Transcript of Stanton, McGovern, Khanna, Pelosi, and Moulton Opening Statements From Shadow Hearing on Human Rights in China Ahead of Xi’s Visit to Washington
WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party Minority and Congressional-Executive Commission on China Ranking Member Jim McGovern held a hearing titled The Void in China Policy: Why Human Rights Must Be on Trump’s Agenda with Xi at the White House.
The following witnesses provided testimony:
- Tahir Imin, Founder and Director, Uyghur Post
- Palden Gyal, President, International Tibet Media Organization
- Yaqiu Wang, Fellow at the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania
- Jonathan Stivers, U.S. Director, Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong; Commissioner, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’
Below is a transcript of opening statements delivered by Representative Greg Stanton, CECC Ranking Member McGovern, Ranking Member Khanna, Speaker Emerita Pelosi, and Representative Seth Moulton. A recording of the hearing can be found here.
First off, I want to acknowledge this gentleman sitting next to me. His entire career has been just one of the strongest voices in Congress, arguably in America, for human rights around the globe. So, thank you for your steadfast and consistent leadership.
And the gentleman on my left, who is currently the ranking member of the Select Committee on China, because of the change in times and votes, he originally wasn't supposed to be here, but now he's able to be here. So, you get two of us from the Committee, so good to see you. Thank you, Ro Khanna.
Thank you, Ranking Member McGovern, for your strong remarks and for co-chairing today's hearing on human rights abuses in the People's Republic of China.
More than three and a half years ago, the Select Committee held its second hearing after being established. The second hearing of the Select Committee was particularly on the Chinese Communist Party's abuses of the Uyghur people.
And today in 2026, that persecution continues.
In January, a group of UN human rights experts alleged that the Chinese Communist Party continues to subject its Uyghur, Tibetan, and other minority populations to forced labor, using “coercive elements so severe that they may amount to enslavement and a crime against humanity.”
Beginning in 2017, the CCP arbitrarily detained more than a million ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in “re-education facilities,” which are just concentration camps.
In these camps, parents are forcibly separated from their children. Children are sent to state-run boarding schools where they are systematically stripped of their native language, culture, and religious heritage.
Adult detainees are subjected to political indoctrination, sexual violence, forced female sterilization and abortions, food deprivation, and other forms of torture. They are forced to renounce Islam as a condition for their release.
This direction comes straight from the top. A CCP religious affairs official said in 2017 about the Uyghurs: the Chinese government will “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.”
Unfortunately, the CCP's severe repression is not isolated to Xinjiang.
In 2024, 650,000 Tibetans were forced from the homes as part of a CCP program to systematically transfer what it called “rural surplus labor.”
Since 2000, it is estimated that almost 3.5 million Tibetans have been forced from their homes by the CCP, including through what are called "old village relocation" programs.
In 1963, images of a Buddhist monk setting himself on fire to protest the South Vietnamese government shocked the conscience of our world. Since 2009, at least 170 Tibetans have self-immolated to protest the CCP's repression.
We have to ask ourselves: where is the conscience of our world today?
Next week, President Trump will roll out the red carpet for Xi Jinping, honoring him with a state dinner at the White House. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has not shown much of a willingness to confront Xi about his horrific human rights abuses.
This starts with President Trump himself, who, according to two former officials in the administration, encouraged Xi's creation of concentration camps in Xinjiang, telling Xi it was "exactly the right thing to do."
A senior Trump official who for a time was the acting president of the United States Institute of Peace blamed Uyghurs for the CCP's atrocities against them, saying that "the Chinese aren't genocidal, they just object to Uyghur-ness.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has attempted to pull the rug out from under human rights groups that are pushing back against the CCP’s abuses. They slashed funding and grants for human rights organizations, gutted the State Department's human rights bureaus, and tried to shutter groups that empower human rights defenders in China, like the National Endowment for Democracy and Radio Free Asia.
President Trump has called Xi Jinping a “friend” and a “incredible man who has done amazing things.” It is unbefitting any leader of a great country to use words like that to describe someone who has oppressed the human rights and dignity of others.
Standing up for the oppressed in the PRC, whether it be Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Mongolians, or Han Chinese has always been and must be a bipartisan issue.
Chairman, Co-Chair, we have incredible witnesses today. People who have shown unbelievable courage. We are inspired by you, your actions, what you're doing to support the people you represent. It's incredible.
