The Chinese Communist Party is preparing to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding, but a bipartisan group in the House is looking to rain on its parade with a resolution condemning it for 100 years of human rights abuses.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, introduced the resolution “condemning the Chinese Communist Party for 100 years of gross violations of human rights and standing with the Chinese people in their struggle for liberty” on Friday, ahead of the CCP’s centenary anniversary on July 1.
“For the last century, the Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly violated basic human rights and brutalized its own citizens. The story of the Party is one of repression, torture, mass imprisonment, and genocide,” Gallagher told the Washington Examiner. “This centenary is not a cause for celebration — it is a time to reflect upon the egregious acts the Party has committed and honor the tens of millions of victims who suffered under the Party’s cruel regime.”
The bipartisan proposal “condemns the Chinese Communist Party for 100 years of gross violations of human rights, including repression, torture, mass imprisonment, and genocide; supports the inherent right of the Chinese people to self-determination and free political expression independent of one-party rule; calls on the Government of the United States and like-minded allies and partners to support human rights in the People’s Republic of China, including through the use of technology to support and enable free expression and information; and looks forward to the day that the Chinese Communist Party no longer exists.”
Gallagher has bipartisan co-sponsors in his effort, including Republican Reps. Michael McCaul, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the head of the GOP’s China Taskforce, Elise Stefanik, the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, and Brian Fitzpatrick, as well as Democrat Reps. Ruben Gallego, Josh Gottheimer, and Jared Golden.
The CCP’s 100th anniversary comes amid warnings from the U.S. intelligence community warning about the national security threat posed by China, increased repression by China internally and aggression by it externally, and the Chinese government blocking a true investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Among a litany of abuses, the House resolution points to the CCP’s “massive land reform movement campaign” in the 1940s when the Party killed between 2 million and 3 million people, to the People’s Liberation Army’s forced incorporation of Xinjiang in 1949 with the help of the Soviet Union, to the PLA’s annexation of Tibet in 1951 and the forced exile of the Dalai Lama in 1959, and to the “Three-Anti” and “Five-Anti” campaigns of 1951 and 1952 that targeted “capitalists” and loyalists of the overthrown Republic of China, whose leaders had been expelled from the mainland but retained control of Taiwan, and which resulted in thousands of executions and forced suicides.
The resolution also details Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” from the late 1950s to early 1960s, which “resulted in one of the worst man-made catastrophes of all time, in which Mao’s collectivization of agriculture resulted in a catastrophic famine that led to the death by starvation of as many as 20 to 40 million citizens,” and also highlights Mao’s decadelong cultural revolution from 1966 to 1976, which “saw the arbitrary arrest, torture, and execution of millions of citizens, with estimates ranging from 1 to 35 million.” The bipartisan proposal also details the “One Child Policy” from 1979 to 2015, which “inhibited millions of families from having more than one child.”
The Republicans and Democrats also point to the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 in which “nationwide student protests demanding greater freedoms were met with a violent crackdown, culminating on June 4th as forces of the People’s Liberation Army butchered students and protestors in what is now known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.”
The Chinese government is engaging in a propaganda campaign ahead of next week’s anniversary, including a nationwide push of its newest revised version of A Brief History of the Communist Party of China, which clocks in at 531 pages and praises Mao, skips over the tens of millions who died during the Great Leap Forward, ignores the failures of the ruling party, attacks the Tiananmen Square protests as backed by foreign foes, and praises Chinese President Xi Jinping, who Chinese officials have said will give a speech next week.
The bipartisan House resolution points to more recent abuses too, such as the CCP’s “widespread campaign to eliminate the practice of the Falun Gong religious movement both within China and around the globe” and the fact that the Chinese government “has cracked down on the practice of Christianity, forcing churches to remove their steeples, and persecuting practitioners and forcing house churches to shut their doors.” The proposal also points to the CCP’s Operation Fox Hunt, which FBI Director Christopher Wray has called a “sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi to target Chinese nationals who he sees as threats and who live outside of China” — including targets living in the United States.
The proposal also highlights the recent crackdown in Hong Kong.
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The Republicans and Democrats also pointed out that the CCP “has committed grotesque human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, and estimates state that over one million Uyghurs have been refined to ‘re-education’ camps and forced to give up traditional religious and cultural practices.” The proposal states that the U.S. believes China is conducting “crimes against humanity” and an “ongoing” genocide against the Uyghurs.
The resolution also points to the fact that “lawyer-turned-journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison for her independent reporting on the situation in and the Government’s handling of the COVID–19 pandemic in the city of Wuhan” and that her reporting “countered the propagandist narrative set by state media outlets and gave millions an inside look at what was truly happening in Wuhan during the earliest stages of the pandemic.”
