SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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45–508 CC
1998
U.S./CHINA RELATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: IS CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT WORKING?
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
OCTOBER 28, 1997
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
JOHN McHUGH, New York
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
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ROY BLUNT, Missouri
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
LEE HAMILTON, Indiana
SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD BERMAN, California
GARY ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PAT DANNER, Missouri
EARL HILLIARD, Alabama
WALTER CAPPS, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JIM DAVIS, Florida
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RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff
MICHAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DAN BURTON, Indiana
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
PETER T. KING, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
TOM LANTOS, California
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
GROVER JOSEPH REES, Subcommittee Staff Director and Chief Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Professional Staff Member
DOUGLAS C. ANDERSON, Counsel
ELISE M. KENDERIAN, Staff Associate
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C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Mr. Harry Wu, Executive Director, The Laogai Research Foundation
Ms. Nina Shea, Director, Puebla Program on Religious Freedom, Freedom House
Dr. Allen Keller, Physicians for Human Rights
Mr. T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia, Amnesty International/USA
Ms. Rizvangul Uighur, Uighur Refugee
Mr. Shen Tong, President, Democracy for China Fund
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rigths
Mr. Harry Wu
Ms. Nina Shea
Dr. Allen Keller
Mr. T. Kumar
Ms. Rizvangul Uighur
Mr. Shen Tong
Additional material submitted for the record:
Press release from the Cardinal Kung Foundation, October 22, 1997, ''Letter of Appeal to President Jiang Zemin from Ignatius Cardinal Kung''
Letter from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, United States of America, October 23, 1997
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The Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House. ''Top Thirty Priority List, Chinese Christians Persecuted for Religious Reasons.'' October 28, 1997
International Fides Services, Fides Dossier. ''China-Elimination of Underground Christians.'' October 24, 1997. No. 4070
U.S./CHINA RELATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: IS CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT WORKING?
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1997
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:05 p.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. SMITH. [presiding] The Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights will come to order.
Five years ago, when our current President was a candidate for the office he now holds, he described the Bush Administration's relationship with the Government of China in two words, ''coddling dictators''. He was right. Some of us had hoped that President Clinton would transform the U.S./China relationship by putting respect for human rights and democracy at its very center. Instead, the Clinton Administration has coddled dictators as few have coddled before.
The arrival in Washington this afternoon of Communist Party Chairman, Jiang Zemin, represents the culmination of our government's tragic 25-year unrequited love affair with the Beijing regime. The occasion of Jiang's visit will be marked by literally dozens of official U.S. Government functions. As far as I have been able to determine, this hearing represents the only one of those official functions at which the Chinese human rights record will be publicly discussed.
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When I first proposed holding this hearing, I heard from some Republicans and some Democrats who suggested that it would be inappropriate, even in poor taste to discuss such sensitive issues while Jiang was in town. With respect, this kind of criticism gets it exactly backwards. Torture—as Amnesty International will testify today—is endemic in China. Torture, mass executions, forced abortion and sterilization, the arrest and imprisonment of democracy advocates and religious believers, these are in poor taste. Bearing witness to these atrocities, telling the whole truth about them, is the best way that I can think of to say ''Welcome to America, Mr. Jiang.''
Today's hearing will serve at least two important purposes. First, the testimony of our distinguished witnesses will focus the attention of Americans on what life is really like in the People's Republic of China. Second, the hearing might help President Jiang to understand America and Americans.
With all due respect, he has a lot to learn. A few days ago on the eve of his departure to the United States, Jiang gave an interview to the Washington Post. The Post reporters described him as candid and animated. Among Mr. Jiang's many candid and animated observations was this one. That Einstein's theory of relativity applies not only to physics, but also to politics, so that the content of human rights will differ from country to country. After the interview, one of his aides was quoted as saying, ''We try to do a PR job. We understand that this is necessary.''
This Sunday, just before leaving for the United States, Chairman Jiang continued the PR job by announcing that China would adhere to an international social and economic convention having to do with such things as the right to be free from disparity in income levels. He conspicuously omitted any references to more important international conventions that require respect for democracy, political and religious freedom, and the due process of law. Ironically, this distinction is the same one that American defenders of the Soviet Union used to make in defense of Stalin's worst excesses. They would say that no matter how many innocent people the Soviet Government might kill, it will be doing a better job than Western Governments at eliminating the disparity between rich and poor.
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So this is a PR job that has been going on for 70 years. The rhetoric of cultural relativism and moral equivalence has long been used to try to blur the distinction between totalitarianism and freedom. The apologists tell us not to worry. Nobody is against human rights, not even Jiang, not even Stalin. But your actual human rights may vary in your country.
In America, Mr. Jiang, we reject this sort of thinking. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote in the Declaration of Independence, we human beings are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. These rights are not relative, but absolute. They do not come from governments, and no government has a right to deny them. Einstein and Jefferson got it right. Stalin and Hitler and Mao got it wrong.
In 1994, the Clinton Administration de-linked Most Favored Nation status from human rights. According to our own State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for China, since then, there has been a significant regression rather than progress on every human rights question. There are more political prisoners, more summary executions, a more brutal regime in Tibet, tighter controls on political and religious expression today than there was back in 1994.
The State Department's human rights report for 1996 reflects the remarkable end result of a policy which fails to seriously address concerns of human rights. The report states, ''All public dissent against the party in government was effectively silenced by intimidation, exile, the imposition of prison terms, administrative detention or house arrest. ''No dissidents,'' the report goes on to say, ''were known to be active at year's end.'' In other words, engagement appears to have failed beyond our wildest expectations. Dissent has not just been stifled, but it has been silenced altogether.
It seems the more we engage the Beijing dictatorship, the worse it gets. Just today, I received two letters. One is from His Eminence Cardinal Ignatius Kung, who urges Chairman Jiang to free four Catholic bishops as well as many other Catholic clergy and believers who are imprisoned in China just for practicing their faith. Another letter is from David Burke, the chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, who points out that the Chinese Government has recently begun jamming the broadcasts of Radio Free Asia, which brings the Chinese people the news they would get if their government permitted freedom of information and expression. These letters will be made, without objection, a part of the record.
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[The information appears in the appendix.]
Mr. SMITH. Another atrocity that has gotten even worse in recent years is forced abortion. Although the Chinese Government officially claims it does not permit physical coercion as a means of enforcing the one-child policy, it has been widely and credibly reported that the birth control officials charged with carrying out this policy routinely compel women to abort their ''unauthorized'' unborn children.
The usual method is intense ''persuasion'' using all of the economic, social, and psychological tools the State has at its disposal. When these methods fail, women are often taken physically to the abortion mill. Forced abortions can be performed very late in pregnancy, even in the ninth month. Sometimes the baby's skull is crushed with forceps as it emerges from the birth canal. Either the woman or her husband may then be forcibly sterilized.
I would remind my colleagues, and we have said this in both the House and the Senate in the past and reminded everyone, at the Nurenburg War Crimes Tribunal, forced abortion was construed—and properly construed—to be a crime against humanity. It is no less a crime against humanity as it is practiced today each and every day in the People's Republic of China.
Amnesty International recently reported on the one-child per couple policy compliance campaign in two villages. The campaign was reportedly carried out under the slogan ''Better to have more graves than one more child.'' In order to dissuade local birth control officials from resorting to forced abortion and forced sterilization as a means to end population control, Chairman Jiang's Government must dismantle much of the coercive apparatus that characterizes their population control program. Women in China are required, and this is outrageous, they are required to obtain a birth coupon before conceiving a child. Chinese women are hounded by the population control police and even their menstrual cycles are publicly monitored as one means of ensuring compliance.
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Despite all of the evidence, let me conclude. The Clinton Administration still maintains that engagement is the best way to promote human rights in China. We invited the Administration to come to this hearing today and make the best case that their 3 years of engagement have resulted in improvements or even the prospect of improvements rather than the deterioration in the human rights situation. The Administration very simply chose not to come.
Fortunately, we do have six distinguished witnesses who will share with us the details of the China human rights story: torture in Tibet, ethnic and religious persecution in Xinjiang, imprisonment of Christians and others for practicing their religions, the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners, the continuing suppression of democracy in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, forced abortions, coerced sterilizations, and other outrages.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. But before doing so, I proudly and very happily yield to my good friend who has been a fighter on behalf of human rights in China, my good friend from California, Tom Lantos.
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to commend you for holding this hearing. I deeply regret that apparently this is the only hearing held on this general subject during the visit of the President of China because I think it's extremely important that the public relations campaign so carefully constructed and so effectively executed by the paid propagandists of Beijing not be successful and the true story about China be relayed.
Since I so strongly agree with most of the statements that you just made, allow me to begin with a general observation that puts this visit in its proper perspective. I disagree with this Administration's China policy. Having said that, however, let me state for the record that I am convinced that the commitment to human rights of this Administration is far stronger than was the commitment to human rights of the previous Administration. While we can discuss ad nauseam and ad infinitum the human rights policies of the Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration vis-a-vis many countries on the face of this planet, and while I share your concern with respect to the Clinton Administration's human rights policy with respect to China, the record must show that Clinton-Gore has a far greater commitment to human rights than did Bush-Quayle. That Secretary Albright has a far greater commitment to human rights than did Jim Baker. And that on balance, this Administration is far more sympathetic to human rights concerns across the globe than was the previous Administration.
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Let me state at the outset that I look forward to listening to our witnesses as one who has unbounded admiration for China as a civilization and a culture. Chinese civilization and culture is obviously one of the great civilizations and cultures on the face of this planet. Nothing would please me more than the opportunity for that culture and that civilization to blossom in freedom and in growing friendship with the United States.
Let me also at the outset, Mr. Chairman, put to rest perhaps the most preposterous notion that many who oppose our position claim with respect to U.S./China policy. There is an attempt on the part of many, and many in the Administration, to juxtapose a policy of engagement with a policy of isolation. That is a phony juxtaposition. No one is more committed to engagement with China than I am, and I believe you are. What we are calling for is an engagement which is consonant with fundamental American principles and values. No one in his right mind is advocating isolating one and a quarter billion human beings. All of us recognize the enormous importance China will play in Asia and in the Pacific. All of us are hoping for a prosperous, peaceful and democratic China. So I reject categorically the juxtaposition of engagement versus isolation, however high the authority may be who is pursuing that line.
Our problem with China of course is manifold. Today we are dealing with human rights. But let me for the record state that I am, as I am sure you are too, Mr. Chairman, profoundly concerned with China's role in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I am profoundly concerned with the profoundly unfair trade relations between the United States and China, a trade imbalance which will exceed $40 billion. I am profoundly concerned with the subtle undermining of political democracy in Hong Kong. The onslaught on the free and democratic Taiwan. And of course the outrageous performance of this Chinese regime in Tibet.
Cynical photo opportunities by the President of China seeking out the most sacred places of American democracy in Philadelphia or Williamsburg or elsewhere, will not suffice to cover up the shameful human rights record of the Chinese Government. The record is clear. In addition to the litany of items you mentioned, we will be hearing from my friend, Harry Wu, concerning the sordid traffic in organs of executed prisoners, one of the shabbiest aspects of China's policy anywhere on the face of this planet.
