[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 
    THE ATROCITIES AGAINST UYGHURS AND OTHER MINORITIES IN XINJIANG

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 6, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-35

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
        
        
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                           ______                       
  

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
44-450 PDF           WASHINGTON : 2021 
                        
                       

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                  GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, Chairman

BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking 
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey                  Member
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia         CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
KAREN BASS, California               JOE WILSON, South Carolina
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts       SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island        DARRELL ISSA, California
AMI BERA, California                 ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas                LEE ZELDIN, New York
DINA TITUS, Nevada                   ANN WAGNER, Missouri
TED LIEU, California                 BRIAN MAST, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota             KEN BUCK, Colorado
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota                TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
COLIN ALLRED, Texas                  MARK GREEN, Tennessee
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan                 ANDY BARR, Kentucky
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia         GREG STEUBE, Florida
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania       DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey           CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
ANDY KIM, New Jersey                 AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
SARA JACOBS, California              PETER MEIJER, Michigan
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina        NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
JIM COSTA, California                RONNY JACKSON, Texas
JUAN VARGAS, California              YOUNG KIM, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois

                                     
                                     

                    Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director

               Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
               
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Ziyawudun, Tursunay, Survivor and Advocate.......................     8
Millward, Dr. James A., Professor of Inter-Societal History, 
  Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.........    15
Turkel, The Honorable Nury, Chairman of the Board, Uyghur Human 
  Rights Project.................................................    26

                  INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Information submitted for the record.............................    56

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    88
Hearing Minutes..................................................    89
Hearing Attendance...............................................    90

                        STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD

Statement for the record from Representative Connolly............    91

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record..................    93


    THE ATROCITIES AGAINST UYGHURS AND OTHER MINORITIES IN XINJIANG

                         Thursday, May 6, 2021

                          House of Representatives,
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:38 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Gregory Meeks (Chairman of the committee) 
presiding.
    Chairman Meeks. The Committee on Foreign Affairs will come 
to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any point. And all Members will have 
5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions 
for the record, subject to the length limitations in the rules.
    To insert something into the record, please have your staff 
email to the previously mentioned address or contact full 
committee staff.
    As a reminder to Members, please keep your video function 
on at all times, even when you are not recognized by the Chair. 
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves. 
Consistent with House rules, staff will only mute Members, as 
appropriate, when they are not on the record listening, to 
eliminate background noise.
    I see that we have a quorum. And I now recognize myself for 
opening remarks.
    Pursuant to notice, we meet today to examine the ongoing 
atrocities being committed by the People's Republic of China 
against the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority 
groups in the Uyghur region of China. Since 2017, Uyghurs, 
Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, and Members of other Muslim minority 
groups have undergone mass detention and seen their way of life 
threatened by China.
    As many as one million people have been arbitrarily 
detained in mass internment camps, prisons, and detention 
centers. They have been subject to forced labor, torture, 
political indoctrination, forced sterilizations and abortions, 
suppression of religious practices, family separation, sexual 
abuse, and other severe human rights abuses.
    Successive U.S. Secretaries of State have been clear that 
China is conducting a genocide against Uyghurs and other 
minorities. Many former camp detainees and people with family 
Members that have been detained have spoken out, many at great 
risk to their personal safety and that of their families in 
China. They have provided firsthand accounts confirming China's 
targeted campaign of repression toward Muslim ethnic 
minorities.
    We are going to hear the harrowing story of one such person 
today, a brave advocate and survivor. Official Chinese 
statements and documents, satellite images, media reports, and 
other publicly available documents have revealed the horrific 
abuses inflicted upon Uyghurs and Members of other ethnic and 
religious minority groups.
    But instead of working with the international community to 
investigate these atrocities and bring an end to the genocide, 
the Chinese Government has endorsed a strategy of deflection 
and disinformation. It has labeled any attention to these grave 
human rights violations as lies and rumors; invoked baseless 
sanctions on organizations and individuals for their 
investigations into the atrocities; and has prevented and 
blocked processes for independent investigations into human 
rights violations.
    Last month, I was proud to introduce H.R. 317 alongside my 
friend and the Ranking Member of this committee, Michael 
McCaul, to condemn the genocide and crimes against humanity 
that are taking place in the Uyghur region. We called upon the 
Biden Administration to get the U.S. Permanent Representative 
to the United Nations to urge the body to investigate the 
ongoing human rights violations, and to invoke multilateral 
sanctions against China at the United Nations Security Council.
    Moreover, we moved legislation that ensures that the United 
States does not do business with institutions and entities that 
utilize forced labor in China. In doing so, we have 
demonstrated that defending human rights is a bipartisan 
priority. This body will continue to shed light on human rights 
violations, no matter the country involved, be they friend or 
foe.
    The United States has also taken action to hold accountable 
the Government of the People's Republic of China for these 
atrocities, and to punish those responsible for these 
detestable human rights violations.
    The Biden Administration has implemented targeted sanctions 
against Chinese Government officials over their continued human 
rights abuses in the Uyghur region. We must continue to work 
with our partners and allies in leading a coordinated effort 
against what is happening in the Uyghur region of China. We 
must send a clear message to urge the international community 
to stay united in condemning the horrific treatment of China's 
ethnic minorities.
    We also must put pressure on China to abide by its 
commitments as a signatory to the Genocide Convention and 
provide human rights monitors, researchers, and journalists 
unrestricted access to report on what is happening in the 
Uyghur region. And this should be done free from any 
interference.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member McCaul of Texas for his 
opening remarks and thank him for working together to place 
this hearing today.
    Mr. McCaul, you are now recognized for remarks.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
important hearing. And thank you for working with me on the 
resolution.
    And just on this very important issue, I think the eyes of 
the world are watching. And certainly the Communist Party of 
China is watching as we speak.
    The genocide against the Uyghurs and other ethnic 
minorities at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party is the 
moral test of our times. There are few others issues that 
demand this level of attention, not just from our own committee 
but from the world.
    Elevating this issue is one of the key recommendations made 
by the China Task Force that I Chaired. So, I am grateful that 
we can give it the bipartisan attention that it deserves.
    I am also grateful, Mr. Chairman, that you joined with me 
to introduce and pass a resolution condemning this genocide and 
calling for action. When our resolution passes the House, it 
will ensure we are speaking in a united voice with the current 
and prior Administrations by calling these ongoing atrocities 
genocide. Continuing this bipartisan effort will be essential 
as we respond to this crisis. And I thank you for being my 
partner on this issue.
    Genocide is a term that we reserve for history's most 
serious crimes against humanity. It is essential we get our 
response right, not as Republicans and Democrats, but as 
Americans, because we have faced this test before and we have 
always passed that test. Our response to the Uyghur genocide 
should be an example of our character, rather than a stain on 
our history.
    This humanitarian crisis is about more than just U.S. 
foreign policy toward the People's Republic of China, it is 
about the legitimacy of the post-World War system designed to 
stop these atrocities whenever and wherever they are being 
committed. It is about how we stop the CCP from contaminating 
consumer supply chains with slave labor. It is about how we 
stop using cotton sourced from the Uyghur homeland, and picked 
by those without a voice. And it is about how we can convince 
our private sector to act consistently with American values 
after they developed a reliance on the PRC's consumer market 
over the last 40 years, and as the United States attempted to 
bring China into the family of nations but failed.
    That's why I am disappointed that our minority witness 
declined our invitation to join us this afternoon. I did invite 
Nike Incorporated, an American company, that is now struggling 
with the moral challenge many American companies face. Some 
analysts claim that Nike's supply chain is tainted by forced 
labor in China. Nike has publicly denied they source from the 
Uyghur areas, and have denied Uyghur forced labor exists in 
their factories.
    Simply taking a stand against forced labor has exposed them 
to a massive boycott led by the CCP's online mouthpieces. 
However, we can assume that part of their decision process may 
have been likely the backlash from the CCP.
    And on the other end of the spectrum is Disney, which 
actually thanked the CCP Propaganda Office responsible for 
covering up the Uyghur genocide, and in the end credits in one 
of the most recent films, Mulan. And they actually filmed 
portions of the movie in the Xinjiang Province.
    We cannot put profits ahead of doing what is right. The 
American people need to hear from these companies doing 
business with the CCP, whether they are household names or who 
is just trying to do the right thing, or they are companies who 
shamelessly do the bidding of the CCP to maintain their market 
access, no matter what the moral cost is.
    The true nature of these Faustian deals need to come to 
light so consumers can begin to know where their money is 
going. And even though Nike has declined to join us today, we 
are still honored to be joined by an excellent panel of 
witnesses who use their voices to stand up for Uyghurs and 
other ethnic and religious minorities who are persecuted by the 
CCP.
    So, I want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for your hard 
work in this effort. And thank you so much for holding this 
hearing.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. And thank 
you for your hard work in putting this together. It is a 
pleasure joining you on this important act and moving forward, 
standing up for the true values of America. Thank you.
    I would now like to recognize Ami Bera, who is the Chair of 
the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and 
Nonproliferation.
    Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member.
    Again, this is another area where this is not a partisan 
issue. We have Democrats and Republicans coming together, and 
all of us in Congress, to speak with moral clarity on the 
importance in the 21st Century that we cannot let atrocities 
like what is happening to the Uyghur population occur in a 
vacuum. And we have to draw attention to this.
    I am quite pleased at the leadership that both of you have 
shown and the leadership that Congress has shown together. We 
now have to work with the rest of the world, our partners in 
the European Union, other like-minded nations, to elevate this 
conversation.
    We also have to work with the Islamic majority countries to 
highlight the atrocities so that the public in those countries 
understand what is happening to the Uyghur culture, their 
religion, and atrocities.
    So, I look forward to working with both of you, the full 
committee, my partner the Ranking Member Mr. Chabot to address 
these issues and move them forward. So, thank you again for 
holding this hearing.
    And I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Chair Bera.
    I now recognize the subcommittee Ranking Member Mr. Chabot 
for 1 minute.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And as the Ranking Member of the Asia and Pacific 
Subcommittee and the past Chair of that committee I have been 
following the Chinese Communist Party very closely for years 
now. The barbaric repression that they are committing against 
the Uyghurs is truly horrific, despicable. Words really do not 
do justice to the crimes that the whole world are witnessing 
today.
    Last month we passed a resolution introduced by Ranking 
Member McCaul and yourself, Mr. Chairman, calling the 
atrocities what they are: genocide. Forced sterilization, 
involuntary marriage, family separations are the order of the 
day. This hearing is particularly important because the CCP 
routinely attempts to cover up its malevolent actions.
    We must take every opportunity to draw attention to the 
murders, accounts of rapes, torture, and the Orwellian 
surveillance of innocent Uyghur civilians. We must draw 
attention to these and countless other atrocities, and then 
hold their perpetrators accountable (inaudible).
    So, thank you for holding this hearing. And I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chabot.
    I will now introduce our witnesses.
    Ms. Tursunay Ziyawudun with her interpreter, Dr. Elise 
Anderson. Ms. Tursunay is a survivor of the Chinese 
Government's extra-legal arbitrary detention centers in the 
Uyghur region, and an outspoken advocate for Uyghur human 
rights.
    In November 2016, she was detained for more than a year in 
total in two different camps. She was released from the camps 
in December 2018 and was granted special parole to enter the 
United States in September 2020.
    As one of the very few survivors of the camps who have 
reached safety in another country, she has provided testimony 
to human rights groups, researchers, and journalists 
investigating the Chinese Government's crimes against Uyghurs 
and other Turkic Muslim peoples.
    Next we have Dr. James A. Millward, who is a professor of 
inter-societal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service 
at Georgetown University. He also teaches at the East Asia 
Program at the University of Granada in Spain.
    Throughout his career, Dr. Millward has specialized in the 
Qing Empire, the Silk Road, and music and history, historical 
and contemporary Xinjiang, Uyghurs and other Xinjiang 
indigenous people, and PRC ethnicity policy.
    The Honorable Nury Turkel is the Chair of the Board of 
Directors at the Uyghur Human Rights Project. As the first 
U.S.-educated Uyghur American lawyer, he is a foreign policy 
expert and human rights advocate. He was born in a re-education 
camp at the height of China's tumultuous Cultural Revolution, 
and spent the first 7 months of his life in detention with his 
mother.
    He came to the United States in 1995 as a student, and was 
later granted asylum by the U.S. Government.
    Without objection, all witnesses' prepared testimony will 
be made part of the record.
    And I will now recognize the witnesses for 5 minutes each 
to summarize their testimony. So, first I go to Ms. Tursunay 
Ziyawudun. You are now recognized for 5 minutes.

