groups in China and the leadership
and the courage they exercise, and the fact that they are the
spear points for freedom for everybody.
I will just tell one last story of a major figure--I do not
want to name her--in Chinese human rights efforts. She was
very, very successful in China in the fashion industry and she
tells the story about how she thought her life just was hollow.
She was making money but, she said, ``but I do not want to wind
up with lots of pretty dresses. There's more to life than
that.''
So a friend of hers said, ``Why don't you go to church? ''
And she said, ``Oh no, come on, no church for me, I'm not into
that sort of thing.'' The friend bugged her and finally she
went to church. She said when she went in that church in China,
a house church, she said, ``For the first time in my life in
China I walked in a room and everybody was smiling.'' She had
never seen that. She has become a very devout, quietly
committed Christian whose bravery emanating from her faith has
her dealing with one-child policies, and dealing with all sorts
of human rights advocacy.
So your question could not be clearer that when we--when
you, Congressman Franks--protect religious leaders who are
persecuted in China, you are protecting every atheist in China,
every activist in China. That is what history tells us and that
is what is happening in China right now.
Representative Hultgren. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. I would like to yield to Chairman Franks.
Commissioner Franks serves as Chairman of the Constitution
Subcommittee on the Judiciary, but he also is the Chairman of
the Religious Freedom Caucus in the House.
Representative Franks. Well, it would be better if I left
the room because I cannot improve the circumstances here on my
behalf at all. I appreciate the kind words. I just say to you
that I know that it seems obligatory always, but I truly
believe that Chris Smith, when it comes to human rights in the
Congress, is the four-star general. He is the man that when
people ask me about something, sometimes they get a blank stare
and I say, ask Chris. He has been a hero of mine for a long
time. I have watched Congressman Hultgren ever since he has
been here. He has always been on the side of human dignity and
freedom.
Let me just say, while we are walking along that road,
those of you that have been activists for human rights and
human dignity and human freedom on China, I do not think you
could possibly understand the importance of your role because
you bring to the whole world the recognition inside a country
that is not known for human rights.
You are bringing the whole world the reality. If you win
China today, you will win the world tomorrow. You have an
opportunity to be a catalyst for the most profound kind of
change and I just cannot express to you the affection and the
respect that I feel for you for that commitment.
Not to patronize you, Mr. Horowitz, but when you made the
comments a moment ago about the notion if we focus on human
rights, that sometimes it drives our potential partners to the
table on some of these other issues. I have got to be very open
with you, that never occurred to me.
I always thought, well, when you speak of human rights you
are speaking of the greater issue because if we can create a
collective, introspective examination of these countries, their
own heart, that maybe that will change things in a big way and
we will not be adversaries. But still, your words spoke very
powerfully to me and I found them extremely compelling and I
was embarrassed that it had not occurred to me before because I
could not agree with you more.
When we speak of the true foundational issues in some of
these countries that have an intrinsic--not only a fear of
discussing that, but a recognition of their own failure in that
regard, it pushes them over and at least we get some efficacy
in our discussion with them.
Then one other thing I would mention and then I will have
one question for everyone. That is the whole notion, again, Mr.
Horowitz--that he mentioned, when we talk about religious
freedom it is the cornerstone of all other freedoms. If we have
religious freedom, out of it flows free speech and a lot of
other wonderful things.
Countries that practice religious freedom do not find
themselves at war with each other most of the time. They do not
find themselves enemies of the human family. Those who practice
religious freedom do not suggest that we have no differences,
they simply suggest that we can be kind and decent to each
other in spite of those differences. It is, in my judgment, one
of the great hopes of humanity. Again, no one practices that
more than you.
So I would have one question for all of you. I did not mean
to give a speech, Mr. Chairman, but I have one question for all
of you. In a very brief way so that we can kind of take
advantage of the time here, because I believe that you all have
a collective and a derived wisdom here and understanding of the
real challenges we face, you can apply it to China or to the
greater cause of religious freedom and human rights.
If you could say to America one brief thing that you think
we should either know as a people or do as a people to
ameliorate this tragedy of people across the world not having
the recognition for the fact that they were created in the
image of God, this human dignity that is intrinsic to all human
beings, this religious freedom, this freedom to be human, could
you just give me your top line thought and then I will turn it
back to the Chairman with gratitude.
Mr. Biao, first. Dr. Teng?
Mr. Teng. Yes. I would say that religious freedom is the
most fundamental of human rights and I hope that the United
States and Western democracy can mediate and take strong action
to punish the perpetrators of violating religious freedom, to
stop these perpetrators from entering the Western world.
Representative Franks. Have any thoughts?
Ms. Peng. I would say that the reason we should care about
religious freedom in other nations, not just in our own, is
that the fundamental freedoms that come from religious freedom,
are the values on which our nation was founded. In order to
respect our own values and to hold our own actions to the
highest standards, we need to continue to promote religious
freedom and other freedoms in other nations. So in a sense this
is about what we can do to respect our own nation's values as
much as it is about promoting freedoms around the world.
Representative Franks. Thank you.
Mr. Ho. My sentence would be that if human rights freedom
in China cannot be improved, then America's foundation on human
rights and freedom would be also impacted. It will bring the
erosion of U.S. freedom. In this New York book fair, the
Chinese officials put out their books. In China, you do not
even have the freedom to publish books, but the Chinese
officials can bring their own books to a book fair in New York.
Representative Franks. Thank you.
Mr. Horowitz. Can I just modestly shift the question? I do
not think the issue is reaching the American people, I think
they are reached. I do not think the issue is reaching Members
of Congress. For the most part, they are reached and those who
are not do not dare vote the other way. The real question is
congressional strategy that can be effective. I think we send
the wrong signal when bills get introduced and they do not get
passed. It tells China they are scot-free.
So I have a very specific suggestion as a former general
counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. I hope that
you, Congressman Smith, can gather together 40 or 50 Members
and come up with a package that is effective but doable in the
FY 2016 appropriations bill when you take up the State Foreign
Operations appropriations bill.
Yang Jianli has talked about an annual report. Requiring it
is the sort of thing that can go in an appropriations bill,
which can do the very thing Jianli wants done in his stand-
alone bill. I think that a provision in the coming FY16 bill
that does not merely authorize but mandates a break-through
competition for Internet firewall circumvention would be
another provision that could go in a reform package.
Something else would deal with the United Nations saying
that the United Nations must do X to enforce its treat, which
China regularly breaks. That is the tool, in my judgment, to
get Lisa's father out of jail, to force China to live up to its
treaty obligation, to get the United Nations much more
aggressive on that score. I would be happy to work--and many of
us would be happy to work--with a small group to help produce
such a reform package.
But if you could get 50 Members, bipartisan, Congressman
McGovern, others, on a bipartisan basis to approach Speaker
Boehner, Congressman McCarthy, Congressman Rogers,
Congresswoman Granger and the House leadership and say this is
what we have got to have in the FY 2016 foreign operations
appropriations bill, the leverage you could exercise and the
reforms you could achieve would be enormous.
I think you can put some very historic things in the FY
2016 bill. You have got Congresswoman Granger who starts on
your side, and Congressman Rogers for sure on your side. So I
think that by just working effectively, quietly at the
beginning, you can promote religious freedom and liberty with
powerful tools, signals, and real actions that will not involve
just talking. And you can do it within the next month or so in
the FY 2016 appropriations act. Thank you.
Representative Franks. Well, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we
can follow up specifically and practically and definitively and
proactively--and use all these other kind of words--I mean, in
other words, seriously about this because I think the man makes
a lot of sense.
Mr. Horowitz. You just whistle, I will be there.
Dr. Yang Jianli.
Mr. Yang. Thank you, Congressman Franks, for your question.
As a Christian, I understand how important religious freedom
is. It is so important that people can find the source of their
conscience and also they can act according to the convictions
of their conscience.
In China, there is no religious freedom. At this point I
want to bring to your attention what is happening in China. The
Chinese Government has been making great efforts to demolish
churches in a few provinces, mostly in Zhejiang province. That
happened because the Party Chief saw the church was taller with
the cross. It is taller than the Party Committee's building so
he felt jealousy of the influence and jealousy of power, so he
ordered the demolition of many churches in Zhejiang province.