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I have no doubt in my mind that the almost pathological opposition of this regime to his holiness the Dalai Lama stems from the inherent fear of a sick and valueless system when it is confronted with ultimate moral authority. There is no rational explanation as to why this vast and powerful country of a 1.2 billion people, with a vast military apparatus should be afraid of a simple Buddhist monk in saffron robes without a military, without economic power, without anything except his moral authority which he juxtaposes to the powerful regime in Beijing.
Human rights have, in fact, deteriorated in China in recent years. Our decoupling of Most Favored Nation treatment issues from human rights, as you and I and our good friend Congressman Wolf so ablely stated at the time, was a mistake when it occurred. It is my perhaps naive hope that at least in the House of Representatives this time around, we will have sufficient votes with the new coalition emerging, covering the broad spectrum from human rights activities, through the American labor movement, to the religious groups, that we might in fact eke out a narrow majority for a victory for the moral position on that issue.
Let me just say in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, that long after the Jiang Zemins of this world will have been thrown on the dump heap of history, the heros in China's prisons will continue to live in the minds of men and women across this globe who believe in human freedom and dignity, in religious freedom, in the right of people to select governments of their own choosing. This transitory regime is not here for long in its present form, because the people of China are as entitled to live in a free and open and democratically elected society as are the people of Taiwan today, as are the people of Hungary or the Czech Republic or Poland.
It was not too many years ago when those of us who expressed hope that the Communist regimes will collapse in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet Empire were labeled naive. Naivete is on the other side, mostly on the side of the leaders of the multinational giant corporations, who for the sake of a few contracts are ready to swallow all of the principles taught to them in school here in the United States. Our great democratic allies are no better in France, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the pursuit of contracts with China is no less vigorous and shameless as it is by multinationals headquartered in the United States.
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But naivete is not on our side. It is on the side of those who hope that making deals with the devil is a long-term proposition for national prosperity. I look forward to welcoming to Washington some leaders of China in the not-too-distant future who will view the American shrines of democracy not merely as photo opportunities, but as fountains where they can replenish their yearning for freedom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos.
Mr. Wolf.
Mr. Wolf, I would note for the record is not a Member of our Subcommittee, but has been very active on human rights, religious persecution in particular, around the world, and most recently has returned from a trip to Tibet where he went incognito and was able to ascertain firsthand some of the barbarities that go on every day and are commonplace in Tibet.
Mr. Wolf.
Mr. LANTOS. Before Mr. Wolf takes the mike, may I extend my personal welcome to him. He has been an uncompromising and courageous fighter for human rights, not only in China, but across the globe. He enhances this Subcommittee with his presence and with his commitment.
Mr. WOLF. I thank you very much. I'll be very brief. I am going onto a meeting. We're having a group of Congressman Pitts and others in room 2359 to adopt a prisoners of conscience. So that's why I will be leaving.
Let me just first, thank Chairman Smith for having this hearing. I think it can be done in a very courteous way, but I think it's important that it be done. I saw several weeks ago that a church in France had apologized to the Jewish community for the fact that they were silent during the Holocaust. I don't want us to have to be apologetic to the people of China and the people of Tibet 10 or 15 years from now for the sake that we were quiet during the time that the President of China was here. So I think these hearings are very appropriate.
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Second, they are very appropriate because when we were in Tibet last month, most of the Tibetan people told us that they listened to Radio Free Asia and they listened to Voice of America. So the coverage of this hearing by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America will get back to the men and women in Tibet that listen to this every morning and listen to this every night.
Very briefly, as we listen and think with regard to the visit of the Chinese President, there are a couple of points that we should know. One, China does persecute its people because of religious beliefs. There are Catholic bishops in jail. Bishop Su was re-arrested about 3 weeks ago. There are a number of other Catholic bishops in jail. There are Catholic priests in jail. There are Protestant pastors in jail. They are persecuting the people of Tibet, they are persecuting the Moslem population in the Northwest portion of the country. China denies its citizens the opportunity to speak out. They are oppressing the people in China, in Tibet. In Tibet, on the tops of buildings, there are TV cameras, whereby they are monitoring the people. They have destroyed 4,000 to 5,000 monasteries in Tibet. Every monastery in Tibet has a cadre of People's Police, security bureau or a military that run the place. Tibetan Lhasa is no longer a Tibetan city. Lhasa has been turned into a Chinese city because there are more Chinese there than there are Tibetans.
China also runs, and Harry Wu will talk about it, a gruesome slave camp program, whereby there are more gulags now or slave labor camps in China than there were when Solzhenitsyn wrote the book ''Gulag Archipelago''. For those of you who watched Prime Time Live a week and a half ago, we know that the Chinese Government has a policy where they are selling organs; whereby they will take your blood type, your tissue type, and then go into the prisons and seek out and find a prisoner who has that blood type and that tissue type and execute them for sale of the cornea or other organs, the kidneys, for $30,000 to $35,000. The one-child policy and all of the other things that go on.
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So I just want to thank Congressman Smith. I know there probably would have been a lot of pressure not to have this hearing. But had we not had this hearing, and had Mr. Smith and Mr. Lantos and this Committee not had the hearing, then someday we may very well had to have apologized for being silent. So there's nothing more appropriate than to listen to this distinguished panel, and to be very very courteous, as clearly this Committee will, but to make sure that it's on the record.
So I want to thank Mr. Smith for the hearings, and look forward to hearing the witnesses.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Again, the intent of this hearing is to bear witness to the truth, especially during this very appropriate time when the President of China is in town.
Let me again note for the record that I have traveled with Mr. Wolf to a number of spots, including China. We were in Beijing Prison No. 1, which was producing items for export. Forty Tiananmen Square activists were there at that prison camp making these articles that were ending up on our shores.
Second, when we met with Li Peng later on in that particular trip, Mr. Wolf tried to give him a list of imprisoned pastors and bishops. Mr. Li Peng, the Premier of China, looked at that and set it aside as if it were a hot potato, and expressed in response to our comments regarding all of the human rights abuses—including the imprisonment of religious believers, Buddhists, Catholics, and other Christians—that it doesn't happen. It was an absolute, total denial that these things occur in China, which is all the more reason why we need to bear witness to the truth. So thank you, Mr. Wolf.
Mr. Faleomavaega.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like to offer my personal welcome to our good friend and colleague from Virginia, Mr. Wolf, to our Subcommittee. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for a very profound and eloquent statement that you offered to the Subcommittee. Certainly you and my good friend, the gentleman from California, have been such great advocates on human rights in our Nation. I certainly hope that we will continue to do this.
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Mr. Chairman, I would like to associate myself closely to the statements made earlier by my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from California, the Ranking Member of our Subcommittee, for the position and the concerns that he has expressed earlier about the problems pending President Jiang's visit to our Nation's capital.
Mr. Chairman, I realize there are many concerns. President Jiang Zemin's visit to our country has far-reaching implications quite obviously, touching on the U.S./China relationship and the question of human rights, question of economic issues, our strategic and security interests, not only the Asia-Pacific region, but globally as well. The question of Taiwan, and many other issues I know, Mr. Chairman, that we need to further examine.
Having recently met with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that my heart really goes out to His Holiness and to some 2 million Tibetans who live in exile and as a people without a country and without any sense of identification in terms of what the Chinese Government has done to them. I sincerely hope that President Clinton, as well as the Congress, will with as much force as possible, bring to bear the fact that these beautiful people, the Tibetans, we need to recognize the basic human fundamental rights attending to any people, that certainly that President Jiang Zemin ought to be made very much aware of the concern that I have concerning the needs of the Tibetan peoples.
I would like to also personally welcome our distinguished panelists this afternoon, and look forward to hearing their statements and comments.
Mr. Chairman, again, I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I hope that we will gain substance and especially something that both Congress as well as the Administration can well address concerning our relationship with the People's Republic of China. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much.
Mr. Salmon.
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Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me also be one of the first to congratulate you on holding this hearing today. I think it's very very timely and very appropriate. As President Jiang comes to visit the United States, I think he needs to get a good taste of the opinions here in the United States, and how people really feel. In a survey, although I respectfully disagreed on policy on the MFN issue, I also realize that I am out of step with about 80 percent of the American people. I think that's very noteworthy. I think it's because most people in the United States recognize that there are some horrendous things happening in China today, and that human rights violations are just as commonplace as any other activity here in the United States would be. I know for a fact, having visited there, having met with many of the groups that have worked with prisoners and trying to get prisoner release programs moving ahead, that the human rights violations are consistently happening. There really is virtually little to no improvement in the human rights scenario in China.
I think that most of us became incensed as we read, or I guess there were some of us that heard directly, comments from top Chinese officials that said that Tiananmen Square never really happened, that there wasn't any massacre at Tiananmen Square. I know I have spoken to students who were at Tiananmen Square and saw not only students killed, but children killed. I guess if I have one thing to say to President Jiang, again, as one who supports the Most Favored Nation trading status, President Jiang, stop the lies. Stop the lies from the people that report to you. The facts are as Mr. Smith and Mr. Lantos and Mr. Wolf and Mr. Faleomavaega have just described. Nuclear non-proliferation continues to be a big problem. Human rights violations, religious persecution. We could go on and on and on and on.
Yet I, as Mr. Lantos said as well, have no reason to question this Administration. I have got to believe that in President Clinton's heart, that he believes as we do, that human rights violations are an atrocity. It's an affront to everything that we believe, and that it must stop. Therefore, I would implore him to take this opportunity and make it a golden opportunity. To not just make it an exchange of pleasantries and toasts and wonderful words, as has probably happened in past Administrations as well.
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This is a golden opportunity to speak from the heart and to lay it on the line. If we're going to engage, engagement means expressing your values. It doesn't mean backing into a corner because business interests don't want you to say anything. It means that we say the things that we care about and we say it with force, and we say it with courage. That's what is required right now of the President, is an opportunity to lay it all on the line. And at the very least, at the very very very least, he should demand as a good faith signal as these talks begin, a good faith signal at the very least would be that Wei Jingsheng would be liberated.
So I ask the President and Madame Albright, and I am sure all of those who will be involved in this summit—we're not asking them to do an about-face on their China policy. But we are asking them to take this golden opportunity to with great force and with great courage, stand forward and tell President Jiang just what our values are, what we stand for, and what we will not continue to tolerate any longer.
Thank you for holding this hearing.
Mr. SMITH. I want to thank Mr. Salmon for his passion and his consistency. Over the years, on this issue, while we disagreed in terms of the means to the end—i.e. Most Favored Nation status—you have been absolutely indefatigable in your attempts to find other means, and especially insisting that the truth be told, that we bear witness.
You might recall, and Members of the whole Subcommittee recall, that when General Chi Haotian was here in town and made those outrageous statements that nobody died in Tiananmen Square, we very quickly convened a hearing of this Subcommittee and heard from approximately half a dozen very distinguished people, some of whom were there at Tiananmen Square, who again bore witness to the truth so the big lie would not be able to find fertile fields in the United States or anywhere else.
