[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHINA'S WAR ON CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIOUS FAITHS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-167
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://www.Govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
32-308PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
RON DeSANTIS, Florida [until 9/10/ JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
18] deg. ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
TED S. YOHO, Florida DINA TITUS, Nevada
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois NORMA J. TORRES, California
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
Wisconsin TED LIEU, California
ANN WAGNER, Missouri
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
VACANT
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York AMI BERA, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
Wisconsin THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Tenzin Dorjee, Ph.D., Commissioner, U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom................................ 6
Bob Fu, Ph.D., founder and president, ChinaAid................... 20
Thomas Farr, Ph.D., president, Religious Freedom Institute....... 43
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Tenzin Dorjee, Ph.D.: Prepared statement......................... 10
Bob Fu, Ph.D.: Prepared statement................................ 25
Thomas Farr, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................... 45
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 68
Hearing minutes.................................................. 69
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations:
Joint Statement by Pastors: A Declaration for the Sake of the
Christian Faith (3rd edition, 198 pastors)................... 70
Freedom House Special Report: The Battle for China's Spirit, by
Sarah Cook................................................... 78
Senator Rubio, chairman, and Representative Smith, cochairman,
CECC letter to Secretary Ross................................ 86
CHINA'S WAR ON CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIOUS FAITHS
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The committee will come to order.
Good afternoon to everybody.
Several years ago, during a visit to the United States, Xi
Jinping chose to be interviewed by a Chinese reporter living in
the United States. After the interview, President Xi asked a
single question of this reporter, not about his family, not
about whether he enjoyed living in the United States, or about
any stories he might be writing. The one question he asked was,
why do so many Chinese students and faculty living in the
United States become Christians?
Whatever was behind that question, religious freedom
conditions in China have not improved because of it. Quite the
opposite. In fact, President Xi Jinping has personally launched
efforts to sinicize religion, and the Central Government has
issued commands to each Provincial Party Secretary making them
responsible to bring religion in line with Communist Party
ideology.
The Chinese government is an equal opportunity abuser of
religious freedom. As you, sir, Commissioner Tenzin Dorjee,
will testify, Xi Jinping's stated goal of sinicization affects
all religious communities in China, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun
Gong practitioners, Daoists, Muslims, and Christians.
Over the course of this year, the Chinese government has
intensified the most severe crackdown on religious activity
since the Cultural Revolution. Regulations on religious
affairs, issued in February, tightened the existing restriction
and new draft regulations are being circulated to clamp down on
religious expression online. Churches, mosques, and temples
have been demolished, crosses destroyed. Children have been
prohibited from attending services, and surveillance cameras
are being installed in churches.
Xi Jinping talks about realizing the China dream, but when
Bibles are burned, when a simple prayer over a meal in public
becomes an illegal religious gathering, and when over 1 million
Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims are interned in reeducation camps and
forced to renounce their faith, that dream is an unmitigated
nightmare. Much of the news lately has been the Chinese
government's targeting of Christians.
The sinicization campaign has affected both state-
controlled and unregistered churches. Protestant and Catholic
clergy remain in prison. And the human rights lawyers who
defend religious believers have been jailed, disappeared, or
tortured into silence.
Xi Jinping views the fast-growing Christian churches,
particularly the Protestant house church movement that does not
belong to the state-sanctioned Protestant entities, as a threat
to the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party. One of our
witnesses here today, my good friend, the Reverend Dr. Bob Fu,
has detailed on countless occasions the Communist Party's
vicious war on independent house churches.
Underground churches, meaning those that do not belong to
the state-sanctioned Patriotic Association, have faced
tremendous persecution for decades, including Bishop Xu Jiamen,
who I met back in 1994. Bishop Xu--and it was in a small
apartment in Beijing--Bishop Xu's body bore witness to the
brutality of China's Communist Party. He was beaten, starved
and tortured for his faith, and spent, ultimately, some 40
years in the Chinese gulag.
Yet, when I met with him, he prayed not just for the
persecuted church, but for the conversion of those who hate,
torture, and kill. I was absolutely amazed at his kindness and
said, ``What does the Chinese government fear in Bishop Xu?''
All he had in his heart was love and compassion, and as I said,
he prayed for those who persecuted him and other believers of
all the faiths. Unfortunately, only a couple of years after
Bishop Xu met with me, because he was out only a few years, he
was arrested and disappeared, and has not been heard from
since.
Today's efforts to forcibly close underground parishes
expanded this year. China's Ethnic and Religious Bureau told
the state propaganda arm, Global Times, in April, that
``activities in illegally-built parishes will be prohibited.''
And underground Catholic churches were being shuttered this
very summer.
Recent reports indicate that a deal has been struck by the
Holy See and the Chinese government, whereby the Pope will have
veto power over Chinese government-approved candidates to be
ordained as bishops. In exchange, seven previously
excommunicated priests ordained without papal mandate and
appointed by the Chinese government will be welcomed back into
the full community with Rome.
Already the Vatican has been asked two validly ordained
bishops to step aside to make way for two formerly
excommunicated bishops. Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus in
Hong Kong, has questioned whether Vatican officials making
these decisions ``know what true suffering is.''
The reports are that the deal is provisional and full
details are yet unknown. But, with the efforts underway to
forcibly sinicize religion, it certainly seems an odd time to
strike a deal with Xi Jinping in China. I hope and pray this
agreement will bring true religious freedom for Catholics and,
by extension, all people of all faiths who have suffered so
much to maintain their faith. We will continue to monitor that
situation closely to see if force is used by the Chinese
government to close all underground or unregistered Catholic
churches as a result of the deal.
I do look forward to hearing from our very distinguished
witnesses, including Dr. Tom Farr, on what the implications of
this deal would be and his recommendations for U.S. religious
freedom in diplomacy.
Finally, U.S.-China tensions are high at the moment on a
myriad of fronts. And the Chinese government, presumably, is
searching for ways to reduce, not escalate them. At least that
is the thought. Taking a hammer and a sickle to the cross or
jailing 1 million Uyghur Muslims, however, will only ensure a
tougher China policy, one with widespread, bipartisan, and even
global support.
Frankly, I would call on the Trump administration to use
all the tools that they have, including those that were
embedded in the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act,
which was passed just a couple of years ago, and the Global
Magnitsky Act, which is designed to hold individual persecutors
to account for their crimes. Not only making them ineligible to
travel to the United States by way of visa denial, but also
ensuring that they could not do business here because of their
egregious behavior. So, that would be a followup that we will
be asking the administration.
We would also hope, as I think, Tom, you mentioned in your
testimony, that the designation of CPC for China and others be
done immediately. The Frank Wolf International Religious
Freedom Act called for that being done by August. So, we have
already seen some delay.
I would say, parenthetically, that under the Obama
administration, we had years of delay before CPC was
designated, which is one of the catalysts for the language that
I wrote into that bill, the Frank Wolf International Religious
Freedom Act. But now we are several weeks past the deadline.
What is the holdup? Hopefully, that will be remedied very soon.
Mr. Suozzi, I yield.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for calling this hearing on a very important topic that doesn't
get nearly enough attention from the governments around the
world.
I want you to just know, on a personal note, that I
attended my nephew's wedding in California this week, and the
priest who performed the wedding, who is from my hometown of
Glen Cove, was asked by Mother Teresa in the 1980s to bring
Mother Teresa's order to China, and he has been working there
for the past 30 years and I think could give us some good
insights as to what is going on in China directly related to
the Catholic Church. I think he has been involved in trying to
help negotiate this.
In the past, China has been referred to as the ``Middle
Kingdom'' or the ``Sleeping Giant.'' And I think we can be sure
that China's aspirations go beyond either of these titles.
China has asserted itself on the global scene as an economic
power, a military power, and a power that wishes to create a
parallel international order. It relies on the lack of
transparency to advance its interests, uses their economic
clout to bully critics into silence, and is one of the world's
biggest sources of illicit capital, funding some of humanities
worst impulses across the globe.
At the same time, it presents itself as an alternative to
the western system through both soft and sharp power
initiatives. Our national security strategy calls China a
strategic competitor, and our top intelligence sources or
officers sounded the alarm in Aspen that China is the No. 1
economic and national security threat.
We have paid a lot of attention to how China acts on the
global stage, but looking into how China treats its own gives
us a chilling insight into the Chinese Communist Party thinks,
what they believe a society should look like, what kinds of
rights and dignities they think a government should allow to
its citizenry.
It is not the government's role to allow freedoms. Humans
are born free, as much as the Chinese seek to act to the
contrary. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, religion is being
severely curtailed and repressed. He launched a campaign of
harsh and systemic suppression with the goal of sinicizing
China's religious by infusing them with Chinese
characteristics. Sinicizing has the aim to transform religion
and ethnicity in Chinese society, a long-reaching program that
seeks to homogenize the Chinese into one single identity and
requiring loyalty to the Communist Party.