So that gave us an example that a one-party system can
never guarantee religious freedom. That is something we try to
change in China. At this point I want to mention to you,
Congressman Franks, before you leave that I think America has
had lost opportunities in the past two decades to change China
right after the cold war.
The mistake was made simply because what I called the
compartmentalization of policies which put human rights against
national interests of the United States. So today in my opening
remarks I emphasized advancing human rights and democracy in
China is in America's interests.
Representative Franks. Absolutely.
Mr. Yang. There is no such law in this country to say it,
to regulate the Federal Government's work in that regard. I
bring with me today two books. One is by former Congressman
Barney Frank and another is by former Secretary of Treasury
Henry Paulson. Both books talk about the case that they worked
together to get my freedom, how they worked together, one from
Congress, the other from the executive branch. They worked
together.
Actually, they got my release when Secretary of Treasury
Paulson went to the first U.S.-China Strategic Economic
Dialogue, which is not about human rights on the surface, but
in the meeting he mentioned my case and pressed the Chinese
Government to release me, he said, literally said, ``This case
is very important for me. If you want to continue the dialogue,
you have to respond.'' Then they responded and released me just
two weeks later.
Representative Franks. Yes.
Mr. Yang. So that is the example. That shows how the
congressional members, the Congress and the executive branch,
can work together for human rights even on occasions which on
the surface are not human rights issues related.
So what I advocate is we have to end compartmentalization
of American policies and to link every single work of the U.S.
Government to human rights because it is in the interests of
this country. Thank you.
Representative Franks. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have come to a lot of your hearings and
they are always very insightful, but I think this one has been
especially so and I hope we follow up on what Mr. Horowitz and
some of the others have said. Thank you for your commitment.
Thank all of you.
Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I apologize for talking so
darned much, but this is such a rich hearing. I agree with you.
I cannot let Jianli discuss his imprisonment without telling,
very quickly, a little bit about him. He had a five-year
sentence in jail, much time in solitary confinement.
This man wrote poetry in his own mind while he was in
solitary confinement and he published it afterward. But what
happened was, the Chinese said after a period of time, ``We
will let you out and as soon as you get out of prison we are
going to kick you out of the country.''
He said--and this is the bravery of these dissidents like
Jianli--``Well, you cannot tell me when to leave my country. It
is my country. I will leave when I think the time has come.''
``Well,'' they said, ``that is okay but we will stick you in
jail for your full term.'' He said he was ready for that. I do
not know, he probably served another year or so in jail just to
send that signal of freedom and independence and patriotism.
But it also sends the message that this dangerous guy--and
the Chinese knew how dangerous he was--got released when a
Secretary of the Treasury said quietly we ought to do it.
I would say one other thing on the religious side. Xi
Jinping may be making a strategic mistake. He is going a little
too far. He is not being shrewd here.
On the religious side, one thing that ought to be on the
table at this hearing is that the Three Self-Patriotic
churches, which used to be held out as patriotic Chinese
believers supporting the Communist regime, they are now being
subject to persecution so that the Three-Self churches and the
House Church movements are working together and becoming
allies--and this is a great movement that is happening and
developing in China.
As Congressman Smith knows, both are now on the same side
more and more which creates a critical mass of protesters so
that the power of the Christian community and the Falun Gong
and the Uyghur community is greater than it has ever been
because Xi Jinping is taking persecution one step too far. So
the work you are doing has an even more fertile possibility of
changing China and making history.
Representative Franks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. Just let me conclude with one or
two final questions and a comment. First of all, we do meet
again today to remember the sacrifice, even unto death, of
those people and those who endured severe injury and have
suffered decades of incarceration on behalf of internationally
recognized human rights.
Tiananmen Square could have been the turning point for
China. I believe that the spirit of Tiananmen Square, of the
students who were there, inspires, as I said in my opening,
everyone, including the Congress, to never let up, never lose
focus that the people of China absolutely yearn to be free and
deserve to be free. When we enable a dictatorship, we then
become complicit in their misery.
Let me also say that Xi Jinping--and I read that article in
the New York Times as well and was again disturbed by this race
to the bottom of Xi Jinping--it seems as if he is seeking to
channel Mao Zedong and to emulate the excesses of that man and,
of course, to the great detriment of the Chinese people.
But when we talk about what can be done, what can you say
about a country that continues to incarcerate the best and the
bravest and the brightest of China, as it did with Dr. Yang and
as it is with your dad and so many others? It still holds in
jail the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.
The world cannot forget that, and we will not forget it,
certainly, on this Commission. Many of us in Congress will not
forget that, or his wife who has suffered, kind of like being
jailed herself because of that incarceration.
I would call on the administration again to enforce the
law. China gets the designation ``Country of Particular Concern
[CPC]'' and there are 18 or so specific prescribed sanctions
that can be meted out because of their extreme violation of
religious freedom and the persecution of believers of all
kinds.
And as you said, the Falun Gong get a special set of
repressive measures meted out against them. Yet, the only
sanction that the administration continues to use is almost
like a double-hatted sanction, the Tiananmen Square sanctions
on military cooperation and technological transfers, while
there are several other sanctions that ought to be imposed upon
the PRC because of their designation ``CPC.''
They ought to be Tier Three under the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act, the law that I sponsored. There is no doubt
that they have become the worst violator in a number of human
trafficking cases, largely attributable to the one-child-per-
couple policy and the lack of women because women have been
systematically exterminated through sex-selection abortions.
They were Tier Three for one year and had an automatic
downgrade, and then were replaced back up to the Watch List,
which I thought was a very cruel misdesignation on the part of
the administration because Tier Three could need more sanctions
when it comes to the atrocity of human trafficking.
There is a visa ban in effect. I wrote it [the ban] in
2000. They are not enforcing it for those who are part of the
cruelty of the one-child-per-couple policy. Less than 30 people
have been sanctioned years-to-date since 2000.
New laws. We need those. We need them now and we will work
hard on those. Michael, as you know, there are always interests
starting at the White House and the State Department who are
loathe to put anything that looks like a sanction on the
country of China, so we have huge obstacles to overcome there.
I would ask all of you in conclusion, if you could--and
again, there are opportunities. We interface with the Chinese
and with leaders there, but it is not the same as the executive
branch. They are the designated hitters, if you will. They are
the ones who are empowered by our Constitution to be the point
people, the President being the number-one person, to talk with
and to meet with presidents and prime ministers.
There is an executive meeting going on, at the end of this,
on economic issues, a dialogue. The human rights issues, Dr.
Yang, need to be incorporated. That is at the end of this
month. Very often, they are hermetically sealed away from all
other talks. Remember, Hilary Clinton said it.
It was an insight into the modus operandi of this State
Department when she said she is not going to let human rights
interfere with global warming issues and peddling U.S. debt
through Treasury bills to the Chinese on her first trip to
Beijing as Secretary of State. I am fearful that there might be
a perfunctory mention of, oh, human rights, let us put an X in
that box and get that off the table. Names have to be tendered.
This Commission has the best prisoners list, and I applaud
our staff for the tremendous work that they do in compiling,
vetting, and ensuring that political and religious prisoners
and their case stories and their families are all compiled in a
way that is actionable. That needs to be conveyed to the
Chinese at every meeting.
My question to all of you in conclusion is that the
President will be meeting with Xi Jinping, as we all know. When
he met with Hu Jintao, it was an utter failure the first time,
especially when they had the joint press conference and a
reporter asked about human rights and Hu Jintao had trouble
understanding the question through some alleged technical
difficulty. The President jumped in and said, ``Oh, but they
have a different culture in China and a different political
system.''
It was so bad that the Washington Post wrote a scathing
editorial that said, ``Obama Defends Hu on Rights'' and said
``the culture understands human rights.'' That is why the
gulags, the laogai, are filled to overflowing with people like
Dr. Yang and so many others, your dad, who have suffered to
ensure that those rights someday are respected in the People's
Republic of China.
The other point was a political system. It is a
dictatorship. Let us call it for what it is. So what would all
of you say to the President when he meets with Xi Jinping? What
should he say to him? Should he hand him a list and say, come
on, Mr. President, it is time. Join the 21st century. These
people are good people. They love your country. They are
patriots in the greatest sense of that word and they just want
human rights and fundamental freedoms respected. What would you
say? Dr. Teng, we will start with you.
