The following are excerpts of Co-Chairman Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) opening statement at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC)’s June 4^th hearing, entitled “The PRC’s Threats to Americans: Transnational Repression & State-Level Responses”:

                Before we begin, I want to mark a solemn anniversary. Today marks the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Thirty-seven years ago, millions of Chinese citizens peacefully asked for political reform, democratic openness, and basic human dignity. Their hope was met with tanks.

                The Chinese Communist Party unleashed the People’s Liberation Army on peaceful demonstrators. Mothers lost sons. Fathers lost daughters. And China lost an idealistic generation to the violence of June 4, 1989.

                There has been no full accounting of those killed, imprisoned, or disappeared. The Party still tries to erase a massacre the world must never forget. But Tiananmen cannot be erased.

                The enduring image of that day is the Tank Man—the solitary figure standing before a column of tanks. His courage reminds us that the desire for freedom is not Western, not foreign, and not imposed from outside. It is universal.

                As I have said before, a choice has to be made by us all: you either stand with the Tank Man, or you stand with the tank. There is no middle ground. And there is no middle ground in the subject before us today.

                Tiananmen is not a detour from this hearing. It is the key to understanding it. The same Party that tried to crush truth at home now tries to chase truth abroad. The tactics have changed. The technology has changed.  The reach has expanded. But the purpose is the same: to make people afraid to speak the truth—by almost any means necessary.

                Inside China, the CCP uses surveillance, censorship, prison, torture, forced disappearance, and fear to maintain power. But what happens in China no longer stays in China. The Party wants to control what is said about China here and control who says it.

                The CECC has warned about the CCP’s long arm for years. Long before “transnational repression” became common phrase, I held a dozen or so hearings in this Commission documenting and exposing a consistent pattern of global abuses—starting with Confucius Institutes in 2014.

                Over time, tactics have become more digital and more ruthless: detaining family members in China, doxxing, spyware, deepfakes, Hong Kong bounties, and illegal police stations right here in the United States. It is outrageous and unacceptable and must be stopped. Transnational repression is not the only threat Americans face. But it is part of a broader, interconnected CCP strategy.

                We see that strategy in scam networks stealing from US citizens, fentanyl poisoning our cities, PRC-linked land purchases near military installations, efforts to corrupt politicians and elections, steal private personnel and biometric data, and intellectual-property theft from businesses and universities.

                These may look like separate problems. But they share a common purpose: exploit our openness, gather leverage, weaken our institutions, spread propaganda, and make Americans pay a price for standing up to Beijing. Transnational repression is the most personal form of that strategy. It brings the pressure campaign to the doorstep of the student, journalist, dissident, artist, and family member. That is why state and local responses matter.

                A victim may first call local police. A student may go to a university official. A state attorney general may see the pattern. A state legislator may realize existing law does not fit the threat. So, the questions are practical: do local officers recognize this threat, do universities know how to protect students, do states have the tools they need, and does the federal government have a real strategy?

                That is why I am proud to work with Chairman Sullivan, Senator Merkley, and Representative McGovern on the Transnational Repression Policy Act. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation would define the abuse, improve coordination, train officials, support targeted communities, and hold perpetrators accountable. Because victims need more than sympathy. They need protection and a place to turn. 

                But let me make one point clear. A regime that fears a student’s question, a refugee’s protest, an artist’s statue, or the simple memory of Tiananmen is not a strong and confident superpower. It is afraid. And fear in the hands of a dictatorship is dangerous. It becomes coercion. It becomes censorship. It becomes repression that crosses borders and reaches into our communities. So, our answer must be unmistakable.

                If the CCP threatens people here, there must be investigations and prosecutions. If it reaches across our borders to spread fear, there must be sanctions. If it takes family members hostage to silence a critic, we will demand their release and expose the cruelty of that tactic. And if it tries to censor a free people, we will defend and spread the rights Beijing fears most: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the right to tell the truth without fear.

                Because in the United States of America, unlike in China, no one needs the Party’s permission to speak, to worship, to protest, to remember, or to be free. That is why this hearing matters.

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