Transcript Of Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi’s Opening Statement From Select Committee On The CCP Hearing On The Chinese Communist Party’s Ongoing Uyghur Genocide

Washington, D.C. —Below is the opening statement from Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party during its hearing tonight, titled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Ongoing Uyghur Genocide.” Footage of Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi’s opening statement is available here.

Good evening, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Tonight, we will hear the harrowing testimony of Uyghur and Muslim women who were jailed in mass internment camps by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The pain and suffering these women endured is horrifying. The evidence presented here has not only been corroborated by the testimony of other survivors, but also by thousands of pages of leaked internal CCP documents, photographs, and satellite imagery.

The CCP’s genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups is real. Not only is it going on to this day, it is expanding. It is not too late to confront these atrocities so that the famous saying, “never again,” can actually become a reality.

The CCP’s genocide of Uyghurs did not happen overnight. It was the result of decades of planning. This crackdown has been both methodical and monstrous. A CCP religious affairs official described what they’re doing to the Uyghurs: “Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins. Completely shovel up the roots of ‘two-faced people,’ dig them out, and vow to fight these two-faced people until the end."

Today we know that as many as 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been jailed in mass internment camps. They are subjected to political indoctrination, torture, forced labor, and other human rights abuses. Countless people have been disappeared, nearly half a million Uyghur children have been taken from their families, and tens of thousands of women have been forcibly sterilized.

Even outside the camps, Chinese tech companies work closely with government officials to impose a pervasive and high-tech surveillance system that has been called “an open-air prison.” The tech ecosystem used to repress Uyghurs has global implications. The PRC’s largest high-tech companies are exporting surveillance, facial recognition, and social tracking technologies to other countries from Iran to Syria to Burma and thereby undermining democratic movements and U.S. interests. 

In addition, the CCP has long viewed Xinjiang as a strategic gateway critical to the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative. International companies were invited into Xinjiang and have based their supply chains on cheap sources of labor, which have turned out to be forced labor. As a result, the global economy has been contaminated by products made by forced labor, including about 20 percent of the world’s cotton and half of the world’s polysilicon used in solar panels. In 2021, Congress passed the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that forces companies to move their supply chains to ensure they are not profiting from forced labor and genocide. More needs to be done and this committee can help lead the way. 

Make no mistake, CCP leaders are listening to us closely. They are intensely focused on world opinion, and they fear being held accountable by the international community for their actions.

This evening, let’s make sure the CCP hears us loud and clear – their genocide must end.

Tonight is the second night of Ramadan. Thousands of my constituents, millions of our fellow Americans, and countless others are celebrating the holiday with their families. In our country, they are free to practice their religion and although I am not Muslim, I wish them Ramadan Mubarak!

In the PRC, Xi Jinping has decided to continue the “Sinicization” of Islam. Sinicization of Islam means that men are not allowed to wear beards. Women cannot wear hijabs. In short, unlike here, freedom of religion in China means the freedom to practice religion as Xi Jinping sees fit. That is not freedom. That is tyranny, and we must never accept this for ourselves or others.

I close with the case of Dr Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur medical doctor, who was forcibly disappeared in 2018. Gulshan was sentenced in 2020 to a 20-year prison term because her American sister Rushan Abbas criticized the CCP. I know this situation because Rushan was my State of the Union guest. Gulshan has serious health conditions and has never been involved in political activism.  As with the others, I say to the CCP: Release Gulshan and the others now. I yield back.

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