Mr. Teng. Yes. If I have a chance to talk to President Xi
Jinping I will tell him, stop the persecution of human rights
activists and release all the political prisoners and prisoners
of conscience and start the process of democratization or there
will be no future for the Communist Party, there will be no
future for the Chinese people. If the Chinese Communist Party
still commits more crimes against universal values, it will be
punished definitely in the future.
Ms. Peng. I would say to the President, who seems so eager
to preserve multi-culturalism around the world, is that one
man's cultural diversity is another man's life sentence, his
denial of medical care, his denial of basic liberties, his
being torn apart from his family.
But I would also note that the ``culture'' the President
bends over backward to appease, is not the culture of the
Chinese people. The culture of the Internet firewall, violating
internal law to kidnap political prisoners, denying freedoms--
that culture that the President tries to ``respect''--is the
culture of the Communist Party.
I think if he really were in the interest of respecting
cultures, as he says, he would do well to realize that one
demonstrates respect for another culture not by tacitly
consenting to anything they do, such as imprisoning human
rights activists, but rather by holding those cultures to the
highest of standards. That to me is the expression of the most
genuine and truest respect for another culture.
Chairman Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Ho. Xi wants to come to the United States for
recognition of China-U.S. relations as a relationship between
two powerful countries. But if Obama accepts this relationship,
Obama will also accept China's violation of human rights.
During the Jiang Zemin era, Clinton met with him and
established this strategic partnership relation and actually
gave a weapon to them for violating human rights--it was a
mistake and gave them a weapon for violating human rights. We
do not want Obama to repeat this mistake. Thank you.
Mr. Horowitz. I have a wonderfully ironic point but it
would be the most ultimate strategic point that I would urge on
the President to say to Xi Jinping. I think he should say:
``You know the greatest source of power that any
government can have is for its currency to be the
world's trading currency. It means that if you are the
world's trading currency you can run your printing
press and just print pieces of paper and the rest of
the world gives you goods and services.
``Well, Mr. Xi, as long as you have an absence of human
rights and religious freedom in China, it does not
matter what our debt to you will be, it does not matter
how much your GNP goes up and how much ours may go
down, the dollar will have no competitor because the
world will not cede to you the kind of respect and
authority that the dollar has and allow the RMB to be
its trading currency.
``You want to compete with us for world power? Release
Lisa's father.
``The power that the release of dissidents would have
and the power you have in terms of being a more
powerful factor in the 21st century by implementing the
agenda of this Commission is greater than all of your
defense spending in terms of what China will be in the
world.
``No matter what happens to your economy, the world
will never cede to you the kind of power that America
has. When you become a democracy, when you implement
human rights, you will be a much tougher competitor to
the United States.''
I think that would be such a strategic way of the President
saying, become a democracy, compete with us, and even if you
win some trade competitions, the world and the United States
will be in better shape.
All these dissidents who are accused by the regime of being
anti-China, they are the greatest pro-China people in the world
because once human rights is implemented in China, China can
project its economy and its economic strength into world
respect in ways that all of the armies and navies it may put
together never will.
Mr. Yang. I would urge the President to convey a very clear
message to President Xi Jinping that how the Chinese Government
treats its own people matters to the relationship of the two
countries because the American people care. They care, so as
President I must care because America is a democratic country.
There is no normalization of so-called new power relations if
China is not on the way toward democracy. If there is no
progress of human rights, there is no normal relationship
between the two powers.
It would be remiss of me if today I do not mention a group
of Chinese students studying in this country who were born in
the 1980s and 1990s and who recently signed an open letter to
their counterparts in China, calling on them to pursue the
truth, the truth about the massacre and pursue democracy and
freedom in China. That shows the failure despite its best
effort on the part of the Chinese Government to infect amnesia
about the tragic events and the failure to brainwash the
younger generation.
That also shows democracy, freedom, and human rights are
not a gift for one generation, it is a common, universal desire
for all human beings. Here at the hearing I want to thank them.
I want to thank them because they give us hope. Thank you again
for your leadership. I lost count of how many times I have
testified at the hearings you hosted. Ever since 1996 when
China's defense minister came here, you hosted the first
hearing on China's human rights; 15, 16, 17, 20 hearings. I
lost count. Thank you very much for your leadership.
Chairman Smith. Well, Dr. Yang, this is my 52nd hearing on
human rights in China.
Mr. Yang. Fifty-second? Oh, my God.
Chairman Smith. And the hearing you mentioned--and again,
it is so apropos to this hearing. You recall and you were so
eloquent that day. Chi Haotian, the defense minister of China,
was here, got a 19-gun salute at the White House, was at the
Army War College, and was feted as a respected diplomat, even
though he was the Butcher of Beijing, the operational commander
who sent in the tanks.
We called on President Clinton to repudiate that and he
would not, so then Chi Haotian, as you recall so well, went to
the Army War College and a mid-level officer asked about how
many people died at Tiananmen Square, and Chi Haotian said no
one died at Tiananmen Square. He thought he was in Beijing
where the big lie would be amplified by the local media.
So we put together a hearing in two days, and you
testified, as did some others. We had a person from the
People's Daily who actually reported on it and then got into
big trouble, went to prison himself, and others who saw what
went on.
The Time Magazine correspondent who watched from his
balcony as people were killed. We invited Chi Haotian or
anybody from the Chinese Embassy to sit there and tell us their
side of the story, and they refused so we had an empty chair.
But that denial, which the students are speaking to students
back in China about, you can only suppress the truth for so
long.
As Michael Horowitz has said, when the Internet finally
opens up widely, the truth about Tiananmen Square will be well-
known and the agony suffered by so many will be well-known.
That will be part of the reform process. But you were eloquent
that day and I will never forget it.
Mr. Horowitz?
Mr. Horowitz. As we are closing, I cannot not do it without
complimenting you and your leadership, however uncomfortable it
may make you, Congressman Smith. This is a lesson in history.
You have these hearings and how you do not get discouraged is
almost beyond me, because people say, ``Oh, another hearing,
who cares, you're not making a difference, the `big' issues are
moving forward and not yours.''
Well, I lived in Mississippi when the University of
Mississippi Law School was first integrated. I have watched
what has happened in Eastern Europe. People think that history
is a process of gradual progression until it reaches a point
and things change.
That is not how history is made. History is a flat-line
that declines a little bit from time to time, but keeps alive
because a handful of people just keeping a torch lit, keep a
little flame flickering, and they go on and on and on with
people saying, ``Why are you wasting your time? '' And then,
overnight, everything changes and people say, ``How did it
happen? '' Overnight not gradually, what was impossible becomes
inevitable. I saw it in Mississippi, we saw it in the Soviet
Union.
People who used to talk about freedom in the Soviet Union
were put down, why are you bothering me with Captive Nations
Week resolutions when we have got to negotiate nuclear treaties
with this power that is going to be around for a thousand
years.
So I have to say about your leadership in keeping that
flame of freedom flickering, that there will come that
overnight day that dictatorships will fall and people will say,
``Where did this come from? We never assumed that it would
happen.'' When it does, your leadership, in my judgment, will
have been an irreplaceable component of that development, and
it is going to happen. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. I beg to differ. It is the people at this
table that are making all the difference in the world, and the
people that are incarcerated and struggling every day in China.
But thank you so much.
I appreciate it again. We will continue on. Our next
hearing, as I said, is on June 25. It will be in my
Subcommittee on Human Rights and it will be on campuses like
the NYU campus in Shanghai and others, whether or not that is a
help or a hindrance. So thank you so much.
We remember with prayer and deep awe those who suffered at
Tiananmen Square for a new China where freedom and democracy
flourish. God bless you all.
Without objection, the opening statement by Senator Marco
Rubio, our Cochairman, will be made a part of the record.
Thank you so much.
The hearing is adjourned.
[The prepared statement of Senator Rubio appears in the
appendix.]
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m. the hearing was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Teng Biao
june 3, 2015
It's Time To Change China Policy
influence of tiananmen massacre
Twenty six years have passed, but the killing did not end in 1989.
Many innocent citizens labeled ``Tiananmen thugs'' have been executed.
In custody and repatriation centers, prisons, reeducation through labor
camps and various black jails, countless deaths have been due to state
violence. Citizens die at the scene of forced demolitions, or under the
iron fists of city management. Since 1999, at least 3,800 Falun Gong
practitioners have been cruelly tortured to death. Since 2009, at least
140 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest of the authorities' brutal
domination. Cao Shunli was tortured to death because of her
participation in the Universal Periodic Review at UN in Geneva on
behalf of independent citizens. As activists are captured and tortured
and underground Christian churches and other religious groups are
persecuted, the gunfire of Tiananmen is echoing in the background.
