McCaul Speaks in Support of Legislation to Condemn CCP’s Human Rights Abuses and Genocide, and to Hold Them Accountable for Their Genocide
Washington, D.C. – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul spoke on the House Floor in support of several pieces of legislation to condemn the human rights violations and genocide currently being committed by the Chinese Communist Party, and to hold them accountable for these atrocities.
H.Res. 317, a resolution that condemns the CCP’s genocide against religious and ethnic minorities in China, was authored by Rep. McCaul and cosponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY).
“The world – and certainly the Chinese Communist Party – is watching.That’s why it is vital we speak in a united voice with the current and prior administrations by calling these ongoing atrocities what they are, and that is genocide.’Genocide’ is not to be taken lightly, is a term we reserve for history’s most serious crimes against humanity. It’s essential we get our response right, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, as freedom loving Americans, who stand up for human rights and against genocide.”
H.R. 1155, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, will help to ensure the United States is not funding the genocide currently being conducted by the CCP.
“Truly, free trade cannot involve slave labor…The repression taking place right now in Xinjiang is breathtaking in its scope and brutality. It involves the detention of more than a million people in concentration camps. It also involves surveillance and attempted brain washing on a massive scale. It involves breaking up families and taking children from their parents, and it involves forced sterilization and forced abortions. This should be a terrifying warning not only to China’s neighbors and to the American people but also to the world.”
H.Res. 837 states that the International Olympic Committee failed to adhere to its own human rights commitments by participating in staged propaganda surrounding the disappearance of Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis star who recently accused a former senior CCP official of sexual assault.
“The International Olympics Committee has a similar track record toward the CCP’s human rights abuses. No human rights conditions were ever imposed by the I.O.C. as a condition for China to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. And the CCP used it as propaganda to white wash their brutal oppression. They allowed Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, once again turning a blind eye to the gross human rights violations and genocide currently being committed. Over the last several weeks, we’ve seen the I.O.C. change from passively validating the CCP’s abuses to actively enabling them. The most troubling example is the ongoing abuse of Chinese Olympian Peng Shuai. She disappeared by the CCP after coming forward with serious sexual abuse allegations against a senior party member. And after the world began speaking up for her, the CCP propaganda machine publishes false statements in her name. Rather standing up for her, the I.O.C. immediately issued public statements to validate this obvious disinformation and propaganda.”
-Transcripts Below-
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
Let me thank the Chairman for bringing this measure with me here today.
I also want to thank him for his passion on this issue.
As we talk about human rights, whether it was the African Americans who were enslaved in this nation, to the Native American Indians who were mistreated by this nation, to the victims of the Holocaust, where the Geneva Convention came out with the Prevention and Punishment on the Crime of Genocide, and defined what genocide is.
After the atrocities of the concentration camps were perpetrated by the Nazis, a war that my father fought and bombed Nazi Germany, and I’m proud for his service and the entire Greatest Generation.
And it’s clear, the language, it says: Targeting members of an ethnic or religious minority group for death or serious bodily and mental harm; or taking steps designed to destroy such a group, constitutes genocide.
That’s precisely what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing.
Since 2017, they have interned more than one million Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in an effort to wipe out their culture.
To wipe out their ability to carry down to other generations by sterilizing them.
During their unjustified detainment, Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, and members of religious minority groups are forced to work in horrible conditions.
They are deprived of food and they are beaten. Their religious practices are suppressed.
And there are reports of families being separated, and of sexual abuse, of forced sterilization, forced abortions, and even reports of killings.
To quite simply wipe them off the face of the Earth.
It is horrific to imagine that this is happening at this day and time, this time that we speak, in this age.
And Mr. Speaker, it is clearly a genocide under the Geneva Conventions.
These crimes are the moral test of our time and our generation.
The world – and certainly the Chinese Communist Party – is watching.
That’s why it is vital we speak in a united voice with the current and prior administrations by calling these ongoing atrocities what they are, and that is genocide.
“Genocide” is not to be taken lightly, is a term we reserve for history’s most serious crimes against humanity.
It’s essential we get our response right, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, as freedom loving Americans, who stand up for human rights and against genocide.
Because we’ve faced this test before – and we have not always passed.
