LegiStorm

Summary:

U.S. concern over human rights in China has been a central issue in U.S relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China), particularly since the PRC Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Congress has at times pressured the executive branch to place greater emphasis on human rights issues in China, and has authorized and funded a growing array of related policy tools. The Biden Administration has framed U.S. strategy toward the PRC as part of a global competition between democracy and authoritarianism. The PRC’s long-ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has generally prioritized economic development over the protection of individual civil and political rights and viewed foreign criticism of its human rights practices as a form of interference in China’s internal affairs. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, CPC General Secretary since 2012 and PRC state president since 2013, China has moved in a more authoritarian—some observers say totalitarian—direction. The party-state has enacted policies that seek to address perceived social, political, ideological, and security threats through further restricting and suppressing civil society, ethnic and religious groups, human rights defenders, free speech, and the media. The government has developed and deployed sophisticated surveillance and big data technologies to help maintain social and political control. Some sporadic and localized protests, often focused on economic grievances, have continued. In late 2022, university students and others participated in demonstrations in Shanghai, Beijing, and over a dozen other cities in China demanding the government loosen COVID-19 (“zero-COVID”) controls. Some articulated broader political demands around issues such as freedom of expression and democracy before the government cracked down on the movement. In 2016, General Secretary Xi launched a policy known as “Sinicization,” under which the government has taken additional measures to compel China’s ethnic minorities and religious practitioners to conform to Chinese culture, defined as the culture of the dominant Han Chinese ethnic group, to adhere to “socialist core values,” and to reject foreign influences. Under the Sinicization campaign, the government has, for example, intensified pressure on Christian churches that are not formally approved by the government. In Tibetan areas of China, authorities have maintained tight control over Tibetan Buddhist monasteries; harassed and punished Tibetans suspected of loyalty to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama; replaced Tibetan language instruction and textbooks in schools with Chinese language; and forcibly resettled Tibetan nomads and farmers in urban areas and employed them in the formal economy. In the past decade and a half, the PRC government has imposed severe restrictions on the religious and cultural activities of Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who largely practice a form of Sunni Islam and live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China’s northwest. Between 2017 and 2019, XUAR authorities arbitrarily detained over one million ethnic Uyghur and other Muslims in “reeducation” facilities, which the PRC also called “vocational education and training centers,” and subjected them to a process of political indoctrination. The centers compelled detainees to renounce or reject many of their Islamic beliefs and customs as a condition for their eventual release. Since 2019, the XUAR government appears to have released some detainees, prosecuted many as criminals and incarcerated them, and sent others to work in factories under conditions that indicate forced labor. In January 2021, the U.S. Department of State determined that China’s actions against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang constitute crimes against humanity and genocide. For decades, the United States government, including Congress, has sought to improve human rights conditions in China, while often attempting to balance this interest with other goals in the U.S.-China relationship. Some U.S. efforts related to human rights involve criticizing or pressuring the PRC government, including by raising human rights issues and political prisoner cases publicly and in bilateral meetings; issuing reports on human rights-related issues in the PRC; imposing sanctions; and coordinating international actions. Other policy tools focus on engaging with Chinese citizens, activists, and civil society groups in China or abroad, such as through human rights and democracy assistance programs and funding for U.S. international broadcasting. Amid reports of widespread gross human rights violations in China—and in the broader context of an increasingly competitive bilateral relationship—U.S. policymakers for the last several years have increased their focus on sanctions and other restrictive measures intended to deter human rights abuses, prevent U.S. complicity in such abuses, and/or hold perpetrators accountable. This report examines selected human rights issues in the PRC and policy options facing Congress. This report does not discuss the distinct human rights issues and U.S. policy responses related to China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.