The Tiananmen massacre sustained the one-party system. Since the
Party showed its true face in 1989, its ruthless treatment of the
Chinese people has become even more brazen. Partly because of not
having unions and not having the freedom to assemble and go on strike,
there is ``the [economic] advantage of the lack of human rights.''
Through government-business collusion and an extremely unequal
redistribution, China has achieved its rapid economic rise.
But many social and political problems are behind this economic
growth: pollution, ecological crises and widespread unsafe food
products threaten this generation and later generations. Extremely
unequal income distribution causes China to become one of the countries
with the greatest wealth disparity. Corruption spreads viciously.
Clashes between citizens and authorities are increasingly intense. It
is ever more difficult to see hope for solutions to the problems of
Uyghurs and Tibetans.
the recent comprehensive crackdown
The Chinese government never stopped its crackdown on people's
resistance. Since Xi came to power, he issued a harsh comprehensive
crackdown. More than 1500 human rights defenders have been arrested and
detained--some of them were brave enough to promote political
activities, but many did not touch politics. Environmental protection,
LGBT rights groups, feminist NGOs, rural libraries, think tanks--so
many NGOs have been shut down. Some lawyers were disbarred, jailed,
tortured and disappeared. Some lawyers are facing disbarment.
Internet censorship is increasingly strict. Influential writers and
bloggers are silenced or even jailed. VPNs are controlled and Gmail is
blocked. Document No.9 reflects the severe control over ideology in
universities, internet and media. Gao Yu, 70-year-old renowned
journalist, was sentenced to seven years, accused of leaking state
secrets.
Three important laws have been drafted and will pass soon. The
State Security Law, Counter-Terrorism Law, and Foreign NGO Management
Law. These laws are abusive by nature and these laws give ample room
for abuses. These laws will empower the domestic security forces and
state security cadres. Foreign NGOs will be seriously affected, and
many will have to leave China. Public security bureaus, instead of
civil affairs bureaus, will be given the power to ratify and supervise
Foreign NGOs. The Counter-Terrorism Law requires western IT companies
to provide encryption keys and source codes.
Very recently, a Uyghur Muslim was sentenced to six years in
Khashgar for refusing to shave off his beard, while his wife was
imprisoned for 2 years for wearing a burqa, as part of a severe
crackdown on religious ``extremism'' in Xinjiang.
The Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima has been disappeared for 20
years. Some relatives and friends of Tibetan self-immolators were
detained and sentenced for assisting in the self-immolation.
In Zhejiang and other provinces, local authorities destroyed many
crosses and Christian churches, and some pastors were jailed. Falun
Gong and other some religious groups' members were detained and
tortured in prison and Legal Education Centers (an extra-legal
detention system). Many lawyers were harassed when challenging the
Legal Education Centers, with at least four of them suffering broken
ribs from beatings.
Forced abortion and forced sterilization are still widespread, even
though there was a slight loosening of the one-child policy.
More forced demolitions have happened, and petitioners are facing
harsher punishment than before.
In general, the current comprehensive crackdown is seen as the
worst since the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.
I don't deny that there are some improvements and reforms. In
enumerating progress being made in China's legal system, people have
pointed out the lower number of death sentences, the new criminal
procedure law, the abolishment of reeducation through labor, reform of
the local court system, the government's willingness to provide
information, and the ongoing anti-corruption campaign. To begin with,
it is questionable whether or not most of the above are actually
progress in the legal system. Even if they are, the major driving force
for these changes has been the people, each a result of the probing,
pressure and price paid by rights lawyers, democracy activists, and the
countless Chinese on the lower rungs of society. It is really
ridiculous that some people think the credit should go to the dictators
and perpetrators of human rights abuses. The meaningful progress of the
past two decades is the growing civil society.
rethink china policies
There must be something wrong: so as to not inflame the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), they do not dare to meet with the Dalai Lama. To
gain Chinese markets, they disregard violations of human rights. To
receive large orders for goods, they one after another adopt
appeasement policies towards the Chinese Communist autocratic regime.
Democratic countries join in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Beijing watchers and researchers self-censor, even to the point that
they defend despotism, to please the Party, or to not lose cooperation
projects with China, or scared they won't get a China entry visa.
Confucius Institutes, scholars and students federations supported by
Chinese Embassies, and other government-sponsored programs, have eroded
western academic freedom.
But now is the time for the West to rethink and adjust its policies
towards China. A strong repressive political power is threatening not
just the Chinese people, but the entire world--economically,
politically, militarily and spiritually. Only promoting a truly free
China comports with the long-term interests of humanity. Before China
is democratized, the world will not be safe. The CCP won't last
forever, but Chinese people will continue to live on that soil. The day
will come when US must deal with today's Chinese prisoners of
conscience locked away and filled with suffering, Liu Xiaobo, Xu
zhiyong, Ilham Tohti, Pu Zhiqiang, and others.
recommendations
Pass an act to prohibit Chinese perpetrators who are responsible
for human rights violations from entering the US and other democratic
countries. The Magnitsky Act is a good example.
Support Chinese human rights defenders, political prisoners and
real NGOs. Give awards to prominent activists, just as the west has
done with the Dalai Lama, Liu Xiaobo and Hu Jia.
Stop the cooperation with Chinese government-organized NGOS--or
GONGOs--which are helping the Chinese government to suppress human
rights and freedom. For example, the All-China Lawyers Association and
Chinese Human Rights Association.
Make sure that the Confucius Institutes, scholars and Students
federations and other government-sponsored programs do not violate
academic freedom and human rights.
Punish the American companies and individuals who help or cooperate
with the CCP to suppress freedom and human rights. Yahoo is one example
when it provided clients' information to Chinese state security,
leading to the long-term imprisonment of several Chinese intellectuals.
Help to develop technology to circumvent internet censorship.
After 26 years, the symbolism and meaning inherent in that world-
famous picture still need understanding: a young person solitarily
standing in front of a tank, it communicated the terror and bloodiness
of tyranny, and communicated Chinese people's resolute and brave
resistance to tyranny.History will require us to answer one question:
Did we stand on the side of the Tankman or on the side of the tank?
Thank you very much for hearing me. Your ideas, your voices and
your votes will influence China, and bring more freedom and human
rights to this planet.
______
Prepared Statement of Lisa Peng
june 3, 2015
Passive Acceptance, Active Scrutiny
Resolved: The United States is justified in intervening in the
internal political processes of other countries to attempt to stop
human rights abuses.
This was the 2013 topic at the City Club of Cleveland's Annual High
School Debate Championship featuring Lincoln-Douglas debate, a one-on-
one form of debate centered on the morality and ethics of a value
proposition. Each year, the City Club of Cleveland provides two high
school debaters the opportunity to debate in a room historically
renowned for celebrating the freedom of speech. As I researched the
topic of human rights abuses in preparation for the debate, I reflected
on the moral obligation of countries to protect human rights and the
fundamental role human rights ought to play in foreign relations. I
learned that despite such a moral obligation, it is easy to stand by as
human rights are abused; it is easy to passively accept human
suffering. This topic was personal for me because my father, Peng Ming,
is serving a life sentence in a Chinese prison, branded a criminal by
the Chinese government because of his work advocating for human rights.
My journey to advocate for the release of my father and for human
rights in China began two years ago with a debate topic that piqued my
interest in learning about those rights and about my own father. I had
always known that I am his mirror image and that we both share a love
for the art of debate, but, beyond that, I did not know much else.
After all, my last memory of him was from eleven years ago. Thus, I
began to piece together a timeline of my father's life and my family's
journey of escape to America.
My father, Peng Ming, is an environmentalist, an economist, and a
human rights activist. He is the author of The Fourth Landmark, a book
on China's economic and political growth that was sponsored by the Ford
Foundation. He was also the founder of China Development Union, a think
tank established to address the censored topics of rule of law and
human rights. However, in 1999, the Chinese government shut down the
think tank and sentenced my father to 18 months of labor camp. His
crime? Passionately advocating for human rights and freedom in China.
Upon his release, the government wire-tapped our house, began following
our car, and even threatened my father with a second arrest. It became
too dangerous to continue living in China, and so my family decided to
flee political persecution.