I look forward to hearing from these incredible witnesses today on what more Congress can do and should do to hold the CCP accountable for its human rights abuses and stand up for all those who are oppressed by its autocratic rule.
We convene this hearing to shine a light on the severe violations of human rights by the government of China, and to assess our government's performance in holding it accountable.
Human rights in China has long been an area of bipartisan concern and productivity here in the Congress.
I think of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi standing in Tiananmen Square with Republican and Democratic colleagues in 1991, bravely unfurling a banner to the victims of the massacre before being whisked away by police.
I think of President George W. Bush and the bipartisan House and Senate leadership in 2007 presenting the Congressional Gold Medal to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
I think of Marco Rubio and myself as co-chairs of the CECC, working together to craft and pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021 into law.
I think of institutions we created to monitor the Chinese government's behavior, the CECC, Select Committee, the U.S. Security and Economic Review Commission – and we welcome one of its commissioners today as a witness.
There has been consensus that U.S. policy toward China must include a moral dimension; that we must speak out for the freedoms of those who cannot advocate for themselves. That we must deploy policy tools to press the Chinese government to respect human rights.
That consensus, I fear, is disappearing – and here is why:
President Trump has removed human rights from U.S. foreign policy in favor of a transactional approach.
President Trump carried no human rights agenda to Beijing, other than to ask to free two individuals – individuals we care deeply about – only one of which succeeded.
Secretary Rubio decimated the State Department's Human Rights Bureau and cut grants to China human rights organizations.
The Administration wants to eliminate Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, among the only sources of independent information for those living under the Chinese censorship regime.
These actions take us backwards. They undermine so much that Republicans and Democrats have worked to build up over the years.
But rather than defend the tools that helped us promote human rights in China, the Republican majority in Congress sat on their hands, and the numbers back this up.
When Biden was president, the CECC averaged 15 hearings and 23 advocacy letters per Congress. With Trump as president, the CECC has scheduled only seven hearings and sent out only three letters.
Between 2018 and 2024, Congress passed the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, the Tibetan Policy and Support Act, the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, and the Protect Hong Kong Act – all bipartisan measures.
This Congress has not sent one single China human rights bill to the president. Not one. And at the same time, our Republican colleagues are removing the words "human rights" and references to international human rights treaties from bills and resolutions.
And here's an example: the House and the Senate passed resolutions calling for the release of Jimmy Lai. That’s good. But neither frames his case in human rights language. Neither mentions China's legally binding international human rights obligations that could be leveraged to secure his freedom.
That omission does a disservice to the cause that Jimmy has gone to jail to defend.
In my service on the CECC and as co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, I have closely monitored human rights conditions in China. And make no mistake: the Chinese government remains one of the world's worst abusers of its own people.
We have a moral obligation to speak out and to take action for those who suffer under this repression. But it is a real question whether the U.S. has the moral credibility to call on Chinese authorities to approve human rights.
At the CECC, we report on how the Chinese government prosecutes journalists and political opponents of the of the ruling party, restricts freedom of expression and assembly, puts ethnic minorities in detention facilities, engages in arbitrary detention, and commits extrajudicial killings.
But today, here in the United States, under the current administration, our own government, is committing each of the same violations, from the streets of Minneapolis to the Caribbean Sea. Our own government is murdering people in cold blood.
Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, and Chinese fled persecution in China and sought refuge in the United States. Now, our own government is detaining them and sending them to ICE facilities with the intention to deport them to a dark fate.
I have publicly condemned this policy, but I don't know of a single one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who has had the courage to publicly criticize this president for this abuse, and I think that that's cowardly.
The United States is rapidly forfeiting the high ground to speak against human rights violations in China or any other place on the globe.
Why should anyone trust the word of an abuser when they tell others abuse is wrong?
And I close by quoting Speaker Emerita Pelosi, who has said to presidents of both parties, both parties. I mean, I've seen her tough on Republicans. I've seen her tough on Democrats. And her quote is: "If we do not speak out for human rights in China because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out for human rights anywhere.”
That call is more relevant today than ever and I am anxiously waiting to see how President Xi is treated when he comes to this country and what he is pressed on. Is it just commercial interest? Or is human rights going to be front and center on the agenda?
Thank you, Chairman, for your leadership on this for so many years.
There's no one who has stood up for human rights in China and around the world more than Jim McGovern. And this was his idea, his initiative to have the China Committee – Select Committee do this, and I'm really grateful to you.