Your point on Wei Jingsheng couldn't be made any stronger. I met with Wei when I was there on a trip on human rights. A couple of weeks later, we met with John Shattuck, the Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Democracy. The secret policy grabbed him and incarcerated him. A kangaroo trial was held and now he is imprisoned, and probably without question being tortured, based on reliable evidence.
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So your plea to let Wei go and others like him hopefully will not fall on deaf ears.
Mr. Clement.
Mr. CLEMENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wu, and members of the panel. It's a great honor and a great privilege to have you visit with us as well as testify before the U.S. House of Representatives. I represent Nashville, Tennessee. As a Member of Congress from Tennessee, as well as a Member of Congress from the United States of America, we are all concerned, and we ought to be concerned about slave labor, religious freedom, and human rights, whether it pertains to our country as well as other countries.
We are pleased to have the President of the People's Republic of China to visit our country, and hopefully through this visit that we will make some progress that it appears in some fronts we have not made at all up to the present time. But we have got to highlight the problems that exist when it comes to human rights. You can't shove it under the rug. We have learned from World War I and World War II, where at times people looked the other way. They didn't face up to the consequences. The problem kept growing. We don't want the problem to continue to grow. We want to try to solve these difficult problems.
I know you are going to share with us today, Mr. Wu, and others, not what's happened to others, but what has happened to you. By giving those personal observations, hopefully it will be helpful to all of us to better understand what we're up against in the years ahead. Thank you.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Clement.
Let me now introduce our very distinguished panel, beginning in the order that they will present their testimony. Harry Wu is the executive director of the Laogai Research Foundation. He was first arrested as a young student in Beijing for speaking out against the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. In 1960, he was sent to the Laogai, the largest forced labor camp system in the world today, where he was imprisoned for 19 years in 12 different forced labor camps. When he was finally released in 1979, Mr. Wu left China and came to the United States in 1985, as a visiting professor of geology at the University of California at Berkeley. In the summer of 1995, Mr. Wu was arrested by the Chinese Government when he tried to enter China, and was held for 66 days before being convicted in a trial for stealing State secrets. He was sentenced to 15 years, but immediately expelled as a result of an extensive international campaign launched on his behalf.
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Since his release, Mr. Wu has continued to work in publicizing the fight to condemn the laogai, and to document its atrocities. He is the author of several books. In 1992, he established the Laogai Research Foundation, which is now recognized as the leading source of information on the human rights situation in China's forced labor camps.
Nina Shea is the director of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. She's been an international human rights lawyer for 18 years. For the past 11 years, she has focused on the issue of religious persecution. Ms. Shea has participated in numerous fact-finding missions to countries throughout the world, and is a widely published scholar in the field of religious freedom and human rights, including a widely acclaimed book on anti-Christian persecution entitled ''In the Lion's Den''.
Dr. Allen Keller is a member of the International Advisory Board for the Physicians for Human Rights, in addition to his position as an assistant professor of clinical medicine at New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Keller is the director of the Bellevue/NYU program for survivors of torture, which provides care to survivors of torture and for their families.
T. Kumar is the advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific for Amnesty International USA. Mr. Kumar, who has earned degrees from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the International Institute of Human Rights, was himself a prisoner of conscience for 5 years in Sri Lanka.
Rizvangul Uighur is the pseudonym of a refugee from East Turkistan, who has personally experienced and witnessed many incidents of persecution carried out against the Muslim Uighur community by Chinese officials and law enforcement personnel. We would ask that the television cameras not focus on Ms. Uighur during her testimony, if they would.
Shen Tong is the president of the Democracy for China Fund. He was a student leader in the Chinese pro-democracy movement in the late 1980's that culminated in the Tiananmen Square demonstration. Mr. Tong escaped from China 1 week after the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989, and came to the United States 3 years later. In July 1992, Mr. Tong was the first prominent Tiananmen Square leader to return to China. Within 2 months of his return, he was arrested in Beijing, but was released 54 days later in apparent response to the international protests which followed his detention.
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Thank you for appearing today, I say to all of our witnesses.
Mr. Wu, if you would begin.
STATEMENT OF HARRY WU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE LAOGAI RESEARCH FOUNDATION
Mr. Wu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before this Committee. My name is Harry Wu. I am director of the Laogai Research Foundation. First I want to truly thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your constant belief that the case of human rights is our moral duty, not as an American, but as a human being. You have used your position to clearly advance this belief. It is my honor to once again sit before you and your Members and speak about truth.
I want to tell you that today I am talking about an ugly practice in China in our human beings society. It's a practice that shows the total disregard the Chinese Government has to rights of its people. Later I will show a videotape which working together with ABC, show you how the organs extracted from the executed prisoners are for sale on the open market, and even here in the United States.
I was given an official Chinese Government document in 1985 that really shocked me at the time. In 1985, this document was a secret. Only later in 1990, became publicized. The title tells of its contents, ''On the use of the dead bodies or organs from condemned criminals.'' This directive came from the central government judiciary department, to prosecutors, the police, the public health department, the civil administration department.
So this is a central government document. Not the local government, not an individual hospital document. This document says that because of advancing medical science in China that allows for successful transplant surgeries, ''The following measures are formulated on the use of the dead bodies or organs from condemned criminals.'' The procedure said that the condemned are to be executed immediately by means of shooting. Bodies can then be used if they are not collected by the families, if the condemned prisoners consented to donate, or if the families consented.
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What does that mean, uncollected? I spent 19 years in Chinese prison camp. Once I was sentenced to death. My family would not come to the place to collect my body. Then my body becomes government property. In Chinese practice, once you are condemned by the government, you become an enemy of the party, enemy of the government. Your family, including your parents, your friends, your love, they have to separate from you. They have to publicly condemn you. In my 19 years in jail, my family never came to see me. So there are a lot of so-called uncollected bodies that become government property.
Today the Chinese Government said many prisoners and their family have consented. But we interviewed many police, doctors, and the families; no one knows that there is a so-called procedure of consent.
The document continues to direct the hospitals and the courts on how to coordinate and carry out the execution process. It states, ''Use of dead bodies or organs from condemned criminals must be kept strictly confidential. Only in real need, and upon the approval of the People's Court executing the death penalty, can operation vehicles, medical vehicles from medical institutions be allowed to enter into the execution ground to remove organs. But vehicles with the logo of medical institutions are not to be used, and white clinic garments are not to be worn. The execution ground should be guarded until the operation is completed.''
A Chinese doctor right now living in London, he told me how he was arranged by the Party committee of the hospital to wait in the vehicle. They heard the shooting. Two minutes later, they went to the place to bring the body. Then the vehicle was driving to the cremator. On the way, of course the doctor is very busy, removed the kidney, spleen, liver, heart, cornea, whatever they want. When they arrived at the cremator, according to the document, the cremator has to timely and secretly cremate the body. Actually, he said it's no longer a body. It's human meat.
This document is the guideline that acts today as the official policy on harvesting organs from Chinese death row prisoners. This practice is barbaric. A government may have a policy according to their political purpose to execute the criminals, but it is against all basic rights to then steal the organs of the dead man or woman for sale domestically and internationally.
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In 1994, I conducted an interview with an official, hospital official in China, who said ''The sources of our kidneys can be from donors who have died in traffic accidents or from brain-dead people. If the donors are brain-dead——''
We asked what brain-dead means. The police later explained to me, if we shoot him below the head, it means immediately the person is brain-dead. Then the hospital ''contacts appropriate government units to find out when we can obtain organs. Policies of the State do not permit contact with our donors.'' She continued going on, ''Things in our country are different from yours.'' At the time, I posed as an American wealthy family with my hidden camera. ''We can do what is impossible from the legal point of view in your country'' meaning the United States. ''As to contact with the kidney donors, it is impossible. But we guaranteed that our kidneys are healthy, and are of excellent quality.''
The doctors and hospital officials in China are very careful not to discuss how such brain-dead donors died. No consent forms are given to the patients. In China, there are very few families that would consent for prisoners to donate their organs. So far as we know, according to Chinese procedure, for the execution, never inform the family. We have a document right here. After the execution, inform the family.
The organs from death row prisoners actually in China is an open secret. If you are the patient, if you travel to China for a kidney transplant, it's not really difficult to find a source. I have worked to document the entire process of executions and organ transplants in China. In 1994, I went back to China with BBC and visited a couple of hospitals and many patients, doctors, policemen, and government officials. Earlier this year in 1997, I went to Thailand. There's a report that said in the last couple of years, 47 Thai patients went to China and all of them recognized their kidney has come from executed prisoners. The average fee they pay is in U.S. dollars, $26,600. Some of them not only give the money to the hospital, also spend money for these executioners.
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There is a woman from Thailand, later you will see in the ABC film. She told me about the whole process. She said the doctor and nurse frequently emphasize one word, ''fresh''. Unfortunately today she can not come over here, but her story is remarkable.
In the investigation with ABC News, we found an advertisement in a Chinese language newspaper which is based in New York last June. The advertisement said, ''Organ transplant in China. Don't miss the opportunity. Call the number——'' a (203) number, which means in Connecticut. The number led us to a Dr. Dai Yong, a student at the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut and his wife.
Then I posed as a wealthy patient and contacted Mr. and Mrs. Dai. The two brokers very openly were talking about the source of the organs. ''Regarding the prisoners' health, they are all given physical check-ups and blood tests.'' They were not at all hesitant, and even they went further and said, ''We know it comes from executed prisoners. Before Harry Wu made trouble, we didn't know anything. The government didn't do anything. Now the government has a procedure, and asks the prisoners to sign a paper.''
We were not the first people who were sold an organ by these people. This couple is still in the United States. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs. I fully expect that the Justice Department will investigate this case and quickly take proper actions. As Mrs. Dai said, ''They have a lot to choose from.'' A Chinese medical journal shows the number of the Chinese kidney transplant cases is growing year after year. In 1991, there were 1,771 cases. In 1992, 1,905. In 1995, 2,382 cases. In 1996, there were 2,792. Chinese sources said that by the end of 1996, there were a total of 8,759 kidney transplant cases. According to an Amnesty International report, at least 90 percent of them come from death row prisoners.
At the same time, the number of record executions, also as documented by Amnesty International, is also growing. According to an Amnesty International report, there were 3,110 individuals condemned to death in China in 1995, and with 2,190 recorded executions. But according to 1996 report, Amnesty International documented 6,100 death sentences, and recorded 4,367 known executions. Today, the People's Republic of China on the record of executions is the No. 1 country in the world. Today, 75 to 80 percent executions of the world happens in the People's Republic of China. Our research identified 88 different facilities in China that carry out kidney transplants. Chinese sources show that a large number of the largest hospitals are run by the Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army. Of the three facilities that have more than 1,000 kidney transplant procedures in their history, two are military medical university hospitals. Because the military all the time have the privilege, also the privilege of these death row prisoners.
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The central role of the military hospitals in the systematic harvesting of prisoner's organs shows further the total involvement of all institutions of the Chinese Government and this disgusting process. The use of the executed prisoners' organs is a coordinated government policy sanctioned by the Communist regime, and lines the pockets of the officials and military with bloody money.