Their concerns about having complete control and their fear
of chaos are dictating much of this policy. This effort has
resulted in the brutal religious persecution of Christians,
both Catholic and Protestant; Muslims; Falun Gong; Buddhists,
and others. International headlines include horrific reports of
forced conversions, reeducation camps, arbitrary arrests, and
torture.
The activity in China is not new. After the People's
Republic was established in 1949, all religion was severely
suppressed. Religions were viewed by the Chinese Communist
Party as a threat to their rule, as an organizing principle
besides that of the Party was condemned.
China embraced the Marxist ideology of religion as opium of
the masses and as a tactic for foreign influence in China. The
Communist Chinese Party viewed Christianity as part and parcel
of Western imperialism in China during the 100 years of
humiliation, beginning in the 1840s. Religious freedom
continued to be severely repressed during the Cultural
Revolution of the 1960s.
A revival of the religions that began in the 1980s was
marked by development of the unofficial Protestant house church
movement and an underground Catholic movement loyal to the
Vatican. In 1982, the Chinese constitution does name/guarantee
freedom of belief, according to Article 36, and forbids
organizations or individuals from compelling citizens to
believe in or not believe in religion.
This supposed guarantee of freedom of belief, however, does
not guarantee freedom of practice. The practice of religion in
China has been stifled by Chinese policy, practice, and
ideology. The guiding ideology for religion in China is the
three-self policy: Self-lead, self-funded, self-perpetuating.
These mandates of ``self'' have cut off institutional support
from world religions and facilitated the exclusion Communist
Party's direct control over the Chinese people's religious
practice.
In fact, when China cut relations with the Vatican in 1951,
it asserted complete control over the Patriotic Catholic Church
in China, appointing its own bishops and clergy. Catholics in
China faced either attending churches approved by Beijing or
going to underground congregations.
A new government policy further ensconced the Communist
Party's control over religion when they announced in October
2017 and closed the state government's Religious Affairs
Bureau, and placed administration over religions under the
United Front Work Department of the Communist Party.
Under Communist orders, local governments across the
country have shut down hundreds of house churches. Catholic
clergy anointed by the Vatican were incarcerated, and crosses
on churches have been destroyed. A recent agreement between the
Vatican and Beijing offers what the Vatican describes as a
``gradual and reciprocal rapprochement.'' I am hoping the
witnesses here today can provide some insights into how this
will play out.
Another issue of major concern is the brutal persecution of
China's ethnic Muslim population, the Uyghurs. In what appears
to amount to an ethnic cleansing, anywhere from hundreds of
thousands to 1 million Muslims have been arrested and put in
reeducation camps or internment. Beijing argues that these
measures are necessary for their security to prevent separatism
of this northwestern province and to counter terrorism, but the
scope of repression far exceeds the perceived threat.
Both Chinese and American officials say that 1500 Uyghurs
have fought alongside Islam groups in Syria. But, according to
a 2016 list of foreign recruits from an Islamic State defector,
only 144 fighters came from Xinxiang.
In these reeducation camps, the Muslims report torture,
abuse, forced disappearances, and separation from their
children, forced to eat pork and cremate their burials, counter
to Muslim tradition. And while Beijing may deny that these
camps exist, satellite images show the contrary, and the
victims' stories are slowly trickling out.
Xinxiang has become a prototype for their police state that
would make the dystopia Orwell described in his book, ``1984,''
seem like a benevolent, with multiple checkpoints, facial
recognition, QR scanning codes on the home, thousands of
police, both uniformed and plain-clothed. Artificial
intelligence is being used to gather data every minute in
minute detail that all feeds into a system that rates how loyal
the individual is to the Chinese state. While the media has
sounded the alarm, we need governments to step in and do more.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses' testimony. I yield
back my time.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Suozzi, thank you very much for your
testimony.
I would like to now welcome the chairman of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom, Dr. Tenzin
Dorjee. He is also an associate professor at the Department of
Human Communication Studies at California State University in
Fullerton.
He was appointed to the Commission on December 8th, 2016
and reappointed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on May 10th,
2018. On June 12, 2018, Dr. Dorjee was unanimously elected
Chair of the Commission.
His teaching and research interests include intercultural
and intergenerational communication, peacebuilding, and
conflict resolution. Dr. Dorjee has authored and coauthored
numerous articles and invited chapters on Tibetan culture,
identity, nonviolence, Sino-Tibetan conflict, and intercultural
communications competence.
Dr. Dorjee is a prominent translator who worked in the
Translation and Research Bureau of the Library of Tibetan Works
and the Archives of Dharamsala in India for over 13 years. He
has had the honor to translate for many prominent Tibetan
Buddhist professors, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in
India and North America.
Dr. Dorjee has traveled to Burma and Iraq to monitor
religious freedom conditions there, and has testified before
the U.S. Congress before on the issue of religious freedom and
conditions in Tibet and China, including the long arm of China
in the U.S. academic institutions.
Dr. Dorjee, welcome, and the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF TENZIN DORJEE, PH.D., COMMISSIONER, U.S.
COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Mr. Dorjee. Chairman Chris Smith, Congressman Suozzi, and
other members of the subcommittee, good afternoon, and thank
you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, or
USCIRF, about the Chinese government's outright assault on
person of any faith, but particularly those associated with
foreigners such as Christians and Muslims.
I am Tenzin Dorjee, USCIRF's current Chair and the only
Tibetan Buddhist ever appointed to serve on the Commission.
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. Federal Government
Commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom
Act, or IRFA. The Commission monitors the universal right of
freedom of religion or belief abroad, using international
standards to do so, and makes policy recommendations to
Congress, the President, and the Secretary of State.
I am honored to be joined at this hearing by two esteemed
scholars who also work on international religious freedom, Bob
Fu of ChinaAid and Thomas Farr of the Religious Freedom
Institute. I look forward to their testimonies.
USCIRF began reporting on China in our very first annual
report, and has continued to do so every year since, because of
that country's systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of
religious freedom. The State Department first designated China
as a ``country of particular concern,'' or CPC, in 1999, and
has done so in every instance the Department has made such
designations, most recently in December 2017. And USCIRF has
recommended the CPC designation for China every single year.
Regrettably, the conditions of USCIRF first reported in
China nearly two decades ago have not improved. In fact, the
conditions have worsened under President Xi Jinping due to the
sinicization and securitization of religion. Religions must be
in accord with Communist ideology, and religious freedom is
most severely restricted in the name of national security.
USCIRF has consistently raised these two pertinent issues at
various hearings and events. Relatedly, USCIRF's 2018 annual
report depicted ongoing repression and discrimination directed
at Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, Protestants, Catholics,
and Falun Gong practitioners.
These abuses include: Destruction and dismantling of houses
of worship and religious symbols; forced evictions from, and
demolition of, religious educational institutions;
restrictions, related to the practice and the study of one's
faith, on language, culture, attire, parents' ability to name
and teach their children, religious rituals and ceremonies, and
freedom of movement; imprisonment of religious leaders and
followers, as well as lawyers and human rights defenders
advocating for religious freedom; prolonged disappearances and
arbitrary detention without trial, denials of legal
representation and medical care, and intimidation and physical
assaults, sometimes through torture, to force believers to
renounce their faith; forced attendance, or even unlawful
detention, at reeducation and indoctrination facilities; and
pressure to join state-sanctioned religious organizations.
The scope and scale of these violations is staggering.
Perhaps the best way to convey China's horrific religious
freedom conditions is by highlighting the human element, such
as the Chinese prisoners that are part of USCIRF's Religious
Prisoners of Conscience Project. Through that project, USCIRF
Commissioners advocate on behalf of specific individuals
imprisoned for their faith background or religious activity. In
China, Commissioners are advocating for three such prisoners.
The Panchen Lama. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Panchen Lama,
holds the second highest position in Tibetan Buddhism and is
one of the world's longest-held prisoners of conscience.
Chinese government authorities kidnapped the then-6-year-old
boy and his family on May 18, 1995. They have not been heard of
since. Just days before Gedhun's abduction, His Holiness the
Dalai Lama chose him to be the 11th Panchen Lama. The Chinese
government, in complete disregard for the Tibetan people, named
its own Panchen Lama, though most Tibetan Buddhists reject this
selection.
The Panchen Lama's disappearance and detention is in the
context of the Chinese government's ongoing vilification of the
Dalai Lama; its asserted control over the reincarnation system
of Tibetan Buddhism that includes the Dalai Lama's
reincarnation; the destruction of important Buddhist sites at
Larung Gar and Yachen Gar; the pervasive security presence
through the Tibet area, including inside monasteries and
nunneries, and imprisonment of countless Tibetans like language
advocate Tashi Wangchuk, whose appeal of his 5-year prison
sentence was denied just this August. Chinese repression is so
extreme that at least 153 Tibetans have self-immolated since
February 2009 in support of religious freedom, human rights,
and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet.