     STATEMENT OF TURSUNAY ZIYAWUDUN, SURVIVOR AND ADVOCATE

    [The following statement and answers were delivered through 
an interpreter.]
    Ms. Ziyawudun. Hello to all of you. My name is Tursunay 
Ziyawudun. I am from Kunes County, Ghulja City, East Turkestan.
    I am speaking to you today as a survivor who spent time in 
a concentration camp in Kunes. Thank you to the U.S. Government 
for giving me this opportunity to tell you about my experience. 
I thank all of you.
    Because I do not know English, Ms. Elise is going to tell 
you about what happened to me.
    I feel that I must speak up as a survivor for all those who 
have not survived. I am not asking for sympathy for myself, I 
am asking governments around the world to wake up. The world 
should not allow genocide to continue in the 21st Century.
    I grew up in East Turkestan. My husband and I moved to 
Kazakhstan in 2010. The Kazakhstan Government granted residency 
to my husband who is of Kazakh ethnicity, but my application 
was rejected. Because my Chinese passport was expiring, I 
returned to my hometown in November 2016. Border officials 
questioned me:
    Why did I go to Kazakhstan?
    Had I been in contact with anyone from the U.S.?
    One month later, the authorities confiscated our passports. 
And a few months after that I was sent to a camp. The 
conditions were terrible and filthy. We were told we had 
problems with our ideology and did receive education. If we 
asked questions, we were beaten. Because of my health 
condition, I was released after around 1 month.
    The second time I was sent to a camp was far worse. It has 
left an unforgettable scar on my heart. I was taken on March 
8th, 2018, and kept there for more than 10 months. Buses would 
arrive every day with more detainees. It was very overcrowded. 
There was a bucket in the corner for our toilet. There were 
cameras watching us inside the cell. And we were always hungry. 
Each meal was a watery soup and a bun.
    We were given injections of unknown medications. Every day 
we had to swear loyalty to the Chinese Government and reject 
our faith. We had to watch endless videos about Xi Jinping.
    Girls would be taken away and only brought back days later. 
I saw girls lose their sanity because of it. And then I, 
myself, was taken, along with another woman. I was tortured 
with an electric stick pushed inside my genital tract. I could 
hear the other woman scream from the next room and knew the 
guards were raping her. After that, she never stopped crying.
    One time an order came. All the women had to be sterilized 
or fitted with an IUD. Many young women were crying, screaming 
when they were told they would be sterilized and could never 
have children.
    I left the camp in December 2018. Before my release the 
officials warned me if I spoke about my experience there would 
be heavy consequences. I still did not feel free.
    One day I saw a former cellmate. She had survived, but she 
was dead inside, completely finished by the rape. The 
Government's goal is to destroy everyone, and everybody knows 
it.
    In September 2019, I was allowed to leave for Kazakhstan. I 
told my story to a Kazakh human rights group and to 
journalists, but I was still afraid of the Chinese Government. 
There was a suspicious fire at our house. And the Chinese 
police would call me and threaten me.
    It was only after I came to the U.S. last year that I 
decided I could tell the full story of what happened to me. I 
knew that I might not be believed. I knew that some people 
would consider that my honor was tarnished. But, with the 
support of my husband, I took my courage in my hand and told 
the truth to BBC reporters. The story was aired on February 2d.
    The story sent a shockwave around the world, with Uyghurs 
and Kazakhs thanking me for speaking out. They could not stop 
their tears as they thought about their sisters and daughters 
and what they might be suffering. We cried together.
    The Chinese Government reacted by smearing me and the other 
survivors who testified about sexual abuse, even a culture of 
rape in the camps. At a press conference in Beijing, the 
foreign ministry spokesman held up my photo and called me a 
liar.
    I want to thank the United States for giving me safe haven. 
Without your help, I would still be a Stateless refugee, still 
fearing that the Chinese Government could force me back to 
China.
    Now you have my testimony. I ask you to take action.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ziyawudun follows:]
    
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    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, thank you for that testimony.
    I now turn to James Millward. You are now recognized for 5 
minutes, Dr. Millward.
    Dr. Millward, you may have to unmute.

   STATEMENT OF JAMES A. MILLWARD, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF INTER-
 SOCIETAL HISTORY, WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN 
                           UNIVERSITY

    Dr. Millward. Yes. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks, Ranking Member McCaul, and distinguished 
Members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, thank you 
for inviting me to testify about this critical issue. I would 
like to mention at the outset that insofar as I have any 
expertise to offer, acquiring it has been generously supported 
by Title VI, Fulbright-Hays, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the 
National Endowment for the Humanities, and by the University of 
Arizona where I taught in the early 1990's.
    Federal and State public funding has been, and remains, 
critical to building and maintaining U.S. knowledge about 
China.
    When it came to power and took control of Xinjiang in 1949, 
the PRC found itself ruling over the diverse peoples of a 
former empire, the Qing Empire. Like the Soviet Union, another 
socialist State controlling a former empire, for the Han-
dominated Chinese Communist Party to exercise power over 
indigenous peoples in Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia, and elsewhere 
presented both a practical and an image problem: how to rule 
over a former empire without being an imperialist and 
colonialists themself.
    The PRC thus implemented a modified version of the Soviet 
nationalities parties, recognizing 56 ethnic groups, including 
the Han. It also created so-called autonomous regions, 
including Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and many so-called 
autonomous prefectures and counties. The officially recognized 
ethnic groups, and supposedly self-governing territorial units, 
comprise what we may call the PRC's diversity management 
system.
    This original diversity management system supported 
language, education, and cultural expression of each non-Han 
group. In theory, and at times in practice, it protected non-
Han groups from discrimination and cultural erasure by the Han 
majority, and ensured each official ethnic group some 
representation within the authoritarian government and party. 
While very different from the diversity management systems of 
liberal democracies, this first generation PRC diversity 
system, when honestly implemented, proved popular among non-Han 
people.
    One might even say that in the 1950's, non-Han people in 
China were, as regards racial discrimination and violence, 
better off than Blacks and other persons of color in Jim Crow 
America.
    The Cultural Revolution of the 1960's and 1970's was a 
horrific exception, but non-Han groups in the PRC look back to 
the 1980's as a relative golden age of PRC diversity policies.
    Since 2013, however, General Secretary Xi Jinping has 
embarked on a radical new vision of the PRC diversity system. 
He has moved the bureaucracies dealing with ethnicity and 
religion out of the government and under the direct control of 
the Party's United Front Department.
    He announced in 2014 that problems in Xinjiang would 
require attention not just to material measures--that is 
economic development--but also to psychological issues, a 
framing that led to the program of so-called concentrated 
educational transformation in prison-like facilities for over a 
million people, and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands 
more.
    He also launched a campaign to sinicize religion in China. 
Xi Jinping promotes an idealized, homogeneous Chinese identity 
labeled Zhonghua, the centerpiece of his China Dream. A current 
Chinese political catchphrase calls on the party to grasp 
firmly the forging of a Zhonghua collective consciousness as 
the main political line.
    This notion of Zhonghua is meant to be a kind of super 
ethnicity encompassing all the others. But the word Zhonghua 
itself is composed of two Chinese characters that each 
individually mean Chinese. And, in practice, the 
characteristics of Zhonghua are indistinguishable from those of 
Han.
    The State promotion of Zhonghua identity then is a top-down 
effort to Hanize or sinicize non-Han ethnic groups in China.
    The phrase ``forging collective Zhonghua consciousness'' 
reminds us of a metaphor we now seldom use in the United 
States, the ``melting pot.'' The Chinese Communist Party, 
however, substitutes for the melting pot a blast furnace 
directed at the indigenous peoples of Xinjiang. This 
industrial-strength metaphor chosen by the party itself aptly 
sums up the physical coercion and cultural violence of the 
concrete policies inflicted upon Xinjiang indigenous peoples 
since 2017, which has been well documented in the work of 
numerous researchers, journalists, and U.S. Government 
investigations.
    My colleague Nury Turkel will present several 
recommendations which I will just simply say that I endorse.
    And to end, finally let me say that further targeted 
sanctions and shaming of responsible parties are warranted and 
should be undertaken in collaboration with other nations. It is 
crucial, however, that we pursue these efforts without 
indulging in broad brush demonization of China or Chinese 
people generally. The root of the problem lies with the 
policies of the CCP in Xinjiang and the CCP's abandonment of 
its own previous multiculturalism. The United States cannot 
deliver a message calling for cultural tolerance if it sounds 
or acts culturally intolerant itself.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Millward follows:]
    
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    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Dr. Millward.
    I now recognize Mr. Nury Turkel for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF HON. NURY TURKEL, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, UYGHUR 
                      HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT

    Mr. Turkel. Good afternoon, Chairman Meeks, Ranking Member 
McCaul, and honorable Members of the committee. Thank you for 
inviting me to testify on behalf of the Uyghur Human Rights 
Project, commonly known as the UHRP, at this critically 
important hearing.
    This is my fourth time testifying in Congress in the past 3 
years on the same issue. I truly appreciate your leadership in 
prioritizing this issue.
    I want to highlight a new phase in the Chinese Government's 
genocidal policy against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims 
in my ancestral homeland.
    UHRP has warned for more than 3 years that the end goal of 
this policy is the destruction of Uyghur culture, traditions, 
language, and faith. Simply put, the Chinese State has 
criminalized being Uyghur.
    The Chinese State has spent the last 4 years crushing our 
culture, language, civilizational accomplishments in poetry, 
literature, the arts, and theology, architecture, and 
scholarship. Uyghur imams, religious scholars, university 
presidents, professors and teachers, successful business 
owners, entrepreneurs, they have all been swept en masse into 
the modern day industrial-scale concentration camps.
    In many cases entire families have disappeared. Very soon, 
anything that can be described as Uyghur in our homeland will 
be an empty shell, a Potemkin show. It is already a reality, 
given the lackluster international response to this staggering 
21st Century high tech genocide.
    I want to emphasize that genocide denial is in full swing. 
The Chinese government is not only implementing a brutal policy 
of State violence, causing immeasurable human suffering, it is 
also demanding that the world praise its policy. In a way, CCP 
is trying to normalize its State violence against a vulnerable 
ethnic and religious community.
    The CCP now is producing a daily stream of statements, 
videos claiming that it deserves praise for helping Uyghurs 
live ``a happy life.''
    The Government goes even further. It forces Uyghurs to 
participate in genocide denials. Officials are forcing them to 
sit down and sign for the cameras to show how happy they are.
    Dozens of Uyghurs have been forced to make videos 
denouncing their relatives abroad, including our fellow 
Americans, for speaking up for their freedom.
    In February, UHRP released a report on this cruel 
propaganda forcing Uyghurs to say scripted lines such as ``the 
government never oppresses us.''
    The Government is also turning out aggressive propaganda 
campaign against global--against global campaign to end State-
imposed forced labor in the Uyghur region. The latest effort 
was government-manufactured boycott by Chinese consumers 
against foreign brands to defend the so-called ``Xinjiang 
cotton.'' One video on this campaign showed Uyghurs dressed in 
traditional performance costumes, holding a fluffy ball of 
cotton in each hand, dancing and singing a song of praise of 
``Xinjiang cotton.'' It is just sickening.
    In the short time I have left I would like to raise several 
policy recommendations.
    I urge Congress to act quickly to pass Uyghur Forced Labor 
Prevention Act, which your committee marked up on April 21. 
Thank you so much for your leadership on that.
    The Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act designates Uyghurs 
as a people refugees. It is urgently needed to save Uyghurs who 
are at risk of deportment in multiple countries.
    The United States should also urge every signatory of the 
Genocide Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 
1, the obligation to prevent genocide. And even without making 
a legal atrocity crimes determination, Article 1 obliges States 
to take action to prevent an unfolding genocide.
    Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee, I also hope you 
will ensure that American Olympic athletes are not forced to 
compete in the shadow of the concentration camps at the 2022 
Olympics in Beijing. The United States should coordinate with 
like-minded countries to ensure that the 2022 games do not take 
place in Beijing as long as atrocity crimes continue.
    The United States can and should do more to prevent Silicon 
Valley and the U.S. universities from cooperating with CCP or 
CCP-founded companies selling the so-called Muslim tracking 
facial recognition system being used in this high tech 
genocide.
    I provided several other policy recommendations in my 
written statement that I would be happy to address them later.
    In closing, I would like to thank this committee again for 
the opportunity to testify and for your commitment to end 
ongoing genocides. I am profoundly grateful.
    And thank you and look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Turkel follows:]
    