I also want to thank Representative Stanton. I had a personal commitment with my family, and he stepped in to help chair it, and I appreciate that.
Of course, we have our illustrious Speaker Emerita here. I'm sure Jim McGovern will recognize her, but she showed so much courage. Has shown so much courage on this issue. We share representation in the Bay Area, and by share, I mean I'm geographically close to her.
And I'll tell you, there's a huge Chinese American community in my district, huge Chinese American community in her district. The easy thing for her to do, politically, would have just been to go along and not speak out on human rights, and it was extraordinarily courageous, politically courageous, for her to take the stances that she has taken her whole career.
I would just say that President Biden, as Seth Moulton said, really made this a priority. We actually had sanctions on products made by the Uyghurs. We actually were enforcing the law.
Donald Trump, for all his rhetoric about fair trade and making sure that American manufacturers aren't going to be shafted, and making sure that we're going to rebalance with China has totally dropped the ball on this issue. So, I appreciate Congressman McGovern, our chair, bringing this back to our attention.
As I’ve said to you when we've been on our CODELS to Tibet and China and all the rest: you [Congressman McGovern] are our spiritual leader in all of this. Completely values-based, committed, prioritizing this as a highly important initiative for us all to be involved in, and I’ve worked on this for a long time.
I see Jonathan Stivers, who was on my staff, for part of that.
I also want to welcome Palden Gyal from Tibet, Yaqiu Wang of the [Penn Project] on the Future of U.S.-China Relations, and Tahir Imin.
Here are a couple things. I have said over and over again: if we do not speak up for human rights in China because of commercial interest, we lose all moral authority to speak up for human rights any place in the world. And apparently, we seem to be abdicating that right.
Uyghurs – a genocide going on with the Uyghurs. In terms of democracy in Hong Kong, terrible in terms of repression. Just to commemorate what happened in Tiananmen Square, you got seven years in prison, at least. So the list goes on. And just all of the other violations of human rights in China.
So thank you for giving us a chance to call to attention, because what they’ve said, with a government like the Chinese government, one of the most excruciating forms of their torture is to tell the prisoners, “nobody even remembers you. They don't even know what you did or why you're in prison. Why don't you just confess?”
We want to put lie to that. We always want to mention, whether we're delivering letters, whether we're speaking on the floor, whatever it is, to make sure that people in prison know that they are not forgotten, that their courage is recognized, and we will not rest until there is some justice in all of this.
So, thank you again. And I thank Mr. Khanna for his kind words and thank you for the leadership that you're providing now on the Committee as well. I'm so pleased to hear that. And thank you again, our spiritual leader [Mr. McGovern].
Serving on the Select Committee on China – the full name of the committee is the Select Committee on Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
The verb there is competition. And the competition between the United States and China is not just for economic dominance or military dominance; it's for leadership, and it comes down to not just which country is stronger, but which country has the values that the rest of the world wants to follow.
That's really what's at stake: who will lead the world, not just from power, but values.
China under Xi Jinping has spent the past decade and a half systematically eroding the rights of everyone living in China. For most of that time, the United States has pushed back in a strongly bipartisan manner.
We engaged on the genocide of Uyghurs in one of the most effective pieces of legislating the U.S. Congress has ever done on a human rights issue with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
And then under this presidency, we stopped trying. This administration has canceled dozens of grant programs supporting civil society, pro-democracy programming, and independent journalism that were actively undermining the CCP's efforts to suppress independent thought in China.
This administration is uniquely good at shooting themselves in the foot. But the decision to gut the U.S. Agency for Global Media was, even for them, a historically tragic decision.
This is an institution that, for a very small amount of money, dramatically shaped the world's information environment in ways that align with both U.S. values and the truth.
My colleagues on the Select Committee have often heard me harp on the fact that while “competition” is the verb and the title, the first order of business in our relationship with China today is deterrence. It's to prevent a war, a war that Xi Jinping has made very clear he is ready and willing to start.
We think about deterrence usually in just military terms, but if you ask the Pentagon about deterrence, they'll tell you that there are four elements: there's military, economic, diplomatic, and information.
We understand the importance of military power. We understand the importance of economic power. But in that information realm, we have to tell our story. We can't cut off the very organisms of our government that are designed to do that and tell a better story, not just to the world but to the people in China today.
And on diplomacy, that brings us back to where I began: the question of moral leadership. Who will be the next great superpower leader of the world? The question, not just of power, but of values. This administration seems to throw those values out the window. It's critical we get them back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.