Gulmira Imin. On July 5, 2009, Gulmira Imin, an Uyghur
Muslim, participated in a demonstration following the deaths of
Uyghur migrant workers. Authorities accused her of helping to
organize the demonstration, in part by posting information
about it online. A court sentenced Ms. Imin to life in prison
on charges of ``splittism,'' leaking state secrets, and
organizing an illegal demonstration. Her only crime was
defending her fellow Uyghur Muslims.
When we think of a war on religion, Beijing's overt
criminalization of Islam certainly comes to mind. The
government prevents Uyghur Muslims from observing Ramadan,
invades their private everyday lives with pervasive security
measures, prohibits children from attending mosque, and bans
Uyghur language instruction in schools.
Worst of all, the Chinese government is detaining
approximately 1 million Uyghur Muslims in unlawful detention
camps, allegedly to provide vocational training to prevent
extremism. Imagine the entire city of San Jose, California, a
population of just over 1 million people, detained against
their will. And the Chinese government is not just punishing
those currently detained. Authorities harass and intimidate
their loved ones, cruelly separating families, and have
inflicted severe trauma on generations of Uyghurs impacted by
gross ill treatment, torture, and shame just because they are
Muslim.
Hu Shigen. In August 2016, a Chinese court found
underground church leader and religious freedom advocate Hu
Shigen guilty of subversion and sentenced him to 7\1/2\ years
in prison and another 5 years' deprivation of political rights.
He was one of nearly 300 lawyers and activists arrested,
detained, or disappeared as part of a nationwide crackdown that
began on July 9, 2015, also known as the ``709 Crackdown.''
The already poor situation for Christians, like other
religious groups, has markedly declined since new religious
regulations came into effect on February 1st this year. Just
days prior to the regulations, Chinese police used dynamite to
annihilate the evangelical Golden Lampstand Church. More
recently, authorities shut down Zion Church, one of Beijing's
largest unregistered Protestant house churches.
Across several provinces, authorities have confiscated
Bibles; demolished churches; moved or destroyed crosses or
other religious symbols, sometimes replacing them with the
Chinese flag, and arrested countless Christians. In an
unprecedented display of frustration, hundreds of underground
house church leaders and clergy have signed a statement calling
out the Chinese government's abuse of power and violations
against religious freedom.
Each of these individuals are prisoners adopted by USCIRF's
Commissioners through our Religious Prisoners of Conscience
Project, but, sadly, they represent only a small fraction of
the thousands wrongly imprisoned in China, many because of
their faith. I am proud to advocate for both the Panchen Lama
and Gulmira Imin, and my colleague Commissioner Gary Bauser is
advocating on behalf of Hu Shigen.
I would like to make some recommendations. It would be easy
to think that there is little hope from a bleak assessment.
However, there are a number of steps the U.S. Government can
and should take to underscore religious freedom concerns in
China.
First, the State Department must immediately redesignate
China as a CPC, a country of particular concern, for its
systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.
Under the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, CPC
designations should have been made by the end of August, and
the USCIRF urges the State Department to make them as soon as
possible.
Second, in addition to the appropriate sanctions available
under IRFA subsequent to a CPC designation, the administration
should pursue targeted sanctions against specific Chinese
officials and agencies under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights
Accountability Act.
Third, the State Department and the entire administration
should build on the momentum of the historic Ministerial to
Advance Religious Freedom and continue their bilateral and
multilateral efforts to shine a light on religious freedom
concerns in China, such as in the Ministerial's statement on
China.
Fourth, the administration and Members of Congress should
pursue regular visits to areas in China deeply impacted by the
government's religious freedom abuses and raise religious
freedom concerns, including cases of prisoners of conscience,
whenever they interact with Chinese government counterparts.
The House of Representatives just passed the Reciprocal
Access to Tibet Act. The Senate should pass the Reciprocal
Access to Tibet Act. That would deny entry into the United
States for Chinese government officials responsible for
creating or administering restrictions on U.S. Government
officials, journalists, tourists, and others seeking to travel
to Tibetan areas. I am a Tibet-American, and I would definitely
like to go to see Tibet. So, I don't have that chance right
now. Moreover, the U.S. Congress should more actively seek
readouts from administration officials about their interactions
with China, in particular, to inquire about discussions related
to religious freedom.
In conclusion, I am going to say that religious freedom is
called a universal right for a reason: It belongs to everyone
everywhere. Everyone has the right to have a faith or no faith
at all, and no one has the right to control it for others. When
the Chinese government attacks freedom of religion or belief in
a wholesale and brutal manner, it is incumbent upon us all to
hold them to account, not just because they have violated the
norms and standards of rules-based international order, but
because, in doing so, Beijing has assailed humanity with its
blatant disregard for the human conscience.
Thank you again for holding a hearing on such a timely and
important subject.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dorjee follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Dr. Dorjee, thank you very, very much for your
leadership and for that tremendous statement to the committee.
Let me just begin now with some questions. Obviously, the
State Department's Ministerial that was held in July was a
very, very important event, it had all of the high-caliber
people, including Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Sam
Brownback and, of course, Secretary Pompeo. You and so many
others were there.
I wonder if you could just give us your thoughts as to the
followup. How well do you think the momentum that was created
at that Ministerial has been acted upon, especially as it
relates to China? Why have few countries signed the statement
on China? Is it out of fear of retaliation, in your view, or
some other reason?
And you did call for looking at sanctions? One of the
concerns we have all had for years is that the Tiananmen Square
sanctions have been used in a double-hatting fashion when it
comes to CPC, putting curbs on police equipment. I have argued
for years that a new set of very specific sanctions needs to be
imposed on China to let them know that we are not kidding.
In the past, we have even had to fight the State Department
when they wanted to double-hat the Ambassador-at-Large himself
or herself, and give somebody else the portfolio, and in
addition to that, you will be the Ambassador-at-Large for
Religious Freedom, which we very vigorously push back on. But,
on the sanctions front, that is what we do. If you could speak
to that, I would appreciate it.
Marco Rubio and I chaired a hearing just a few weeks ago, a
little longer than that. It has been a month. We focused on the
Uyghurs and a number of aspects of the people being rounded up,
about 1 million strong, maybe more; and put into concentration
camps, reeducation camps. And we raised strongly--and
Ambassador Kelly Curry, who is our Ambassador to the Economic
and Social Council at the United Nations, gave very chilling
testimony about the problem of surveillance; that the
surveillance state has gone from looking for speeding, like we
have here, those kinds--and that is not surveillance. That is
perhaps even good law enforcement, arguably. But, there, it is
everywhere.
As he put it, ``thousands of surveillance cameras,
including in mosques; facial recognition software; obligatory
content-monitoring apps on smartphones and GPS devices on cars;
widespread new police outposts with tens of thousands of newly-
hired police and even Party personnel embedded in people's
homes; and compulsory collection of vast biometric databases on
ethnic and religious minorities throughout the region,
including DNA and blood samples, 3D photos, iris scans, and
voiceprints.'' And he goes on from there. I mean, an intrusive
state, the likes of which we have never seen.
Back in 2006, I chaired a series of hearings on how Google,
Microsoft, Cisco, and others were enabling the surveillance
state to monitor the internet, to find out where people were,
who they were talking to. And that continues unabated to this
day. But now, doubling down, they are doing even more, and
obviously, the technology here is being used elsewhere, but it
could be used even more aggressively elsewhere as well. If you
could speak to that?
I mean, if ever there was a need for a sanctions regime,
that is truly--and one of the things that came out in our last
hearing was all of the American companies, European companies,
that are just going along and selling them all of that
equipment, which is being used to persecute, to torture, and to
kill.
Mr. Dorjee. Thank you for the opportunity to answer your
questions.
The Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom was a very
historic one. As you said, it was held for the first time. We
believe that it was fruitful to a certain extent and there were
some positive outcomes that we observed.
For example, the like-minded countries are able to organize
maybe religious events in the coming months. A number of
countries have expressed their interest to create petitions for
international religious freedom Ambassadors in the governments;
for example, Mongolia, Taiwan, possibly Bahrain, and Poland.
And so, the United States, here we have been fortunate to be
highly active and engaged in the IRFA Roundtable supporting
this and efforts.
So, USCIRF has also engaged with a number of country
delegations that already have, or are seeking to create, their
own religious freedom roundtables. In Denmark last month,
USCIRF engaged with country delegations from Vietnam, Burma,
Indonesia, Malaysia at a Fourth Annual Southeast Asia Freedom
of Religion or Belief Conference. And USCIRF looks forward to
staying engaged with these stakeholders as well as existing
partners like the International Panel of Parliamentarians for
the Freedom of Religion or Belief.
And so, USCIRF looks forward to having a more active role
in planning the process for the next Ministerial. The
Commission was proud to host two events that were part of the
official program this July, including a 20th anniversary of
IRFA reception, a U.S. grant workshop; plus, the efforts of
NGOs in hosting so many successful site events during the
Ministerial.
With regards to why few countries signed on the statement
of China, my understanding is that participating countries had
really limited time to review the language before the deadline
to sign on. And also, very few, if any, had like authority to
sign it without consulting back at their home governments. And
so, it is probably the matter of being the first time and a
short time that it might have happened.