We eventually made it to Thailand, where we were granted UN Refugee
Status. On August 29th, 2001, we landed in the United States, the land
that stood for us as a beacon of freedom, human rights, and rule of
law. For the first time, we experienced freedom of expression and
justice not as values confined to an underground think tank, but rather
as values championed by a nation.
In the United States, my father continued his human rights work. In
2004, he traveled to Thailand to establish a safe haven for political
refugees. However, he was lured to Myanmar, kidnapped by Chinese secret
police, and quickly sentenced to life in prison. The United Nations
Working Group for Arbitrary Detention has determined that the
deprivation of my father's liberty is in contravention to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, my father is a U.S.-based
dissident with UN refugee status who escaped political persecution in
China. Therefore, his kidnapping is in violation of the principle of
non-refoulement, which forbids the return of a victim of persecution to
his persecutor. My father has also been deprived of his right to due
process, as he was denied access to a lawyer and a jury of his peers,
rights we take for granted here in the United States.
That Lincoln-Douglas debate resolution prompted my journey to
discover who my father is and the values for which he stands. While I
had the privilege to debate in a room that celebrates the freedom of
speech, my father remains locked in a room built to stifle and punish
prisoners of conscience. It has been a decade during which I have been
privileged to receive an American education and learn about freedom,
democracy, and justice, but a decade during which my father has
remained imprisoned for fighting to secure those very same values. As
an American citizen, I cannot merely stand by and passively accept the
denial of these fundamental freedoms.
In the past two years, I worked with members of Congress, written
op-eds and essays on my father's story, and testified before the Taiwan
Parliament, the European Union Parliament, and the United States
Congress to advocate for my father's freedom and for the freedom of
thousands of other political prisoners in China.
Although the support from US congressmen has give me great hope for
my father's release, I know that his case is only the tip of the
iceberg. There remain thousands of prisoners of conscience and innocent
Chinese civilians who suffer the same denial of basic freedoms. If we
don't speak up, there will remain no hope for human rights in China,
and activists like my father will continue to suffer.
Sadly, the human rights issue is one that is easily ignored in
light of pressing economic concerns. China has become the world's
second largest economy and a major trading partner of the United
States. Powerful economic interests want us to turn a blind eye to
China's human rights record. Respecting America's values and standing
up for human rights has never been easy. And it is not easy now. But
isn't this what the promise of America is really about?
Though I am no politician or expert in this field, I have learned
through Lincoln-Douglas debate that human rights are the foundation
from which meaningful and effective discussions of economics and
politics must proceed. In fact, these are the same values and
fundamental freedoms on which our great nation was founded. And as
someone who was rescued, raised, and educated by this country, I feel
that I owe the United States my utmost gratitude. However, gratitude
for one's country is not demonstrated by passive acceptance of our
country's actions, but in active scrutiny. We show our gratitude and
love for our nation by holding it to the highest of standards, the
standards on which it was founded.
In doing so, I have realized that the issue of human rights is not
only political--it is personal. It is a personal commitment to speak
up. It is a refusal to remain silent. It is acting on the principles
that we read and write about. It is the efforts of people like you who
speak up and take a stand on human rights that give me hope for the
future. They give me hope for the possibility of telling my father in
person how much we have all cared about him and his dream for China's
future. They give me hope for the possibility of securing human rights
in China, and for paying the utmost respect to the values on which our
own great country was founded, the values for which I hope it will
always stand.
______
Prepared Statement of Ho Pin
june 3, 2015
Representative Smith and Senator Rubio:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand here today and
give voice to a brave Chinese journalist, Ms. Gao Yu, who has recently
been imprisoned on fictitious charges for the third time. The seventy-
one-year-old Gao Yu merely fulfilled her duty as a journalist and
shared the truth that she knew with the public. Gao Yu's case is not
isolated. More and more writers, thinkers, and human rights lawyers are
being illegally detained or imprisoned. They include Nobel Peace Prize
winner Liu Xiaobo, economist lham Tohti, writer Xu Zhiyong, lawyer Pu
Zhiqiang. The list goes on.
Over the years, many people have stood in this very spot, urging
the world to pay attention to China's human rights abuses. But, this
solitary light in the darkness has not been able to illuminate China's
blatant violations or pierce through the smog shrouding all the
injustices. Therefore, I don't want to go that route again and focus
solely on China's human rights issues or to condemn the Chinese
government like others have done before. I want to raise some questions
instead.
With its deteriorating human rights records, why is China getting
stronger by the day? Why are Chinese leaders getting more popular in
the international community? Is China building its national strength
for the sole purpose of jockeying for the number one position with the
United States? Will China engage in a war with the United States and
its Asian neighbors such as Japan and Philippines? Will the world
return to a cold war?
These are not new questions. American experts have already provided
some answers. Some scholars believe that there is a secret
``bamboozling'' department within the Communist Party. It has designed
strategies that have successfully deceived the world and gained China
several decades of time to develop. Some say the rule of the Chinese
Communist Party is already approaching its end and the regime is on the
verge of collapsing. Others claim that US-China relations have
deteriorated to a critical point and that the US should throw China
some candies to lure it back to the right track.
So what are my views?
First, I believe that China has risen, and it has, as advertised,
risen peacefully. China is the world's No.2 economy and has splashed
huge amount of investment across the globe. Millions of wealthy Chinese
travelers flock to every famous tourist site and the most expensive
department stores. It would be impossible to close your eyes and ignore
China's rise. The only thing China has yet to achieve is the number one
position in the world.
At the same time, China's rise has not led to any wars. Even though
the Chinese army has been acting like a belligerent hormone-raging
teenager in the South and East China Seas over the last few years, I
don't think the Chinese leadership has plans or the desire to start a
war in Asia. Especially when they are not psychologically prepared to
lose a war. The most arrogant and bold military commanders can merely
strike a pose through minor incursions or the intimidation of the
militarily weak Philippines. With the exception of its strategic
missile defense systems, which aims to deter, rather than invade, the
Chinese army doesn't yet have the ability to project its power around
the globe. Even in the Pacific region, Chinese navy and air forces are
not capable of a sustaining war against Japan and the US.
In other words, China lacks the ability to launch a large-scale war
in the Pacific theater in the foreseeable future, not to mention
launching a world war like the Nazi Germany did. China does not have
the capability, nor the guts. It's not their intention. There is no
Adolf Hitler in China. More importantly, the Chinese leadership doesn't
see the necessity.
In addition, China has no plans to engage in a cold war with the
West, United States included. The current political system in China
cannot be defined in conventional terms. It's neither socialism, nor
capitalism. It's not an empire in the traditional sense. It is a
mongrel. One of the most famous maxims of Deng Xiaoping states that
``It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it
catches mice.'' Therefore, the end justifies the means. While this
pragmatic philosophy has contributed to China's rapid economic growth,
it also turned the Chinese political system into a two faced monster
the likes of which one normally sees only in computer games. Like the
legendary cat that has nine lives, it's adaptable and resilient.
As a consequence, many incomprehensible things have happened--the
ruling Communist Party has defied expectation and lived on. The
government can blatantly repeat something that is universally
acknowledged as lies. For example, the Communist Party is promoting an
anti-West agenda in its internal documents. The Communist Party's
propaganda machine distorts truths about Western democracies to prevent
the pursuit of democratic values by its citizens and to threaten its
citizens who are trying to demand the rights to select their own
leaders, criticize their governments and use the law to protect
themselves. On the other hand, the Communist Party has long abandoned
socialist theories. Many leaders are big fans of Western democratic
societies. They send their children to study in the West or secretly
help their relatives who intend to emigrate. Some view the fact that
they can visit the West as a badge of honor. I have met and talked with
many Chinese officials when they traveled in the U.S., and hardly
anyone was a true opponent of Western values. On the contrary, they all
agree that a democratic system can guarantee fairness and bring
stability to the country.
In other words, the Chinese leaders have no intention of building
another Berlin Wall. Neither do they plan to start a cold war with the
West. They have no desire to impose their systems on the West because
they can't even define the kind of political system China has. There is
no Stalin in China and nobody wishes to be his disciple. President Xi
Jinping has heaped praise on Putin, but his praise has its own purpose.
