Friday, December 20, 2024

Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Issues its 2024 Report

 


The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 "with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. The Commission consists of nine Senators, nine Members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President." (CECC About). The CECC FAQs provide useful information about the CECC. See CECC Frequently Asked Questions. They have developed positions on a number of issues.

CECC tends to serve as an excellent barometer of the thinking of political and academic elites in the United States about issues touching on China and the official American line developed in connection with those issues. As such it is an important source of information about the way official and academic sectors think about China. As one can imagine many of the positions of the CECC are critical of current Chinese policies and institutions (for some analysis see CECC). 

CECC publishes annual reports. It has just published in Annual Report for 2024.  The Press Release provides an excellent summary:

U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chair and Cochair of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), issued today the Commission’s 2024 Annual Report on human rights conditions and rule of law developments in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as mandated by Title III of Public Law 106-286.     

 

The full report and an executive summary are available for download on the CECC’s website.   

 

“In the 2024 annual report released today, the CECC once again stands with the Chinese people against the Chinese Communist Party,” said CECC Chair Smith. “Our Commission and its dedicated staff have compiled a compendium of the worst of the CCP’s human rights abuses, which can stand as a prosecutor’s brief for a future tribunal holding Xi Jinping and his accomplices accountable. Tellingly, we also take to task those Western corporations that are complicit in such abuses, including those who utilize supply chains contaminated by forced labor. Never again will they be able to say, ‘We did not know.’”

 

“The Chinese government’s assault on human dignity not only affects people in China but also increasingly those around the world, including the United States,” said CECC Co-chair Merkley. “The Congressional-Executive Commission on China has reported on these human rights abuses across borders and inspired legislation such as my Transnational Repression Policy Act. Once again, the Commission has issued a quality product that documents the poor state of human rights and the rule of law in China. When the Chinese government refuses to recognize the aspirations for freedom and dignity of its own people, we are duty-bound to speak out on their behalf.  I hope Congress and the incoming Trump Administration will act on the CECC’s recommendations for action.”

 

The 2024 Annual Report provides a detailed account of the People’s Republic of China‘s (PRC) systematic abuses of human rights—most brutally implemented in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tibet, and Hong Kong—and documents the widespread use of arbitrary detention and torture targeting ethnic minorities, human rights lawyers, and advocates for free speech, religious freedom, and an independent civil society. The report also includes a chapter on the PRC’s efforts to intimidate U.S. citizens and others critical of the PRC’s human rights record around the world. The protection of U.S. citizens from transnational repression remains a key issue of concern for the Commission, and the report details the tools used by the PRC in this effort, including cyberattacks, smear campaigns, and threats against individuals and the detention of their family members.  

 

The report reflects the view of CECC Commissioners that the PRC’s complicity in atrocity crimes and forced labor, and its efforts to use technology to coerce and control the Chinese people and undermine democratic freedoms globally, pose a distinct challenge to the United States' interest in maintaining universally recognized human rights norms and supply chains free of forced or prison labor.       

Other issues highlighted in the 2024 Annual Report’s 20 chapters include—

 

  • The continuing atrocities being committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
  • The growing risk faced by global businesses of complicity in human rights abuses, particularly in the use of forced labor and the creation of mass biometric surveillance systems in China. 
  • The suppression of labor rights activists, particularly in light of the increased number of strikes and labor protests occurring in the past year.
  • Ongoing efforts to dismantle Hong Kong's democratic freedoms, applying national security laws to imprison over one thousand political prisoners.
  • Efforts to destroy the language and culture of ethnic minority groups, including Tibetans, Southern Mongolians, and Uyghurs.
  • Expanded efforts to control civil society organizations and advocacy deemed politically threatening, including harsh crackdowns on religious believers and communities.
  • The resumption of forced repatriations of North Koreans from China.