Mr. Smith. Is it still open, if somebody wanted to sign it
today?
Mr. Dorjee. I believe so, but I am not sure exactly what
the language reads.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Because I think, if it is, an effort
should be made to gather further----
Mr. Dorjee. I would assume it would be, right? That we are
welcoming, you know.
Mr. Smith. Right.
Mr. Dorjee. But a number of countries signed--we should
acknowledge them--like Canada, the United States, the United
Kingdom, and Kosovo. And we hope more will sign to that.
With regard double-hatting, that there are issues, USCIRF,
in our recommendations to the State Department for the CPC
designations--so, 10 countries have been designated as CPC
countries, and out of which, six have been subject to double
and at the extension of preexisting sanctions. That includes
China as well. And four have the waivers, if you will.
And so, the administration has relied on this approach.
While the statute permits the use that has the longest
precedence under preexisting sanctions or indefinite waivers,
it provides little incentive for the CPC designated government
to reduce or hold egregious religious freedom violations. So,
we would rather encourage the State Department for targeted
sanctions, especially based upon religious freedom violations.
And so, such sanctions, or the CPC designation must be followed
by implementing a clear, direct, and unique Presidential
action.
And so, USCIRF also comments that current and future
administrations and Congress need to recommend such to the full
and robust application of mechanisms available under the
International Religious Freedom Act, just as you pointed out
that all the tools available must be used effectively.
Mr. Smith. So, it is time to sanction, in your view?
Mr. Dorjee. Yes, it is, I think, time, very much time to
sanction, yes, targeted sanctions, I must say.
Mr. Smith. Of course.
Mr. Dorjee. And you also raised the issue about the Uyghur,
or about 1 million Uyghurs' detention. And so, the surveillance
of every movement, you know, and they use the most up-to-date
technology they could buy from the American countries available
that they could to track down everything. And there is so much
of a social control of movements, basically, of the Chinese
back in their own country. And so, that is a serious matter.
I think American countries, if they are involved in such
trade--of course, we are not saying don't do the trade. Yes,
you need to make your profits. But we must also keep in mind
our human concerns and humanity at heart. And so, what are the
implications of selling this technology to China where they put
it to wrong use?
And not only, I think, in its circumstance with the Uyghur
Muslims, they have been doing the same thing back in Tibet,
where in the monasteries they have put all kinds of
surveillance. And now, basically, the Chinese government, they
appoint administrators in the monasteries, so that they can--
how should I say it?--plan out everything and control
everything.
So, such serious matters, I think the Congress and the
President, all of us should look at. And you also mentioned how
like Microsoft enabled that.
Mr. Smith. Right, right.
Mr. Dorjee. I think a company really has to--you know, we
also have human and social responsibility besides making money.
So, the only thing about trade, that is what enables China to
be bold and do--how should I say?--egregious things in
violation that they are doing. So, we do have to put a check on
that, and I very much agree with your mindset, yes.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, the letter by Marco Rubio and
I to Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, calling for bans,
curbs on the export of those devices and that capability,
without objection, it will be made a part of the record.
I would like to yield to Mr. Suozzi.
Mr. Suozzi. So, Dr. Dorjee, thank you so much for your
testimony. We really appreciate it very much.
Looking at your biography, I see that you are very much an
expert on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. I look at the population
of China of 1.38 billion, and I looked at the different
populations of the different religions of religious Buddhists,
Chinese Buddhists, 185 million to 250 million; Christians,
Protestants, 60 to 80 million; Catholics, 12 million; Muslims,
21 to 23 million; Falun Gong, 7 to 20 million, and 6 to 8
million Tibetan Buddhists. Why is it that China sees the
Tibetan Buddhist being such a tremendous threat to them? Why do
they have to have such control over the Tibetan Buddhists? And
why would they imprison the second--how did you refer to this
boy? Well, he is not a boy now; he is a man.
Mr. Dorjee. The Panchen Lama.
Mr. Suozzi. ``Bengee''?
Mr. Dorjee. Lama.
Mr. Suozzi. Panchen Lama. So, he is the successor?
Mr. Dorjee. Right.
Mr. Suozzi. Is he----
Mr. Dorjee. He is the second highest leader in Tibetan
Buddhism.
Mr. Suozzi. Yes.
Mr. Dorjee. Very important, you know, for recognizing, for
example, the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama.
Mr. Suozzi. Yes.
Mr. Dorjee. So, yes, he is very important.
Mr. Suozzi. But why is that seen as being such a threat to
China?
Mr. Dorjee. China claims to have 55 national minorities,
and Tibetans are counted among those 55. But my understanding
is that Uyghur Muslims and especially Tibetan Buddhists are
very distinctive in terms of their history, language, culture,
and religion, which stands out very much, as much as China
claims Tibet to be part of China and Tibetans to be Chinese,
but the fact of the matter is that, on many of those other
issues, Tibetans are a very distinctive group of people.
And so, the Tibetan Buddhism is a core of Tibetan identity,
the Tibetan language and Tibetan Buddhism. And so, the Tibetan
language is very different Chinese. Chinese origin is a
pictograph form, but Tibetan is based upon the ancient Sanskrit
language of India. And so, Tibetan came straight from India.
Actually, we don't call it Tibetan Buddhism. When it came to
the West, it started to be labeled, but we just call it
Buddhism.
Mr. Suozzi. Buddhism.
Mr. Dorjee. Right. And so, Tibet as a nation, the people,
for centuries they did one thing the best they could. They did
get all the resources, human and everything, to--how shall I
say it?--to further their Buddhist faith. And that is why they
are known around the world today.
So, if you take the Tibetan Buddhism out of them, the
Tibetan language, then, you know, they probably are much less
to be Tibetan in terms of cultural identity. So, that is why
the Chinese know that, if you allow Tibetans to practice their
faith and speak their language, which is really restricted--
they don't like Tibetans to be taught in schools and
universities. They require them to study Mandarin. And so, the
Tibet language advocate Tashi Wangchuk, right, he called for
that very right, and he has been in prison still. So, it is the
distinctive nature of things.
And, of course, you mentioned that Tibetans are only like a
small, probably 6 million.
Mr. Suozzi. Very small.
Mr. Dorjee. Very small. But, right now in Tibet, there are
more Chinese than Tibetans. And so, that demographic shift and
change probably the Chinese government thinks is the ultimate
solution to Tibet-China issues, which is a big concern for us.
And so, that is why I think we----
Mr. Suozzi. But why is this small population of people such
a threat to the Chinese government? Why do they perceive it as
being such a threat?
Mr. Dorjee. So, my belief is, as in the culture, as a
communications scholar, whether the threat is actually there
are not, it is the perception.
Mr. Suozzi. Yes. Why?
Mr. Dorjee. Because they feel that, if you let the Tibetans
to practice their religion and language, then those are the
bases that they can claim that they are not Chinese anymore,
right? Whereas, that really subverts their claim.
And also, I mean, to add to that, I have heard that,
overall, there are about 300 million Buddhists in China,
because that includes Tibetan Buddhists. So, that, itself, is
probably threatening to the Chinese government, right, because
the Buddhists believe in Buddha. All Buddhists believe in
Buddha.
So, combined with things, it is a potential for them that
there could be big change that could----
Mr. Suozzi. If you include all the religious groups, the
Buddhists, the Chinese Buddhists, the Protestants, the
Catholics, the Muslims, the Tibetan Buddhists, the Falun Gong,
it is 380 million people. There is still another billion people
that are not affiliated with any of those religions.
Mr. Dorjee. Exactly.
Mr. Suozzi. So, I met with some Chinese experts recently,
and they pointed out to me that the big driving factor of the
Chinese government and the Chinese hierarchy is control because
they are afraid of chaos. They are afraid of things happening
on their borders. You know, Tibet on their border, the Uyghurs
out in the northwestern border. They are just concerned about
losing control of their frontiers. Is that something you would
agree with?
Mr. Dorjee. Well, the Chinese is security conscious. You
know, they may have some, and those are legitimate, of course,
we understand. But, then, they use the national security as the
protest to control everything, right, whether it has to do with
national security or not. And, yes, you rightly said it. You
know, they are--I am sorry to use this kind of word--control
freaks really, China. And so, they have about 60 million
Communist members, but there are 380 million religious faith
believers. Look at the number. There is a potential, of course,
they think the threat, you know, to their power and control.
Mr. Suozzi. Okay.
Mr. Smith. Will the gentleman yield on that point?
Mr. Suozzi. Yes.
Mr. Smith. But it is really to me control inside. I mean,
they have no natural threat coming from Taiwan, coming from
Vietnam, or anywhere else. And they have a military that is
really a very high-grade military. It is really they just want
power. Is that your view?
Mr. Dorjee. I think it is just to stay in control and
power. And, you know, the threat doesn't have to be objectively
this, based upon my research studies. It is just perception-
based.