Our response to the Uyghur genocide should be an example of our character in this Congress, rather than a stain on our history.
This humanitarian crisis is about more than just U.S. foreign policy toward the People’s Republic of China.
It is about the legitimacy of the post-World War system designed to stop these atrocities whenever and wherever they are being committed.
It is about how we stop the CCP from contaminating consumer supply chains with slave labor.
It is about how we stop using cotton sourced by the Uyghur homeland and picked by those without a voice.
It’s about stopping shipments of hair.
And it is about how we convince our private sector to act morally consistently with our American values.
So let me just say, I want to again thank the Chairman.
This is probably one of the most important bills that have come out of the committee this year.
I’m proud to have introduced it and I’m so proud to have the Chairman’s support, and I want to thank him for cosponsoring this resolution and all of our colleagues on the committee who support our efforts to condemn these atrocities.
And I urge the entire House of Representatives, on this vote, because China is watching and the Uyghur Muslims are watching, to join us as we speak in a united voice and condemn this genocide by supporting this measure.
And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
I want to start by thanking Chairman Meeks, Chairman McGovern, for bringing this important human rights legislation to this floor. And it’s high time.
I want to start this debate with a simple truth that we cannot afford to forget: truly free trade cannot involve slave labor.
Today, the Chinese Communist Party is using the forced labor of the Uyghurs and other minorities to help bankroll its genocide against these very same groups.
The repression taking place right now in Xinjiang is breathtaking in its scope and its brutality.
It involves the detention of more than a million people in concentration camps.
It also involves surveillance and attempted brainwashing on a massive scale. It involves breaking up families and taking children from their parents.
And it involves forced sterilization and forced abortions.
This should be a terrifying warning not only to China’s neighbors and to the American people, but also to the world.
The Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally focused on expanding its power and its authoritarian style of government.
It views things that it does not control – like religion, cultural identity, and the yearning of all people for freedom – as threats that must be destroyed.
And because we’ve drawn the CCP into many of our most critical supply chains, it has the ability hold our national security hostage while it uses U.S. consumers to subsidize its atrocities.
As many as one in five cotton garments globally are potentially tainted with Uyghur slave labor.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When international institutions become unaccountable to the democratic world and are co-opted by dictators, they undermine American interests and values.
And that has become even clearer over the last few years.
When the COVID-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, the World Health Organization’s complicity in the CCP’s coverup helped turned what could have been a local outbreak into a global pandemic.
We are still feeling the effects of the WHO repeating the CCP’s lies without scrutiny. With them covering for Xi Jinping. And with them legitimizing sham investigations into the origins of the virus.
The International Olympic Committee has a similar track record toward the CCP’s human rights abuses.
No human rights conditions were ever imposed by the IOC as a condition for China to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, and the CCP used it as propaganda to whitewash their brutal oppression.
And they allowed Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, once again turning a blind eye to the gross human rights violations and genocide currently being committed.
But over the last several weeks, we’ve seen the IOC change from passively validating the CCP’s abuses, to actively enabling them.
The most troubling example is the ongoing abuse of Chinese Olympian Peng Shuai. She was disappeared by the CCP after coming forward with serious sexual abuse allegations against a senior Party member.
After the world began speaking up for her, the CCP propaganda machine published false statements in her name.
And rather than standing up for her, the IOC immediately issued public statements to validate this obvious disinformation and propaganda.
Even more shocking, IOC President Thomas Bach participated in – and publicized – a staged conversation with Peng that was supervised by a senior CCP member.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Peng is neither free, nor safe. And since the 2008 games, the Chinese Communist Party has become more repressive at home, more aggressive abroad, and has begun a genocide against China’s most vulnerable minority.
When Olympians from all over the world travel to Beijing in February, they are trusting the IOC to keep them safe.
But the IOC’s recent actions have shown that they are not worthy of this trust.
I commend this resolution for holding them accountable.
And so in closing I want to offer a heartfelt thanks to the Women’s Tennis Association and its chairman Steve Simon.
Mr. Simon and the WTA have fought for Peng, bravely and in an inspiring display of moral clarity and support for our democratic values.
Unfortunately, this is all too rare among those with financial ties to the CCP.
So Mr. Speaker, I support this measure, and with that I yield back the balance of my time.
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