The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (Commission) was established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 (Public Law No. 106–286) as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) prepared to enter the World Trade Organization. The Commission’s 2020 Annual Report covers the period from July 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020. We provide this excerpt:
The Chinese government and Communist Party have taken unprecedented steps in the last year to extend their repressive policies through censorship, intimidation, and the detention of individuals and groups for exercising their fundamental human rights, especially in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and Hong Kong.
In recent years, the Commission has become increasingly concerned that the Chinese government and Party have expanded their human rights violations around the world, even reaching the American people. These efforts include threatening and intimidating critics, blocking social media content, pressuring publishers to censor their content in China, influencing academic institutions to the detriment of academic freedom, interfering in multilateral institutions, and pressuring U.S. and international companies to suppress practices that do not conform to the political narratives and demands of Chinese officials.
The Commission has contributed to bringing these issues to light with a series of hearings on the Chinese government’s ‘‘long arm of authoritarianism.’’
In addition to the recommendations contained in this report, the Commission drafted, edited, and provided support for key legislative initiatives including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the PROTECT Hong Kong Act, the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, the Tibetan Policy and Support Act, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and many other House and Senate bills and resolutions related to China and human rights
Over the last year, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (Commission) found that the Chinese government and Communist Party have taken unprecedented steps to extend their repressive policies through censorship, intimidation, and the detention of people in China for exercising their fundamental human rights. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) where new evidence emerged that crimes against humanity—and possibly genocide—are occurring, and in Hong Kong, where the ‘‘one country, two systems’’ framework has been effectively dismantled.
These policies are in direct violation of China’s Constitution, which guarantees ‘‘freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration,’’ as well as ‘‘freedom of religious belief.’’ The actions of the Chinese government also contravene both the letter and the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; violate its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Chinese government has signed but not ratified; and violate the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, ratified in 2001. Further, the Chinese government has abandoned any pretense of adhering to the legally binding commitments it made to the international community when it signed the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong.
President and Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has tightened his grip over China’s one-party authoritarian system, and the Party has further absorbed key government functions while also enhancing its control over universities and businesses. Authorities promoted the official ideology of ‘‘Xi Jinping Thought’’ on social media and required Party members, government officials, journalists, and students to study it, making the ideology both pervasive, and for much of the country, mandatory.
In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), it is now estimated that up to 1.8 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui, and others have been arbitrarily detained in a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps where they are subjected to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination. In the last year, leaked Chinese government documents provided additional evidence that the mass internment camp system was organized at the direction of top Party officials and confirmed the prevalence of the use of coercive force and punishment for inmates.
Forced labor in the XUAR is widespread and systematic and exists within the mass internment camps and elsewhere throughout the region, as part of a targeted campaign of repression against Turkic and Muslim minorities. These facts are confirmed by the testimony of former camp detainees, satellite imagery, media reports, and leaked government documents. Many U.S., international, and Chinese companies are increasingly at risk of complicity in the exploitation of forced labor involving Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities.
In last year’s annual report, the Commission stated that the situation in the XUAR may constitute crimes against humanity as outlined in Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In March 2020, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stated that there is a ‘‘reasonable basis to believe the government of China is committing crimes against humanity’’ in the XUAR.
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In Hong Kong, the ‘‘one country, two systems” framework has been dismantled, severely undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights that the territory has long enjoyed. The political turmoil in Hong Kong over the past year is the result of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments’ refusal to address the legitimate demands of the Hong Kong people that excessive police violence against peaceful protesters be stopped and investigated. Authorities arrested pro-democracy leaders, prevented journalists from reporting, applied political pressure on the judiciary, and allowed the Hong Kong Police Force to grow increasingly abusive toward nonviolent protesters.
Instead of reducing tensions, the Chinese government bypassed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council to impose national security legislation that directly threatens Hong Kong residents’ right to due process, as well as their freedoms of expression and association. The legislation is clearly meant to target, intimidate, and silence Hong Kong’s robust civil society, including the many organizations that have advocated for human rights in mainland China from the relative safety of Hong Kong.
Despite these challenges, the spirit of democracy and human rights remains strong in Hong Kong. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Victoria Park to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, even though the Hong Kong Police Force refused to authorize the annual candlelight vigil.
Chinese officials continue to avoid transparency and accountability to the families of those killed, tortured, imprisoned, or exiled for their participation in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and throughout China during the spring of 1989. The Tiananmen Mothers, a group in China composed of parents and family members of individuals killed, annually call for justice, truth, and accountability about the massacre.
In Tibet, the Chinese government continued—as it has for over a decade—to block dialogue with the Dalai Lama, his representatives, or the Central Tibetan Administration toward a negotiated agreement. Religious freedom continued to be severely curtailed as new measures have been implemented to manage and shape Tibetan Buddhism as part of the policy of ‘‘sinicizing religion.’’ Chinese officials continued to claim that they have the sole authority to select the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, in violation of the religious freedom of the Tibetan Buddhist community. In the Tibet Autonomous Region, new regulations on ‘‘ethnic unity’’ were passed this year that mandate acceptance and promotion of government ethnic and religious policy.
It has been 25 years since Gedun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, was abducted along with his parents and forcibly disappeared. Since then, they have not been seen or heard from by anyone outside China, and to this day they remain among the world’s longest detained political and religious prisoners. The members of the Commission continue to call for their immediate and unconditional release.
The outbreak of COVID–19 in Wuhan municipality, Hubei province, in late 2019 caused incalculable suffering for the people of China and presented a major challenge to the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership. The strategy employed by the Chinese government in response to the pandemic echoed its responses to other domestic and international challenges. Chinese officials used the heavy hand of repression, censorship, and secrecy to control the public narrative in a manner designed to preserve the political legitimacy of the Party. Attempts to minimize the severity of the outbreak by censoring vital information and silencing doctors exacerbated the spread of COVID–19 in China and around the world. Instead of providing a full and transparent accounting of the emergence of the novel coronavirus in China, the Chinese government pushed back against calls for an independent international investigation.
The Report concludes tomorrow.
Photo: President Xi china Defence Ministry