China is very strong militarily. I don't think these faith
believers can really subvert the control, but, then, they
believe in that, and that is why they----
Mr. Suozzi. Where in the Chinese history do you think
control comes from, this fear of chaos, or this desire to be
control freaks?
Mr. Dorjee. Well, I think, largely, in my understanding, it
is rooted in their Communist ideology and maybe past history
where they were dominated by other countries. So, China,
culturally speaking, is very much concerned with what we call
``face concerns.'' They don't want to lose their face concerns,
and they want to be the powerful nation. Perhaps they want to
be the only super-power, if possible. So, it is all combined,
those things that make them who they are, I believe.
Mr. Suozzi. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Just one brief thing, if I could. When we did the religious
freedom law in 2016, many parts of that I think will make a
difference, but two--we created a designated persons list for
individuals who create egregious violations of religious
freedom. And it also created a comprehensive religious
prisoners list, persons who have been detained, imprisoned,
tortured, and subjected to forced renunciation of faith.
Are you satisfied that the State Department has faithfully
created those two lists and they are up-to-date?
Mr. Dorjee. I can appreciate that they are created, but I
think we definitely would like to see more names on it. We
understand that it has to be kept confidential until they put
an action, but yes. And we also have, at USCIRF, amended to
create a victims list and we are working on a database, too.
Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much for your testimony and
for your leadership.
Mr. Dorjee. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you so much.
Mr. Smith. I would like to now ask our second panel to come
to the witness table, beginning with Dr. Bob Fu, who is the
founder and President of ChinaAid, a former student leader
during the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989.
Dr. Fu graduated with a law degree in international
relations from Remnant University in Beijing in 1993 and was a
house church leader in Beijing until he and his wife were
imprisoned in 1996. In 1997, he was exiled to the United States
with his family, and, in 2002, founded ChinaAid to promote
religious freedom and the rule of law in China.
Dr. Fu regularly briefs policymakers on religious freedom
and, in 2016, hosted the first-ever Asia-Pacific Regional
Freedom Forum in Taiwan. He is a life member of the Council on
Foreign Relations and editor-in-chief of the journal Chinese
Law and Religion Monitor, and holds a doctorate in the field of
religious freedom from St. John's College at the University of
Durham in the United Kingdom.
Then, we will hear from Dr. Thomas Farr, who is the
President of the Religious Freedom Institute. Dr. Farr served
for 28 years in the United States Army and the U.S. Foreign
Service. In 1999, he became the first Director of the State
Department's Office of International Religious Freedom.
Dr. Farr is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of
Religion at Baylor University; serves as consultant to the U.S.
Catholic Bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace,
and teaches regularly at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute.
Prior to these positions, he has directed the Witherspoon
Institute's International Religious Freedom Task Force; was a
member of the Chicago World Affairs Council's Task Force on
Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy; taught at the National
Defense University, and served on the Secretary of State's IRF
Working Group. Most recently, Dr. Farr served as an associate
professor of the practice of religion and world affairs at
Georgetown University, where he directed the Religious Freedom
Project at Georgetown's Berkely Center.
He serves on boards of multiple organizations that seek to
promote religious freedom. He has published multiple essays and
major works on religious freedom. He holds a doctorate in
history from the University of North Carolina, and he is also
the author of World of Faith and Freedom, among other great
writings that he has done.
Dr. Fu, I yield.
STATEMENT OF BOB FU, PH.D., FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, CHINAAID
Mr. Fu. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for your leadership, and
thank you, Congressman Suozzi.
I am also very honored to be on the same panel with the
chairman, Dr. Dorjee, and Dr. Tom Farr.
The religious freedom in China really has reached to the
worst level that is not seen since the beginning of the
Cultural Revolution by Chairman Mao in the 1960s. I will only
maybe give you like five different aspects or symbols of those
points to show why it has become the worst since the Cultural
Revolution.
Especially after the 19th Party Congress, the Communist
Party has taken some unprecedented measures in cracking down on
all independent faith groups. So, it is not only just the
targeting of Christians or Catholics. As Chairman Dorjee just
mentioned, it has been targeting any groups that show any
independent spirit, such as, of course, the Tibetan Buddhists,
the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, as the chairman and Congressman
Suozzi just mentioned, and Falun Gong, of course, and many
other groups.
So, because of the time limitation, I am asked to pay
particular attention on the persecution against the Christians.
First, we have not seen a level of persecution really since the
end of the call for revolution on the number of religious
institutions and churches that have been targeted or shut down.
Since February the 1st, when the newly-enacted Regulations on
Religious Affairs was taken into effect, in Henan Province
alone, according to our documentation, the crosses of the
churches, between 4,000 to 6,000 of churches, the crosses were
being forcibly demolished or burned, as you can see from these
latest photos. And a number of house churches, I mean the
independent, unregistered house churches--I mean, we are
talking thousands--were being shut down.
Last week, we just received in one particular province, in
one particular county within the Hunan Province, which is
called kind of the ``Jerusalem of China,'' with perhaps the
largest number of Christians populated in that province, at
least an estimated number of Christians in that province alone
is over 10 million members. So, in one county called Jiahe
County, among the 140--these are government-sanctioned,
supposedly registered and protected churches--90 of them were
already shut down. And a number, of course, of the crosses were
being demolished and burned, and the laborers were even being
detained for simply showing up in defense of the crosses.
Ironically, many of those churches, even the government-
sanctioned churches, when the cross was allowed to continue to
exist inside the church, I mean on the church wall, they were
forced to put the portrait of Chairman Mao and Chairman Xi
Jinping on both sides of the cross.
In the beginning of every worship service, the choir of the
church has to sing a few Communist revolutionary songs praising
the Communist Party before they can sing their worship-of-God
songs.
And the number of Chinese clergymen, I mean, these are even
previously registered, approved by the government-sanctioned
body. You know, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the
Chinese Christian Council are forced to go through another
round of examination, and the first criterion they have to pass
as legitimate clergymen is whether they can publicly pledge
they will follow the Party's words and the Party's Path.
[Mr. Fu speaks Chinese briefly.]
``Listen to the Party's words first and follow the path of
the Communist Party first.'' And these slogans are being hanged
around the church. I mean even many Catholic churches, on the
wall, I mean on the door, on the entrance door, there is a
slogan that says, ``Listen to the words of the Party; follow
the path of the Party.''
So, how can you have a real independent faith? I mean, the
believers, as a Christian believer, we are taught to obey the
command of the Lord, to listen to the word of the Lord. And,
essentially, the Communist Party wants to impose them self as
the Lord over the church. I think that tells maybe one of the
essential reasons why these churches are being targeted.
The second symptom we can see why that this is the worst
time of our religious freedom in China is, for the first time
since the Cultural Revolution, the Communist Party is now
implementing a policy, I mean a mandate for Chinese citizens of
the faithful, religious citizens, to sign a form to renounce
their faith. So, we have produced the documentation showing the
villager chief, the Communist Party chief, door to door forced
the believers to sign a prepared form claiming that, oh, this
believer were misled by an evangelist into believing
Christianity. And now, after a few weeks of self-examination
and the studies, political studies, they realized they made a
mistake. They pled they will never believe Christianity
anymore. So, this has not happened in the past.
The No. 3 symptoms to showing the unprecedented persecution
is burning Bibles. The last time, under the Communist Party
rule, when a Bible-burning ceremony happened was 1967 when
Chairman Mao's wife, Madam Jiang Qing, organized a 1-minute
Bible-burning ceremony in the Square of Shanghai. This is the
first we have seen government officials went into the church, I
mean confiscated all their Bibles and hymn books and Christian
materials and piled them on the street, and started a Bible-
burning ceremony. So, this is also unprecedented.
And the No. 4 signature of this unprecedented persecution
shows that, not only the Communist Party is doing this
persecution in its own borders, now we have evidence showing
that the kind of persecution and the methodology our Communist
Party is using in China is being exported to the neighboring
country and regions.
Last week, we have received a documented report showing to
the Kachin autonomous region the Communist Party officials, at
least three or four of them were sent them in the Kachin
minority areas inside the Burma border and directed a campaign
there almost word-by-word, including the forced demolition of
crosses from the rooftop of the church building in the Kachin,
in the Burma area, including arrests and so-called sinicization
like, you know, arrest those church pastors for interrogation.
And they also disbanded 23 Christian schools that were
started by Pastor John Cao, with whom I had been befriended for
over 25 years. And this year, he was sentenced to 7 years
imprisonment as a Chinese-American pastor. And he is still
suffering imprisonment, as we are talking now.
So, all the Chinese house church Christians who are
volunteering selflessly as the missionaries teaching Chinese
and education in these schools were being rounded up--all. All
of them were being imprisoned in the Kachin autonomous region.
Then, last week, they were handed over to the Chinese
authority, and at least eight of them are still being held in
the Chinese prison, as we are talking.
So, these are the measures that really, taken personally,
again, that has not been seen since the Cultural Revolution.