This government, according to communism idea, set up their law. According to this Communist law, the government arrested people and sent them to death and arranged their hospital and the doctor. Chinese doctors are government employees, and go to the execution ground, remove the organ from them. Many of them sell it to international markets, earning hard currency from human bodies. It has not happened in our history, human history.
I want this practice stopped. I want the Congress and the Administration to do all it can during Jiang Zemin's visit to tell him we know he has lied to us, we know what is going on today in China. We want to stop it. Jiang Zemin as the President of this government, of this country, is totally absolutely responsible for this crime. I call upon the President to raise this issue tomorrow in his face-to-face discussion with Jiang. If the President does not confront China, or force it to face its ugly practices, then the Chinese Communists will know that their behavior has no consequences.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for taking a leading position in this Congress on this issue. Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wu appears in the appendix.]
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Wu. Thank you for continuing to bring information that very few people have been able to garner about what's truly going on in China, and for your passionate witness today to the barbarity of what's being done to these prisoners.
Ms. Shea.
STATEMENT OF NINA SHEA, DIRECTOR, PUEBLA PROGRAM ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, FREEDOM HOUSE
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Ms. SHEA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting Freedom House to testify today at these critically important hearings on human rights in China. It is essential that China's President, Jiang Zemin, know that the American people are truly concerned with human rights, and you have provided an important platform for us. Thank you.
My testimony today focuses on the persecution against the Christian minority in China. It is based on the findings of two fact-gathering missions to China that Freedom House has conducted over the past 5 months, information and testimony provided to us by networks of Chinese underground Protestants and Catholics, documents and statements of China's Government and party officials, and an extraordinary October 24th statement of Fides, which is the publication of the Vatican's society for the propagation of faith as well as reports of American and foreign Christians who traveled to China in recent months.
I will summarize my testimony. I'd like to include for the record a list of 30 priority cases that we have compiled of both Catholics and Protestants in some form of detention or under house arrest for religious reasons, as well as the Vatican's document of October 24.
Mr. SMITH. Without objection, those two documents will be made a part of the record.
[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]
Ms. SHEA. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, China is continuing and intensifying its campaign against the Christian underground. The intensifying persecution is pervasive, though uneven in degree of brutality. The centers of greatest Christian population, in Henan, in Hebei, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi, are among those suffering the greatest crackdown. The public security bureau police have tortured a number of underground Christians over the past year, including brutal beatings that have maimed and even killed, binding detainees in excruciating positions, hanging detainees from their limbs, tormenting them with electric batons and other implements, and crushing the feet and ankles of Christians while they are forced to kneel.
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China's persistent and intensifying persecution of Chinese Christians is a direct result of China's policy that all Christian worship must occur within government-sanctioned organizations. Both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who choose to worship independently are stating that this is the worst period of persecution for them since the catastrophic Cultural Revolution.
China has more Christian prisoners and detainees than any other country in the world. Protestants are being arrested and tortured for holding prayer meetings, preaching, and distributing bibles without State approval. Roman Catholic priests, including 10 Catholic bishops, are currently imprisoned under some form of house arrest or have disappeared after celebrating mass and administering the sacraments without official authorization. Christian prisoners are often held in deplorable prison conditions, with some being forced to work as veritable slaves of the State in labor camps throughout the country.
Detailed and credible reports documented that three evangelicals and one Catholic priest have been beaten to death by police over the past year because of their independent religious activities. Over the past year, since China reinvigorated its campaign to register all Christian congregations, hundreds of Protestant and Catholic house churches have been raised and forcibly closed or demolished. The popular Catholic shrine at Dong Lu has been smashed, and bibles and other property of un-registered Christians have been arbitrarily confiscated, and steep fines imposed on their owners.
Since last year, members of the Christian underground have noted that authorities have adopted harsher tactics. In particular, they report that authorities have begun to target underground house church leaders for arrest, giving them 3-year sentences of re-education and labor camps.
For Protestants, Henan Province is one of the areas hardest hit. Protestant leaders report that about 40 percent of inmates in Henan laogai or labor camps are there for belonging to the Christian underground. In Henan no. 1 labor camp, approximately 50 out of 126 inmates are imprisoned for underground church activities. During the Freedom House team's visit there last May, 85 house church Christians were rounded up and arrested in two dragnet operations in Zhou Kou, Henan Province.
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On March 16, Peter Xu, perhaps the most important underground Protestant leader in China, who heads the enormous New Birth Church movement, was arrested and jailed with seven others in Henan. Last month, Xu was sentenced to 10 years in the labor camp, one of the harshest sentences in 15 years given out for Christian activities.
The Freedom House team received reports that 300 Protestants have been arrested in Louyang Jail in Henan since July a year ago. It was in Henan that Zhang Xiuju, a 36-year-old woman was beaten to death by police during an arrest for underground Christian activities on May 26, 1996.
There are many other examples of torture and brutal treatment in my testimony. I'll refer to the written record for that. I just want to mention that the extraordinary issue of the Vatican-linked publication Fides, which came out on October 24, stated—and by the way, the name of this document is called ''China, Elimination of Underground Christians''—this Vatican statement said, ''The security forces of the party have unleashed a struggle against the underground Catholic communities, those not controlled by the Patriotic Association. In a certain sense, this is real elimination.''
Mr. Chairman, there have been a number of official documents that have been leaked and smuggled to the West. One is the Donglai Township Committee of the Communist Party from last November, which outlines procedures for the eradication of the underground Roman Catholic church; steps that include systematic brain washing, ideological struggle sessions, and criminal prosecution of pro-Vatican Catholics. Similar Communist Party documents outlining the special ''class struggle'' for the suppression of both the Protestant and Catholic underground in various parts of Zhejiang Province have also surfaced in recent months.
Freedom House's Center on Religious Freedom estimates that China's Christian population, both underground and registered, both Catholic and Protestant, number between 40 and 60 million. Millions of these Christians have joined the underground because the members of the government-registered churches are restricted. Patriotic churches, that is, the government-sanctioned churches, have to be organized in the same church body. That is, one denomination, and are restricted in working with people under 18. The clergy can not preach outside of their own area. The clergy and venue must be approved by the government, and church services and members are subject to monitoring.
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The Patriotic Catholic Church can not accept the authority of the Pope. Sermons must stick to approved topics. All Patriotic preachers must steer clear of forbidden topics like the second coming of Christ, the New Testament's gifts of the spirit, the Old Testament's story of creation, and must steer clear of preaching against abortion, which is part of the State's draconian one-child policy.
The Chinese Government is censoring portions of the official Catholic catechism. China imposes impediments to the Roman Catholic Church as an institution by barring the Vatican from making episcopal appointments in China and the government, in fact, makes its own appointments for bishops of the Catholic church inside China.
While on trips to the West, Mr. Chairman, China's political leaders and religion commissars portray China's current religious environment as ''a golden period''. They state otherwise to the Chinese people. China's President Jiang Zemin's own remarks indicate zero tolerance for religious freedom. He said that State religious policy is to ''actively guide religion so that it can be adapted to the socialist society.'' President Jiang said that in the March 14, 1996, edition of the People's Daily. A year before, President Jiang Zemin declared to the Religious Affairs Bureau that ''we are engaged in a secret struggle against the church.'' He then went on to outline three ''sentences'' for religious policy. ''A comprehensive and correct implementation of party religious policy, strict supervision over religious affairs according to the law, and act of guidance of religion toward adaptation to socialist society.''
Mr. Chairman, the extraordinary document published on October 24 by the Vatican's press organ Fides, which provides details of the government's persecution against Chinese Catholics in recent times, concludes, ''If during the meeting between President Jiang Zemin and President Clinton religious rights are not clearly addressed, there is little hope for the world.'' Freedom House concurs. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shea appears in the appendix.]
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Shea, very much for your testimony.
Dr. Keller.
STATEMENT OF ALLEN KELLER, M.D., PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Dr. KELLER. Thank you. As a physician who spends a significant portion of his time caring for torture survivors, first I would like to acknowledge the leadership that you, Congressman Smith, have shown on issues of importance to torture survivors, including cosponsoring with Congressman Lantos the Torture Victims Relief Act, a bill which provides assistance to torture survivors in this country and abroad, and which hopefully will be reintroduced as soon as possible. I also want to thank Congressman Wolf for his leadership and voice on issues of importance toward Tibet.
I am a member of the International Advisory Board of Physicians for Human Rights and appear today on PHR's behalf. Today I present the findings from an extensive investigation conducted by Physicians for Human Rights and contained in our report, ''Striking Hard, Torture in Tibet''. This investigation evaluated the frequency of torture among a sample of Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, India, which I conducted in collaboration with a team of five other health professionals. I would also like to acknowledge that one of my colleagues, Mr. Glen Kim, is here with us today. Glen is a fourth year medical student at New York University, and reminds me that the future of the medical profession is in good hands.
In this study, we interviewed 258 Tibetan refugees, asking them about a history of abuse, conducting detailed physical examinations on those who reported a history of torture. Our findings strongly suggest that torture is part of a widespread pattern of abuse, not an isolated phenomena, and that torture continues to be used routinely by Chinese authorities in Tibet as a means of political repression, punishment, and intimidation. Thus, it is important when President Clinton meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Mr. Clinton should recognize that he is sitting down with the leader of a country which routinely tortures men, women, and children.
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In the PHR study, we found that more than one in seven of the Tibetan refugees we interviewed reported being tortured by the Chinese authorities while living in Tibet. All of these cases of torture were determined by PHR investigators to be highly credible. Many of these cases of torture had in fact occurred within the past 2 years. Those tortured included monks and nuns, as well as lay persons, political activists, as well as ordinary citizens and children. Nearly half of the 258 refugees we interviewed reported having a family member or close friend who had been tortured. It's been said that when one individual in the community is tortured, the entire community is tortured. This is because of a ripple effect of fear and terror. Tragically, the risk of being tortured in Tibet remains all too common.
The most frequently reported forms of torture included severe beatings, electric shocks with cattle prods on the face, arms, and genitals, suspension in painful positions, witnessing others being tortured, deprivation of food or sleep, and mock executions. One adolescent boy who we interviewed reported being submerged in water and then thrown onto an electrified bed.
Let me share with you one of the testimonies from a Tibetan torture survivor who we interviewed and examined. I will acknowledge that these reports are extremely upsetting to hear. I am even more upset that I have to present them. NR, a Buddhist monk, was 18 years old when he was reportedly arrested and imprisoned for 3 months for distributing freedom pamphlets at a pro-independence demonstration, and for possessing a picture of the Dalai Lama.
These are his own words. ''The Chinese police tied my hands and suspended me from the ceiling, and then punched and kicked me, and shocked me all over my body with electric cattle prods. They shocked me on the genitals so that my genitals bled and later got infected, and it was difficult to urinate. They also beat me on the feet with sticks. In the winter, I was made to stand naked against a cold wall for 3 to 4 hours at a time a few times each week. I was also put in solitary confinement. The Chinese police repeatedly beat me with a stick on my thigh until the stick broke and splintered into the skin. It got infected and it took a long time to heal. I wasn't given any medical care for this. One time when I said Tibet was free, a prison official put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me.''
