America Cannot Turn a Blind Eye to the Plight of the Uyghurs
to silence Uyghur advocacy. Specifically, the bill would create a Special Coordinator for Uyghur Issues, allocate funding for human rights advocates to speak up, prepare our Foreign Service Officers to communicate with the Uyghur community, and call on our government to develop a multilateral strategy with other likeminded countries to call for the PRC to immediately cease its policies in Xinjiang. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation Chair Ami Bera (CA-07) joined me in introducing this bill, and we have 50 bipartisan cosponsors. It passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee by YOUNG KIM in September 2021, and I hope House leadership brings it to the No one should live in fear because of their ethnicity or faith. floor soon. While Congress has made strides to support Uyghurs, Unfortunately, this happens daily in China in the province of nations and private interests around the world have remained Xinjiang. In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) largely silent as the PRC continues to of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), ramp up its genocidal campaign. In fact, over 1.8 million Uyghurs and other ethnic many U.S. companies have continued minority groups have been imprisoned, to ignore basic corporate responsibility tortured, and brainwashed in so-called and morality in favor of profit and have ‘political reeducation’ centers by PRC not done nearly enough to respond to officials because of their ethnicity and concerns over the PRC’s human rights religious beliefs. Since 2017, the PRC violations. government has systematically carried Instead of speaking out and out state sponsored genocide in Xinjiang withdrawing financial support for a with the goal of wiping out Uyghurs and regime that is torturing and exploiting other ethnic minorities living in China. its own people based on their ethnicity Even Uyghurs living abroad are and religious beliefs, many companies in danger, as the PRC has weaponized have leaned further into China’s its embassies and consulates around market. Their financial investment and the world to invalidate passports and technology—including intellectual strongarm countries into deporting We must wake up and property that will likely be stolen—will vulnerable ethnic minorities back to allow the PRC to further legitimize its China where they disappear into the realize that the CCP regime and strengthen its grip on its detention camp system. has fully committed to people. The personal testimonies from Some companies have even gone survivors and instructors of the camps leveraging oppression, as far as to remain corporate sponsors of are heart wrenching and horrific, yet torture, and genocide to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, tragically, not unique. Too often we have further its geopolitical which the PRC is also using to silence heard verified accounts of forced labor, dissent globally. These companies have systematic rape, forced sterilization, ambitions. chosen to turn a blind eye and continue inhumane conditions in detention camps, funding a regime that actively silences, brainwashing, and torture. enslaves, and tortures its own people—and the American people Congress in recent years has found bipartisan support in will not forget. responding to crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. Last year, We must wake up and realize that the CCP has fully Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which committed to leveraging oppression, torture, and genocide to would prevent products produced in Xinjiang and suspected of further its geopolitical ambitions and economic prospects. We utilizing forced labor from being imported into the U.S. This, cannot continue to be complicit and must deal with the PRC among other provisions, represent strong action taken by Congress government we have, not the one we want. I will continue to do all to respond to the genocide in Xinjiang. While I’m glad Congress I can to support Uyghurs and I hope my colleagues as well as U.S. got this bill across the finish line and President Biden signed it companies and the international community joins me so we can into law, there is more to be done to support Uyghurs and hold the hold the CCP accountable. RF PRC officials responsible for their repeated torture accountable. I introduced the Uyghur Policy Act, which would create a multilateral diplomatic strategy to counter the Chinese Communist Young Kim represents California’s 39th District in the U.S. House Party’s genocide in Xinjiang and push back on the PRC’s efforts of Representatives. 16
RIPON FORUM February 2022