And how to tackle this? You are asking me to provide some
recommendations. So, I have listed a few recommendations at the
end of my written testimony. I would just highlight a couple of
them, and then, I will add a few.
First of all, I think I would recommend, besides the
sanction put under the Global Magnitsky Act, I hope a Member of
Congress should also really, and the U.S. Department of State
and Treasury, should list more names of high-rank officials
responsible for severe and systematic religious persecutions,
as defined the USCIRF for sanctions. Because to sanction just
one kind of middle, lower-rank, you know, one official is not
enough. There are so many of those persecutors who are at
large. So, we can work with the Member, with the Congress and
the administration to produce more lists.
And secondly, I urge Congress, through the CECC or other
mechanisms, to target, to kind of create a watchlist, a
religious persecutors watchlist, because we have a conscience,
a Prisoner of Conscience list at both the CECC and the USCIRF
Web site, but we also need to create a persecutors, to really
let them know they are being watched. Let them know their
family members, their children, their wife, and their other
colleagues should be ashamed of those officials taking the
persecution.
And I also want to add a few recommendations. One of the
way that we have seen the Chinese Communist Party have adopted
really very efficiently in a sense, that targeting the
religious minorities is through their internet control, through
their censorship of the internet and smartphones, as you said.
Because that is what they did when they are implementing this
Uyghur, this 1 million group of Uyghur Muslims. I mean, the
first thing when they are targeted is to check their smartphone
or cut off their kind of internet access.
I think even as the former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton even said, the kind of highway for internet freedom,
for religious freedom, is to promote internet freedom. So,
unfortunately, the BBG, under the current policy, only spent
less than 1 percent of its budget on the internet
circumvention. If we just appropriate 10 percent, I think it
will scare, I mean not only scare, but bring the true freedom
for the religious practice. I think that will be very
effective. I would urge Congress to take concrete measures to
urge the BBG or mandate the BBG to do more on the internet
freedom.
And another thing I really want to urge Congress to do to
help is those religious freedom advocates have paid a heavy
price during the incarceration, especially during the kind of
inhumane torture and interrogations. And we have found that in
the Chinese academy of police, the police academy, they have a
department specifically making studies on the kind of torture
and interrogation techniques that they are using for mental
torture to break the will.
We have seen many friends, the human rights lawyers,
Christian leaders, such as Guo Xijin, who, by the way,
disappeared again for over a year now without knowing where he
is, and Attorney Wang Yu, Attorney Li Heping, Attorney Huang
Qi, and the other Attorney Wang Quanzhang, who is still
disappearing for almost 3 years. They had been subject for
enormous torture under these kinds of techniques. So, I think
this warrants Congress to have a targeted report to study and
make recommendations on these departments.
Finally, I want to call Congress to also investigate those
Chinese-American citizens--they are American citizens--that are
being used as a tool, willingly or unwillingly, to spread
propaganda, lies, deceptions. And we have evidence showing that
they are buying radio stations on the border of U.S. and
Mexico, for instance, on the side of the Mexico border, so that
they can broadcast daily propaganda, deception, lies to the
Chinese-populated areas along the California coast from Los
Angeles to San Francisco. I think it warranted a particular
investigation because these are people managed by the Chinese-
American citizens here in the U.S., but they get their funding
from the Chinese Communist Party propaganda fund.
So, these are some of the recommendations I would recommend
that the committee to take a look.
Oh, by the way, I want to ask the chairman to grant me to
submit, as part of the congressional record, the letter, the
426 Chinese house church leaders signed urging the Chinese
government to stop the persecution, and they signed with their
real name and their church affiliation in a most really bold
and unprecedented way. So, I want to----
Mr. Smith. But, by making it public, does that put a target
on their back?
Mr. Fu. Yes.
Mr. Smith. Is there any----
Mr. Fu. Pardon me, Chairman. Okay.
Mr. Smith. By making it further public at a congressional
hearing, does that a target on their back under Xi Jinping's
repressive police?
Mr. Fu. No, because they already made their names public.
They want to make a statement. They are not afraid. It is time
for them to speak up.
Mr. Smith. Years ago, we received testimony and read it
aloud, and that person was brutally retaliated against for
doing so. Again, this is the regime that most Americans still
don't have a sense is barbaric. It uses torture as a means
pervasively against its own people and certainly against
religious believers. But if you think it should go in, without
objection, it will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Fu. Yes.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fu follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. I would like to now yield to Dr. Tom Farr.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS FARR, PH.D., PRESIDENT, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
INSTITUTE
Mr. Farr. Chairman Smith, Mr. Suozzi, thank you for holding
this hearing, for inviting me here, and for being here
yourselves. It is an honor to be here to meet Dr. Dorjee for
the first time and to be with my old friend Bob Fu, Bob makes
me angry every time I listen to him. Not at him, but at what he
is talking about.
The current assault on religion in China under President Xi
Jinping is the most comprehensive assault on religion since the
Cultural Revolution. Xi's policy intensifies a long-existing
government strategy to undermine a major threat to the
authority of the Communist State; namely, that religion is a
source of authority and an object of fidelity greater than the
state. This characteristic of religion has always been anathema
to totalitarian and authoritarian despots and to majoritarian
democracies. Most religions, by their nature, limit the power
of the secular state, which is why our Founders put it as the
first of the Bill of Rights.
President Xi's intensification of China's anti-religion
policy includes a renewed effort to alter the fundamental
nature of certain religions. One is Islam, as practiced by the
Uyghurs in Xinjang Province. As we have heard today, the
Chinese have recently targeted the Uyghurs for an almost
genocide-like transformation and/or elimination. Another is
Tibetan Buddhism, the object for decades of a brutal Chinese
strategy of persecution. A third is Roman Catholicism whose
distinctive teachings on human rights and religious freedom
pose a particular obstacle to the Communist State and to the
impoverished Marxist-Leninist understanding of human nature and
human dignity.
Xi's policy presents a major challenge to American
international religious freedom policy. Since Congress passed
the International Religious Freedom Act 20 years ago, our
policy has consisted primarily of episodic human rights
dialogs, annual reports on, and rhetorical denunciations of,
Beijing's periodic harsh crackdowns, and imposing mild and
largely ineffective sanctions. None of this has had much impact
on religious minorities or Chinese policy.
Mr. Chairman, I support the imposition of targeted
sanctions on Chinese officials or entities that sell
surveillance equipment, but I want to do more. Overall,
existing U.S. religious freedom policy simply hasn't worked,
and it is unlikely to work, in my view, in the face of this
systematic, fierce crackdown on religion.
It is time to try a different approach that goes as close
as possible to the root of the problem. Congress and the State
Department should work together to develop an all-of-government
U.S. diplomatic strategy, not only to show them, as the
chairman says that we are serious with targeted sanctions, but
to persuade Beijing of an empirically verifiable proposition;
namely, that Chinese minority religions, including its
Catholics, are not inclined to challenge the government's
political power, but that, given the opportunity, they would
further China's domestic interests in ways the government
desperately needs, and that no entity other than religious
communities can provide.
If the Chinese government viewed religious communities as
useful elements of their society, and simply left them alone,
those communities would very likely make substantial
contributions to addressing domestic problems that are of great
concern to Chairman Xi and the Politiburo. For example, the
fragility of China's economic growth and its social harmony,
China's moral decline and increase in corruption, the threat of
violent religious extremism, and a huge and growing need to
care for China's poor, its sick and desperate population, its
orphans, its victims of natural disasters, the aged, and the
dying.
A revised U.S. strategy emphasizing these themes would not
be entirely new. As Director of the State Department's Office
of International Religious Freedom, I participated in talks
with the Chinese in which we made some of these arguments. They
have been remade on occasion in recent years. But these
arguments have been seen by the Chinese as mere assertions,
talking points, made episodically by one office of the U.S.
State Department, and largely ignored by other American
officials. Equally important, they have not been accompanied by
systemic, objective empirical evidence.
To have a chance to succeed, a ``Chinese interest''
strategy must be an element of virtually all official U.S.
interactions with China at all levels, and it would need to be
fact-based. You can't fool people about this stuff--nobody, the
Chinese, the Indians, nobody. It needs to be fact-based, and it
needs to be an element of virtually all U.S. interactions with
China at all levels. And it should be conveyed within a
bilateral permanent institution such as a U.S.-China Working
Group on Religion that would remove the ad hoc nature of past
efforts.
Such a U.S. strategy would not be expensive--important to
say in Congress--although it would require new training of
diplomats and the kind of diplomatic energy and will that does
seem to be present under this Secretary of State and especially
under Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom
Sam Brownback. I do want to say that I think his predecessor,
Ambassador David Saperstein, laid the groundwork for what I am
talking about.
