Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2017 ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION OCTOBER 5, 2017 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 5011 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE 2017 ANNUAL REPORT VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6019 Sfmt 6019 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2017 ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION OCTOBER 5, 2017 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 26–811 PDF WASHINGTON : 2017 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS Senate House MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Chairman CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma Cochairman TOM COTTON, Arkansas ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina STEVE DAINES, Montana TRENT FRANKS, Arizona TODD YOUNG, Indiana RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota GARY PETERS, Michigan TED LIEU, California ANGUS KING, Maine EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS Department of State, To Be Appointed Department of Labor, To Be Appointed Department of Commerce, To Be Appointed At-Large, To Be Appointed At-Large, To Be Appointed ELYSE B. ANDERSON, Staff Director PAUL B. PROTIC, Deputy Staff Director (II) VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE C O N T E N T S Page I. Executive Summary ............................................................................................. 1 Statement From the Chairs ............................................................................. 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 3 Overview ............................................................................................................ 5 Recommendations to Congress and the Administration ............................... 11 Political Prisoner Cases of Concern ................................................................ 16 Specific Findings and Recommendations ........................................................ 21 Political Prisoner Database ............................................................................. 62 II. Human Rights ..................................................................................................... 66 Freedom of Expression ..................................................................................... 66 Worker Rights ................................................................................................... 84 Criminal Justice ............................................................................................... 102 Freedom of Religion .......................................................................................... 127 Ethnic Minority Rights .................................................................................... 147 Population Control ........................................................................................... 153 Freedom of Residence and Movement ............................................................ 169 Status of Women .............................................................................................. 176 Human Trafficking ........................................................................................... 186 North Korean Refugees in China .................................................................... 198 Public Health .................................................................................................... 204 The Environment .............................................................................................. 212 III. Development of the Rule of Law ...................................................................... 223 Civil Society ...................................................................................................... 223 Institutions of Democratic Governance .......................................................... 235 Commercial Rule of Law .................................................................................. 251 Access to Justice ............................................................................................... 268 IV. Xinjiang .............................................................................................................. 282 V. Tibet ..................................................................................................................... 299 VI. Developments in Hong Kong and Macau ........................................................ 319 (III) VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE 1 I. Executive Summary STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIRS Seventeen years after the establishment of the Congressional- Executive Commission on China, the Commission’s mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China remains wholly relevant and urgently necessary. China has benefited immensely from the international rules- based order in driving its growth and lifting millions out of poverty, but the political reform many believed would accompany China’s economic transformation and accession to the World Trade Organi- zation has failed to materialize. Chinese government claims of glob- al leadership in areas such as trade, environmental protection, and the building of international institutions—as expressed by Presi- dent and Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping at several high- profile international forums this past year—are belied by the re- ality of the Chinese government’s actions, which are not that of a responsible stakeholder. While China stresses the need for global connectivity and open- ness, it continues to strengthen the world’s most sophisticated sys- tem of Internet control and press censorship and forges ahead with what it calls ‘‘Internet sovereignty,’’ the notion that nations should have total control over the Internet within their borders. The Chi- nese government’s expansive notion of sovereignty gives officials li- cense to decry international criticism of their human rights record as one country interfering in the affairs of another. All the while, the Chinese government extends its own ‘‘long arm’’ to threaten and intimidate political and religious dissidents and critics living abroad; establishes Confucius Institutes at colleges and universities around the world, influencing these academic environments with its political agenda; and invests heavily in overseas media, export- ing state propaganda and exercising soft power to shape movie pro- duction and other cultural media. Moreover, Chinese officials’ com- plaints of other nations’ ‘‘interference’’ into China’s affairs fail to take into account that the Chinese government is obligated to re- spect the fundamental rights of its citizens under its own constitu- tion, and under international conventions it has willingly signed. The Commission is mandated to document cases of political pris- oners in China—individuals who were detained or imprisoned by the Chinese government for exercising their civil, religious, and po- litical rights. Steadfast advocacy on behalf of individual political and religious prisoners, more than 1,400 of whom are active cases in the Commission’s far from exhaustive Political Prisoner Data- base, remains vital. These men and women, whose ‘‘crimes’’ inter- sect with nearly every issue area covered in the Commission’s An- nual Report, represent the human toll exacted by China’s repres- sive and authoritarian one-party system. The death from liver can- cer in July 2017 of Liu Xiaobo—a Chinese intellectual and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was serving an 11-year sentence for ‘‘inciting subversion of state power’’ in connection with his pro- democracy work—brought renewed attention to the government and Party’s shameful treatment of political prisoners. In his last days, authorities repeatedly denied Liu Xiaobo medical treatment abroad, counter to his wishes and those of his wife, Liu Xia. VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 9902 Sfmt 9902 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE Executive Summary 2 VerDate Nov 24 2008 16:24 Oct 04, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 9902 Sfmt 9902 U:\DOCS\26811 DIEDRE 26811.001 Executive Summary 3 INTRODUCTION The 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is expected to convene around the time of the release of the Commis- sion’s 2017 Annual Report. In advance of the Party Congress, a twice-per-decade event, President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has worked to consolidate power, as dem- onstrated by the formalization of his role as the ‘‘core’’ (hexin) lead- er of the Party in guiding key policy sectors including