President Xi admires Putin's personal power. It is true that the
Chinese president stood side by side with Putin to inspect the troops
in the Red Square a few days ago, but that doesn't mean that China and
Russia can establish an alliance against the U.S. Mistrust of Russian
by the Chinese government and people is deep-seated and hard to dispel.
Thirdly, the conflicts between China and the West are not about
ideology or cultures. The mainstream religion, in China has long served
as a tool to unite all factions of society. Religion, a tamed pussycat,
is becoming an integral part of the Communist Party. The Chinese are
not capable of starting a holy war against the West. They wouldn't even
dare. Nationalism is nothing more than lip service. The Chinese leaders
use this type of neurotic nationalism to cover up their empty and phony
ideology. No leaders would want nationalism to become fanatical and get
out of control. Overheated nationalism could set the house of the party
on fire.
If the above are true, why are we worried? We should not only be
concerned but also alarmed. It's not a matter of which country will be
the world's number one. The changes in China will impact the world. If
China can integrate itself into the civilized world, in which people's
rights and self-determination are respected, the world will enter a new
era. Mankind can truly base their thinking and policies on a common
destiny. If the Chinese Communist Party, with its terrible records on
human rights and stellar results in economic development, is allowed to
continue, it will not only bring disaster to the Chinese people, but
also destruction to the whole world. It is neither an actual war with
weapons, nor is it a cold war between two ideological camps. It's not a
conflict of cultures and value systems. China's mongrel and pragmatic
nature has made its system more adaptable and more powerful. Its
ability to destroy the world's political and biological environments
and to spread such destructive power is beyond even its own
expectation. A virus starts with just a few patients. Soon, it spreads
to every corner, causing a worldwide outbreak. This is what China will
do to the world - destroy the very foundation of human freedom.
What I want to emphasize is that this is not what the Chinese
leadership envisioned thirty years ago. Neither is it the political
ambition of the current leadership. The current situation is the
consequence of human weakness, the short-sightedness of politicians of
the West, the insatiable greed of unscrupulous capitalists and the
distorted social and political structure in China. Together, they have
created such a virus, or at the very least, they have provided
opportunity for it to mutate and spread.
Two months after the Chinese government brutally cracked down on
the student movement in China on June 4th, 1989, President George Bush
provided prompt support for Deng Xiaoping through his secret envoy. The
collapse of the former Soviet Union and East European Communism made
many politicians in the West complacent. They forgave and accepted the
paranoid and humble Chinese leaders. In return, Deng Xiaoping and his
successors initiated open door and economic reform policies. These
reforms didn't bring any political progress. Instead, China took
advantage of the technology from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the West and the
benefits of the WTO to boost its economy at the cost of social equality
and its environment. Once the Communist Party strengthened its power
through its strong economy, it went on to undermine Western opposition
to China's human rights practices.
Now, the Chinese leadership practically doesn't care at all about
the pressure from Western public opinion because politicians and
businessmen from around the world are salivating at China's immense
purchasing power, investment and markets. It's no exaggeration to say
that today, Chinese leaders are the most well-received, honored guests
in a majority of countries worldwide; China is the destination for many
of the world's elite who thirst for gold.
Beijing tightly controls the freedom of the press. They could cut
off Google and Yahoo anytime; they'd refused visas for New York Times
journalists, and blocked access to Twitter and Facebook. All without
impunity. While at the same time, they can set up any media they would
like in the US. They provide free trips to Chinese language media
chieftains in the West to receive training in China, and they even hire
secret hackers to attack independent Chinese media outlets overseas.
Ironically, China, which screens, censors and bans any print and
electronic publication, has been invited to serve as the country of
honor at book fairs in Frankfurt, London, and New York!
Hollywood is the epitome of free American culture; filmmakers are
free to ridicule, mock, and criticize American politicians and
government officials such as senators, judges, and the president,
without fear of persecution. But in their pursuit of China's box office
dollars, Hollywood executives have consciously decided to steer clear
of any criticism of the Chinese government. Despite this, American
movies are still censored in China, and some are not allowed at all.
Given these circumstances, does China's leadership have to risk it
all and start a war? Does China have to close its doors once again and
restart the cold war against the West? They can get everything they
need and they can reject everything they don't want.
The problem lies in the fact that the West pursues short-term
economic interests by ignoring the worsening of Chinese people's
rights. Western corporations scrambled to do business with China
regardless of the record of human rights violations. A desire for
profit with no social conscience encourages the growth of this new
style of politics in China. It is tantamount to striking the core of
every lesson Chinese officials learned about conducting their political
business worldwide. Meanwhile, the cash that the Communist Party waves
in their hands has made it possible for the China virus to spread
unencumbered in the world, causing the value of Western freedom to grow
weaker, feebler, and more and more susceptible to illness.
China was never a threat before. It was the Western world that has
made the Chinese leadership think the West could easily be threatened.
So what can we conclude? No one can figure it out, because no one
is consciously aware; to a certain extent, we have all been infected by
the virus. Otherwise, we would not feel so confused and lost, so
powerless. And because of our inaction and complacency, Gao Yu, Liu
Xiaobo, Ilham Tohti, Wang Bingzhang, Xu Zhiyong, and Pu Zhiqiang are
languishing in prisons. Chinese citizens who died 26 years ago in
Tiananmen Square and now lie in the ground have turned into lonely
ghosts wandering in the wild. Dawn has yet to arrive in China. If we
continue along this muddy, murky road, we will also be swallowed by the
darkness.
The reason that I'm standing here today is that the scene I saw 26
years ago in Tiananmen Square still has not faded from my memory. I
share the pain of those who lost friends and relatives in Tiananmen
square. I firmly believe that things could change if America were to
wake up from its vacant and passive view of China. America is not a
narrow-minded nationalist empire. America represents the values
established by people who pursue the dream of freedom. This means that
America is destined to be responsible for people who are pursuing
similar dreams in other countries. I am not advocating war between
China and the US. I absolutely don't want confrontation between China
and the US. I don't think it is necessary for another Pearl Harbor to
wake up the American people. I hope that America will become the
driving force for democracy and human rights in China. The very least
we can do is to take actions that will not encourage the continued
growth of a dangerous political virus in China that values cash more
than freedom and human rights. We can, and should, work to assure the
Chinese people their dignity, to assure a long-term friendship between
the US and China, and to assure the security of the cornerstone of
freedom for the whole world.
* * *
[From the New York Times, April 28, 2015]
Gao Yu's Real Crime
(By Ho Pin)
NEW YORK--One evening in June 2013, I received a call from a man
who identified himself as an official for the Chinese Communist Party's
Propaganda Department in Beijing. He asked me to publish an internal
party directive on Mingjing, a Chinese-language news portal I run out
of New York.
Western media had already reported on the key segments of the
directive, known as Document No.9. Many analysts saw it as President Xi
Jinping's attempt to adopt a traditional leftist and anti-West agenda.
The caller claimed that Document No.9 was merely a routine
directive that analyzed new political trends and that journalists
should not read too much into it. By sending me the full text, the
official said he intended to provide a proper context. ``The political
situation in China isn't all that bad,'' he told me.
I wasn't sure whether the call was part of a deliberate leak with
tacit approval from the senior leadership or an individual acting
alone. He sent me the document, and though I thought that its
significance might have been overblown in the earlier press accounts, I
believed it offered a rare glimpse of the inner workings of the Chinese
government. I verified its authenticity and published it in Mingjing
Magazine in July 2013.
In April 2014, Gao Yu, a journalist friend, disappeared in Beijing.
The next month I was shocked to learn that she had been arrested for
allegedly leaking Document No.9 to me via Skype. The police claimed to
discover on her computer three digital copies of the paper, which they
used as evidence against her. Ms. Gao countered that she had downloaded
them from the Internet and that they were slightly different from what
I posted online.
Earlier this month, Ms. Gao, 71, was sentenced to seven years in
jail for leaking ``state secrets.'' The judge based his conviction
chiefly on her ``confession,'' which she retracted because, she said,
it was given after threats against her son by the police.
Did the propaganda official leak the document to me with the intent
to frame her, I wondered. Or, did the police simply find a convenient
excuse to lock up Ms. Gao, who had been blacklisted because her writing
had frequently appeared on overseas websites? I chose to believe the
latter.
Document No.9, written in a typical jargon-studded language, warns
party leaders against seven political ``perils,'' including the
promotion of constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society
and Western-style press freedom.