Finally, a word about Vatican diplomacy. I am concerned
that the recent Sino-Vatican provisional agreement will not
improve the lot of Catholics in China. Nor will it improve the
status of religious freedom for non-Catholic religious
communities. Rather, it runs the risk of harming religious
freedom in China for everyone, as well as inadvertently
encouraging China's policy of altering the fundamental nature
of Catholic witness. In my humble opinion as a Catholic, and as
a long-term advocate for religious freedom for everyone, the
Vatican's charism is to support that Catholic witness in China,
as Pope-Saint John Paul II did in Communist Poland, not to abet
its manipulation by a ruthless Chinese Communist regime.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Farr follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Dr. Farr, thank you very much as well.
Much of what you both have recommended, we will take very
seriously and see how we can turn that into initiatives and
policy. In the past when we did the last IRFA bill, named after
that champion Frank Wolf, your input was remarkable. So, I want
to thank you for that again in crafting a bill that I think
provides more tools in the toolbox for the administration and
makes it more of a priority. All of government, again, was
included in that, not just an isolated view.
But let me ask you a couple of questions. Dr. Fu, you
mentioned Guo Xijin. And in previous hearings, we have heard
Guo's daughter and Guo's wife making impassioned pleas on
behalf of the father/the husband, in the case of Mrs. Guo
Xijin. And I have to tell you, we tried, and continue to try,
to assist the lawyers in any way we can. How does any lawyer
now in China take up a religious freedom case, knowing that he
or she becomes the targeted person? Guo Xijin has experienced
unspeakable tortures at the hands of the Chinese dictatorship.
Just mind-numbing how they mistreat and hurt their own people
simply for, in his case, defending people of faith. Are there
lawyers still ready, willing, and able, courageously, to step
up? I mean, that is above and beyond.
Mr. Fu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your concern.
So, the rule of law, of course, in the past few years had
been also rapidly deteriorating, and all the Chinese law firms
now are mandated to have a Communist Party branch inside the
law firm.
Mr. Smith. When did that happen?
Mr. Fu. It was just recently. I think, recently, there was
a new kind of directive issued by the Ministry of Justice. So,
the law firm has to establish a Party kind of group inside the
law firm.
So, as you just mentioned, the kind of massive roundup
since the July 9th, so-called ``709'' of 2015 had a training
effect on many of those human rights lawyers. They were
disbarred--a large number lost their license--or ended up in
prison, sentenced. And so, some of them, survivors, are still--
and this is the spirit of the rule of law. We are very
encouraged to see that there are still--I mean, it is a lesser
number, but still there are some courageous lawyers who are
still waiting to take up the cases.
For instance, in Guizhou last year, on March 15th, there
was a massive roundup of at least 200 house church leaders, and
over 20 of them were indicted and were labeled as evil cult,
based on the evidence of showing they are in possession of John
Calvin's Institute of Christian Religion, The Pilgrim's
Progress, The Streams in the Desert, this kind of devotional
literature. And so, at least 12 of them were indicted and
sentenced as many as 13 years imprisonment as leaders. So, we
have seen quite a number of lawyers still, despite of the risk,
still went for their defense.
Mr. Smith. Could I just ask you on that--and I asked the
previous witness about the whole idea of the State Department
gathering names of people who are oppressing and persecuting.
In your view--and, Dr. Farr, you might want to jump in on this
one as well, or any question--are they getting ready to
sanction enough people? Are the data calls going out to our
FSOs, our human rights officers, our consulates, to be on the
lookout for people who are repressing? Are we receiving names
from human rights organizations like your own, that they, then,
put into the database and say, ``Hmm, this person gets
Magnitsky''? How aggressive has it been, if at all?
And if you could, we have had a series of hearings in this
subcommittee on what I consider to the complicity of many of
our colleges and universities, both located there and through
the institutes that they establish on campuses here and around
the world; soft power, if you will.
But there, are any of these universities or colleges
pushing back on this latest attack on religious freedom or have
they been quiet and mute?
Mr. Farr. Well, with respect to the State Department, Mr.
Chairman, the answer is I don't know, but I sure hope they are.
They know what the law says. They know it very well. And one
hopes that they are doing precisely what you said, putting out
the instructions and beginning to enter them into the databank.
I really do like the crowd that is in there now, but I have
liked all of my colleagues in the Office of International
Religious Freedom over 20 years. Somehow this stuff doesn't
always get done. And I think in the past it has been because of
the larger State Department's lethargy and inertia on this. I
sense that is changing. After complaining for 20 years, I want
to find something good, and I think--I hope it is changing on
this, too.
Universities and colleges, I am not aware of any university
or college--I hope there are; I hope I am wrong about this--who
is calling attention to this issue of religious freedom for the
Muslims or the Christians or the Tibetan Buddhists, or anybody
else. I would love to learn I am wrong about that.
Mr. Smith. We could write them and ask what have they said.
I mean, I criticized NYU for what I considered to be their
complicity in silence regarding human rights. I self-invited,
and I went and I spoke at Shanghai University to NYU there.
They are very nice people. I spoke about human rights, but I am
not sure if anything has come of it.
There needs to be, I think, a precedence that says we are
just not going to roll over, look the other way, and look
askance while Chinese believers and others who are being
tortured, democracy, labor leaders. When they try forming a
labor union in China, it is off to the gulag.
Mr. Suozzi. It is important to note that part of the hybrid
strategies that are used by China, and others, is to take money
and fund efforts in the United States at universities, fund
Confucius Chairs, Confucius groups, and spread their influence
in that way, and actually see what is going on here. It may be
important for us to list where those locations and see what
their universities are doing to actually identify Chinese human
rights abuses.
I think that we make China out to be very powerful, and
like this big giant, and it is. But, at the same time, it has a
lot of significant weaknesses as well. China has got enormous
debt. It has got serious demographic problems related to their
one-child policy and the male domination of a lot of these
different communities. We have to recognize that they have a
lot of vulnerabilities and that they are not just this 10-foot
giant that there is. And we need to continue to identify what
it is they are doing that makes them not part of the larger
human conversation.
So, thank you very much for your testimony and your help on
these issues.
Mr. Farr. If I could respond to that, Mr. Suozzi, on the
Chinese vulnerabilities, not only the ones that you name. There
is a demographic tragedy in the making because of all the males
being born as a result of the one-child policy. In fact, I
think it is already here in China. But the vulnerabilities that
I mentioned, that religious communities in China can help
solve, massive poverty still, despite all the economic growth--
their fear that economic development cannot be continued. We
need to be helping the Chinese to understand that their own
religious communities--they are not foreign agents--can help
them with some of this. Point one.
In the United States, I would say that there are entities--
and I don't want to use this to talk about my own alone, but we
have been doing some work, not just on China, but all the other
persecutors. To go to colleges and universities in the United
States, we have a project called Under Caesar's Sword, which is
about persecuted Christians around the world, but we also have
projects on Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists, and others, where we
are just trying to inform American college students--and, by
the way, their faculties and administrations--that we have got
a big problem, and it affects our interests. It is a
humanitarian tragedy. But it also affects our interests as a
country. And whether we are religious or not has nothing to do
with what is going on in this global crisis of religious
freedom and the way we ought to respond to it.
So, we are making this argument around the country
ourselves. But I agree with you, I think the Chinese are out
there doing what they need to do. They know what they are
doing. They know exactly what they are doing. I am not sure we
do.
Mr. Suozzi. One of the mistakes that we make often is that
we take our value system that we have and expect that other
people have those values in other places. And so, we are very
influenced in the United States of America and throughout the
West by Judeo-Christian values. So, what is the value system of
China? Is it Confucianism? What is the basis of the value
system, and how does that value system look at the individual?
I mean, obviously, the Communist value system is the state is
much more important than the individual. So, what is the value
system of China?
Mr. Fu. China's current value system is basically the
communism coupled with nationalism. And that is why this
Confucius Institute--we have, I think, 100 of them in the
United States--is not a kind of purity, academic, independent
institution at all. It should really register in the Justice
Department as a foreign agent because they are not only just
teaching the Chinese language or culture; they are brainwashing
our university students on campus who enroll in the programs by
choosing not to have any impartial view, like the Tibetan
issue, the Tiananmen Square, the demonstration, or the Uyghur
issue, or persecution, or religious freedom at all. I mean,
overall, it is a forbidden topic on the United States campus,
and they are fully funded by the Chinese propaganda funding.
Mr. Suozzi. What is they are trying to brainwash about,
though? What is it they are trying to tell them?
Mr. Fu. They want to tell them, basically, that China is
fine and there's no persecution; and that, actually, the
Communist Party is doing great. That is the perception they
want to create among the academicians and the students who
enroll in these programs.
So, that is, I think, as the FBI Director Wray already
pointed out in his public hearing, I think this kind of
Confucius Institutes have already posed a societal threat--I
quote him--to the American society. I think they need to be
warned and taken out, I think, if they don't correct the
course.
To answer the first question about the State Department, I
have firsthand experience in my dealing with the White House
and the State Department over the years. At least I can testify
and give them the credit to the current administration. I have
seen really more proactive moments, measures, and even some
unprecedented actions taken by the Trump administration than
the previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat
administrations, in terms of aiding those victims of the
religious persecution and rescuing them. This year alone, we
had, with the active support and help from this administration,
we rescued five families who were in danger, and some families
were rescued with the direct involvement and order by President
Trump himself from the Oval Office.