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    Chairman Meeks. Thank you.
    I want to thank each and every one of your for your 
testimony this afternoon.
    I am now going to recognize Members for 5 minutes each 
according to House rules. And all time yielded is for the 
purpose of questioning our witnesses. I will recognize Members 
by committee seniority, alternating between Democrats and 
Republicans. If you miss your turn, please let our staff know 
and we will come back to you.
    To seek recognition, you must unmute your microphone, 
address the Chair verbally, and identify yourself so that we 
know who is speaking.
    I will start by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tursunay, let me just say to you first your testimony 
has hurt me deeply. No human being should ever have to go under 
the horrific treatment that you did. I thank you so much for 
testifying today and for your bravery and candor in sharing 
your story to expose the PRC's horrendous treatment of Uyghurs 
and other ethnic minorities.
    This is especially true because Chinese authorities have 
prevented journalists, and researchers, and people on the 
ground from doing so. And so it is so significantly important 
that we, the Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, 
were able to hear from your lips your experiences.
    And I was really horrified when you said that even when you 
were allowed to leave and were in Kazakhstan, and to the degree 
even here in the United States, that you are afraid of the long 
reach of the PRC Government and the extra-territorial threats 
and harassment that you have faced from the Chinese authorities 
while on foreign soil after you left China.
    So, the first thing I am trying to find out is, No. 1, has 
anyone from the PRC tried to contact you or harass you while 
you have been here in the United States?
    And if so, how can the United States and other governments 
better protect Uyghurs abroad, wherever they may be?
    Ms. Tursunay.
    Ms. Ziyawudun. Thank you so much. I want to say thank you 
to yourself. Thank you for listening to what I had to say and 
for listening to what is happening to an ethnic group that is 
being treated so horribly.
    Well, they called me regularly and threatened me, but they 
have not done so since I came to the United States, nor have I 
attempted to contact them.
    My apologies. I'm not quite sure how to answer such a 
political question.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you. And, again, I just want to thank 
you for your testimony. I will take it with me forever.
    Understanding the atrocities that have taken place around 
the world, it is harmful to the human race for this still to be 
taking place in 2021. And it is, indeed, very important for 
every human being, let alone as Members of the U.S. Congress, 
we will make sure that your story gets out. And we will not sit 
back and allow it to continue without the United States working 
with other international countries to speak out loudly and 
clearly so that the genocide and the abuse to people simply 
because of their religion or ethnicity that could not take 
place. And we will work to make sure we stamp that out.
    Now I got to Mr. Turkel or Mr. Millward. You know, hearing 
that story really got me. I'm just really quite upset. And even 
though I knew it, hearing it, you know, if you're a human being 
it gets to your very gut. And it got to me.
    Let me ask, in coordination with the United States, the 
U.K. and maybe Canada, the European Union, I know in March we 
imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials in Xinjiang, the 
Public Security Bureau, for human rights abuses. And as a 
response, China sanctioned four entities and ten European 
lawmakers and diplomats and their families.
    What is a sustainable and effective strategy for the 
imposition of sanctions when faced with baseless retaliation by 
the PRC?
    And what can the U.S. Government do to protect individuals 
and organizations that speak out against these human rights 
violations and Chinese retaliatory measures?
    Mr. Turkel or Mr. Millward?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. That is a great 
question.
    When we talk about the targeted sanctions, oftentimes you 
hear a pushback saying, oh, this may not be an effective 
method. China is a big country, they may not--it may not be 
able to create a dent to force them to change their behavior.
    But based on a recent Washington Post article, one of the 
major suppliers of yarn complained about losing about $100 
million in 1 year simply because of U.S. companies canceling 
out contracts. That shows that our strategy is working.
    So, the sanctions, currently there have been 74 punitive 
sanctions that have been announced, including 52 entity list 
designations, Global Magnitsky sanctions against XPCC, Xinjiang 
Production and Construction Corps, which is a paramilitary, 
reportedly owns or manages 800,000 shell companies around the 
world, largely responsible for the ongoing cotton trade, the 
enslavement of the Uyghurs.
    So, we are on the right track, but this has to be extended. 
I agree with Dr. Millward that naming/shaming in dealing with 
Communist China, their leadership, works. They care about two 
things:
    One, how they are being portrayed in public. We are doing 
exactly that. As a result, European parliamentarians, including 
two commissions, the International Commission on International 
Religious Freedom being sanctioned, in addition to Members of 
Congress, former Trump officials, senior officials including 
Secretary Pompeo. That shows that our message is being heard in 
Beijing.
    So, we need to continue to call them out publicly.
    And then, two, as I Stated in my testimony, we need to 
focus on China's economic interests, the exports and 
technology. I participated in studies researching the export 
volume to the United States. This has been reported by multiple 
organizations, but mainly Stanford Institute of International 
Studies reported that during the period of April 2019 through 
April 2022 Xinjiang exports to the United States increased 
nearly by 250 percent. That shows the magnitude of the problem 
that we are dealing with.
    So, we need to expand our practice, the ongoing pressure on 
businesses. And as we speak, as you well know, the U.S. 
Department of Commerce----
    Chairman Meeks. I have to cut you off because my time has 
expired.
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I want to make time for other Members.
    So, I now will go to questions and ask and yield to Ranking 
Member McCaul for any questions that he may have.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 
Ms. Tursunay for her powerful testimony. As you, Mr. Chairman, 
I was also very moved by her personal experience, but also her 
courage and bravery to speak out and speak out the truth even 
though the threat from the CCP is very real.
    So, Ms. Tursunay, I have a set of questions for you.
    Can you explain to Members of this committee why the CCP 
views the Uyghur Muslim culture and religion such a threat that 
it would open up concentration camps and commit these horrific 
acts of genocide?
    Ms. Ziyawudun. I also want to say thank you to you. 
Similarly, I also do not exactly understand why, but they truly 
seem to feel that we are terrifying.
    In the time when I was in the concentration camp we had 
nothing on our person. The police had weapons, and still they 
treated us like we were terrifying. It seems to me that they 
just want to get rid of us from this earth. I, I do not 
understand.
    But this really is a threat to the whole world. And I think 
that they are sending this threat to the world through what 
they are doing to Uyghurs.
    Thank you.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Ms. Tursunay. I mean, the CCP 
officials have said openly you cannot uproot all the weeds. To 
mind the crops in the field one by one you need to spray 
chemicals to kill them all.
    If that does not speak to genocide, I do not know what 
does.
    Mr. Turkel, I wanted to ask you about your family. I 
understand you still have family in the Xinjiang Province, how 
their well-being is? And have they or you received threats from 
the CCP for your service?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you very much for asking that question.
    I came to the United States 26 years ago. Of the 26 years I 
was only able to spend 11 months with my parents. You know, my 
background, the way that I was brought to this world. I led 
half of my life my parents missing, and simply because CCP.
    They do not allow my parents to come to spend the rest of 
their time, whatever the time left in this world. Both of my 
parents are experiencing serious health issues. They have five 
American grandchildren, two American sons. And yet the CCP is 
preventing them to leave.
    Because of my prominence in the Uyghur human rights work, I 
have been dealing with on and off threats. But what is most 
egregious is that since I was appoint--I have been appointed as 
a commissioner to the U.S. Commission on International 
Religious Freedom, their pressure has been stepped up.
    I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to get my parents 
out of China to take them to hospital to provide the proper 
care. That is not happening. I have been trying to reunite with 
my family since 2009 unsuccessfully.
    Mr. McCaul. I thought the question, I think the naming and 
shaming is a great idea, the targeted sanctions, economic, on 
those profiting off slave labor in concentration camps. As we 
look toward the Olympics, I think there will be a diplomatic 
boycott. But I believe the corporate sponsors will still be 
involved. And I think there needs to be some sort of corporate 
responsibility here.
    Can you or Mr. Millward perhaps speak to what we could do 
in the Congress to instill this corporate responsibility as the 
Olympics, if and when they go forward?
    Dr. Millward. I will speak briefly to that, if I may.
    Mr. McCaul. Sure.
    Dr. Millward. First of all, thank you, Mr. McCaul, for that 
question.
    I think, you know, in the past a lot of people have looked 
at the Olympics issue and looked back at the Soviet invasion of 
Afghanistan and said that the boycott was not useful. I think 
it was useful. I think we need to use the opportunity, though, 
to have as many conversations in corporations, and between the 
athletes themselves to spread the message rather than it being 
a single up-and-down decision made, for example, by the 
President.
    Mr. McCaul. Yes. I agree with you. I think we would not--if 
we had boycotted Munich during the Nazi regime we would not 
have seen Jesse Owens prove to Hitler that his Aryan race was 
not superior. And I do not know if boycotting the Russians--I 
do think the athletes deserve their time, but I think this 
corporate responsibility notion needs to be.
    Any idea you have moving forward, I would like to hear 
those.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    Mr. McCaul. And I yield, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you.
    I now recognize Representative Brad Sherman of California 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing and continuing the efforts of our committee to focus on 
the genocide of the Uyghurs.
    We had a hearing on this in December 2019 when I Chaired 
the Asia Subcommittee. I commend to those who are watching this 
hearing to go back and look at the transcript of that one. In 
that hearing we heard from Mr. Ferkat Jawdat whose mother, as 
he spoke so eloquently, was in detention for 15 months.
    The issue before us is what should we do? So far we have 
passed through the House and Senate only some modest acts that 
are aimed at particular individuals. Often, this is a way to 
make us feel like we have done something by denying tourist 
visas, and for people who do not want to visit the United 
States; and freezing the U.S. assets of individuals who do not 
have assets in the United States.
    We came close in 2019 to passing more significant 
legislation, which was the Uyghur Act. I introduced the Uyghur 
Act, but this was actually Rubio's bill, which we in our 
committee used to put a lot of House content in it. 
Unfortunately, it has not passed the Senate. It passed the 
House; the Senate refused to deal with it.
    Ultimately, though, focusing just on individual people or 
individual products is probably not going to get the Chinese 
Government to change that much. It does contribute to our sense 
of purity so we can say no American lips have touched a slave-
picked tomato from Xinjiang. But just not being able to sell 
certain tomatoes in the United States is not going to get 
Beijing to change its behavior.
    To change its behavior what we need is across-the-board 
tariffs on all Chinese goods. And this will give us the 
bargaining power we need to deal with China on a host of 
issues, especially human rights. And it will also reduce 
Chinese power, which is very substantial here in the United 
States. China has that power because we are so dependent upon 
them in our supply chains.
    We have talked so much about the plight of the Uyghurs, and 
I think the testimony has been illuminating, but I would like 
to ask Mr. Turkel about the policy of Muslim States around the 
world. Here you have a Muslim group being oppressed in large 
part because of their religion, and the Government of Turkey 
has at least said a few things under some pressure from Turkic 
nationalists in Turkey. But virtually the entire rest of the 
Muslim world has been silent.
    What can we do to get the Muslim world to be, hopefully, 
even tougher on than this than we are?
    What can we do to get the Muslim street around the world to 
appreciate that whether it is Kosovo, Bosnia, the Rohingya, or 
the Uyghurs, it is the United States that is playing the 
greatest role in the world in trying to protect this oppressed 
Muslims?
    So, what do we do to both galvanize support in Muslim 
countries for your cause?
    And what do we do to make sure that Muslims around the 
world know that the United States is taking the lead?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you, Congressman. As you know, of course, 
we had this conversation in our first hearing back in 2018, 
September 2018. It is incredible we are discussing the same 
issue without much progress.
    It is very disturbing, to say the least, that the Muslim 
majority countries have taken the side with CCP. Even in the 
face of CCP calling Uyghur Islam as a mental illness, the 
countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt taken, given their full 
support, in fact they are publicly praising CCP for its 
treatment of the Muslim Uyghurs.
    You know, we can talk about economic reasons, but more so 
it appears that there is not a common ground, you know, 
covering each other's back. These countries are not a 
Jeffersonian democracy, but we can just ignore them for a 
while.
    But there are a few other countries have been in a modest 
manner of speaking, like the Turkish Minister of Foreign 
Affairs for example, Kosovo signed a joint letter after the 
ministerials. And also Qatar withdrew support of that letters, 
39-country letters that they sent it to the U.N. Human Rights 
Council.
    So, there is some, you know, plainly, if I can put it 
plainly, have to do a better job rallying support with these 
countries. So, I think diplomatic effort would be effective. 
So, we can start this with the Organization of Islamic 
Conference. This Administration is doing exactly the right 
thing engaging with our partners and allies. And this should be 
taken to the U.N. We have a----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired. So, got 
to get to the rest of the Members. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    I now recognize Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, 
who is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 
Health, and Global Human Rights, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, especially 
for holding this important hearing.
    Mr. Chairman, as you know, since 1983 I have raised the 
issue of the one child, and now two child per couple policy 
which has been used with devastating impact on women and 
children in all of China, with forced abortion and forced 
sterilization as a means of implementing the one or two child 
per couple policy.
    Now we see--and this has been around for a while, it is not 
new--but the whole idea of coercive population control is being 
used against the Uyghurs. And, Mr. Turkel, you pointed out some 
very devastating numbers that say that the population has 
dropped by 84 percent between 2015 and 2018, and 24 percent in 
2019.
    I have worked with many individuals inside Xinjiang with 
the presence of this issue for years. This is a form, it is one 
of the definitions of the Genocide Convention, Article 2. There 
are five of them. One of them is imposing measures intended to 
prevent birth within a group. All five of the criteria for the 
Genocide Convention are being violated by the PRC, by Xi 
Jinping with impunity.
    And I just want to ask a couple of questions of Mr. Turkel, 
if you would.
    And, first of all, thank you for making the Forced Labor 
Prevention Act, introduced by Mr. McGovern and I, your first 
priority, listed No. 1. Because I think as my colleague knows, 
and we marked it up in committee the other day, Mr. Chairman, 
it will create a rebuttable presumption that all goods produced 
in the region are made with forced labor, unless U.S. Customs 
and Border Protection certifies by clear and convincing 
evidence that goods were not produced with forced labor. So, it 
shifts the whole presumption, these products will not come here 
unless they can prove that they were not made in forced labor.
    But if I could, if you could speak to this issue, this 
horrible issue of coercing women, of stealing their babies and 
destroying them by dismemberment or chemical poisoning, which 
is an outrage, and more needs to be done.
    Second, you say that in the United Nations the U.S. should 
bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council. We will ask the 
Biden Administration to do that. Have you had any feedback as 
to whether or not they will?
    They also say that the U.S. should urge the U.N. Human 
Rights Council to go beyond the fruitless demand for an 
international delegation to have access to just do remote 
monitoring. We know what is going on. We want more information. 
But they are going to deny access until the cows come home.
    And, finally, on the genocide Olympics, I am going to be 
Chairing a hearing probably on the 18th on the genocide 
Olympics with the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. And, you 
know, it seems to me that the change of venue is still a viable 
option if there is the political will.
    And, again, as my friend Mr. McCaul, the Ranking Member, 
mentioned, the fact that corporate America has been aiding and 
abetting an Olympics at a venue where there is a current day 
genocide occurring, plus other massive human rights violations, 
is absolutely unconscionable.
    So, if you would, Mr. Turkel, speak to those issues.
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you very much.
    The forced sterilization population control is one of the 
most effective methods or practices in a genocidal campaign. 
The family planning policy has been enforced, as you are well 
aware from your hearings from the mid-'90's, late 1990's even. 
This is an ongoing process, but it has only accelerated in the 
last few years, based on the Chinese government's own report. 
So, why do they do this? They wanted to prevent the Uyghurs to 
exist on the face of the earth.
    I recently had a chance to interview one of the former camp 
employees, a teacher. She told me that she was forced to go 
through sterilization at the age of 50. So, this is outrageous. 
I do not think there is a mechanism to address this. Maybe 
Congress should consider looking to the way to handle this 
legislatively or through a legislative mandate.
    On the Olympic issue, I think it is not unusual for the 
Olympic committee to consider postponing next year's Olympics 
if relocation turned out to be a difficult proposition. It is 
unfair to our athletes, American athletes, to compete while the 
