U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair and Cochair of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), today issued the Commission’s 2018 Annual Report and announced several new joint initiatives to protect U.S. citizens and residents from intimidation and address possible crimes against humanity occurring in China.
The 2018 Annual Report provides detailed analysis on human rights conditions and rule of law developments in China, and offers recommendations on ways to integrate these issues into U.S.-China relations.
“The Commission’s 2018 report documents gross violations of human rights in ethnic minority regions, religious freedom violations, harassment of rights defenders and lawyers, suppression of free speech, onerous restrictions on civil society and more—the markings of a fundamentally authoritarian state,” said Senator Rubio.
The Senator added that “the Communist Party has dramatically increased its control over government, society and business and is ruthlessly employing technology to further its aims. As American policymakers increasingly reexamine the misguided assumptions that have informed U.S.-China relations, we must be clear-eyed about the global implications of China’s domestic repression.”
The full report cites ETAC’s 2018 letters, and statements of concern.
From page 14 of the report:
Hold Officials Accountable for Abuses. The Administration should use the powers granted in Executive Order 13818 to hold accountable individuals complicit in ‘‘serious human rights abuse and corruption’’ in China and also use the list-based sanctions available in the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Global Magnitsky) (Public Law No. 114–328), the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.)and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2000 (Public LawNo. 106–113) to levy financial sanctions or deny U.S. entry visas to Chinese officials complicit in torture and arbitrary detentions; severe religious freedom restrictions; and forced abortions, sterilizations, or human trafficking, including human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal.
From the recommendations on page 32:
Stress to the Chinese government the need for greater transparency on the number and circumstances of executions, and urge Chinese officials to further limit the crimes for which the death penalty is applicable. Urge the Chinese government to ban explicitly in national legislation the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners.
Page 109 of the report:
This year, the Commission did not observe any rule making efforts to ban harvesting organs from executed prisoners. [180] At at rafficking conference at the Vatican in 2018, Wang Haibo, head ofthe China Organ Transplant Response System,[181] reported that authorities made 220 arrests over the previous 10 years in connection to illegal organ transplants and noted that authorities continued to combat the practice.[182]
The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners was singled out on page 128:
Several international organizations expressed concern over reports that numerous organ transplants in China have used the organs of detained prisoners, including Falun Gong practitioners.[128] Medical professionals and international advocacy organizations disputed Chinese health officials’ claims that organ procurement systems have been reformed in compliance with international standards, citing ethical concerns about organ sourcing raised by short wait times for organ transplants and discrepancies in data on organ transplants.[129]
