Hearing
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.
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.
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.
Close to 2000 North Korean refugees are reportedly held in detention centers near the China-North Korea border. Once North Korea lifts its COVID-19 imposed border closure policy, these refugees will likely face forced repatriation, despite the Chinese government’s international obligation to protect asylum-seekers. Any large-scale repatriation is a humanitarian and human rights crisis, particularly considering that previously repatriated North Korean refugees experienced torture, sexual assault, forced abortion, forced labor, and, in some cases, execution.
According to some estimates, there are over 1,000 political prisoners in Hong Kong, a development that was unthinkable less than a decade ago. Following 2019 protests for democracy and political reforms, the Chinese government unilaterally imposed a national security law (NSL) that created four vaguely defined national security crimes and a set of rules that weakened Hong Kong’s once vaunted judicial independence, creating a parallel legal system to try NSL cases with judges handpicked by the Chief Executive.