genocide is ongoing in the backdrop of the concentration camps.
    And also, let's be reminded of the history. In 1936, when 
Hitler held the Berlin Olympics, he was already building 
Dachau. He was engaging in forced sterilization. He was 
engaging in forced labor. And 3 years later, he invaded Europe. 
There should be concern about China maybe following a similar 
practice.
    We can sense impatience in Beijing to achieve the global 
ambition. So, this should be concerning. We can put aside all 
the human rights concerns, but this can be a geopolitical 
national security concern for the United States.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you.
    The gentleman's time has expired. I now will recognize 
Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who is the President 
of the NATO Parliamentarian Assembly, for 5 minutes, after 
which I will pass the gavel to the Vice Chair of the committee, 
Mr. Tom Malinowski.
    And as I have to leave, I just want to again thank the 
witnesses, especially Ms. Tursunay for her very, very moving 
and bold testimony here today. It is something that I will long 
remember, even past my time here in Congress. Thank you.
    And, Mr. Connolly, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    I think you have to unmute, Mr. Connolly. You are still on 
mute, Mr. Connolly. You have to unmute.
    Samantha, it looks like we are having technical problems. 
Let's come back to Mr. Connolly.
    Let's now go to Representative Ted Deutch of Florida, who 
is the Chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North 
Africa and Global Counterterrorism.
    And we will see if we can get back to Mr. Connolly.
    Mr. Deutch. Thank you very much, Chairman Meeks. Thanks for 
convening this really important hearing.
    Thanks to our witnesses for testifying this afternoon.
    For years, the government of the People's Republic of China 
has used false pretexts to repress and discriminate against the 
Turkic Muslims and other minority groups, particularly the 
Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the harassment of these groups located 
in other countries. Reports describe a systematic program by 
the PRC government involving arbitrary detention of more than a 
million Uyghurs as well as torture, beatings, food deprivation, 
sexual assault, forced sterilization, and denial of political, 
religious, cultural, and linguistic freedoms, so much of which 
we have heard about powerfully from our witnesses today.
    Congress is taking important action to assist Uyghurs, 
including passing Representative McGovern's Uyghur Forced Labor 
Prevention Act, which sanctions PRC officials responsible for 
the repression of Uyghurs. And I am proud to have supported 
this and other measures.
    However, more needs to be done. That is why I introduced 
the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act in March, to provide 
priority to P-2 refugee status to Uyghurs and other minority 
groups facing persecution by the PRC government. P-2 is for 
groups of special humanitarian concern who are designated for 
resettlement processing and provided direct access to the U.S. 
refugee system. The bill also streamlines the asylum process 
for Uyghurs, encourages allies and partners to also accept 
Uyghur refugees, and encourages the Secretary of State to 
prioritize the plight of the Uyghurs in bilateral relations 
with third countries that host Uyghurs.
    The legislation demonstrates congressional interest in 
assisting the Uyghur people and signals support for the Biden 
Administration's efforts to aid Uyghurs and others persecuted 
by the PRC. The bill has received bipartisan support, and I 
would like to thank my colleague, Representative Smith, for 
introducing it with me, and thank the half dozen other Members 
of the committee who have already agreed to cosponsor.
    For centuries, the United States has had a proud of history 
of welcoming oppressed peoples from around the world, and we 
are right to focus on actions within China. The Uyghur Human 
Rights Protection Act is a continuation of the best tradition 
of U.S. foreign policy and humanitarianism and upholds 
America's image as a beacon of hope and refuge and liberty to 
millions worldwide.
    So, I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and 
other Members of this committee, to advance this bill and 
provide additional support for Uyghurs.
    Now, Mr. Turkel, in your written testimony you express 
support for providing P-2 status to Uyghurs and expediting 
Uyghur asylum cases. Can you please describe the barriers the 
Uyghurs face, both in immigrating to and declaring asylum in 
the United States?
    Mr. Turkel. Congressman, thank you so much for introducing 
that bill. I thought it was necessary and a critically 
important bill.
    The humanitarian intervention is something that we could do 
while the diplomatic engagements and activities are ongoing. 
There are two major challenges for the Uyghur refugees around 
the world. In the homeland, there is a heavy backlog being 
created since 2013, preventing affirmative asylum applicants to 
go through the adjudication process, simply showing up at the 
asylum office to have a hearing, an asylum interview. We can 
work to expedite that. The Uyghurs are not asking for blanket 
immigration status. They would like to have a day with the 
asylum office to tell their story why they cannot be returned 
to China in the face of the ongoing genocide.
    In other countries, particularly in the Middle East, 
Turkey, to be exact, a large number of Uyghurs have been 
wandering and hiding because most of the host countries have 
derogatory information on them. They also collaborate with the 
Chinese State; namely, countries like Egypt and the UAE have 
deported Uyghurs who are seeking or facing a danger in the 
country.
    So, the ideal way of handling this issue once we have the 
legislation is to set up an independent mechanism, either at 
the embassy or through an NGO, to go through an independent 
vetting process, to that we can avoid that derogatory 
information provided by CCP to those host countries being used 
against them.
    Mr. Deutch. Mr. Turkel, thank you so much.
    Mr. Chairman, there is so much that we can do through this 
legislation and the ongoing focus of this committee. I am 
grateful for your attention and the Ranking Member's attention 
and the leadership of both of you on this vital issue.
    And I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Malinowski [presiding]. Thank you so much, 
Representative Deutch.
    Representative Chabot is next for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And my good friend and colleague, Mr. Sherman, raised a 
question already that I wanted to focus on, but I will expand 
that a little bit. And I will go to Dr. Millward, and then back 
to Mr. Turkel on it.
    The frustration that I feel, and I think many of my 
colleagues, with the Muslim countries across the globe who 
basically have stood by silently, or sometimes even worse, as 
Mr. Turkel mentioned. And either they are cowed by the PRC or 
they are afraid of their reach or their economic power, or 
something keeps them quiet on one of the most horrific human 
rights abuses on earth today.
    What, if anything, can either we or allies, or others, do 
to modify the way they are looking at this and actually step up 
and help us? It seems the United States is out there, 
unfortunately, too often alone on these issues with some of 
these other countries that we are supporting in many other ways 
and have helped them so much, and they are just silent on 
something that they ought to be aggressively speaking out on.
    And so, Dr. Millward, could you comment on that?
    Dr. Millward. Yes. Thank you very much.
    I think the United States, although the measures that we 
have been taking now are a very good step, we were a little bit 
slow, really at least a year slow, in our own responses to the 
atrocities in the Xinjiang region. The recent work with our 
allies in Europe, Canada, the U.K., I think it is a very, very 
positive step because it is presenting an international view of 
what is going on as opposed to simply being a bilateral U.S. 
response.
    I think this kind of diplomatic work can be extended to 
beyond traditional NATO allies to other countries. There was 
that list which Mr. Turkel referred to of signatories of a 
letter in the U.N. of 37 other countries. That list included 
many Muslim majority countries, indeed, but it also included 
many countries that are not Muslim either. And the issue here I 
think is much more that of authoritarian countries, countries 
with their own very bad human rights records, signing on with 
China and forming sort of a bloc, an authoritarian bloc, in the 
U.N. Human Rights Council, for example.
    So, I think more U.S. involvement in the United Nations, 
getting back onto the Human Rights Council there, and continued 
diplomatic work. There are some Muslim countries that did not 
sign that letter. Malaysia did not sign that letter. Bangladesh 
did not sign that letter. And so there are some possibilities 
that we can work with. Turkey did not, in fact, sign it, 
although their position on this is complicated. So, there are 
many opportunities, I think, for gaining Muslim countries' 
agreement on this. The country of Qatar initially signed, and 
then unsigned, that letter of the authoritarian government.
    So, progress can be made. It will take diplomatic work. 
That is quiet diplomatic work, maybe some guarantees that the 
United States is going to stand up for this and not waiver 
ourselves.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you.
    Mr. Turkel, did you want to comment any further?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes. We need a bigger boat, Congressman. This 
should not be a matter for the U.S. Government only to consider 
a concern. Our traditional allies and partners have started 
coming along, but we need to do and we can do a better job in 
Central and Eastern European countries, some countries that Dr. 
Millward was mentioning, that used to be fighting against the 
same fight that the Uyghurs have been fighting, communism.
    So, yes, we have to engage in, we have deepen the public 
engagement, public diplomacy particularly. Using the local 
population would be very useful. Like, for example, in Europe, 
if our embassy organizes the victims as camp survivors to meet 
with their own government and engage them, that may be helping 
them to get onboard. Personal contact can be very powerful, as 
we have seen in Tursunay's testimony today. So, our embassies 
could arrange that kind of meeting with the local governments.
    The Uyghurs have some problem, try not to engage with the 
governments in their host countries; the same thing in 
Australia; the same thing in Germany. So, if our embassy could 
help them to set that kind of contact with their governments, 
it could help us to bring them into the fold.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. My time is expired, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you.
    We are going to go to Representative Bera for 5 minutes 
now.
    Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. And thank 
you for this important hearing.
    I am going to follow the line of questioning that my 
colleague from California, Mr. Sherman, initially started, 
which is, how do we engage the Muslim majority countries in 
this fight? I understand that a lot of those governments are 
certainly authoritarian and limit the flow of information. But 
it has always occurred to me that, if the citizens in these 
countries, if the young people in these countries, understood 
what was happening--that mosques are being torn down, that 
people's religion is being reprogrammed, and the internment 
camps--that you could mobilize the masses to then get their 
various governments engaged.
    Maybe, Mr. Turkel, this is a question to you. Within many 
of these Muslim majority countries, how aware are the citizens, 
the young people in the countries, of what is going on in 
Xinjiang?
    Mr. Turkel. There is one key issue that we have to tackle. 
That is disinformation. For some reason, the Chinese have been 
very effective misinforming the public in the Muslim countries. 
To this day, they are actively telling the world that this is a 
problem that the United States made in order to prevent China 
to rise. So, this information, we need to tackle the 
disinformation campaign that the Chinese have been waging.
    And also, we have to recognize that these Muslim countries, 
the citizens do not have a voice in these kind of matters. They 
cannot go and criticize their governments. For example, this is 
impossible even in Egypt and Saudi Arabia for their citizens to 
say, ``Oh, you should not take a side with CCP.''
    So, I think the diplomatic engagement, public diplomacy, 
engaging with those countries individually or collectively 
could be very helpful. We can pick a few candidate countries. I 
think people may have a different view, but Turkey could be a 
good candidate country that we should engage. Malaysia, 
Indonesia, they have a large Muslim population. They are also 
facing a certain type of CCP threat. So, we should engage with 
the government one on one at a high level instead of making 
public statements. I think that could be something very useful.
    In the previous administration, Secretary Pompeo went to 
Central Asia to engage with the Central Asian Turkic States. 
Secretary Blinken could do or should do the same, engaging with 
people who have historical, traditional ties with the Uyghurs.
    Mr. Bera. So, one of our best strategies in the cold war 
was Radio Free Europe, and the beauty of it was we did not have 
to--we were just telling the truth and making sure people had 
access to the truth. So, I do not know if there are ways 
through social media.
    Recently, I was reading an article in The New York Times 
about some of the Uyghur population in Japan, and when the 
Japanese public was starting to become aware of what was 
happening in China, they started to raise the issue with their 
government, probably in a way that the Japanese government did 
not necessarily want raised. But, again, I think the population 
in Europe now is very aware, which puts pressure on the EU and 
countries like France and Germany not to move ahead so easily 
with some of these trade deals.
    Again, maybe it is forming a coalition of like-minded, 
like-valued countries, getting the citizens engaged, places 
where you can make access to information more readily 
available, and then putting pressure on the United Nations, 
having that coalition.
    Maybe, Dr. Millward, if you want to add anything to how we 
might create that global coalition in my last minute?
    Dr. Millward. I do not have much to add to what Mr. Turkel 
just said. This is, of course, difficult, not something that 
can be easily done by a single passage of a bill or something. 
But restoring the United States' own international reputation--
and there is definitely race issues, and so on--this is an 
ongoing process that involves issues at home as well as issues 
abroad and looking at our own history in the Middle East. But, 
insofar as we can take some steps and send some signals around 
those things, I think it can only help in being more persuasive 
in our conversations with Muslim majority countries in this 
discussion about China's treatment of the Uyghurs and other 
people in Xinjiang.
    Mr. Bera. Right. I am out of time. So, I will yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you. Thank you so much.
    We are going to now to Representative Burchett for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is very 
informative.
    There is a lady in my district that she is always on me 
about why haven't I do not anything about the Uyghurs, and in 
the situation with Communist China, I am as frustrated as she 
is. I am frustrated as a committee, and I worry about the 
things that we are doing, if we are doing anything at all, or 
just another report on a shelf.
    And I am wondering with the administration, they seem to 
want to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party, the various 
aspects, especially the environment. And I am wondering, do you 
think it is smart for us to cooperate with the Chinese 
Communist Party in this respect while condemning their human 
rights violations? And do any of our guests feel like this can 
be separated? Because everybody seems to want to play ball with 
them, and I get it, but I am curious what our panel thinks.
    Dr. Millward. I will try to address that. Representative 
Burchett, I understand your frustration, and the idea of 
playing ball with a regime that is doing what it is doing in 
Xinjiang is a very difficult one. In my written testimony, I 
was playing around with how to suggest and think about this. 
And I came up with the phrase of compartmentalizing when 
necessary, but do not minimize or marginalize human rights 
issues. And I am sure I am telling you and others in the U.S. 
Government something you already know by saying this. That is 
how politics is done and that is how we do things.
    But, with environmental issues, we are facing global 
problems, and it is also an economic problem. And it is the 
ironic issue that much of the polysilicate, I believe it is 
called, which is used to make solar panels, actually is sourced 
in Xinjiang. So, I am not sure if polysilicate will become the 
next cotton or tomato, but the point is we are really linked 
together economically, just as we are linked together morally 
with these problems. And we need to be talking about them and 
be pushing on them.
    And insofar as we can agree on something and have some 
conversations going on over the environment--and recent signals 
have been a little more positive that the PRC and the United 
States can work on some of that--that can only make it easier 
to address the more thorny issues at the same time. So, 
although it does involve keeping contradictory ideas in our 
minds simultaneously, at least from my point of view as someone 
who has conversations with Chinese colleagues and friends about 
this all the time, it is important to have some common ground 
maybe to retreat to now and then. And so then we get out into 
the rhetorical battlefield at other times and really work on 
the more difficult issues.
    Mr. Burchett. I just think too much we are listening to the 
Chamber of Commerce, and maybe we need to listen to our hearts 
a little more. That almighty dollar seems to be the driving 
factor in all of this for us anyway.
    Going back to what you said, though, it is easier to 
prevent imports coming in from Xinjiang. But there is a report 
that 80,000 Uyghurs have been transferred and forced to work in 
factories and other jobs in the Chinese provinces. What can we 
do to improve that supply chain tracing? This is a joke. You 
know, we put it on one province; we do not put it on another. 
It is not the whole country, and I get that. But, there again, 
when are we going to start listening to our hearts instead of 
the Chambers of Commerce?
    Dr. Millward. Here, I will agree with you. It is definitely 
not just Xinjiang; it is the whole country. And I mentioned in 
my written testimony there is a program in China known as the 
Partnership Pairing Program, or the Counterpart Pairing 
Program, which actually created sister city relationships 
between provinces and cities of eastern China, rich provinces 
and cities, to go into Xinjiang and build factories and build 
industrial zones, and provide educational training. And there 
are news reports that some of this, in fact, is directly 
involved with the Gulag, with the system of prisons.
    So, I think we need to expand our ambit and what we are 
looking at to see what is the involvement of Beijing, Tianjin, 
Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and all of the others, in what 
is going on in Xinjiang. And that will, of course, create more 
pain, but it will also create more
    [inaudible]. And so I very much agreement with you, 
Representative Burchett.
    Mr. Burchett. Yes, we are out of time. I should remind 
everybody, every time you buy something made in China, there 
has probably been slaved hands on it, and I think we need to 
start acting appropriately and acting like a world leader, and 
