(Minghui.org) The United States Congress is calling for imposing the toughest sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its threats to America’s national security.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) Foreign Affairs Task Force released a report, titled “RSC National Security Strategy: Strengthening America and Countering Global Threats,” on June 10. In this 120-page document, which is available on the U.S. House website, 25 pages were dedicated to issues related to the CCP.
The RSC report cited a quote from an earlier report, “U.S. Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” from the White House on May 20: “The PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] rapid economic development and increased engagement with the worlddid not lead to convergence with the citizen-centric, free and open order as the United States had hoped. The CCP has chosen instead to exploit the free and open rules based order and attempt to reshape the international system in its favor. Beijing openly acknowledges that it seeks to transform the international order to align with CCP interests and ideology. The CCP’s expanding use of economic, political, and military power to compel acquiescence from nation states harms vital American interests and undermines the sovereignty and dignity of countries and individuals around the world.”
To counter the CCP's threats, the RSC report proposed various sanctions to reign in the CCP's influence and safeguard America's national security. One of the proposed sanctions read: “Congress should also mandate that the Department of the Treasury impose sanctions on key CCP leaders involved in gross human rights violations in Tibet and Hong Kong using the Global Magnitsky Act’s authorities.”
The RSC proposals follow a series of actions in recent years by the U.S. government to curb increasing threats and instability brought about by the CCP.
2017: Treasury Department Sanctions Beijing Officer
The U.S. Government issued a sanction in December 2017 targeting 13 perpetrators or enablers of human rights violations and corruption around the world. They included Gao Yan, former police chief of Beijing’s Chaoyang District.
Gao was responsible for the mistreatment of veteran activist Cao Shunli, who died in custody in 2014 after suffering with tuberculosis for six months without being given any medical attention.
The sanction, authorized under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, was administered by the U.S. Treasury Department. It blocked assets of the targeted individuals under U.S. jurisdiction and barred their financial transactions with Americans.
2018: Targeting Military Official for Weapons Trade
In September 2018, the U.S. Government targeted a Chinese military organization and its leader for purchasing fighter jets and missiles from Russia. It was the first time the U.S. sanctioned a province-level official in China.
More specifically, the Equipment Development Department (EDD) and its director Li Shangfu were sanctioned for “engaging in significant transactions with persons” under the U.S. federal law CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act).
The law mandates financial penalties for any person or firm involved in significant financial transactions with Russian military entities.
2020: Politburo Standing Member
Supported by nearly 150 U.S. Congress members, the RSC proposals are considered “The toughest sanctions on the CCP ever proposed.”
As it says in the RSC report: “For the CCP, foreign assistance and involvement in international organizations are a means to cast its political system and approach to economic development as superior alternatives to those of the United States and other democratic countries. As part of this approach, Beijing has increased pressure on foreign countries, companies, and even individuals to conform to its worldview.”
As seen in the coronavirus pandemic, under its current CCP leader, China has intensified its censorship of media and the internet and has established an elaborate system of surveillance of its citizens. Its influence outside China is also overwhelming. “China’s soft power strategy has paid dividends, including being appointed to bodies such as the United Nations (U.N.) Human Rights Council, where it possesses the ability to vet candidates for critical U.N. human rights posts,” the report continued.
Freedom of belief is also in great danger. “It [the CCP] has also undertaken a strategy of ‘sinicization’ of all religion, which attempts to control and manipulate all aspects of religious faith into a socialist mold with Chinese characteristics,” the report stated.
The RSC proposed to sanction key CCP leaders, including “the director of the Hong Kong liaison office Luo Huining, and Han Zheng, a member of the seven-person elite Politburo of the CCP.”
Continued Sanctions Against Totalitarian Regimes
More specifically, the RSC report focused on the following areas related to China: 1) Industrial espionage and intellectual property theft; 2) IP theft at American research institutions and academia; 3) CCP-linked corporate subterfuge; 4) Malignant political influence and disinformation campaigns; 5) Human rights and international institutions; 6) China’s global military modernization; and 7) Strengthening U.S. alliances and partnerships.
“The crisis in Hong Kong is a watershed moment in the battle between freedom and authoritarianism. As China attempts to promote an alternative theory of governance,” the report wrote and called for sanctions against Han Zheng, Senior Vice Premier of the State Council and Politburo Standing Committee member, for his role in the situation with Hong Kong.
Although the report acknowledged that a blanket prohibition on visas to CCP members could lead to unintended consequences, it advised: “However, it would be appropriate to include the senior leadership including the Politburo of 25 members, the Central Committee of 205 full members and 171 alternates, and all 2,280 delegates of the 19th National Congress of the CCP, and their spouses and children.”
Sanctions against the CCP are not unprecedented. Muammar Gaddafi, dictator of Libya until 2011, followed the CCP closely. He led the Libyan Cultural Revolution in the 1970s and launched The Green Book doctrine system, copying Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book in China. With strong connections to China and North Korea, he was visited by former CCP leader Jiang Zemin in April 2002.
Because of its international terrorism, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Libya in 1992. In February 2011, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on the Gaddafi regime for its attempts to put down an uprising. That same month, the U.S., the U.K., Italy, the Netherlands, and the UN froze his assets. Over $30 billion was frozen in the U.S. alone.
Ending the CCP’s Influence over International Organizations
The CCP’s human rights’ violations extend beyond China’s border. “The United States is the largest donor to the WHO and contributes between $400-500 million per year. Despite this, the WHO has apparently helped to cover up China’s mistakes in handling the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote the RSC report.
Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of WHO, is a leader of Tigray People's Liberation Front, an organization associated with Marxism and terrorism. He was reported to have covered up three cholera epidemics that occurred in Ethiopia while he was the health minister. And yet, the CCP backed him to lead the WHO in 2017 and a global pandemic has unfolded under his watch.
Another example is the United Nations. Earlier this year, China was appointed to an influential U.N. Human Rights Council panel that picks the world’s human rights investigators. This “is the latest example of the CCP’s efforts to promote ‘human rights with Chinese characteristics’ and re-define human rights,” according to the RSC report.
The RSC report therefore urges Congress to direct the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) “to report on China’s undue influence of international bodies to redefine human rights and spread the CCP philosophy, especially in institutions receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars.”
“The old way of thinking about China has failed. A strategy limited to trade and economic integration alone has not caused China to democratize or grow less aggressive in its behavior. On the contrary, the CCP has grown more authoritarian and aggressive,” according to the RSC report. “The Task Force believes that Congress must adapt to a new strategy, one which seeks also to push back against the CCP and its efforts to undermine U.S. interests, remake the world order, and promote an alternative form of governance.”
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Category: Perspective