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NR continues to suffer from symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. He reports difficulty concentrating, and often gets headaches. He also reports that he easily gets upset. On physical examination, he has a scar on his leg consistent with the injury which he describes.
It's hard to imagine anyone could torture a Buddhist monk or nun, let alone a child. Tragically, the Chinese Government's torture of Tibetan children appears common. Fifteen percent of the torture survivors we examined were 16 years old or younger at the time of their abuse. For example, NC, a Buddhist nun, was 16 years old when she was imprisoned for 2 years for chanting in a public square, ''Long live Tibet. Free Tibet.'' ''During the first month I was in prison, I was tortured often. I was beaten many times and electrocuted all over my body. When the Chinese tortured me, they would yell, ''Why do you demonstrate? Don't you know the Chinese are good for you? You must not say Tibet is free. Tibet is part of China.'' One time they took my blood with a syringe, even though I told them not to.''
NC reports that she frequently saw others being beaten and tortured. On one occasion, she reports witnessing a young man approximately 21 years old being beaten. She reports he was subsequently shot in the head. ''Since my torture'' she says, ''I am not so well. I also feel my nerves are not so good. When I see people protesting, I think about what happened, and I get very upset. But I still must protest. In Tibet we have no political or religious freedom.''
We judge such reports of torture to be highly credible. The victims of torture still suffered physical and psychological symptoms as a result of their abuse. Scars, neurologic problems, and muscular-skeletal disorders were common. Almost all had symptoms of depression and anxiety such as recurrent nightmares and flashbacks of their torture. The terror of torture is intended to spread beyond the individual victims we examined. The knowledge that anyone detained by Chinese authorities is likely to be tortured is used to cow the Tibetan people into submission.
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Clearly, individuals detained for their political activities are at high risk of being tortured. Ninety four percent of the people in our survey who reported being detained because of their political activities, also reported being tortured. But it wasn't just political dissidents who were tortured. Our investigation found that Tibetans detained by Chinese authorities for a variety of reasons other than political activities, such as arguing with a Chinese shopkeeper or trying to cross the Tibetan border, were tortured as well.
Physicians for Human Rights is very concerned that constructive engagement appears to be a policy whereby the Administration talks about human rights privately to the Chinese authorities, but exercises none of the leverage that it possesses to achieve positive change. In this regard, we note that China was granted an official summit meeting in the United States which was greatly prized, without having achieved a single human rights concession. PHR strongly urges the Administration to re-establish human rights linkages to those things that China most desires: a State visit by the President of the United States, permission to import high technology American goods, and admittance into the World Trade Organization.
The United States should also continue to urge that the U.N. Commission on Human Rights examines human rights problems in China and Tibet, and support a resolution on China next year. The failure of this year's resolution was largely due to the lateness and ambivalence of the U.S. effort, and the negative signals other countries received as a result.
No amount of explanation or political analysis can justify President Clinton refusing to mention by name Chinese political prisoners, such as Wei Jingsheng, or remain silent about the widespread use of torture in Tibet as a means of political repression and cultural destruction. President Clinton should insist that Chinese authorities refrain from the use of torture in Tibet, and honor the international conventions to which China is a signatory, including the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
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Furthermore, President Clinton should insist that Chinese Government permit access to Tibet and to detention facilities, prisons, and labor camps, by the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations.
When I was in Dharamsala, India, I had the privilege of meeting with the Dalai Lama. During our discussion about our findings, he commented to me that he thought it was so important that we speak out about these issues because he felt the world was largely ignorant of the atrocities being perpetrated against the Tibetans. He said to me, ''We must not whisper. We must not talk. We must shout about what we have seen.''
It is the President's moral responsibility, it's all of our moral responsibility to end torture in Tibet, and to speak out about the sustained brutal assault on the Tibetan community. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Keller appears in the appendix.]
Mr. SMITH. Dr. Keller, thank you very much for that very comprehensive statement, and for bearing witness today to the truth of what's going on in Tibet.
Mr. Kumar.
STATEMENT OF T. KUMAR, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR FOR ASIA, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL/USA
Mr. KUMAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Amnesty International wishes to express its gratitude for inviting us to testify in this timely hearing. This is timely because of course the President of China is going to have a summit after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It is also significant because China as a nation is increasingly becoming powerful in Asia as well as around the world. So any practice, any abuses that China can get away with is going to set an example to other countries that they can also get away with those abuses.
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I would also like to congratulate you for inviting someone from Xinjiang Province. We are concerned about the abuses that are taking place in that part of China, which has not been so told to the outside world.
Today's hearing is about U.S./China relations. Is the constructive engagement working? That's the title. I would like to phrase that to include, is the current form of constructive engagement working? If the numbers and research speaks for itself, then of course we all can agree that the current form of constructive engagement is not working. We did not see any significant movement in the release of prisoners. There are at least 2,000 political prisoners in jail for the last couple of years. We did not see any decrease in the persecution of religious minorities. We did not see any decrease in enforcing the one-child policy by forcibly aborting and sterilizing women who cross the line by having a second child or are pregnant with their second.
We have seen a disturbing increase in the death penalty. Mr. Chairman. Amnesty International opposes death penalty without any reservation, no matter what excuses anyone may have. China has executed more than 4,600 people last year alone. This is the minimum number we are talking about. It may be higher.
We, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, did not get access until now. So if the result speaks for itself, definitely the current form of constructive engagement is not producing any results.
I would like to move a little bit to say how the Administration is practicing or enforcing its current form of constructive engagement. They claim that they have raised the issue of human rights, ranging from political prisoners to torture to issues in Tibet, to religious persecution in private.
The best form of raising the issue in an international forum is the U.N. Human Rights Commission. We like to congratulate for at least cosponsoring it, but we found disturbing signals that there is no solid diplomatic muscle behind those resolutions. The timing, the last minute of cosponsoring of the resolution, and not putting enough work or pressure to make sure that it passes, is not producing results. So if that's the form of constructive engagement the Administration is talking about, we are really disturbed about their definition of constructive engagement.
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The second issue that I would like to talk about, is the Administration's practice of constructive engagement. We have no concerns about President Clinton meeting with President Jiang Zemin. It's a protocol. But last December, when the Defense Minister of China, General Chi visited the United States, President Clinton met with him in the White House. He was given the red carpet welcome. General Chi is not only the Minister of Defense, he was also the commander in charge, when the Tiananmen Square demonstrations were taking place in Beijing.
He had the operational control over the troops in Tiananmen Square. In effect, he is answerable to the deaths and destruction that took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989. According to Amnesty International, we have documented at least 1,000 people were killed. It's a very conservative figure. To this day, no independent inquiry has taken place to investigate why it happened and who is answerable to these killings.
If this is the constructive engagement the Administration is talking about, if this is the way the Administration wanted to enforce its constructive engagement, we can bet that the human rights situation in China will go from bad to worse. It's already bad. It may get worse.
The best analysis of constructive engagement came in the 1996 human rights report of the State Department. If that report is a yardstick, then the Clinton Administration is getting zero marks for it, constructive engagement. We welcome active constructive engagement, not passive constructive engagement.
If constructive engagement is a code word to be silent, then we all should be aware that we should not keep quiet about this constructive engagement philosophy that the Administration is pushing forward today.
It's interesting to note that the Administration is having a constructive engagement when it comes to trade. They actively promote trade, actively raise their voices when there is a single incident when international trading organizations have any problems in China. As a policy, Amnesty International does not take a position on MFN. So we are not a sanction organization. But we are concerned that constructive engagement is actively practiced when it comes to trade, but it is not at all practiced with that same rigor when it comes to human rights. We want to ask the Administration to actively pursue human rights the way you pursue trade.
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In a nutshell, Mr. Chairman, the current constructive engagement is a failure. It's sad. It's an utter failure. But there is time for the Administration to change. There is time for the Administration to become active in terms of pursuing human rights by giving equal priority to trade and human rights.
Thank you again for inviting us.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kumar appears in the appendix.]
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Kumar. I think we should all sit up and take notice of Amnesty International, which has a sterling reputation for clarity and fairness and impartiality, whether it be investigating a dictatorship on the right or on the left. When you say constructive engagement is a failure, I would hope that every Member of Congress and the Administration would sit up and take notice, because it's a very powerful statement. Thank you for your testimony.
Just let me say that all of your statements will be made a part of the record. I notice you did that one orally without referring to your notes. So I do thank you for that.
Mr. KUMAR. I have actually submitted one.
Mr. SMITH. That will be made a part of the record.
Ms. Uighur.
STATEMENT OF RIZVANGUL UIGHUR, UIGHUR REFUGEE
Ms. UIGHUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Rizvangul Uighur. I am a Uighur from East Turkistan which the Chinese call Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. I am very grateful for the opportunity to testify on Chinese human rights abuses in my motherland on behalf of oppressed, forgotten people there. As you can see from my appearance, I am not a Chinese. My mother tongue is not Chinese. My culture is Turk culture. The Uighur history has no connection whatsoever to Chinese. My motherland was taken over by Chinese Communists in 1950.
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It is obvious to everyone, Chinese Government's policy, especially after implementing the so-called Number 7 Act of the PRC Central Standing Committee hosted by Mr. Jiang Zemin clearly stated the discriminatory policy toward the Uighur and other indigenous populations of Eastern Turkistan. I regret that I don't have time to list all the abuses caused by the PRC. However, I would like to take this chance to give you what I know about the February 5th and 6th incident of this year which the Chinese Government shamelessly labeled as riot-organized by a small number of separatists. The reality is nowhere close to the Chinese official description of the event.
Ghulja is a city with Uighur majority. It's situated in the northern part of Eastern Turkistan. In Uighur cultural tradition, there are cultural gatherings called Mashrap, a county-level unofficial soccer competition organized by Uighurs, and some other religious gatherings. All these normal activities are considered counter-revolutionary activities by Chinese officials, and banned completely. The purpose is obvious. They want to systematically destroy our culture, religion, history, and traditional activities and finally to genocide Uighur as a whole.
Uighurs are born Muslim. It is our religious tradition to gather together to pray during the holy Ramadan. On the eve of Ramadan on February 5th in Ghulja, ordinary believers were offended by the arrests of 30 prestigious religious leaders by the Chinese Government. They were shocked by the arrests, especially the young folks could no longer tolerate. Six hundred young people took to the streets, walking toward city government, demanding release of those religious figures. On their way, they were brutally stopped by police and the paramilitary forces. Police violently dispersed crowds using electrical clubs, water cannon, and tear gas in the freezing day.
The second day, an even bigger demonstration was held after Uighurs all over town heard about the incident. Chinese police and paramilitary forces were ordered to shoot to the crowd, and killed 167 people, and succeeded in suppressing the rally. Afterwards, the Chinese policemen arrested over 5,000 demonstrators, including elder, young women and children in a single day on the charge of intending to split the motherland, conducting criminal activity, fundamental religious activity, and counter-revolutionary element.