put the greed aside for a little while.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your time and your 
indulgence.
    Mr. Malinowski. Hear, hear.
    Representative Titus, we will go to you for 5 minutes now.
    Ms. Titus. Yes, thank you.
    I met recently with some Members of the National People's 
Congress. It was arranged by the U.S. Asia Institute. And when 
I mentioned the Uyghurs, there was kind of two responses. One 
was, of course, they denied that they were committing any kind 
of genocide and, in fact, insisted that it was just the 
opposite, that they have rooted out terrorist plots; they had 
eliminated poverty; they were giving the Uyghurs a real 
opportunity for a better life.
    And then the second argument they made was that it was 
really none of our business; this was internal politics of 
China. We did not need to get involved in it. We had our own 
problems with how we treated minorities in this country.
    So, I would ask the witnesses if they would comment about 
this and talk about the fact that, as we do draw more attention 
to the problem, considering sanctions or getting some of our 
allies in the area to condemn it, are we running the risk of 
driving this underground and making it more difficult to get 
good information about what is happening, so we cannot be 
effective in countering it?
    Mr. Turkel. I can start. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    For the first time, The Washington Post, in the last 20 
years, has no reporter in China. Even if we go soft or hard on 
China, on the CCP, I do not think it would make any difference. 
They do not even want to acknowledge that they are dragging the 
international community to engage with this genocidal regime in 
the daylight.
    They also have no shame referencing the Holocaust when they 
are talking about collective punishment. They also have no 
shame using their money, economic influence, to buy silence or 
turning some Uyghur countries into a client State. They also 
have no shame stating that the United States made some mistakes 
in the 19th century; therefore, the United States has no moral 
authority to speak.
    So, when a government, or even an individual, has nothing 
to say, they call others liars and pay a whataboutism card. So, 
that specifically addresses why the Chinese have been coming up 
and engaging in this.
    And also, genocide denial is a very active method for the 
perpetrators to continue their campaign. So, the longer that 
they can confuse people, conflate the facts, and also using 
some useful--excuse me for using ``useful''--idiots in our 
country from academia, from the think tank, to criticize our 
own government--that is injected into China's official 
propaganda--it helps the regime in Beijing.
    Therefore, we have to be very mindful this regime is 
extremely insecure, as has been displayed in Alaska. They have 
a very specific objective, both domestically and 
internationally, that they want to create a new norm. They have 
been expanding the technology that they use to engage in 
genocide over 80 countries. We have a much bigger problem to 
deal with.
    As I pointed out earlier, the United States remains to be 
the largest destination for Xinjiang exports, as we speak. So, 
it took us almost 20 years to get this problem. It will take 
even longer probably to even request more innovative, creative, 
bold responses to tackle these monumental challenges that we 
are facing.
    Ms. Titus. Well, thank you. I was afraid of something like 
that.
    I would ask, Ms. Tursunay--if that is pronouncing it 
correctly--thank you for your courage in being with us today.
    I would like to ask if she could comment about the Uyghur 
community that is outside of China that is looking over its 
shoulder, worrying about being repatriated. Is there any 
special targeting or harassment or problems particular to women 
and girls that you know about who are facing those kinds of 
issues?
    The Interpreter. I am going to re-explain the question. 
Thank you.
    Ms. Ziyawudun. I do not know of any such things. So, I do 
not know of anything outside, but, back in the homeland, even 
outside the camps, there are such threats that are specifically 
targeted at girls and women. So, I was living outside the camp 
for 9 months, and in that period there were all sorts of 
threats--people from the government; police would come around, 
would call all the time. They forced us to drink alcohol, and 
so forth. At the end of 2019, those things were still going on, 
but I did not see any such things after I went to Kazakhstan 
other than----
    Ms. Titus. Just the usual?
    Ms. Ziyawudun [continuing]. Other than by telephone.
    Ms. Titus. Oh, Okay. Well, thank you very much.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much.
    We will now go to Representative Barr.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you to our witnesses.
    And as to this absurd moral equivalency argument about the 
United States and our history relative to what is happening in 
Xinjiang, I will just say for the record--and I shouldn't have 
to--that the U.S. Government is not operating concentration 
camps, not engaged in extrajudicial detention, collective 
punishment, guilt by association, systematic torture and rape, 
medications inducing infertility/impaired mental function, 
torture, rape, forced abortion, withholding medical care, and 
intense political indoctrination. This is not happening in the 
United States. And so it is a shame we have to say that for the 
record, but this is just absurd propaganda from the CCP.
    Let me ask any of our witnesses--well, actually, let me 
start with Professor Millward and Mr. Turkel. Tell me, what is 
it about the Uyghur population that creates such a sense of 
threat to the CCP? Why is the CCP so particularly threatened by 
the Uyghurs?
    Dr. Millward. Well, the Uyghur region, or the so-called 
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, it lies outside of 
traditional China demographically and geographically, and it 
was really taken over by the People's Republic of China in 
1949. Now, of course, historical arguments about previous 
Chinese States being involved there becomes a historic 
question.
    But, essentially, it a colonial issue that they have not 
wanted to recognize and, instead, tried to argue, through false 
historical narratives, that this has always been part of China. 
And now, they have come to the extreme point where they are 
arguing that the people of the Uyghurs, the Uyghurs themselves, 
are historically Chinese, although they do not know it. That is 
essentially what this argument has been. And so they have 
gotten themselves into this extreme position.
    There is a lot of Islamophobia around this as well, and 
fear and lack of knowledge of who the Uyghurs are, because 
their customs are very different from those of Han Chinese, and 
this fear of difference is part of that as well.
    And so we see policies such as were mentioned by Ms. 
Ziyawudun, you know, forcing them to drink alcohol or putting 
pressure on students or officials not to fast during Ramadan; 
concerns about pork. Precisely those aspects of Uyghur culture 
that are different from the Han make many people uncomfortable 
in China. And so they have been targeted by these policies.
    Mr. Barr. Okay. Let me ask any of the witnesses, obviously, 
President Biden has appointed John Kerry as Special Envoy for 
Climate to dialog with the Chinese regarding climate change. 
This action, obviously, shows that climate is a priority for 
the administration. Special Envoy Kerry went to China to 
negotiate with the CCP. President Biden convened a Climate 
Summit, invited President Xi to speak at that summit.
    Has the Biden Administration taken any similar steps to 
stop the CCP from continuing to commit genocide against its own 
people? Has President Biden convened a summit to stop the 
genocide? Have we sent an envoy to China specifically regarding 
genocide in Xinjiang? What actions has the Biden Administration 
taken that would put this issue in any remote vicinity of the 
priority that the administration is placing on climate?
    Mr. Turkel. Let me tackle that question. The Uyghur 
genocide, and now reportedly connected to the green technology, 
green investment that Americans are making in China, 
particularly with solar panels, the Uyghurs homeland also 
reportedly is the largest base for windmill turbine. So, I 
think it is reasonable to expect that the Biden Administration 
bring up these issues because it has been already reported. 
Congress is also going after these issues. Recently, Senator 
Rubio wrote to the organization that represents the solar 
industry. So, they have been put on notice.
    As far as the administration's specific actions, they 
announced two coordinated sanctions last month. We are 
particularly pleased with Secretary Blinken's engagement with 
our allies and partners. As a result, we have three parliaments 
at least now--Canadian, U.K., and the Netherlands--that have 
officially recognized. We anticipate similar action in other 
countries, maybe Australia and others in Europe.
    And one other thing that this administration did all right 
is to raise this at literally every public event. I have been 
hearing Secretary Blinken bringing up this issue repeatedly. 
So, this is very important, especially publicly calling them 
out.
    What other additional steps taken? You know, I could 
ambitiously recommend Secretary Blinken to visit, request to 
visit the Uyghur homeland. This has never happened in the 
history. That is possible. If the Chinese have nothing to hide, 
open the doors to Secretary Blinken.
    Mr. Barr. A good idea. My time has expired, but I hope this 
administration, or any administration, to place emphasis on 
this issue independent of climate and not just where slave 
labor converges with solar panels. I think this is an 
independently important issue that should be a priority for the 
administration, and I am encouraged with your testimony. I hope 
that continues.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much.
    Representative Connolly, are you ready to jump in?
    Mr. Connolly. I am. Thank you.
    Mr. Malinowski. Great.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you for our panel.
    I am sorry I have had to go back and forth. I have three 
Zoom hearings at the same time.
    And, Mr. Turkel, just picking up on what I have heard, I 
mean, I find it interesting that there would even be an 
inferential criticism of the Biden Administration with respect 
to call out the Uyghur human rights crisis, given the fact that 
the previous administration, and led by the President himself, 
almost never talked about human rights, avoided it in his 
conversations with people like Vladimir Putin and other venues.
    And in the brief few months the Biden Administration has 
been in power, what I understood from your testimony--and I do 
not want to put words in your mouth; please clarify if I got it 
wrong--but, I mean, this administration actually has brought up 
the Uyghur human rights crisis in every exchange, public and 
private, with the Chinese that we know of, including Secretary 
Blinken's meeting with his Chinese counterparts in Alaska. Is 
that correct?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes, that is an accurate statement. The one 
specific action, if you will, that the Biden Administration is 
taking is the continuance of the policy initiatives or the 
executive actions put in place in the previous administration.
    As I noted, there are 74 punitive actions that have been 
taken, which is very significant. I have been doing human 
rights work in the last 22 years. I never thought that my 
government will be taken such a significant action to address 
these issues.
    Mr. Connolly. I am sorry, let me just interrupt you. You 
said there were 74 specific actions taken----
    Mr. Turkel. Yes, punitive actions taken----
    Mr. Connolly. Punitive actions?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes.
    Mr. Connolly. This is by the Biden Administration?
    Mr. Turkel. No, the whole previous and current 
administrations all together.
    Mr. Connolly. By the United States?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes. And one other thing that I think that 
Secretary Blinken or the President himself should consider 
doing is a whole day of ``Friend of Uyghurs Summit,'' at least 
taking the issue to a G-7 summit next month in the U.K. And 
this has to be tackled at a really high level. Mentioning it 
publicly, raising it is wonderful, but tangible, long-lasting 
actions are required. We need to expand the existing policies 
being implemented.
    Mr. Connolly. Let me ask you, do you believe that the 
United States policy could or should be more specific on items 
with respect to the suppression of the Uyghurs, like closing 
detention camps, ending family separation and birth suppression 
policies, among others?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes.
    Mr. Connolly. I mean, is there benefit in our being more 
specific in calling out Chinese reprehensible actions?
    Mr. Turkel. Absolutely. Your constituents, for example, in 
northern Virginia have been separated from their family 
Members. Several Uyghur Americans who are working for the U.S. 
Government as contractors are looking for family Members. The 
Biden administration at least tried to specifically help the 
Uyghur Americans to reunite with their grandmothers, 
grandparents, or siblings. That should be something that is put 
on the top of the agenda.
    I could go even further. The Biden administration should 
not have a meaningful dialog on anything until at least the 
Uyghur American families are being released from the 
concentration camps.
    Mr. Connolly. We heard from Mr. Millward that--and by the 
way, Mr. Millward, I agree with you, and I think it reflects on 
the Chinese actions in Tibet as well--there is a certain Han 
xenophobia within China about other ethnic groups and the need 
to dominate. And unfortunately, they are willing to resort to 
very violent and repressive practices to do that.
    Did you want to elaborate a little bit, Mr. Turkel, on Mr. 
Millward's observation? I am including Tibet. Mr. Millward did 
not, but I think he probably would agree--I see him shaking his 
head yes--about this impulse within the Chinese culture, with 
the Communist Party promoting it, to dominate and repress other 
ethnic groups in the country.
    Dr. Millward. Could I?
    Mr. Connolly. Yes, Mr. Millward, if you want to comment, of 
course.
    Dr. Millward. Very quickly, it is not within Chinese 
culture. It is within the current policies of the PRC. I think 
that is important because----
    Mr. Connolly. I am sorry, I want to be real clear. I did 
not mean to say Chinese culture as such. I meant the communist 
culture of China, current China.
    Dr. Millward. The current, the current political culture, 
yes.
    Mr. Turkel. Congressman, no country in the world treats the 
Muslims the way that China does. This question came up a few 
times earlier. Through the Chinese government, the others, 
particularly the people who follow Western religion, could 
potentially pose a political threat. So, that threat is their 
sense of their insecurity. This is why they have been primarily 
targeting the Muslim and Christian population in the current 
crisis, or state violence against the vulnerable minorities.
    Mr. Malinowski. The time has expired, I am afraid.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Malinowski. We are going to go to Congressman Steube 
next.
    Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    My questions are for Mr. Turkel. As a member of the Africa 
Global Health and Global Human Rights Committee, I would like 
to touch on China's role in Africa and how this relationship 
can lead to detrimental outcomes to human rights. Chinese 
companies have constructed or renovated, or both, at least 186 
sensitive African government buildings. Burundi inaugurated a 
$22 million Presidential palace. Zimbabwe has a $100 million 
parliament building. The Liberian government is expanding its 
capital building. The $66 million combined cost of the project 
equals more than 2 percent of Liberia's estimated 2019 GDP. All 
the buildings, and many more across the continent, were gifts 
from the Chinese government.
    One of the most appealing gifts Beijing offers African 
officials is help maintaining power. Chinese infrastructure 
projects often happen around their election season. Chinese 
companies are well-suited to provide a political boost because 
they can move quickly, in part, because many are willing to 
forego environmental impact studies or ignore local labor laws.
    Many African rulers will likely side with Beijing over 
Washington on key issues and in international settings like the 
United Nations. African States comprise nearly half of the 37 
signatories of a 2019 open letter defending China's human 
rights abuses of its minority Uyghur population.
    I introduced a resolution condemning the United Nations' 
decision to appoint China a seat on its Human Rights Council on 
April 1st, 2020, and demand serious human rights reform.
    Even though the United States is by far the largest 
humanitarian aid donor to Africa, it will be difficult for 
Washington to build global momentum for holding Beijing 
accountable, given how unlikely many African leaders will risk 
angering China. The large, dependable bloc of African support 
that China enjoys will remain a competitive advantage for the 
Chinese Communist Party. African governments are helping 
downplay Beijing's large-scale human rights abuses in the 
Uyghur region and have helped Chinese Nationals win leadership 
of influential international organizations.
    Can you please share any thoughts or potential solutions on 
this very important issue?
    Mr. Turkel. That is an excellent question. The ongoing 
crisis has an international aspect to it, particularly on 
China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. In late 2018, a 
State-run media mocked the United States by stating something 
along the lines of: while the United States destroys your 
cities or kills your people, we help you to rebuild your 
schools, roads, your infrastructure. The way that we are 
dealing with the world's so-called Muslim problem, you should 
follow our model.
    So, that is one of the official campaigns, in addition to 
the economic activities taking place all around the world. It 
is the same thing as in Central Asia; a similar situation in 
Southeast Asia. I do not particularly follow Africa, but I 
would not be surprised that the Africans are also feeling stuck 
in these ongoing geostrategic activities engaged in by the CCP 
in Africa.
    Mr. Steube. I introduced a bill that would keep Huawei 
technologies or its subsidiaries and affiliates on the Entity 
List. What other measures do you recommend Congress take up to 
prevent Chinese companies gaining wealth in the United States 
and to ensure U.S. companies do not have ties to Uyghur forced 
labor?
    Mr. Turkel. Secretary Blinken told Congress in his 
confirmation hearing that he will focus on two things. One, 
stopped forced labor coming to the United States and our 
technology going to China, to facilitate the ongoing genocide.
    I do not think that the Silicon Valley has waken up to this 
brutality, even in the face of the ongoing genocide. Based on 
various reports, the Silicon Valley companies are still 
providing technology, transferring technology. They haven't 
come out publicly condemning anything or cut ties with 
anything, except for Apple recently told media that they are 
cutting loose a questionable supplier that makes film, all 
film, for the iPhones.
    But Silicon Valley needs to step up to the plate. They have 
not really, publicly at least, recognized the seriousness of 
the issues. Previously, when they come to testify in Congress, 
most of the CEOs from the Silicon Valley companies, high-tech 
companies, dodge the question about at least the forced labor 
aspect of their business practices in China.
    Mr. Steube. Thank you for your time today.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record a 
report from RWR Advisory Group regarding companies' complicity 
to the Uyghurs atrocities.
    Mr. Malinowski. Without objection.
    [The information referred to follows:]

