Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) today slammed Democrats for “enabling the Chinese Communist Party” as they jammed their so-called America COMPETES Act—mammoth legislation totaling more than 2,900 pages—through the House in a vain attempt to push progressive policies under the guise of boosting U.S. competition with China.

            “This weak legislation fails to hold the Chinese Communist Party to account for its egregious violations of human rights and will further embolden Chinese dictator Xi Jinping by not confronting China for its horrific abuses,” said Rep. Smith, the Ranking Member on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. 

            “As the 2022 Beijing Genocide Olympics begin, Congress should be focused on combating the Chinese government’s ongoing atrocities and uncovering the truth about COVID-19’s origins—not providing billions of funding for Green New Deal programs,” said Smith.

            “As this Chinese dictatorship seeks to extend its model of governance throughout the world, the United States must stand up boldly—not acquiesce—to China’s mass murder, torture, state-sponsored rape and other gross violations of fundamental human rights before it is too late,” Smith said.

            In voting against the legislation, Smith pointed to some of the bill’s worst provisions—many of which prioritize addressing climate change over human rights abuses—that:

• Give $8 billion to the U.N. Green Climate Fund—a slush fund that has already provided at least $100 million to China—with no guardrails to prohibit the purchase of items like forced-labor tainted solar panels or batteries;
• Authorize $2 billion annually with no sunset for a new International Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation and Security Program, essentially doubling programs and activities already being conducted by the U.S. State Department and USAID;
• Create “Climate Change Officers” within the U.S. Foreign Service, effectively weakening our diplomats’ focus on core national interests; and
• Do not go far enough to hold the Chinese government accountable for its large-scale disinformation campaign during the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing genocide perpetrated against religious and ethnic minorities.

            “Since President Clinton delinked human rights and trade with China in May of 1994 and China joined the World Trade Organization in 2004, the Chinese Communist Party has enjoyed broad access to international markets without any serious consequences for its horrendous treatment of its own people and complete disregard for the rule of law,” said Smith, the lead Republican cosponsor of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that became law in December.

            Smith, who has chaired 75 congressional hearings on China’s human rights abuses, has led efforts in calling out the International Olympic Committee and U.S. corporations—including the Coca-Cola Company, NBC and others—for empowering the Chinese government to host what he and many other human rights leaders have dubbed the “Genocide Olympics.”

            “The complicity of the International Olympic Committee and corporate America in crowning this barbarous regime with laurels as they host the 2022 Genocide Games is tragically aiding and abetting the unspeakable cruelty being perpetrated by Xi Jinping’s dictatorship,” Smith said.

            Smith, who had pushed for the Games to be moved or else completely boycotted, said the Biden Administration’s diplomatic boycott “is an exceedingly weak gesture in response to this genocidal dictatorship.”

###