Congressman Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) has urged President Trump to raise the issue of Human Rights directly, when he meets with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping in Argentina on Nov. 30.
Congressman Smith asserted at a congressional hearing on Nov. 28, that the United States stands in solidarity with the Chinese people; not with a dictatorship that “kills lives … tortures … and crushes religion.”
Congressman Smith’s comments come amidst growing tensions in China’s Xinjiang Province, where reports of unprecedented human rights violations of Uighur Muslims have echoed through the international community. Reports of torture, rape, and killings, in secretive political re-education camps have also been documented.
“They use the same tools, used different pretext, always crushing people of faith, whether it be Falun Gong, Catholics, Christians, Protestants, Tibetans, Muslims,” Congressman Smith told The Epoch Times.
“What government does that to its own people?”
As co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), Congressman Smith has heard in detail the horrific methods the Chinese Regime uses to torture its own citizens. Any pretext is used as an excuse to persecute groups the Chinese regime considers a threat or objectionable.
The persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang is reminiscent of the persecution of Falun Gong in China that began in July 1999.
“The Chinese government is using the pretext of terrorism, (and where there are real terrorists they should always go after) … as a massive effort to incarcerate, intimidate, and really commit genocide,” Congressman Smith said.
The Connection Between Human Rights and Trade
President Trump’s tough stance on trade may be the only way for the Chinese regime to change its unfair subsidies, state-sponsored technology theft, and human rights violations.
“[P]eople say ‘well what is the connection with trade?’ Do you think we can count on people to respect copyrights and intellectual property rights if they can’t even respect their own people?
“If they torture them with impunity as they do?” Congressman Smith said.
State-sanctioned forced organ harvesting under the Chinese regime devalues human rights and dignity for profit. Forced organ harvesting, has claimed tens of thousands of lives, with Falun Gong practitioners being the main source for these organs.
“If they steal their organs as they do the Falun Gong and then sell those organs for massive profits. This is barbaric,” Smith said.
“The Falun Gong people have suffered so much, and as I and so many others have raised over the years, the Chinese government needs to be held to account.”
Congressman Smith and Congressman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have introduced a bipartisan bill that would call on the Commerce Department to stop U.S. companies from sending surveillance capabilities to Chinese Police and to other security apparatuses.
“[T]hey’re using [surveillance capabilities] against good everyday hardworking individuals who happen to be Muslim [and] against other faith denominations as well.”
A Call to the President
Congressman Smith said that it is absurd that the Chinese regime is fearful of people of faith who want to live out their convictions, and hopes that the president does not float on the human rights issue as previous administrations have.
Smith has also called on the president to use the global Magnitsky Act and sanction individual perpetrators of these crimes.
“We had eight years of President Obama who looked the other way … when it came to China.
“Bill Clinton notoriously and infamously de-linked human rights from trade … and said ‘We’re going to make profits, that’s more important,’” Congressman Smith added.
“President Trump now has to rise to the occasion of defending these wonderful Chinese people who are being so horribly repressed by the government—they deserve better than what they’re getting from their government.”
From The Epoch Times.