                                  RWR
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                   
                                  
    Mr. Malinowski. And the gentleman's time has expired. We 
will now go to Representative Wild for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    My first question is to Dr. Millward. The European 
Parliament has spoken out and has imposed sanctions on China 
based on this issue. In response, China has leveled its own 
retaliatory sanctions and a planned China-EU trade agreement 
has been put on hold.
    Can you describe what the impact has been of the EU moves 
on this issue, and whether the pressure is affecting Beijing at 
this stage?
    Dr. Millward. I think the excessive PRC response to the EU 
and U.K. and Canadian sanctions is a good sign that the 
measures that democracies are beginning to take are beginning 
to work. I believe that there were four individuals and one 
entity, if I remember correctly, that the EU had in its own 
sanctions. And in response, there were many more, I think 10 or 
12; I am forgetting the exact numbers, but including 
parliamentarians of multiple parties in Europe, including a 
think tank, including an academic. And it really redounded 
against the interest of the PRC because it ground that 
investment deal to a halt. We just saw yesterday they are no 
longer seeking ratification in the European Parliament for 
that.
    So, I think this shows, actually, a kind of desperation on 
the part of the PRC in how to deal with these measures. And it 
simply shows how important multilateral responses are.
    Ms. Wild. And what do you think the U.S. administration's 
best steps are to coordinate with the EU and other 
international actors on this issue?
    Dr. Millward. I would say more of the same, and as has come 
up on earlier on, yes, a bigger boat, as Mr. Turkel said, 
expanding to other countries through various means that he 
mentioned before, just to show how seriously we take this, and 
it is not simply a United States-China issue, that it is the 
people of the world who are responding against these 
atrocities.
    Ms. Wild. And you are absolutely right about that. Very, 
very early on in my time in Congress, I was visited by a Uyghur 
constituent in my district whose family has been persecuted 
because of their ethnicity and faith. I ran into the husband of 
that family just the other night, and it has been now more than 
2 years since I met with them, and they have not heard a word 
and have no idea what has become of his wife's parents.
    I would like to direct my next question to Mr. Turkel. Mr. 
Turkel, I will start with the question, which is, if passed by 
the Senate and signed into law, what impact do you believe that 
the legislation that was passed by this Congress, or by 
Congress last term, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, if 
we were able to get that passed by the Senate and signed into 
law, what impact do you believe it would have in terms of 
putting significant economic pressure on the Chinese 
government?
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you very much for mentioning your 
constituents. Just quickly, there are hundreds of American 
citizens who are not even comfortable to come out and testify 
on behalf of their missing family Members. We have been dealing 
individually, privately, with the victims, but more should come 
out. I think this should be prioritized. Saving American 
families should be prioritized in anything that we do with the 
Chinese.
    Ms. Wild. And before you answer my question, let me just 
add to what you just said.
    Mr. Turkel. Yes.
    Ms. Wild. I mentioned that it has been more than 2 years 
since I met with this family. I saw the husband the other 
night. I learned that his wife, whose parents are the ones who 
are affected, is in a severe depression. She was not when I met 
with her. She was worried, but not in a severe depression. 
Doesn't leave her home and is barely able to take care of her 
children, three of whom were born in the United States. So, the 
problem is really significant.
    Mr. Turkel. Yes.
    Ms. Wild. But now, I have not left you very much time. But 
what do you think the economic impact would be if we were able 
to get this legislation signed into law?
    Mr. Turkel. It will be tremendous, but the action, the 
legislation mandate, should expand to the entire of China, not 
only specifically the Uyghur region. Even if they stopped the 
forced labor practices in the Uyghur region, the Chinese could 
easily relocate. Actually, it is already happening. They are 
removing the Uyghurs to coastal area assembly lines. This has 
been an ongoing practice at least in the last 20 years. We just 
came too late into the game to find out about these practices.
    Ms. Wild. The good news about this I think is that we do 
have bipartisan support.
    And with that, I will yield back. I know my time is up.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Turkel.
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much.
    We will now go to Representative Pfluger, please. Go ahead, 
sir. You have 5 minutes.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 
opportunity to talk about this issue.
    First off, I would like to thank all of the panelists. Ms. 
Ziyawudun, thank you for your courage. Thank you for standing 
up for so many others around the world, and I know that this is 
limited in scope to this discussion. We appreciate your courage 
to stand up, to tell the truth, and to do the right thing here. 
I read your written testimony, and it is not without a lot of 
emotion.
    And so I would like to start my questions by just asking 
you personally what your thoughts are on how the U.S. Congress 
can help to make sure that we get the facts out and we hold 
those accountable for these atrocities.
    Ms. Ziyawudun. Thank you. So, ever since I got out of the 
camp, I have just been so nervous and so scared. I find it 
difficult to speak sometimes. There are so many things that I 
want to say in my heart, but I cannot always say them because 
it is very tough for me.
    Right now, the situation back there is very grave, and 
Uyghurs in east Turkistan are in the hands of the Chinese 
government. As a camp survivor who saw everything that is 
happening, what I hope is that you can make our voices heard to 
the entire world; that the U.S. Government can stop the 
genocide, that it can stop the violence against Uyghurs, and 
help us as humans. I hope that is what you can do, is help us 
as human beings.
    Another thing, just earlier I did not give a complete 
answer to the Congresswoman who asked a question of me. As for 
threats against Uyghur women abroad, they have been showing our 
photos and threatening us. So, for example, in the Foreign 
Ministry, they have been showing our photos. They did this to 
Ms. Guchahar recently. They are doing it to all of the 
survivors. They are slandering us, saying absolutely horrible 
things, threatening us with unimaginable words.
    And so what I always ask of you is to help us as human 
beings; help us end this violence.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much. I hear the pain, and 
while I have no idea what the experiences actually are, I 
appreciate your bravery, your courage to tell the truth here. 
And I hope that this committee will take that human side of it 
into account. And I truly appreciate your story. As a father of 
three daughters, I want you to know that I hear you loud and 
clear, and I think everyone on this committee does.
    Dr. Millward, as I listened to that and I read and hear 
your statement about the gratuitous provocations, what I would 
like to ask you is, where do we draw the line? Because 
accountability does need to happen and we need to make sure 
that we do hear the concerns; that we stand up for the human 
side of this, and that we also hold those accountable. Where do 
we draw that line on our ability to hold them accountable? If 
you can explain on that--we only have 30 seconds left--please.
    Dr. Millward. Well, that is a good question. I think Mr. 
Turkel has listed ways to expand the kinds of sanctions that we 
can put. I have suggested that we need to look at the 
Partnership Pairing Program, which brings it beyond Xinjiang, 
to include the involvement of other corporations and other 
administrations throughout the China. And I strongly favor 
those kinds of targeted sanctions, but targeting more places 
that are involved in what is going on. I think that is the only 
thing that we really can do to maintain our own values and 
trying to help Tursunay and her relatives, and many, many 
others.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to participate 
in this hearing. I yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you very much.
    We will now go to Representative Cicilline for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to begin by thanking Chairman Meeks and Ranking 
Member McCaul for calling this hearing. And I think, as we have 
listened to this testimony, we recognize that we are confronted 
with this incredible responsibility of shedding light on the 
gravest of all crimes. And as Members of the Foreign Affairs 
Committee, as Members of Congress, and frankly, as citizens of 
the world, we will never have a greater responsibility than to 
do all that we can to expose crimes against humanity and 
genocide, and do everything we can to stop them. So, this is a 
sober and serious responsibility, and I really thank the 
witnesses for their testimony.
    I want to start with you, Professor Millward. The Chinese 
government and the authorities in Xinjiang have targeted the 
Uyghur population using really cutting-edge technologies--
obviously, the sense of speech with the intent of suppressing 
free thought and political dissent. You likened this to locking 
up Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other non-Han people in an extralegal 
network of what you described as concentrated educational 
transformation centers.
    What can the United States and our partners, and the 
technology firms in the United States and around the world, do 
to hinder the use of the technologies in China, and how can we 
better ensure that China will not, or at least make it 
difficult for China to, export these technologies abroad to 
other authoritarian or hybrid regimes to do the same kind of 
harm?
    Dr. Millward. Thank you for that question. If you do not 
mind, I am going to toss that to Nury because he has gone 
through the specifics and knows, for example, pending and 
possible legislation about that.
    Mr. Cicilline. Great.
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman.
    A couple of things we could do in the short term and the 
long term. One, we should start documenting the ongoing state 
violencing as to Uyghurs, with the ultimate goal to uphold 
those to account through domestic courts or the International 
Court of Justice somewhere, somehow. That process needs to be 
started.
    In fact, the UHRP Act that Congress passed and enacted last 
June directs our law enforcement to specifically work on these 
issues. In bear minimum, protect the well-being of Uyghur 
American citizens here in the homeland.
    And also, the other thing that I think the DOJ particularly 
could consider doing is to open an investigation against 
technology firms that have business presence in the United 
States, that have been responsible for facilitating the ongoing 
high-tech genocide against the Uyghurs. That is doable. The 
companies that have a business presence, active business 
activities, falls under the jurisdiction of our courts. That 
should be looked at.
    And then, also, as a capitalist economy, we cannot dictate 
the companies to engage in business a certain way, but what we 
can do is to advise them to put in place a good compliance 
program, good corporate governance. The previous administration 
issued a Business Advisory. I encourage and urge the current 
administration, the Biden Administration, to renew/update that 
Business Advisory, so that American businesses will at least 
stop being complicit on ongoing crime.
    We have been told as consumers that the American businesses 
figure out to do business in China, but they are caught in 
crossfire. They need to be told that some of these behaviors 
need to stop.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
    Ms. Tursunay, thank you for your incredibly powerful 
testimony. You are a woman of extraordinary courage, and I, 
first, want to say that I am very sorry that you experienced 
the experiences that you did. In listening to your story, we 
cannot even imagine how you have suffered. But your testimony 
is perhaps the most powerful testimony I have ever heard, and I 
think that the committee and the country can hear.
    And so my question is, where have you found that courage to 
share this story? And how can we encourage other survivors to 
share their stories? Because I do think it is the most powerful 
way to activate the world against the Chinese government for 
engaging in this behavior. And so, what can we do to encourage 
others to do what you have done and share their experiences, 
other survivors?
    Ms. Ziyawudun. Thank you.
    It is not that I am courageous really. It was so difficult 
for me to get all the way here, but I think about the situation 
on the women I saw and know are in. And ever since then I have 
no rest. I cannot rest. My heart is constantly bleeding and I 
can see them in front of my eyes. These are people who 
experienced the same things as I did, and I saw people who went 
crazy. I saw people who even died. And so I made this decision 
to do what I am doing, thinking of really very little else, not 
even my own life.
    But if there is such a thing as truth in this world, there 
are innocent people who are being sentenced in these camps to 
20 years or to life. And China all along is lying, telling 
lies. I will not stop.
    I have found some courage from this. I think that this kind 
of courage perhaps comes from a feeling of humanity. And you 
know, I hope that through doing this I will become lighter 1 
day, because this has been so very heavy for me. And so I ask 
for your help in this work.
    So, when I got out of the camp, it is because my husband is 
a Kazakhstan citizen. And so I was able to get out. But now, 
thinking of all of this, I am remembering the sound of their 
crying voices. They said, you know, ``You're getting out of 
here because your husband is Kazakh, but we are going to die 
here. We will die here.'' And I just think of those girls. I am 
not in touch with them. I do not know what has happened to 
them.
    Mr. Cicilline. Tell her she is helping them by her voice.
    And I know my time has expired.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you.
    I would just add that--and I know this is very, very 
difficult--but the Chinese government is very powerful, but the 
truth that you are speaking is much more powerful, even though 
you are just one person. And I hope that is some comfort.
    I will now yield 5 minutes to Representative Young Kim.
    Mrs. Kim of California. Thank you, Chairman.
    I want to offer my special thanks to our witnesses joining 
us today, a special thanks to Ms. Ziyawudun for your bravery 
and sharing your story. It is heartbreaking to hear what you 