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One of my friends was among the arrested. She is only 20 years old. She described to me what happened to her that day as follows. Chinese policemen forced all the arrested Uighurs to take off shoes and stand barefoot on snow for hours. They also released police dogs to bite them. One by one, the arrested individuals were called in for questioning. My friend is a devout Muslim. When she was called in she was asked, ''Are you a Muslim?'' My friend replied, ''Yes. Of course I am.'' ''Where is your god?'' the policeman asked. The girl replied, ''God is in my heart.'' Then you would not believe what the policeman did to her. He tore off her clothes and pressed a burning cigarette on her bare breast and crudely yelled, ''If your god is in your heart now, ask him now, rescue you now.'' Afterwards, all the girls from the age of 14 up were locked into Han Chinese male prison cells. The Han prisoners took full advantage of these innocent souls, and destroyed their spiritual purity.
After the demonstration, we were a little surprised about the patience of the Chinese Government in making open executions. Everything was clear. They were waiting for the United States to offer Most Favored Nation status to China. Right after MFN was approved by the Congress, the Chinese Government made the first open execution of seven Uighurs, and sentenced 23 demonstrators ranging from 5 years to lifetime. In order to ''kill the chicken to scare the monkeys,'' Chinese military forces load them on the open truck guarded with heavily armed soldiers, humiliatedly drove slowly through the busy Uighur bazaar and neighborhoods. During that time, crying crowd, including relatives, family members, and friends of so-called criminals, followed the trucks to say goodbye.
Guess what the Chinese soldiers did? Would you believe such cruelty could ever happen in a civilized society? They opened fire on the ordinary crowd. They killed nine Uighurs on the spot, and injured over 25. Chinese media could not hide the incident, and officially admitted and said that the soldiers opened fire on the ''mobs'' who wanted to rescue the criminals, the biggest lie one can ever create.
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I heard Chinese made large-scale secret execution of the demonstrators, religious figures who refused to comply with the government. One of my friend's brothers was among the secretly executed Uighurs. His brother was arrested one night in April after the Ghulja incident. At 3 p.m. the next day, his father and spouse were informed to pay a final visit for 5 minutes. The young man was executed afterwards without any judicial trial. Nobody knows where his dead body is. Many other arrested people, nobody can ask where are they, and are they alive or not, nobody knows until now.
As I told you in the beginning, I was born an Uighur. I didn't see any Chinese and I couldn't speak Chinese when I was young. But now I saw millions of Chinese migrated in my country. All of them are transferred by the Chinese Government. We have already become a minority in our own motherland.
Let me give you some more examples of the human rights violations of government that every single Uighur is experiencing nowadays in their own motherland. One, because of the nuclear testing, there are many deformed children, unknown diseases, and all kinds of untreatable skin diseases. The Chinese Government claims that nuclear tests are safe and no harm to the Uighurs who live surrounding the test site. I want to ask Jiang Zemin why doesn't he let Chinese test their nuclear bombs in their own land if it's safe and harmless to the human. We Uighurs don't need bombs of any kind.
Two. The birth control policy toward Uighurs is unbearable. Babies are being killed in delivery rooms without seeing the mother's face and the world. Those pure souls died without knowing what is wrong and who is their mother. The mothers lost their children, even had no chance to say goodbye to their newborns, whom they had for 40 weeks of pregnancy, to whom they have many wishes and in the new life they were dreaming to have with. The reason for those innocent souls' death is that their mothers have no birth permission. For those who gave birth to such a child would encounter maltreatment and ignorance in hospital for their violation of government birth control policy. Many of the mothers die after giving birth from the infection and the other diseases caused by such treatment. Many of them have no money because many of them have only money to see a doctor. After all, their family would face a financial punishment for their violation of government birth control policy.
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Three. On a train from Urumqi to Beijing, there were only two Uighurs including me. Suddenly, we saw two policemen walking directly to us, bypassing all the Chinese in the train. They rudely yelled to us, ''Show us your identification'' and searched over all our belongings. We were so offended and felt deeply humiliated. But both of us didn't say anything since we know from our experience that if we said something, we would be in big trouble. This is what every Uighur is experiencing every day, everywhere in the People's Republic of China.
Four. We were deprived of our religious rights. The government employees and the workers are not allowed to pray, to attend religious school, or go to Mosques openly. I was warned by a Chinese official that I had to take off my scarf, otherwise, I could not keep my job. I was forced to pray secretly at home as a consequence.
Thank you very much for your attention. I sincerely hope you could help my people by stopping Chinese inhumane treatment of Uighurs. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Uighur appears in the appendix.]
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for that heartbreaking story as to what is happening to the Uighurs. It is well documented, but largely unknown. So I think that your being here helps to bring the plight of the Uighurs to Congress, and hopefully by extension to the country, the United States. So thank you very much.
Mr. Shen Tong.
STATEMENT OF SHEN TONG, PRESIDENT, DEMOCRACY FOR CHINA FUND
Mr. SHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My heart is pounding. I can hardly restrain myself from bursting into tears listening to the testimony of this Uighur lady. I want you and other Uighur friends in this room to know that I as an ethnic Chinese, I feel the pain you are feeling because many of us have gone through the same thing.
Eight years ago when I first came to this country after fleeing the massacre in and around Tiananmen Square, one of the first things I did was to go to a Tibetan gathering to show my condolences for those who are killed under the Chinese regime and my grieving for the suffering in Tibet.
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I often tell myself and tell others, and today I tell myself again that we're so often focusing on the difficulties and sufferings we have in the struggle to bring democracy and freedom for China and freedom for the Chinese people, and often lose sight of other brutalities the Beijing regime has conducted against the ethnic minorities, and special regional minorities within the Chinese borders. So I hope this, my token of expression can in some way ease your pain. I believe I speak here not only on behalf of myself, as an ethnic Chinese, but many of those back in China, Chinese who may or may not know the details of the suffering, but they are with you. They suffer the same ills and pain from the same regime.
From there, I want to thank Mr. Chairman, Congressman Wolf, and other Members of this Committee for arranging this opportunity for people like this Uighur lady sitting next to me and for the survivors of the Chinese democracy movement in exile, myself and Mr. Harry Wu, and for other Americans who have cared deeply and continuously about what's going on in that part of the world, to present the truth in front of the Committee and in front of international media. It is a rare moment, a real opportunity for all of us. I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, applaud you for this effort.
This goes to the heart of what I want to say here today. That this is a kind of message people in China who are fighting for their freedoms, either their national self-determination, or basic human rights in different parts of China, this is a kind of message they need to hear. Change will happen from within. It must happen from within. It is happening from within. What the freedom fighters in China need the most is a caring outside world. This is exactly the message Americans in the free world can send to people back in China.
Before I came to this testimony, I have been thinking about how I will present huge amounts of human rights abuses that are happening in China ever since 1989, and actually before 1989, the brutal crackdown of our peaceful demonstration in Tiananmen and other cities across China. It is well documented. The figures have been out there for many years.
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So I thought I may make a unique contribution by just putting a few faces to those figures, and telling you a few of my personal friends and close colleagues and their experience, to again, put their face to what we often hear the figures in thousands, sometimes tens of thousands in labor camps, even millions, those nameless people, the victims of that brutal regime.
My close friend and colleague, Wang Dan, today as I'm speaking, is serving his seventh year sentence in a remote city in the northeastern region of China. He is suffering from a number of diseases, including prostate disease and pharyngitis. Back in 1989, Wang Dan was a sophomore at Beijing University, where I was a junior. Today the 28-year-old dissident has spent 7 of the past 8 years in various prisons. He was in prison first for his leadership role in the 1989 protest. Later he received an 11-year sentence for continuing his advocacy for political reform in China during his 14-month interval of freedom.
The man who sentenced him, the President of the Beijing regime, Jiang Zemin, is in town today, and is meeting with President Clinton tomorrow claiming to represent the world's most populous country.
A few days ago, I talked to Wang Dan's mother. She is quite exhausted, not only from the years of worry for her son, but also from the trips she has to take, thousands of kilometers each month to the prison because the Chinese Government decided not to jail Wang Dan in his hometown, Beijing, but rather to put him in a remote city in the northeastern region in China called Jinzhou. They have to travel every month and sometimes suffer from not being allowed to visit their son, even after they got there.
Wang Dan's mother particularly is depressed because last year, she decided to defend her son in the secret trial Jiang Zemin's regime has held for Wang Dan. Of course that defense was doomed to fail as all the other defense for similar cases. As a mother, she couldn't bear the fact that she could not protect her son from this unspeakable 11-year sentence against a young person who was just 26 years old.
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There are many others, but because of time constraints, I won't go into many details. Also because what I heard from my co-panelist about the Uighur situation, that I don't think I want to go into details about the torture stories that I know from the families of my colleagues and friends back in 1989, who had been in jail and some of them are still in jail.
Wang Dan and several others I was planning to present, these are well known dissidents in China. Many of them are well known internationally. Under the Chinese current regime, these people are generally treated better than other nameless prisoners. Definitely all the prisoners in the formal prison are in some ways treated better than the forced labor camp, which my co-panelist Harry Wu is an expert on that administrative punishment system. So you can imagine what they have to go through in different prisons and laogai, labor camps.
I want to raise the awareness of other forms of punishment also in China. That not only prison jails people in China, but rather there's this coherently conducted police state that using all administrative and even neighborhood committee means to control people and giving constant harassment through temporary detentions, workplace harassment, telephone tapping, and sometimes disconnecting lines, tailing people and taking photographs, denying work opportunities, complicate post-jail life by not issuing an ID which is crucial for any travel and finding a job. Even sometimes planting evidence in order to detain again some of the just-released prisoners of conscience.
Restricted travel and closing down businesses. To mention just one, Wei Jingsheng's brother, who had a fairly prosperous commercial firm, was closed down not long ago. In Chen Zeming's case, even the bank account was frozen; his wife couldn't have the money to buy the medicine for his illness. So there are many forms of punishment away from prison cells and forced labor camps. It comes down to the daily life of those people who dare to speak their minds, who dare to advocate for improvement for human rights and democracy.
I want to skip many of these cases and go down to the last point I plan to make. That is, will the Jiang dynasty see a betterment in the areas of human rights and political reform? The answer is so far no. Jiang consolidated his power a few months ago in the first post-Deng Xiaoping Communist Party Congress in China. Many viewed Jiang as a technocrat during his long rise to power. Yet he has the same brutal mentality and the real politick as that of his predecessors, the first generation of Communist revolutionaries.
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Jiang participated in the decision to end our 7-week nationwide peaceful demonstration with the June 4th massacre of 1989. Indeed, he is the biggest benefactor of the massacre. Wang Dan and other opposition leaders numbering in thousands, have suffered longer sentences and harsher treatment under Jiang's regime than they did under Deng.
In addition, Jiang's regime has opening denied 49 exile Chinese nationalists, including Mr. Wu here and myself, the right to return home, and continuously driven more dissidents into exile.
Looking at the area of rights, the Clinton Administration's current engagement policy as it is has not improved conditions in China. Would a tougher human rights policy work? Would that fall into the designs of the Beijing regime that they can play off Europeans, Japanese, the Canadians? The answer is not a clear one. It is also beyond the scope of my testimony here.
