118th Congress
(Washington)—Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) today released letters to the chief executives of Costco and ADI , asking questions about the ongoing sales of security equipment made by Hikvision and Dahua, PRC-based brands whose products are banned for use by the U.S. Government and implicated in assisting with genocide and other horrific human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
(Washington)—The bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) held a hearing today looking at the rampant use of forced labor in China’s seafood industry and how seafood caught and processed with forced labor ends up in the U.S. supply chains. The CECC’s Chairs, Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) were joined at the hearing by Commissioner Thea Lee, the Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs at the Department of Labor. The CECC includes five Executive Branch members and bipartisan Congressional members from the House and Senate.
Forced labor in China taints the world’s seafood supply chain. PRC-based companies that use the forced labor of Uyghurs and North Koreans process a large amount of seafood for the U.S. market. From fish sticks to calamari—these products end up in the supply chains of major restaurants and wholesalers and in the lunches served at American schools and military bases. Recently published reports by The Outlaw Ocean Project detail how forced labor is rampant in China’s seafood industry, including modern slavery on China’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing fleet, and in processing plants located in Shandong province of China—where Uyghurs are employed in labor transfer projects.
(WASHINGTON)—Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), released today a letter urging the Secretaries of Commerce, State and Treasury to impose export controls on technology used by People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s Public Security Bureaus and other entities in Tibet to collect biometric data which is used by PRC police for political identification and racial profiling.
(Washington) — The Chairs of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) today released two letters—one to Commissioner Adam Silver of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and one to President C.J.
(Washington)—Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) issued the following statement in response to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s announcement of the addition of three new PRC-based companies to the “Entity List” required by the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and the Department of State’s announcement of the Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory Addendum.
(Washington)—Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), issued the following statement on the ninth anniversary of the conviction and life imprisonment of Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti:
Amidst its systemic attempt to rewrite global norms, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has engaged in a campaign of transnational repression to harass diaspora communities and regime critics living around the world, specifically targeting Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, and others from groups that have been suppressed domestically. PRC agents – including those linked to the Ministry of State Security and provincial police forces – have engaged in forced rendition of asylum seekers, street assaults, digital surveillance, online harassment, and the coercion and intimidation of the family and friends of dissidents and political prisoners in the United States and globally.
(Washington)—The Chairs of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) today released a letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and the High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi requesting a meeting on the dire situation of North Korean refugees in the People’s Republic of China. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) seek the meeting to discuss steps that can be taken by the international community to avert an impending human rights and humanitarian crisis on the North Korea-PRC border, where there are reportedly thousands of asylum-seekers awaiting repatriation.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has benefited greatly from the international rules-based order, yet its growing economic power has allowed it to present a systemic alternative that subordinates universal human rights to the PRC’s political and ideological agenda. As a result, international businesses and corporations that seek to operate in the PRC or maintain access to the Chinese market often find themselves at risk of being complicit in human rights abuses—in China and globally. These abuses range from genocide, imports made with forced labor, forced organ harvesting, the creation of mass technological surveillance systems, internet censorship, and restrictions on free speech.