had to experience. And, yes, you asked us to hear your 
testimony. We have heard your testimony, and we will take 
action and will do more to provide voice to the voiceless. And 
this hearing is just a start of that process to amplify stories 
like yours.
    The ongoing genocide occurring in Xinjiang is as shocking 
as it is deplorable, and it is wrong. And I am glad that the 
Biden Administration has also recognized it as a genocide, too. 
The situation in Xinjiang is unacceptable, and I call upon the 
Biden Administration to work more closely with our allies and 
partners to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for 
its abuses and stop the wiping out of the Uyghur and Kazakh 
people.
    So, let me ask, Dr. Millward, I am going to direct my first 
question to you regarding the United States support for the 
Uyghur population in China. Can you describe some of the 
difficulties our mission China personnel have faced in tackling 
the challenges relating to the Uyghur population in China? For 
example, what is the Uyghur language capability among our 
Foreign Service Officers to impact our ability to operate 
effectively in country?
    Dr. Millward. I do not know if any of our Foreign Service 
Officers--I suspect a few do. I have actually known--some have 
asked me about how to study, and so on. And so, I do not know 
what to speak without really knowing. Clearly, we do not have a 
lot of that kind of knowledge. Our translator today, Dr. 
Anderson, is probably one of the best speakers of Uyghur among 
non-Uyghurs in the United States, but there aren't very many 
such people.
    And I think this speaks to a slightly broader issue. 
Uyghur, Tibetan, actually, from Mongolian, and China is a very 
diverse place. And so our training about that and our foreign 
missions need to recognize that. And I am not saying they do 
not recognize that, but greater recognition of that is very 
important.
    The closure of the consulate in Chengdu, which the PRC 
enforced in retaliation for our closure of the Texas consulate, 
their Texas consulate, I think that has been unfortunate. An 
unfortunate side effect of that has been that the entire inland 
and much of the non-Han parts of the People's Republic of China 
are now thousands of miles further away from a U.S. consulate, 
which is, of course, necessary if you wish to seek visas and 
other sorts of things.
    Mrs. Kim of California. Thank you, Mr. Millward.
    Dr. Millward. Yes.
    Mrs. Kim of California. I do recognize there is a 
difficulty there.
    But let me continue on with my questions to Mr. Turkel. Now 
that more countries outside of the United States and the U.K., 
including much of Europe and Australia, are finally recognizing 
the ongoing atrocities that are occurring in Xinjiang, do you 
view Islamic majority nations in the Middle East and South Asia 
as being more willing to speak out on abuses directed toward 
Muslim minorities living in China? What can the United States 
do to elevate Muslim voices around the world on this issue?
    Mr. Turkel. As I pointed out earlier, we need to engage, we 
need to step up public diplomacy, counter the Chinese 
disinformation campaign. They have been very effective, sadly, 
misinforming the public and the Muslim streets. And also, they 
have been using their economic power to buy out silence. So, we 
need to counter these two aspects of the Chinese engagement.
    And also, I think this also applies to everyone, including 
policymakers in the United States. No country will have an 
effective foreign policy engagement or policies with respect to 
China unless they recognize the danger that CCP is posing. So, 
sometimes recognizing the issue, calling it what it is, is as 
important as a substantive policy response. So, I urge everyone 
who is in the policy position to recognize the danger that CCP 
is posing in the international forum, domestically, 
diplomatically, economically.
    Mrs. Kim of California. I do not think we dispute that part 
there. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Millward, let me get back to you.
    Mr. Malinowski. The time has expired, Representative Kim, 
actually. I am sorry.
    Mrs. Kim of California. Oh, okay. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much.
    We will now go to Representative Phillips for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    To all of our witnesses, particularly to you, Ms. Tursunay, 
your courage is not just an inspiration to those of us in the 
U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, but all Americans and 
all of humanity. And we wish to thank you.
    I would like to discuss and learn more about the 
surveillance that has been detailed to some degree, but perhaps 
you could describe what you were subjected to, both when you 
were in detention and, also, when you were not. We would like 
to hear more. Thank you.
    Ms. Ziyawudun. So, in the camps everything was controlled, 
to a degree such that it was difficult for us to even talk to 
one another. There was the threat of punishment if we did. We 
had to move certain ways, put our heads this way or that way. 
We were not allowed to move when we slept. We had to get up 
when they said. We had to eat when they said. And they could 
see everything from cameras. There were two or three of them in 
each cell.
    Outside the camps, it was very similar. For example, the 
very day I got out, I was assigned a man and woman to come 
sleep at my home at all times with me and be at home with me. 
So, I was always under control.
    Just to go somewhere, I had to go to three different 
places--the Public Security Bureau, the neighborhood committee, 
and also, to a special police officer assigned just to me--in 
order to get permission to move from one place to another. In 
addition, every day I had to go out into the square and dance. 
So, they even had control over what sorts of activities we did.
    And so, after I was out in July 2019, I went to Urumqi to 
get a visa, and after I was there, I did not really even go 
anywhere in the city, but I had these three different documents 
that I had gotten stamped to allow me to go there. And then, 
once I was actually there, I had to send videos back to my 
police officer showing where I was.
    When I walked out on the streets, there were cameras that 
would recognize me just by my eyes. And so the cameras would 
recognize me, and then police officers would come out, you 
know, running up to me and saying, ``Oh, you're somebody who's 
been in a camp before,'' and would ask to see my ID card, and 
so forth.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you for sharing some more detail.
    Mr. Turkel, you mentioned in your testimony some of the 
digital surveillance that is happening. Could you elaborate a 
bit on that practice and, most importantly, how the U.S. 
Government and the international community should be working to 
counter it?
    Mr. Turkel. In a New York Times piece in the summer of 
2019, a reporter mentioned something quite chilling. He was 
standing in an intersection and he counted 20 surveillance 
cameras over his head. That is just one street corner.
    So, what the Chinese have done is to test and use these 
technologies and expanding it. So, at this time, China's 
surveillance technology is metastasizing. Reportedly, over 80 
countries have either adopted or are in the process of adopting 
Chinese surveillance. What does that mean? That is a threat 
against civil liberty, a threat against democracy, a threat 
against an international rules-based system. So, this is 
significantly a dangerous trend that everyone should be 
literally screaming from the rooftop. The Chinese use the 
Uyghur body, soul, their cities, homes for testing these 
technologies. Now it is metastasizing.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, sir.
    And, Dr. Millward, I just have about 30 seconds left. 
Anything that you might want to add relative to the use of 
surveillance and tactics that we should be employing to counter 
it?
    Dr. Millward. There is more and more evidence that these 
systems were developed in Xinjiang and aimed at non-Han peoples 
in Xinjiang. But they are not limited to that, as Mr. Turkel 
was just saying. In many ways, they are expanding to other 
parts of China as well, and obviously, around the world. But it 
is not simply a security measure in Xinjiang. It is much 
broader than that, and therefore, much more worrisome.
    Mr. Phillips. I see my time is expired. Thank you all again 
to our witnesses.
    I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Congressman Phillips.
    We will now go Congressman Levin in the car. Go ahead, 
Andy, 5 minutes.
    Mr. Levin. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    Let me pick up where Representative Phillips just left off. 
You know, Dr. Millward, I point out--and I am sure you would 
agree--that a lot of these surveillance technologies and 
tactics, the Chinese, the government started using then in 
Tibet, and they have greatly expanded them. And they are really 
using them not only in Xinjiang, but all around the country.
    But let me just ask you about access to information. The 
Chinese government is deliberately preventing journalists, 
diplomats, and human rights monitors from accessing the region. 
And then they are pushing propaganda, and we cannot verify 
numbers or anything else independently.
    So, can you please to that challenge? And how should the 
U.S. Government and the international community best counter 
this difficult situation?
    Dr. Millward. Obviously, we have a big problem with
    [inaudible] of information. That said, our evidence about 
what is going on is voluminous, right? And so there are many, 
many ways in which, even through open source materials,
    [inaudible] can know generally what is going on.
    I would just say that it does not really serve the People's 
Republic of China's own purposes to keep journalists out, 
right? They are very, very worried about reporting on what they 
see as the bad stories, but there is no reporting on the good 
stories, either, that is possible. And so this leads to more 
distance between our peoples. It is hard to know what average 
people's lives are like.
    And so I guess we need to try to back off and restore those 
kinds of contacts and get journalists back in. I think access 
to the press should be a priority that we are pushing for in 
our conversations with China. And the Olympics might be one 
lever for that.
    Mr. Levin. More broadly, there has been reporting that the 
Biden Administration is kind of leading the G-7 from a group of 
just industrial powers to a group of democracies and countries 
interested in human rights. Don't you think that any solution 
here has to be deeply multilateral? And what is your suggestion 
to us, thinking broadly about really this gets to the whole 
U.S. approach to foreign policy, to tackle a problem like this, 
to take it on in a fully multilateral way. What does that even 
mean? What should we be looking for? The Olympics, obviously, 
is an example of a whole global event, but what are your 
thoughts?
    Dr. Millward. I am sorry, Representative Levin, was that 
addressed at me or----
    Mr. Levin. Yes, yes. Sorry. Yes, sorry for that.
    Dr. Millward. Well, I mean, I referenced in my written 
remarks trying to use terms such as human values and the 
broader whole community looking at this. Trying to raise our 
concerns to a higher supranational level I think is very 
important and address these--you know, there is a reason why 
they are called ``human rights,'' right? So, I think that kind 
of messaging would be very, very important, as well as the 
sorts of diplomatic work that Mr. Turkel mentioned earlier with 
other nations as well, not simply Western democracies.
    Mr. Levin. All right. Mr. Chairman, let me quickly close 
with some words to Ms. Tursunay.
    Ms. Tursunay, I want you to know that I see you, I hear 
you. Your voice is incredibly powerful. Your story is so 
compelling. I believe you. And we, as Democrats and 
Republicans, as Members of the House, as Americans, will share 
your story with all of our constituents and we will fight for 
you and your people. We are your partners, and your courage is 
an inspiration to us.
    Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Levin.
    And why don't we translate your words?
    The Interpreter. Yes, thank you.
    I want to say a big thank you to you for these words. Thank 
you from the bottom of my heart. And I am thankful to all of 
you for all that you are doing to work on this issue.
    I hope that you would please make our voices heard to the 
entire world and that you will lead the world in this. The U.S. 
Government has a special place in my heart, and I hope that you 
will continue to help us. We see the U.S. Government, we see 
the United States as very powerful in the world. And, in fact, 
China is always saying that it is afraid of the United States, 
that if it weren't for the United States, otherwise, it would 
be able to eat up the entire world. And I so hope that you will 
continue in this humanitarian way to help us. Thank you.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much.
    I will recognize myself now for a few questions. And I want 
to come back to this theme of the surveillance State that a 
number of other Members, and, of course, the witnesses, have 
touched on. We have heard some stories about relatively old-
fashioned surveillance--people being forced to take in 
informants in their homes, for example, based on just large 
numbers of people working for the Chinese security police. But 
a lot of it is quite sophisticated technologically. And I just 
want to maybe ask you, Mr. Turkel, to talk about the role that 
facial recognition technology plays in all of this. It is not 
just cameras; it is the software behind the cameras, is that 
not right?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes.
    Mr. Malinowski. Yes.
    Mr. Turkel. Yes, this surveillance is happening both in 
China and here to our fellow Americans. In China, initially, 
they started with collecting voice samples, iris scans, DNA 
samples, to build this giant biometric data for the Uyghurs. 
And that paved the way for using integrated joint operating 
platform that Human Rights Watch documented----
    Mr. Malinowski. Right.
    Mr. Turkel [continuing]. Reverse-engineered to collectively 
run on people.
    So now, if you go to any Uyghur homes, they have a QR code 
on the door. So, the officials can scan and find out who lives 
there, what kind of relatives at home in China and abroad, what 
kind of profession that they have, the past writings, the job 
history, everything----
    Mr. Malinowski. Right.
    Mr. Turkel [continuing]. Even the way that they engage in 
religious practice.
    And here at home, based on the report that HRW published in 
2019, they are using telephone messages, video chat to threaten 
the Uyghur Americans in the homeland here.
    Mr. Malinowski. Yes.
    Mr. Turkel. And also, Darren Byler, an American scholar, 
went to China in 2019 and came back with a bone-chilling 
report, reported that close to 1 million of China's cadres have 
been implanted in the Uyghur homes, eating with them, sleeping 
with them, uninvited. And there has been, also, reported sexual 
