In the Press...
South China Morning Post article on CECC letter to President Trump'Trump urged to raise cases of detained Americans when he meets Xi in Beijing''In letter to US president, congressional commission says silence will leave China free to "use human beings as bargaining chips"'By Dewey Sim in Beijing A US congressional commission is pressing President Donald Trump to confront his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over detained Americans when the leaders meet this week, warning that silence would leave Beijing free to “use human beings as bargaining chips”. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), in a letter to Trump dated May 7, aired concerns over the growing threat arising from the Communist Party’s use of “hostage diplomacy, coercive exit bans and transnational repression” against US citizens, residents and their families. “The CCP’s repression does not stop at China’s borders. It is designed to pressure people in the United States, chill speech and advocacy on US soil, and demonstrate that the party can impose costs on Americans and their loved ones with impunity,” it said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
The letter acknowledges Trump’s willingness to directly raise pending cases such as those of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, Nelson Wells Jnr and Dawn Michelle Hunt. It also urges him to raise the cases of Ezra Jin Mingri, a pastor at the unregistered Zion Church, Gulshan Abbas, a retired Uygur doctor, and Ekpar Asat, founder of a Uygur-language website. “In each of these cases, the CCP is not only punishing an individual. It is sending a message both at home and abroad that it can control the lives of people in China and reach into American families and influence conduct in the United States,” the commission said.
Human rights groups have long criticised Beijing for its treatment of minority groups in China and its use of exit bans and detention of American citizens and their relatives. Beijing has maintained that the imprisonment and travel restrictions it has imposed on Americans were legitimate. Under Chinese law, foreign nationals can be barred from leaving China if they are under criminal investigation or involved in unresolved civil disputes. Last week, when asked if he would press Xi for the release of Jin, Trump said he would “certainly look into it” and that he “will bring it up”. “I have gotten a lot of people out. I have gotten a lot of people out of countries including China, people that were hostages,” he said. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The CECC – established by the US Congress in 2000 and comprising lawmakers from both parties – is focused on the rule of law and human rights in China and tasked to recommend legislative or executive action to the president and Congress. The letter, signed by commission chair Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska and co-chair Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, stressed that raising those cases with Xi would signal that the US was ready to defend its principles and citizens against Chinese “coercion”, adding that it was key in Washington’s strategic rivalry with Beijing. “Raising political prisoner cases at the highest levels is a low-cost, high-return instrument that raises the price of repression, denies the CCP a cheap tool of leverage, and makes clear that the United States will address arbitrary detention and family intimidation in the normal course of bilateral relations,” it said. “It exposes the repression, censorship and other human rights abuses the party imposes on people in China and undermines the CCP’s claim that its autocratic system offers a superior model of political order and economic development.” Trump is set to visit China later this week, when he is expected to raise issues ranging from bilateral trade to the war in Iran and Taiwan. He will be the first US president to visit China in almost a decade. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Trump would use the summit with Xi to air human rights issues – which he said were important to the US – though he cautioned that “it’s most effective to raise them in the appropriate setting”. The CECC letter echoes a similar push by Republican lawmakers in October, when they urged Trump to confront Xi over detained Americans ahead of their meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea. The lawmakers called the Communist Party “the world’s largest hostage-taker.” “It uses detentions and exit bans to punish and censor Americans, gain leverage over US businesses, and pressure changes in US policy – disproportionately targeting Chinese-American and Uygur-American communities,” they wrote. |