As a publisher of United States-based magazines about Chinese
politics, I frequently receive news tips and government documents--a
melange of truth and rumors--from Chinese officials, scholars and
business people. Some expose scandals within the government out of a
sense of justice, while others aim to advance a political agenda or to
smear political opponents. One thing is certain: The ``deep throats''
know that China's senior leaders care about what the overseas news
media reports about them.
I have known Ms. Gao since the late 1980s, when we were both
journalists for state media organizations. In China, where most
journalists are mouthpieces of the party, she has kept her independence
and paid a hefty price: She was put in jail in 1989 for her support for
the 1989 student protest movement, and again in 1993 because of her
connection with a Hong Kong magazine. In recent years, Ms. Gao's
commentaries and analyses published in the West have offered valuable
insights into Chinese politics, especially during the internal
wrangling surrounding Bo Xilai, the former Politburo member purged in a
cloud of scandal in 2012.
Ms. Gao frequently gives voice in her articles to the liberal and
moderate factions within the party that have become disillusioned with
President Xi Jinping, the man whom they called China's Vladimir Putin.
Document No.9 was reportedly directed at this group. But Ms. Gao has
never allied herself with any political factions.
In 2012, when Mr. Xi's relatives sought her help in clarifying
Western media reports about his family's finances, she agreed and
presented their views through Mingjing. At the same time, she was not
afraid of speaking out against Mr. Xi. In a private talk, she described
China under Mr. Xi as a combination of a modern-day Nazi and Stalinist
state.
Before Ms. Gao's trial in November 2014, I drafted an affidavit
detailing how I had received Document No.9 from a party propaganda
official. The Chinese Consulate in New York refused my notarized
statement. I then FedExed it to Ms. Gao's defense attorney, but the
Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court excluded my testimony in its
deliberation.
If the leadership punished Ms. Gao to intimidate future leakers,
their efforts are in vain. As long as the Chinese public craves Chinese
news from overseas, and trusts Western media over state-controlled
propaganda, China's elite will continue to feed Western journalists
``exclusives.'' Our stories will influence Chinese politics more than
ever as factions compete to smear their opponents, intensify power
struggles and hasten changes within the party.
Ms. Gao's real crime had nothing to do with leaking Document No.9.
She offended the authorities by speaking out against government
policies. Even though Mr. Xi has recently announced plans to make the
legal system more transparent, Ms. Gao's conviction shows that nothing
has changed under a dictator who cannot abide dissenting views.
The case also reflects China's increasing arrogance toward the
West, which is increasingly tolerant of Beijing's growing human rights
violations and nationalistic behavior. Corporations are caving in to
Chinese demands, placing short-term business gains ahead of principles,
thus confirming to China the diminishing influence of the West.
Consequently, the Chinese government feels free to imprison and bully
Chinese and foreign journalists. Standing up to China will not only
guard basic human values, but protect Western economic interests. No
business is safe in a totalitarian country.
Gao Yu has sacrificed her personal freedom three times for the
cause of free speech because it is the cornerstone of all freedoms.
Ho Pin, the founder of Mirror Media Group, and Wenguang Huang, who
translated this essay from the Chinese, are co-authors of ``A Death in
the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in
China.''
A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 29, 2015, in The
International New York Times.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S. Representative
From New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
june 3, 2015
Twenty-six years ago the world watched as millions of Chinese
gathered to peacefully demand political reform and democratic openness.
The hopes and promises of those heady days ended with needless violence
tears, bloodshed, arrests and exile.
Mothers lost sons, fathers lost daughters, and China lost an
idealistic generation to the tanks that rolled down Tiananmen Square on
June 4th, 1989.
Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize the persistent and brutal
lengths the Chinese Communist Party will go to remain in power. This
event has done more to negatively shape global perceptions of China
than any other in recent history.
We remember the Tiananmen massacre here in Congress because of its
enduring impact on U.S.-China relations. We remember it also because an
unknown number of people died, were arrested, and exiled for simply
seeking universally recognized freedoms. We also remember Tiananmen
because so many people were arrested last year for trying to
commemorate the anniversary in China.
We remember this date each year because it is too important to
forget and because it is too dangerous to commemorate in China.
The Chinese government should allow open discussion of the
Tiananmen protests and end the enforced amnesia surrounding the events
of 1989. And, more importantly, the Chinese government should take
responsibility for the national tragedy that occurred on June 3rd and
June 4th, 1989.
Sadly, it seems that a China lead by President Xi Jinping will not
take such responsibility. President Xi and top Communist Party leaders
regularly unleash bellicose attacks on ``universal values,'' ``Western
ideals,'' and ``revisionism of the Party's history.''
The domestic screws on dissent have tightened considerably since Xi
Jinping assumed the Presidency. Over 230 people have been detained for
their human rights advocacy and peaceful efforts at political reform. A
number some rights groups are calling the largest crackdown in two
decades.
The Chinese government rounds up not only reformers, but those who
defend them. It views most Uyghurs as security threats and then jails
Uyghur intellectuals peacefully seeking ethnic reconciliation. It not
only smothers internet freedom and its domestic media but threatens
foreign journalists and spurs self-censorship from Harvard Square to
Hollywood.
The Chinese government also threatens foreign citizens or foreign
institutions who speak out for greater human rights. The family members
of Canada's Miss Universe, for example, were threatened for her
outspokenness about human rights. Also, China's new and troubling NGO
law, could bar an American university from China, or even detain its
representatives in China, if a campus student group stages a protest in
the United States against the Chinese government's treatment of
Tibetans, Christians, or Falun Gong; the detention of Liu Xiaobo, or
the criminal tragedy of China's 35 year ``One-Child Policy.''
U.S. policy must support Chinese advocates who promote human rights
and political reform and stand firm for U.S. interests in greater
freedom and democracy in China.
Our strategic and moral interests coincide when we support human
rights and democracy in China. A more democratic China, one that
respects human rights, and is governed by the rule of law, is more
likely to be a productive and peaceful partner rather than strategic
and hostile competitor.
We should remember this fact as we watch China building bases and
threatening free and open seas lanes in the East and South China Sea.
The United States must also make strong appeals to China's self-
interest. The rule of law, freedom of the press, an independent
judiciary, a flourishing civil society and accountable officials would
promote all of China's primary goals--economic progress, political
stability, reconciliation with Taiwan, good relations with America, and
international stature and influence.
At the same time, the United States must also be willing to use
political and economic sanctions to respond to gross violations of
human rights in China--torture, prolonged and arbitrary detention,
forced abortions and sterilizations, psychiatric experimentation or
organ harvesting from prisoners.
That is why I introduced yesterday the China Human Rights
Protection Act of 2015 (H.R. 2621). The bill will deny U.S. entry visas
and issue financial penalties to any Chinese official who engages in
gross violations of human rights.
The United States must show leadership in this regard and send a
strong message. The worst violators of the rights of the Chinese
people, those who abuse universal freedoms with impunity, should not
prosper from access to the United States and our economic or political
freedoms.
It is tempting to be pessimistic about China's future and the
future of U.S.-China relations. I am not pessimistic, but hopeful.
Constant repression has not dimmed the desires of the Chinese people
for freedom and reform.
While the hopes of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators have not yet
been realized, their demands for universal freedoms continues to
inspire the Chinese people today and has passed on to a new generation.
We have with us today participants of the Tiananmen protests of
1989 and new generations of advocates for democratic openness and human
rights. They fight for universal freedoms, they fight for the release
of their fathers and families, and they fight for reform and a future
China that protects human rights. It is the new generation that will
inspire change in China.
I believe that someday China will be free. Someday, the people of
China will be able to enjoy all of their God-given rights. And a nation
of free Chinese men and women will honor, applaud, and celebrate the
heroes of Tiananmen Square and all those who sacrificed so much, and so
long, for freedom.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Marco Rubio, a U.S. Senator From Florida;
Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
june 3, 2015
Twenty-six years ago this week, student-led popular protests
gripped Beijing. Spurred by the death of a prominent reformer,
thousands gathered in Tiananmen Square in April 1989 seeking greater
political freedom. Their numbers swelled as the days passed not only in
the capital but in cities and universities across the nation until more
than a million, including journalists, workers, government employees
and police, joined their ranks making it the largest political protest
in the history of communist China.
