At a widely attended human rights forum on Capitol Hill this week, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, underscored the severity and intensity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s campaigns to suppress and silence the voices of dissidents and other pro-democracy advocates, including those who escaped to the United States. Click here for Smith’s full remarks.

             The “Safeguarding Freedom: Countering CCP Transnational Repression” forum was hosted by the Global Tuidang Center and attended by a variety of policymakers, activists, and leaders who have long worked to expose the threats the Chinese Communist Party poses to fundamental human rights, as well as economic and national security.

             In his presentation, Smith condemned the CCP’s violent and stifling tactics of transnational repression, specifically those directed towards Falun Gong practitioners: “Many here in this room are unfortunately familiar with the tactics the CCP uses to target individuals and groups, especially adherents to Falun Gong. Even the most peaceful demonstrations of freedom of expression have been targeted, including the Shen Yun Performing Arts shows around the world.”

             Smith described the CCP’s innumerable threats against Shen Yun performances for “showing China before communism,” including the targeting of performance venues, event sponsors, as well as show performers and their families in China.

             Smith—the author of last year’s House legislation to impose property and visa-blocking sanctions on foreign persons who engage in transnational repression, require the Department of State to develop an anti-transnational repression strategy, and direct the State Department and the Department of Justice to train employees and the intelligence community at large on the warning signs of transnational repression—also highlighted recent increases in the frequency of threats carried out by the CCP in the United States.

             “In recent years, there’s been an uptick in these threats, even right here in Washington, D.C., as evidenced by the bomb threat called into the Kennedy Center this year in advance of Shen Yun’s performance. This is in addition to the sudden barrage of bomb and death threats directed earlier this year, not only at Shen Yun performers, but also Falun Gong practitioners and members of Congress supportive of Falun Gong.”

             Besides Falun Gong practitioners and supporters, Smith said that the CCP also targets Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other peaceful dissidents through acts of “lawfare, social media harassment, cyber-hacking, and physical threats, including in the United States.”

             Smith cited the attacks of peaceful protestors at the 2023 APEC Summit in San Francisco as a glaring example of transnational repression, stating that some activists were “were attacked with flagpoles and chemical spray, had their phones stolen and destroyed, or were physically assaulted. The Washington Post, doing excellent reporting, revealed how officials from the Chinese consulates in San Francisco and Los Angeles helped choreograph the mayhem. And through it all, the San Francisco Police Department took almost no action to intervene.”

             In response to these vicious attacks, Smith, as Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, held a press conference to highlight the victims in December of 2023; collaborated with his Co-chair, Senator Jeff Merkley, to petition then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanding an additional investigation into the violence; and last Congress, worked with Senator Merkley to introduce the bipartisan, bicameral Transnational Repression Policy Act (H. R. 3654).

             Smith said he will soon reintroduce the Transnational Repression Policy Act, which will “significantly mitigate transnational repression, including actions of foreign governments to intimidate, silence, or harm members of diaspora and exile communities to prevent them from exercising their human rights.”

             In addition to the CCP’s suppressive acts of transnational repression, Smith also censured the CCP’s barbaric and vicious practice of forced organ harvesting.

             “Every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping, tens of thousands of young women and men—average age 28—are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into communist party members and leaders. These crimes against humanity are unimaginably cruel and painful. Between 2 to 6 internal organs per victim are extracted.  It is murder masquerading as medicine,” Smith said.

             In closing, Smith discussed his Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (H. R. 1503), which recently passed the House by a margin of 406 to 1, and called upon the audience to contact their Senators and demand that the bill be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

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Contact:
Teagan Gambert (202) 225-3765
http://chrissmith.house.gov