And the State Department, the career diplomats, both in
Beijing and here in Washington, DC, I have seen for the first
time they even reach out to me, like asking us to be sponsors
for those who are being targeted for persecution, I mean for
rescue. That was not done before. In the past, we have to beg
the bureaucracies to even pay attention on that.
So, that is some difference. I really want to give the
credit. I think Secretary Pompeo made the first-ever
announcement of sanctions on Iran during the Ministerial
Advancement, the summit. It was also a very promising, positive
step.
Mr. Smith. This is not political. But I remember when we
had the five daughters testify, each of them pleading for their
fathers, including Guo Xijin's daughter. The Washington Post,
Fred Hiatt, actually, did a wonderful and very incisive op-ed,
signed, in The Washington Post. He is the editorial page
director, but he wrote this.
And the young ladies appealed through our committee to meet
with President Obama. They said, ``Please, you have two
daughters, Mr. President. Please, meet with us, so we can
convey to you the agony that we feel over our fathers being
tortured in China.'' We tried for over \1/2\ year to get that
meeting. And the final statement made back to my staff was,
``He just doesn't have the time.''--``he'' being President
Obama. And in my opinion, that was emblematic of what we found
on just about every human rights issue vis-a-vis China and
other places as well.
When it came to human trafficking--and I am the author of
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and three other
additional trafficking laws--China only drew an automatic
downgrade, which was done by way of law. As soon as they could
put it back up to a good grade, they did.
Secretary Pompeo and this administration looked at the
evidence and said, China is an egregious violator of human
trafficking, sex and labor trafficking, and put them on Tier 3,
which is the egregious violator category. China's government
pushed back vigorously, to no avail.
CPC, we expect that to be designated, hopefully, soon, but
with sanctions. And in even in the area--and you mentioned, Mr.
Suozzi--on the whole area of coercive population control, for 8
years under President Obama we funded organizations that were
supportive of the Chinese government's forced abortion policy,
like the UN Population Fund and Marie Stopes International.
This administration changed that and said, you cannot harm
women and brutalize women with forced abortion, which was
properly construed to be a crime against humanity at the
Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, without us saying, at least we
are not going to fund the organizations that are aiding and
abetting those atrocities.
Across the board we see a change. My sense is it hasn't
gone far enough. And we did have a good Ambassador-at-Large
with Rabbi Saperstein in the last administration in the final
years. I want to be completely candid and grateful to his fine
work. And, of course, now we have a new Ambassador-at-Large who
is doing a wonderful job. So, there is hope.
Dr. Farr, you make a great point. Xi Jinping and his
cronies need to understand that people of faith make good
citizens. They are problem-solvers. They are not enemies of the
state. It is your secret police that is truly the enemy of the
people, not the believers.
One final question, and then, Mr. Suozzi, if you want as
well. But the question of how much worse can it get. I always
want to know, parenthetically, in follow up to what you were
saying, Dr. Fu--I have introduced H.R. 6010, which calls for an
unclassified interagency report on political influence
operations of the Chinese government and the Communist Party,
which, of course, are one and the same. We want to know, to
what extent, where, when, how. We know what they are trying to
do vis-a-vis Hollywood, so that the scripts and the movies that
get produced will have a benign view toward the PRC and toward
the Communist Party.
We know what they are doing all over with the Confucius
Institutes. We have had hearings on that. And that is growing,
not diminishing, and it is worldwide. As you know on our
committee, it is all over Africa; it is all over Asia; it is
all over--you name the country; they are trying to use this
influence peddling. And it gets really bad.
I will conclude on this one. When Chi Hoatian, the man who
ordered the Tiananmen Square massacres, came and met with
President Clinton, he got a 19-gun salute reception at the
White House; went to the National War College because he was
now secretary of defense, or the equivalent of, and got a 19-
gun salute there. He went to the War College and said, ``Nobody
died at Tiananmen Square.''
I put together a hearing in 2 days, had all these
individuals, including a Time magazine correspondent, students,
a People's Daily editor, who actually paid a price for trying
to write about it, because they were saying nobody died; there
were no tanks. And Google certainly enabled that with their
showing nothing but pretty pictures of Tiananmen Square,
censoring out anything that showed the bloodshed.
And this man got away with it. We had the hearing. We
invited him or anybody from the Embassy to be here, but we did
push back very, very hard. They do get away with the big lie
employed systematically, unless there is an effort to speak
truth to that power.
But how much worse can it get? That would be my final
question. Xi Jinping is President for life. He is trying, in my
humble opinion, to crush all religion or make it subservient to
the Communist Party. How much worse can it get?
Mr. Farr. I think it can get much worse. I think, as I have
said, that this is the 21st century version of the Cultural
Revolution. It doesn't have the Red Guards going around beating
and killing and burning people, but it is getting pretty close.
We have got a Stalinesque surveillance system in the Xinjang
Province with all the stuff you talked about earlier. It is
almost inconceivable how far you can go with this. And so, I
think it is a grave mistake for us to underestimate what is
going on in China.
And I would just say--and, then, I will let Bob Fu talk--
this is a humanitarian crisis, but this affects our national
interests. This is not just about people being brutalized. It
is that, but we have to say more than that. We have to
understand this threat within our own national security
apparatus, and I think that is a major, major message I would
like to leave with the committee. This is a national security
issue for the United States, as well as a humanitarian
catastrophe.
Mr. Fu. Thank you, Dr. Farr.
It is, I totally agree, a national security threat.
According to a document released by a provincial Three-Self
Patriotic Movement, they have a 5-year plan to sinicize the
Christianity to make Christianity compatible with socialist--
that is their slogan--including a plan to retranslate the
Bible. And according to a latest outline, the retranslated
version of the Bible would be a mixture, a summary of the Old
Testament, some Buddhist literature, some Confucius teachings,
and then, there is a new kind of commentary for the New
Testament. So, that is how the so-called sinicization of
religion would look like. I think it will get worse.
Another thing you want to point out is this American
gigantic social media or high-tech companies. They should be
ashamed of themselves, like Google, Facebook. In order to just
dump into the Chinese market, they are actively collaborating
with the Chinese police. And you have the Chinese version of
the Apple Store, purposely, deliberately; take off all the VPN
tools without a consent from the Chinese users, so that they
cannot have the limited tools to download or to use to
supplement the internet firewall.
You have, of course, Facebook already disclosed they are
working, contracting with the Chinese government's own
companies to give them access, unlimited access to the Chinese
customers. So, these are really like deliberate aiding to this
worsening persecution trend. I think they really should be
ashamed of themselves.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Farr?
Mr. Farr. Could I just add one other thing? I hear all the
beeping. I don't know what it means. I don't know if it means
shut up and----
Mr. Smith. Oh, no, no, no. You have got time.
Mr. Farr. Okay. This is in my written statement, which I
hope will be in the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, both of your statements in
their entirety will be a part of the record.
Mr. Farr. Thank you.
This goes to--maybe you won't object, Mr. Suozzi, when I
bring out this issue. This goes to the problem of how we fail
to understand what is going in China. I want to raise the Ting
Xue asylum case. This gentleman fled China. He had been beaten,
arrested, put into jail, threatened with much more severe--and
it was pretty severe already--if he went again to a Chinese
house church.
He made it to this country. He applied for asylum. He went
before an asylum court, and the Department of Justice argued--
and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the
Department of Justice's argument--that, since he could go back
to China and privately worship, in other words, worship in
secret, this was not grounds for asylum in the United States.
It was not grounds for a--what is the phrase?--a fear----
Mr. Smith. Well-founded fear of persecution.
Mr. Farr. A well-founded fear of persecution. I mean, after
having been beaten and put into jail, and threatened with more
of this, I am not sure what a well-founded fear of persecution
means in the English language.
But here we have the Department of Justice and the 10th
Circuit--now, fortunately, the Department of Justice settled.
But this is still the official position of the Department of
Justice. With the help of former Solicitor General Ken Starr
and others, we spoke to a group of over 300 asylum judges about
this, and we are trying to get the attention of the Attorney
General, who has the authority under the law to change this
position for the Department.
I just want to raise this for the committee. I think this
is a very important issue that goes to China, but not just
China. It goes to what is religion and religious freedom. If
religious freedom only means the right to worship in private,
in secret, Saudi Arabia will give you that right. Almost every
country in the world will let Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims, or
anybody else, do their thing in private. That is not the
meaning of religious freedom in the American system. And I
think it is a disgrace that any court in this land has taken
such a position.
Mr. Smith. Well, Dr. Farr, thank you for that. We will
initiate a letter----
Mr. Farr. Thank you.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. And it will go to the Attorney
General. Mr. Suozzi and I will take the lead on it. So, I thank
you for that very important intervention. You would think that
this would be resolved.
Anything else you would like to add before we conclude?
If not, thank you so very much. You have given us so much
to act on and so many insights.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:49 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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