Late in the evening of June 3, the Army opened fire on peaceful
``counter-revolutionary'' protesters. The bloodshed continued into June
4. To this day the precise number of resulting casualties is unknown
and more than a quarter century later there has been no movement toward
a public accounting of the events of that week. Rather, those seeking
to commemorate the dead are harassed, detained, and arrested.
Perhaps the most iconic image to emerge from the Tiananmen
Massacre, is the so-called ``tank man''-- the small lone figure,
shopping bags in hand, who jockeyed to position himself in the path of
an advancing line of People's Liberation Army tanks. His actions flew
in the face of every human impulse to avoid impending danger. The
``tank man'' remains an enigma--his fate unknown. Some speculate
imprisonment, others execution. Still others venture that he is alive
today, unaware of his fame because of the Orwellian lengths that the
Chinese government Internet censors have gone to block any searches of
the events surrounding June 4.
Despite the fact that China's rulers revealed the true nature of
their regime that day, too many of our political and business elite
have been content with the status quo in China, especially as it
relates to the denying of basic human rights and liberties. In fact,
U.S. policy has aimed at engaging with the Chinese Communist Party,
surrendering American leverage and principles.
Twenty-six years later, repression continues to be the order of the
day and the aspirations of the Tiananmen generation remain unfulfilled.
President Xi Jinping's presidency has been marked by what experts
describe as the most intense crackdown in years. The organization
Chinese Human Rights Defenders reported in March that the government's
persecution of rights defenders was as severe as it has been since the
mid-1990s. The list of those arrested and harassed is extensive,
including Uighur economist Ilham Tohti, Tibetan Buddhist leader Tenzin
Delek Rinpoche, Tie Liu, Pu Zhiqiang, and Chen Kegui. Nobel Peace Prize
winner Liu Xiaobo remains in jail and his wife Liu Xia suffers under
house arrest, as does human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng.
A report released by Freedom House earlier this year found that
since Xi Jinping came to power the regime has employed harsh tactics
``to dominate online discourse, obstruct human rights activism, and
pre-empt public protests''-- findings which are routinely echoed by
Chinese dissidents. There is deep concern within civil society about
the draconian new NGO law now under consideration in the Chinese
legislature. This law would severely restrict the operations of foreign
NGOs.
The regime also is strengthening its grip on Hong Kong, denying the
people of Hong Kong their promised right to freely choose their
leaders. And China's growing repression at home is being watched
closely by its neighbors as Beijing flexes its military capabilities
and reasserts illegitimate territorial claims threatening regional
security. China's neighbors realize that how a nation treats its own
citizens is indicative of more than just a country's internal
situation.
Despite this grim picture, I believe change is coming to China.
Systems of government which are built on repression do not stand the
test of time. Even with China's economic growth, we have yet to see
political openness follow. While the road to reform in China is
uncertain, American support for the ideals which are at the heart of
our own experience in self-governance ought to be a cornerstone of U.S.
foreign policy.
In her inaugural trip as Secretary of State in 2009, Hillary
Clinton opined, en route to China, that contentious issues like human
rights ``can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global
climate change crisis and the security crisis.'' Human rights should be
fully integrated into every level of our bilateral relationship with
the Chinese government, and repressive governments the world over. It
is always in America's interest to support the expansion of democracy
and its institutions.
For too long, China has gotten a free pass. With the approaching
U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue the president has an
opportunity to prioritize these issues--to charge every participating
U.S. government agency to bring human rights to the forefront with
their Chinese counterparts, to present them with lists of political
prisoners and press, by name, for their unconditional release. The
Administration can take proactive steps today to impose visa bans on
Chinese government officials who are perpetrators of grave human rights
abuses.
Twenty-six years ago several Tiananmen art students constructed a
magnificent paper mache statue of the so-called goddess of democracy,
in the hopes of bolstering the fledgling protest movement. It was
ultimately destroyed by soldiers clearing the square, but not before
its creators authored a declaration explaining their work. It read in
part, ``On the day when real democracy and freedom come to China, we
must erect another Goddess of Democracy here in the Square, monumental,
towering, and permanent. We have strong faith that that day will come
at last.''
Helping the Chinese people reach that day is not just our moral
duty as a free people, but will have a profound effect on the state of
freedom in the world and on global security. We must keep the faith
with the Tiananmen generation and work toward the realization of their
dream for generations to come.
Submission for the Record
----------
China in 1989 and 2015: Tiananmen, Human Rights, and Democracy
june 3, 2015
Witness Biographies
Dr. Teng Biao, a well-known Chinese human rights lawyer, a Harvard
University Law School Visiting Scholar, and Co-founder, the Open
Constitution Initiative
Dr. Teng Biao is a well-known Chinese human rights lawyer, a
Harvard University Law School Visiting Scholar, and Co-founder, the
Open Constitution Initiative. He holds a Ph.D. from Peking University
Law School and was a visiting scholar at Yale Law School. He is
interested in the research on human rights, judicial systems,
constitutionalism, and social movements. As a human rights lawyer, Teng
is a promoter of the Rights Defense Movement and a co-initiator of the
New Citizens' Movement. In 2003, he was one of the ``Three Doctors of
Law'' who complained to the National People's Congress about
unconstitutional detentions of internal migrants in the widely known
``Sun Zhigang Case.'' Since then, Teng Biao has provided counsel in
numerous other human rights cases, including those of rural rights
advocate Chen Guangcheng, rights defender Hu Jia, the religious freedom
case of Cai Zhuohua and Wang Bo, and numerous death penalty cases.
Lisa Peng, Daughter of Chinese democracy activist Mr. Peng Ming,
freshman at Harvard, and TEDx speaker
Lisa Peng is the daughter of Chinese human rights and pro-democracy
activist Mr. Peng Ming who was kidnapped in Burma by Chinese secret
police and sentenced to life in prison in 2004. Lisa was born in
Beijing and suffered doubly as a second child by being denied official
legal recognition. In 2000, her family fled government persecution and
was accepted by the United States as UN refugees in 2001. Lisa is
working with the China Aid Association, the State Department, and
members of Congress to advocate for the release of her father and other
prisoners of conscience. She has shared her father's story in a Plain
Dealer Op-Ed and a TEDx Talk. Lisa is a freshman at Harvard University,
where she studies mathematics and political philosophy. Outside the
classroom, Lisa is an op-ed writer for The Harvard Crimson and a staff
writer for the Harvard Salient, a member of the John Adams Society, and
a singer in the Radcliffe Choral Society.
Ho Pin, President and CEO of Mirror Media Group
Ho Ping, a former journalist and director of the news department at
Shenzhen News was originally from Hunan and participated in the 1989
student movement. Ho left China for Canada after Chinese authorities
started investigating him because of his writings and analysis of
political events in China. Ho Ping established Mirror Media Group in
Canada in 1991 and the Chinese language news website Duowei News in
1999. Ho sold the website to Hong Kong media mogul Yu Pun-hoi in 2009
(Duowei has a news bureau in Beijing). Mirror Media Group currently
includes five independent publishing houses, five magazines, three
websites, a bookstore, and an online bookstore. Mirror Media Group has
Chinese-language publication distributors in Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Singapore, and the United States. Ho Pin has worked in mainland China,
Hong Kong, and Taiwan with news and publishing organizations as a
reporter, editor, and executive.
Michael Horowitz, CEO of 21st Century Initiatives, a Washington
D.C. think tank
Michael Horowitz has led a broad range of human rights coalitions
and has played major roles in the passage of such human rights
legislation as the International Religious Freedom Act, the North Korea
Human Rights Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the Sudan
Peace Act. Mr. Horowitz has been especially active on behalf of Tibetan
Buddhists, Christians, Falun Gong believers, and Uyghur Muslims. He
also has provided vital assistance to organizations dedicated to
fighting Internet censorship and penetrating China's Great Fire Wall.
He served as General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget
during the Reagan administration.
Dr. Yang Jianli, President, Initiatives for China/ Citizen Power
for China
Dr. Yang Jianli 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 PhDs 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 2007 and his
subsequent return to the U.S., Dr. Yang founded Initiatives for China,
a.k.a. Citizen Power for China, a nongovernmental 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. In December 2011, Dr. Yang, joined H.H.
Dalai Lama and four other delegates, to attend Forum Democracy and
Human Rights in Asia, hosted by former Czech president, Vaclav Havel.
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