violence against the Uyghur women whose husbands have been 
taken to the camps. So, this has been happening----
    Mr. Malinowski. Let me stop you there because I want to 
move this along just a bit.
    The system, as you mentioned, is exported. And this is 
something that concerns all of us. It is one reason why this is 
a threat to the world. But the technology is imported in many 
cases.
    We know that, for example, Intel and Nvidia chips help to 
power the supercomputers that China uses to manage all of this 
data. Oracle has provided technology to Chinese police. Hewlett 
Packard owns 49 percent of H3C, a Chinese company that provides 
the switches, surveillance network, control systems to law 
enforcement in Xinjiang and around China.
    I assume you would think it would be helpful for Congress 
to go beyond just recommending voluntary due diligence on the 
part of U.S. companies, but to actually prohibit the export of 
technology to China that could be used in the commission of 
these human rights abuses?
    Mr. Turkel. Certainly. The existing laws, the existing 
resources are not enough----
    Mr. Malinowski. Right.
    Mr. Turkel [continuing]. Not to sufficient to tackle these.
    Mr. Malinowski. And we did, in fact, pass such legislation 
in the House twice last year, including as part of the national 
defense bill which was, strangely and mysteriously, stripped 
from the final bill by the Senate Banking Committee. We are 
going to try to do those again this year.
    Mr. Turkel. Absolutely.
    Mr. Malinowski. I will just end. I want to shift, and then 
make a point about the diplomacy that is needed in the Muslim 
world. And I want to ask you quickly, have you seen any 
evidence of, for example, the Arab satellite networks running 
documentaries, shows, news about what is happening to the 
Uyghurs? Just very quickly.
    Mr. Turkel. I have not seen the satellite, but they have 
been using the diplomatic representatives in Beijing on CGTN to 
dissipate misinformation about----
    Mr. Malinowski. Yes, until that starts happening--and I 
give this administration credit for beginning to raise this 
issue globally in a way that we have not before--but, frankly, 
particularly in the Middle East, unless this becomes part of 
the priority conversation, which right now is dominated, 
understandably, by issues like Iran and recognition of Israel 
and the situation in Yemen, and many other issues we want them 
to be raising with these countries--unless my friend, Brett 
McGurk, the coordinator for the Middle East at the NSC, puts 
this on his agenda when he has breakfast with the Emirati 
Ambassador, it is just not going to change.
    Mr. Turkel. Yes.
    Mr. Malinowski. And I think this is something that we need 
to be pressing with the administration as we take on this 
issue.
    My time is up. I see Representative Manning. So, we will go 
to you. And I see Representative Omar has joined us as well.
    So, let's go to Representative Manning first.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    There have been a lot of important discussions during this 
hearing about the ways we can put pressure on the Chinese in an 
effort to change their policy, and that certainly will take a 
lot of time. I think it is important that we move forward on 
those things. But, in the meanwhile, people are suffering. So, 
I would like to focus on how we can help people escape this 
desperate situation.
    Mr. Turkel, can you tell us, are there any countries 
besides the United States that are accepting Uyghur refugees?
    Mr. Turkel. Yes. Sweden and Germany. Sweden made a public 
statement that it will accept Uyghur refugees in the country. 
Germany, after making a fateful mistake, issued a statement 
that no Uyghur seeking asylum will be repatriated to China. But 
most of the Western democracies, specifically Western European 
countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, have been very 
welcoming to Uyghur refugees.
    Ms. Manning. And are there any things we can do to 
encourage more countries to accept Uyghur refugees?
    Mr. Turkel. Absolutely. The Uyghurs have not benefited from 
the resettlement program that we historically have been engaged 
in or practiced. So, if the Uyghurs are given a priority in the 
Biden Administration's refugee resettlement program in a 
significant number--we are not talking about 10-15,000, but at 
least 5,000 Uyghurs who have been in hiding in the Middle 
Eastern countries, or on the verge of being deported to China--
it would be a good start.
    But there is something else we can do. Let's have an asylum 
interview arranged for asylum applicants like Tursunay 
Ziyawudun here. We have three, four camp survivors who are 
waiting for an asylum hearing, asylum interviews. We are 
talking about asylum pending since 2018. So, these kinds of 
things can be done. So, DHS can at least schedule asylum 
interviews for the pending affirmative asylum applicants in the 
United States.
    Ms. Manning. Is there any way to know the number of 
refugees who would want to leave the country if there were 
places for them to go?
    Mr. Turkel. You mean China or?
    Ms. Manning. Uyghurs who would like to leave China, any 
idea how many?
    Mr. Turkel. Congresswoman, ironically, in a genocidal 
situation, the perpetrators usually kick out the population 
from their ancestral homeland. Whereas, in China, they are 
preventing the Uyghurs leaving. They are starting with 
confiscating passports. I have not seen my mother since my law 
school graduation in 2004, simple because the Chinese will not 
give her a passport to leave the country. So, they cannot 
leave. But we can start with the ones who are already out of 
China in Central Asia, Turkey, and the other Middle Eastern 
countries.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you for that. And I am sorry about your 
personal situation.
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you.
    Ms. Manning. Dr. Millward, in your written testimony, you 
mentioned that the CCP is inflicting atrocities on a variety of 
non-Han peoples. Are there ethnic groups other than the Uyghurs 
who are experiencing repression and torture similar to the 
atrocities that we are hearing about today?
    Dr. Millward. Yes. We have heard examples of Kazakhs who 
are another Central Asian people. I have heard of a small group 
known as Dongsheng who are suffering from this. Many Muslim 
groups, in my testimony I do not want to say it is not 
targeting Muslim peoples; it certainly is. But others have been 
pulled in as well. The Hui group, who are Chinese-speaking 
Muslims in China, in Xinjiang, but also outside of Xinjiang, 
are increasingly coming under this kind of pressure with 
destruction of architecture, with arrests of religious 
personnel, and so on. So, it is a very broad problem.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you.
    I would like to use the rest of my time just to say to Ms. 
Tursunay, I want to thank you for sharing your horrifying story 
because you have brought, this terrible treatment of the 
Uyghurs, you have brought it to life for us in a way that was 
so compelling that I do not think any of us who heard you today 
will ever be able to forget the plight of the Uyghurs and our 
moral obligation to work to end this genocide. So, thank you 
very much for your courage today.
    Ms. Ziyawudun. Thank you.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Representative Manning.
    And finally, we will go to Representative Omar for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you. And I just want to thank all of our 
panelists for their bravery and for this great discussion.
    Mr. Turkel, when we were holding 22 Uyghurs at Guantanamo, 
none of whom had any known anti-American sentiment, you were 
probably the most vocal advocate for their release. We also saw 
in the documents leaked to The New York Times last year that 
one of the things President Xi said was that he wanted to 
emulate America's war on terror tactics.
    Can you tell us your perspective on the relationship 
between how Xi justifies the atrocities against the Uyghurs and 
the global phenomenon of Islamophobia?
    Mr. Turkel. No country treats the Muslims the way that 
China treats the Uyghurs around the world. I mean, arguably, 
there are other candidate countries, but there is nothing even 
comparable. Islamophobia is a hallmark of their Chinese 
policies.
    And also--I have to note this--this is not the first time 
that I am testifying and making this comment. I think it was a 
mistake for the U.S. Government in 2002-2003 designating this 
obscure organization, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, as a 
terrorist organization. That paved the way for this comfortable 
labeling Uyghurs as a terrorist. The U.S. State Department last 
year revoked that decision, but the damage is already done.
    Even, surprisingly, in the Uyghur dictionary the word 
``terrorism'' or ``terrorist'' does not even exist. The 
Uyghurs, probably they are the most pacified Muslims that you 
can find on the face of the earth. And yet, because of the 
anti-Muslim sentiment around the world, and the mistakes made 
by some Western governments in Europe and here at home, the 
Chinese are opportunistically using it for advancing its 
propaganda campaign. It is working, unfortunately.
    Ms. Omar. I really appreciate that. I have been raising 
that concern, how war on terror has justified atrocities being 
committed against Muslims throughout the world.
    I also wanted to ask you about something I think we both 
find atrocious, which is the number of U.S. companies and 
individuals who are profiting off of atrocities against the 
Uyghurs. Can you tell us about Erik Prince's contract in the 
Uyghur region?
    Mr. Turkel. Is this question directed to me or Professor--
--
    Ms. Omar. Yes.
    Mr. Turkel. I was somewhat dumbfounded that Erik Prince 
acknowledged in his conversation with Mehdi Hasan and Al 
Jazeera that he is training the police academy or the police 
force. And now, it is becoming a criminal activity because we 
have, as a country, added 48--the entire police department in 
the Uyghur region to the Entity List, including this one 
credited in the movie ``Mulan'' for their assistance.
    So, it is unconscionable, and this initially started in 
Hong Kong, and now, reportedly, expanded to the training police 
force in the Uyghur region. So, this is something that the 
Congress and law enforcement need to look into.
    Ms. Omar. I really appreciate that.
    And I wanted to ask Ms. Ziyawudun how she would respond to 
people--and I know I could ask all the panelists this 
question--but to the people who say that the atrocities that 
are being committed against the Uyghurs, it is sort of 
propaganda and it does not really exist; it is not something 
that is happening. I get called out often, every time I speak 
about the atrocities that are happening to the Uyghurs. Can you 
respond to those people who do not believe what happened to you 
is a real thing?
    Ms. Ziyawudun. There are clear facts, and it is not just us 
who know this; it is everyone in the world who knows what is 
going on. These facts are strong like steel, and anyone who 
says otherwise is closing their eyes. Maybe they have some sort 
of relationship with China or maybe they are thinking about 
something else. But no one who is thinking about humanity and 
the perspective of a human would actually think this.
    You know, this is something that is being enacted on 
Uyghurs, on Kazakhs, on people of all ethnic backgrounds, 
mostly Muslim, you know, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, all of them, although 
there is not one Han person among the people being targeted in 
this way. And these actions are especially being taken against 
them.
    So, people have closed their eyes. I cannot say much other 
than that.
    Ms. Omar. I know I am out of time, but I wanted to say I 
agree. And I know that it is not comfortable being asked that 
question, but I think it is important that we do remind people 
that this is something that is real, that is happening, and 
that our inability to recognize and hear people who are bearing 
witness will allow for this atrocity to continue and this 
genocide to take place while the whole world watches.
    So, thank you for your bravery and thank you all for coming 
here today and shedding light into this. I really appreciate 
it.
    Mr. Turkel. Thank you.
    Ms. Omar. I yield back.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much.
    Well, unfortunately, it is time to close this hearing. I 
think, often, we are happy to end long hearings, but this one--
I am sure I speak for all the Members--was particularly 
powerful and affecting for us all.
    I want to thank Chairman Meeks for his leadership in 
bringing us together today; Ranking Member McCaul for his 
partnership with us on this issue and in the defense of human 
rights around the world.
    And, of course, to all of our witnesses, particularly to 
Tursunay, words like ``genocide'' and ``crimes against 
humanity'' are very powerful, but also somewhat abstract. And 
what we heard today was the personification of genocide and 
crimes against humanity. We heard what it actually means to the 
people who suffer it, in the words, through the voice of 
somebody who managed to escape, but who left behind a country, 
a family, a people who are still suffering, which she just 
described.
    We all, I think, recognize how difficult it is to deal with 
human rights abuses in a country like China. It is a superpower 
with nuclear weapons. We faced a similar challenge with the 
Soviet Union for many decades. But I think we all share the 
view that absolutely central to our contest with the Chinese 
government is establishing, not just for the United States and 
China, but for the world, the difference between right and 
wrong, the difference between what is true and what is false.
    That is what this contest is all about. China wants to 
establish a new set of rules in the world. The Chinese 
government wants to establish a new set of rules in the world 
in which what we heard today is either dismissed as right or 
the world simply agrees not to care. And it is extraordinarily 
important to all of us, to all the people in the world, that 
the United States play its part in establishing this is wrong.
    So, we need an international coalition to do that. We want 
to work as a committee, as a Congress, with the administration 
to build that coalition and to make sure that our government 
has all the legal authorities that it needs to be able to play 
our part in the work to come. So, I know we are all committed 
to that on a bipartisan basis.
    We are grateful to all the witnesses for giving us the 
information and the inspiration we need to do our work. Thank 
you again so much.
    The hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:38 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX
                                
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                        STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD
                        
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            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
            
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