But two things are very clear here. One is that there's a confusion among the Chinese liberal circles as to where the United States stands, and subsequently where the free world stands. From where they are, they see the United States participating in Jiang's dirty games such as trading Chinese human rights for protection of American copyrights, trading Chinese political voices of dissent for the sale of American nuclear power plants.
Two. The liberal stance, as a consequence of this confusion on policy, has been compromised to xenophobic nationalism in China. That over the long run and in the short term, is bad for China and bad for the U.S./China policy.
The reason I focus on the liberal circles in this testimony is that I believe it is important to focus on them because the best hope for a positive future for China and for U.S./China relations is internal liberal political changes, fostered in an international environment with a resolute stand on liberal principles in regard to constitutional democracy and human rights, as well as a bold and daring commitment to internal and exile liberal forces.
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Current strategies of either containment or engagement have all overlooked the active role the United States can play in bringing about internal changes desired by the Chinese people. That this desire exists was clearly demonstrated by the pervasive social mobilization behind the calls for greater freedom and democracy in the spring of 1989, and continuously demonstrated in the last 8 years in all the field of, as we call it, the self-assertive civil society. In their daring act, a new generation of emerging opposition leaders putting out talk shows and liberal journals, magazines and books, risking their freedom and risking losing their jobs and their family being harassed, continually pushing for these changes.
To contain China as some would say in this town, I think is not an option. To engage Beijing is not a policy. President Clinton is determined to engage with China. But he should lead this Nation to engage with the real China, the people, and the liberal future of China, not with the Beijing regime. He should safeguard American values of liberty and democracy, as well as those of American business and security interests. He should actively support all positive development, including not only economic reform and development, but also the emergence of a civil society and pro-democracy efforts. In other words, he should contain Beijing and engage with China.
Americans can provide what Wang Dan and the determined Chinese liberal forces need the most, a genuine connection with the caring outside world through measures such as monitoring rights, abuses, including forced abortion practice, which is still widely practiced in China, pressing for human rights improvement, helping the free flow of information and ideas through the Internet and Radio Free Asia, directly supporting civil society initiatives, and sending more observers into the U.S. consulate in China.
While we understand, again, that change has to and will come from within, but under the current repression, it will be a blessing if the United States can stand its liberal ground to provide a positive environment for people, for freedom fighters inside China.
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Wang Dan is the conscience of a liberal China. He and his colleagues in China and in exile here have the dream to promote a free society of responsible individuals. Contrary to those in the Beijing regime and some China experts in the West, we fully understand the torturous path of China's modern history. We have empathy for the pain that all the people, the people in China endure. We are alert to the complex domestic and international security issues China faces, and subsequently political and social stability that is important for balanced development.
We defer with the Beijing regime on the point of stability. We believe that stability should be for the good of the country, not the party in power. It should be for the good of the people, of the Chinese people. That stability is only achieved if a prospering China also develops respect for human rights, rule of law, and accountable democratic government, and responsible and peaceful participation in international affairs. Only then will we have lasting stability based on the time-honored Chinese tradition of what we call ''an zu''. That means peace and sufficiency, instead of being rich, powerful and ruthless.
While Chinese have the misfortune to be ruled by a police state, we are hopeful, as we were back in Tiananmen Square, we are determined to continue the struggle to transform the economically reformed China from a one-party dictatorship to a free China. We believe this is a winning cause. While the change must and will come from within, I call on behalf of Wang Dan and the many other emerging opposition leaders in China. I call for the support from the free world. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shen appears in the appendix.]
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Shen, thank you very much for your articulate and persuasive statement. It is so utterly troubling that these victims become victims simply because of their concern for their fellow Chinese, and—as you so aptly made a point of in your opening comments—the Uighurs and others in Tibet and elsewhere that are brutalized by this dictatorship. You are the people who should be at least informing policy. You are the wave of the future, notwithstanding the Li Pengs and the Jiang Zemins and others who currently occupy those positions.
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My hope is that this hearing is part of an ongoing effort to keep hope alive, to bear witness to the truth, and to document the atrocities as they are occurring, because they are commonplace as you pointed out. Forced abortion continues unabated. Religious repression, as has been pointed out, continues unabated. As Mr. Kumar pointed out so well, the repression has gotten worse in the religious area since 1994. It's as if they are learning all the lessons in the Beijing dictatorship.
But there are many of us in Congress that care. The concern is bipartisan. There are conservatives. There are liberals. There are moderates. Ultimately, we will have our say, whether it be through linkages to trade or some other way, constructive engagement will be given some meaning. As Mr. Lantos pointed out, we're not looking for isolation. But we are looking for accountability. I think you made a very persuasive argument. This current dictatorship needs to be put on notice that there are many eyes and ears watching what they do. We will not stand by idly.
Dan Burton, chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, is here and would like to make a comment.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't take much time. I would like to thank the people on the panel and congratulate them on their very eloquent statements. I only wish every Member of Congress was sitting in this room today and listening to what we have heard. I think even in the Congress of the United States, there is not much of an awareness about the horrible atrocities that are taking place in China and the countries that they now dominate surrounding China.
I notice that we have some people from the media here. I appreciate those who are in attendance. But this room ought to be filled with cameras. This room ought to be filled with cameras and news media people so that they can get the message out.
We have got the President of China in the United States right now. He's going to be meeting with the President tomorrow and going to have a big State dinner. We're going to be toasting to him, the White House is, and patting him on the back. At the very same time that we're doing that in this country, our leaders are doing that, the President is doing that, millions of people are suffering in Communist gulags. People are having their human rights violated. The repression is legion throughout that country. The American people are only going to see the President of the United States toasting the head of that Communist repressive government. It's a darn shame. It's a darn shame because the media should not only report upon him being at the White House, but upon what these people have said here today, who have experienced these atrocities and have seen them first-hand in Tiananmen Square and the surrounding countries in Tibet and elsewhere. I just think it's tragic that we in this room are going to be privy to this information, but very few others throughout the country will be. So I am kind of sad.
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But I can tell you this. That Chris Smith and myself, and my good friend from American Samoa and those who have been here today, will not hide our lights under a basket. We will speak out on behalf of freedom, democracy and human rights in China.
Although the change has to come from within, those of us who you have enlightened today, who know what's going on, will do our dead-level best to assist the people in China who want freedom, democracy and human rights. We are our brother's keeper. We need to be concerned about that. I know we'll do everything we can to help you. Thank you very much again for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Thank you, Chris.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Burton.
Let me just begin with some questions and note that, at the conclusion of the questioning by the panel, we do have two videos that we would like to show. One documents some of the testimony that Ms. Uighur provided for us about what is going on in her homeland. We also have a document or a video that Mr. Wu has asked us to play regarding the executions and the use of body parts for transplant.
Ms. Uighur noted in her statement that the Chinese Government held off its executions, its murdering of people until MFN was extended. I wonder if the panel could speak to the implications of that. There are some who say that we should use economic leverage or other leverages like denying a State visit. What was done by China to obtain this State visit? Nothing. Wei Jingsheng and all the others continue to languish in prison and be tortured. The torture, as Dr. Keller pointed out, is going on in Tibet. It's not diminishing. It's growing in its usage. Yet, as Mr. Burton pointed out, we'll be toasting the President of China and this dictatorship tomorrow over at the White House.
What do you think that says about our use or lack of use of the leverage that we do have at our disposal? This is our domestic policy, what we allow in in terms of trade, which government officials we receive. It was pointed out as well by one of our panelists that General Chi Haotian was treated in an enormously regal manner, with a 19-gun salute and a red carpet treatment.
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Yet the Dalai Lama got short shrift by the Administration, a drop-in visit, so to speak, rather than a full-fledged reception when the Congress overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way said he ought to be granted a visa to come here, and it wasn't even to visit the White House, the Beijing dictatorship went ballistic over that. There were all kinds of repercussions. This is our visa policy, who we allow in should not be dictated by Beijing. Yet they really seem in the end to carry the day on that particular issue.
What kind of leverage do we have? Are we using it effectively? Could you recap some of that? Who would like to begin? Nina?
Ms. SHEA. Yes. I think that we need to be strongly consistent in the bully pulpit, No. 1. The Administration has been giving mixed signals on that, I believe. It has not been a strong consistent statement. For example, President Clinton on VOA the other day said in a broadcast to China that those who disagree with the constructive engagement policy, ''We believe they therefore,'' speaking of those who are in opposition to engagement, ''Therefore believe we should be working harder to contain or even to confront China before it becomes even stronger.''
In other words, we want a weak China. We're trying to weaken China by human rights campaigns. That's exactly what the Chinese are accusing the human rights movement of, in America. That we want to see a weak China. That is simply not true. We want to see a strong democratic China that respects international law, and the God-given human rights of its own people.
Second, the Secretary of State made a statement at Catholic University Law School last week saying that we shouldn't—it was in the context of criticizing the Wolf-Specter bill, but she was saying that we should be careful in pointing out religious repression around the world because we can't expect other countries, we have to respect their values, their perceptions of culture, particularities of culture. It was a cultural relativist argument and sort of backing away, backing off from the universality of human rights. I think that is a very bad signal to be giving immediately before, especially right on the eve of this Chinese summit, U.S. summit.
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So first a bully pulpit. Second, I think we could be expanding our religious and human rights coverage inside China in support of those who are trying to be independent of the government in the political sphere and in the human rights sphere, and in the religious sphere. Third, I think that we really have been doing a lot of talking and no one is listening over there. That it is a monolog we're engaged in, not a dialog. And that therefore, we have to put some bite into it, and we have to start thinking of sanctions. I for one, would like to see the People's Liberation Army products stopped, and directly linked to human rights performance in China.
Mr. SMITH. Dr. Keller.
Dr. KELLER. Well, as I mentioned before, we must point out these flagrant human rights violations. We must point out that torture is unacceptable. That the Chinese must agree to abide by the international conventions to which they are a party, including the Convention Against Torture, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. So at every opportunity, remind them of this.
Then I think certainly in the future, before for example, the President considers a State visit to China, to have certain basic principles honored, to have access to the prisons, to have access to monitoring the conditions. I think this is critical.
One of the things the Chinese Government has been so effective at is keeping individuals out. Even when there have been some visits, they have been almost staged or very limited, and you get into one prison. What we need is access to all prisons based on the policies clearly set out by the International Committee of the Red Cross and others. But it all starts with, at every opportunity, reminding the Chinese that their flagrant violation of human rights abuses, for example with regards to torture, are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Mr. SMITH. Before Mr. Kumar responds, when Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State, during the review period when MFN was linked to human rights by the Clinton Administration, one of the things that the Beijing dictatorship floated as a possibility was to allow the International Committee for the Red Cross to have access to prisons. I think that is something we need to raise again. If everything is as you say, Mr. President Jiang Zemin, then why do you disallow unfettered access by people who are totally neutral observers? They don't take a view. They are not American foreign policy people. They are not Chinese foreign policy types. They are people who only care about victims. Why not allow the ICRC to have access to your prisons? So I think that's something we need to press very aggressively.
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They floated it as a possibility when they saw that they perhaps didn't need it, because the Administration at that point was speaking out of both sides of their mouth, saying that they are going to hang tough. Meanwhile, during my visit there, I was hearing from everyone, including our then Ambassador, Stapleton Roy, that there ought to be a delinkage.
Every Chinese leader that I met with during that visit, halfway through when MFN was linked, told me matter of factly right to my eyeball to eyeball, that ''We're getting MFN and there's no linkage to human rights.'' They called the Administration's bluff.
I think as you pointed out, when we get to Geneva and try to argue for human rights, our credibility is compromised, our credibility is lessened on this issue, especially when it's done at the end of the day in a way that is likely to produce a failure. So we need to get very serious about this. That would be something that could be accomplished during this State visit. I would hope Jiang Zemin could say yes, the ICRC can come in. This dictator has that within his ability. I think we need to be very frank. Again, I think this is coming across from the panel, the ''dialog'' is a monolog, as Ms. Shea pointed out. When we're talking to people who are not listening, who are not responding, they are playing us for fools.
Mr. Kumar.
Mr. KUMAR. Yes. I touched on this topic in my opening remarks. I will characterize this with dos and don'ts. Dos are make sure that you raise the issue of human rights with sincerity. Don't do it because NGO's are asking or because of other pressures. Make sure you sincerely reflect the issue of human rights when you deal with them, and let it be part of every negotiation. It should be not be a single issue. It should be part of every issue.
As I mentioned, the constructive engagement should be an active constructive engagement, not passive constructive engagement. Active on the same level as trade.
The other issues, don'ts, as of course as I mentioned, giving red carpet welcomes to people like General Chi, is something you don't do. These are the policy issues that hurt U.S. resolve toward sending the real signal to the Chinese Government.
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So in a nutshell, the Administration should incorporate human rights in every issue they deal with, be it nuclear issues, be it trade issues, it should be part and partial of whatever dealings the U.S. Administration is having with China.
Finally, they should sincerely take the issue with other countries in the region as well as around the world to make sure that at least everyone comes to a basic agreement when they deal with China. Thank you.
Ms. UIGHUR. I would like to ask this gentleman.
Mr. PAHTA. I am very grateful——
Mr. SMITH. Could you identify yourself, please, for the record?
Mr. PAHTA. Oh. My name is Gulamettin Pahta. I am Uighur-American. I am the president of the Eastern Turkistan National Research Center presently. My colleagues asked me to bring her opinion to you.
As you know, the privatization in China only works for the Han Chinese government official people, not the local ethnic people. All factories, all business is occupied by the Han Chinese Government officials, especially the government people who are the factory chairmen, or factory's directorate, et cetera. They are buying the factories for themselves and immediately they fire the other local ethnic, non-Chinese people. Those people in my former country, Eastern Turkistan, become unemployed. The new Chinese settlers steady flow on a daily basis, between 2,000 and 2,800, and monthly coming almost more than 10,000 to 80,000 Han Chinese settlers who take the jobs, and our people are jobless. There is no unemployment among the Han Chinese.
This way, our suggestion is Most Favored Nation status must be blocked, and given the condition that if privatization is supposed to be equal for all the other Chinese citizens who are not Han Chinese; because the Uighur and Tibetans and Mongols, all other non-Chinese people, are discriminated against and steadily losing all kinds of economic opportunities. In my opinion, now more than 80 percent of business is taken over by Han Chinese Government officials. If the local people want to buy a factory and say, ''Here is the money'', the Chinese authority will confiscate the money and say that the money is made by illegal business with drugs or the like, which is not true. The local people can not do anything.
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This way, in my research, my findings indicate that those rich people in my country are hiding the money, never put in the State bank because the confiscating or punish them with a certain separatist stamp or nationalist stamps. This way, the people are hiding the money and keeping under the bed or somewhere else. This way, those people can not buy the factory because they can not prove that money was in the bank savings, et cetera. This way, we strongly urge the Congress the human rights issue is supposed to be binding very closely and with conditions that the Most Favored Nation possibly blocked. This will be a very effective policy. Thank you very much.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you.
Mr. Shen, this is something that I think you perhaps are uniquely qualified to answer, although the others may want to comment on it too: a visit like this, like the visit of Chi Haotian—the General Defense Secretary who again, was the architect of Tiananmen Square massacre—what impact does that have on dissidents in general, and especially those who are incarcerated? Do they know about it? Does it demoralize them? What does it do?
Mr. SHEN. Well, they certainly, like Jiang's visit, the entire effective State propaganda apparatus is all at work to show the normalization of American attitude toward China. So Chi Haotian's visit, like Jiang's in that sense, is part of what I was describing in my testimony of American undetermined policy toward China. They are creating the confusion among the Chinese people in general, and particularly among the liberal forces in China. It sends very bad signals.
I would very quickly focus on two points for your first question. What the United States can do in using its leverage to engage China in the right way. First is free flow information and free flow of ideas will continually empower the liberal forces in China. This can be done by enforcing and enlarging radio services like Radio Free Asia, and also actively taking the advantage of the existence and the booming of the Internet usage in China. That's a large area that can be used fairly inexpensively, but effectively. So information is one.
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Second, is the support for democratic movement in China. I focus in on this too because this is not a new policy. When President Clinton delinked human rights and MFN status, he said the establishment of the Radio Free Asia and supporting democratic efforts in China will be the supplementary measure. It took the Administration 2 more years from the delink to actual establishment of the radio. Then we still haven't yet seen any real concrete steps in the second area. There are so many things that can be done to start with to be more sensitive about the changes taking place in China outside the power establishment. There are so many. I can go on to describe fascinating stories that are largely unknown to the outside.
Our liberal journalists and scholars in our network produce TV shows focusing on sensitive social issues that can get as many as 40 million viewers in China. That was shot down very quickly. These kinds of things, in publishing and books and journals and so on, can be supported. We don't need to parachute into agents or reinvent the wheel, because it's happening in China. The United States can be more sensitive to these developments by sending observers in the consulate and sending direct support for these kinds of activities.
Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask a couple of final questions, and thank you again for your fine testimony. I guess Nina Shea, this would be to you. Especially since there are some who are suggesting that religious freedom somehow is on the rise, that with the increase in commerce, somehow the good infection of freedom is taking hold.
Last night I was on the Christopher Matthews show, Hard Ball. A very well known political consultant who has apparently enormous financial transactions with China made the point that he's been to a Catholic church in Beijing, and there are all kinds of worshippers there exercising their religious belief. Yet as we all know, increasingly there is repression against the churches. Amnesty has testified today it has gotten worse since 1994.
I'll never forget meeting with the Chamber of Commerce in Beijing during one of my human rights trips. I got that same line, ''Come with me and I'll show you a church that is open.'' Of course there is surveillance. You pointed out that nobody under the age of 18 attends, certain books of the bible have been excised, the book of Revelation, for example, has been gaken out, as a way of censoring the message. Also there is censoring of the message in terms of homilies or speeches from the podium by a priest.
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Why is it that so many in our business community and so many Americans seem to be so gullible in accepting this Potemkin village of religious liberty that is painted for the West?
Ms. SHEA. Well that's right. There is a two-track system, in that if you join the controlled religions, the State-sanctioned registered, controlled and paid for actually, supported churches, you are relatively left alone, although you are restricted in what you can say and who can say what to whom, and where you can say it and what you can do. The churches are growing astronomically, both underground and above ground, both Catholic and Protestant. I think that they are growing despite or maybe perhaps because of the persecution. That has always been a phenomenon in Christian history, at least, that there's been increase in Christian believers as persecution intensifies.
But there is no doubt that there is persecution against those in the underground churches. We had the most famous Protestant preacher arrested, I mean sentenced to one of the longest prison terms, 10 years at the end of last month. We had a Catholic bishop arrested, Bishop Su Zhimin, whom you met with several years ago, re-arrested just on October 8. The State Department called to tell me that he had been released over the weekend, but then when I checked through our networks, through the Cardinal Kung Foundation, no one has seen this bishop since his release. Some of the local Catholics tried to visit him and could not get near his residence because it was blocked by guards. Therefore, if he has been released, he is either in hiding or he is in his apartment under house arrest.
So we have documented many names and cases. We present 30 in our testimony today, top priority cases. These include 10 Catholic bishops. The Vatican, I think really in a very unusual step 4 days ago came out with a statement very harshly critical of the Chinese Government, and some of the players in the religious affairs bureau as well.
Mr. SMITH. Let me just say, sometimes people view human rights in isolation as if it is those people, the do-gooders, who are concerned about somebody who may be in trouble. It gets trivialized because of that. Can you provide us some insights, anybody on the panel or all of you, as to the inter-connectedness? It seems to me that if you can't trust a regime as to how it treats its own people, how do you trust them on proliferation issues? If they use torture in Tibet and elsewhere, as Dr. Keller testified, and do unspeakable things to their own people with cattle prods, how do you trust them when it comes to intellectual property rights and contract law?
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A message that seems to not have gotten through to enough people yet, particularly in the Administration and some in Congress, is that if they fail on this test, they are more than likely going to fail on these other tests. Then there's security issues involved, and then there's trade issues involved. Even information as with regard to the economic situation as it exists on the ground in China is censored. So how do you make decisions economically speaking when it's doctored information?
The MOU, the memorandum of understanding that we have on gulag labor, is a totally flawed, non-implemented document. We have no access to their prisons to speak of. You might want to touch on that interconnectedness to security and to trade.
Dr. KELLER. Well, one thing I would say, I think it all begins with whether you are a health professional such as myself, a human rights monitor, or an individual who has suffered at the hands of the Chinese. I think you must bear witness, you must speak out. As the Dalai Lama said to me, you must not whisper, you must not talk, you must shout about what you have seen. You must shout articulately, but nonetheless, make your points, make your points consistently.
I think what we tried to do is to hold up to the world a mirror of what in fact is happening. I think many of the things we described, many of the forms of torture I described are horrible. We want to think these things don't happen. Unfortunately, we must remind the world, our own Government, our fellow citizens at every opportunity, that yes in fact these things do happen, and yes in fact there are things that we can do to make a difference to stop them.
Ms. SHEA. I just want to add that the Vatican document of October 24, was in response, it was a denunciation actually of a white paper, a so-called white paper the Chinese Government itself issued on religion. The Vatican just dismissed it in no uncertain terms saying it was a propaganda pamphlet. So I think that goes to your point, that how can we believe them when everything they say has proven to be false, and for their own propaganda advantage. Keep that in mind in the nuclear proliferation area as well.
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Mr. SMITH. I want to thank our very distinguished witnesses for their excellent testimony. I do believe you have borne witness to the truth. I hope that the message goes out during this week of public relations and diplomacy, which often puts the truth, the hard realities under the table in the interests of the smiles and the handshakes. This information you have provided, especially as it relates to things like torture, will not be forgotten, will be kept foursquare in front of everyone, especially Congress and the President.
We do have these two videos for those who would like to stay and view them, but the hearing will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]
A P P E N D I X
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