The report also includes recommendations for congressional and executive branch action, highlighting the Commission’s many bipartisan legislative priorities. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act—which was conceived, drafted, and secured by the bipartisan leadership of the Commission — is an example of the Chairs commitment to enact important legislation that advances U.S. human rights diplomacy and secures vulnerable supply chains from forced labor.  The UFLPA is the strongest action taken anywhere in the world to address the importation of goods made by forced labor, and robust implementation remained a priority of Commission reporting, hearings, advocacy, and legislative initiatives, including championing additional funding for the work of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF) and seeking an end to U.S. Government procurement of seafood processed by the forced labor of Uyghurs and North Koreans.

 

In the 118th Congress, the Chairs and Commissioners championed a number of legislative initiatives, including—

 

The Commission also maintains a searchable Political Prisoner Database (PPD) that provides detailed information on thousands of political prisoner cases, including individuals in Hong Kong. The PPD contains 2,764 “active detentions” records of political and religious prisoners currently known or believed to be detained or imprisoned, or under coercive controls. The Commission highlighted political prisoner cases during the past year and advocated for prisoner releases, including of American citizens unjustly detained in China, via public statements and social media. A list of 12 representative cases highlighted in this year’s report can be found in the 2024 Annual Report. 

 

The Chairs commend the capable and professional work of the CECC’s research staff in producing the 2024 Annual Report.

While it is not clear whether or how the incoming Trump Administration will receive this, or the uses to which its findings will be put, it is clear that the language and narratives of human rights will play a role in ways that resonate most effectively outside of China, even if the ultimate aim is centered on development of the US and its allies. 

A summary of the "Key Findings" from the Executive Summary follows below. They provide the categorical focus framework within which the U.S. constructs China. Key areas of analysis include: (1) freedom of expression; (2) civil society; (3) freedom of religion; (4) criminal justice; (5) access to justice; (5) governance; (6) ethnic minority rights; (7) status of women; (8) population control; (9) human trafficking; (10) worker rights; (11) public health; (12) environment; (13) business and human rights; (14) North Korean refugees in China; (15) technology enhanced authoritarianism; (16) Tibet; (17) Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; (18) Hong Kong and Macao; and (19) human rights violations in the U.S. and globally. The last one is likely to play an increasingly important role in shaping China-U.S. relations and may well be felt in all aspects of comprehensive trade and other bilateral relations.

 


2 0 24 A N N U A L R E P O R T— E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y 13
K E Y F I N D I N G S
 

Freedom of Expression
■ This reporting year, the People's Republic of China
(PRC) continued to restrict online and in-person
expression, censoring various forms of artistic, literary,
historical, and entertainment content, in violation of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR), and China’s Constitution.
■ Freedom House’s 2024 Freedom in the World report
scored China 0 out of 4 for “free and independent
media,” and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked
China 172 out of 180 countries and territories in its
World Press Freedom Index.
■ The Chinese Communist Party continued to use Chinese
news media as its mouthpiece to provide the Party’s ver-
sion of the news, signal and amplify policy priorities, and
shape public opinion. Journalists at Party and state-run
news outlets faced increased political pressure and cen-
sorship this past year to adhere to the Party line.
■ Party efforts to control news media also continued
to reach beyond China’s borders. One program that
expanded this past year was that of international com-
munication centers (ICCs)—local and regional media
groups within China acting as centers for external-
facing propaganda.
■ Authorities continued to harass, surveil, and restrict
foreign journalists. The annual survey of the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of China in 2024 revealed that
foreign reporters face significant obstacles in China.
■ This past year, many journalists, other media profession-
als, and “citizen journalists”—non-professionals who
publish independently to circumvent official restric-
tions—remained in detention, prison, or subject to
bail conditions as a result of their reporting. RSF again
ranked China ‘‘the world’s largest prison for journalists,”
as nearly a quarter of all journalists detained worldwide
are in Chinese jails. Currently detained or imprisoned
journalists include Huang Xueqin, Yang Zewei, and
Shangguan Yunkai.
■ This past year, Freedom House ranked China the
“world’s worst abuser of internet freedom” for the ninth
year in a row. The PRC’s Ministry of Public Security
declared 2024 a “year of special operations against
online rumors,” targeting influencers and content cre-
ators who “stage photos maliciously or fabricate rumors”
about politically sensitive issues.
■ Government agencies implemented new regulations and
pressured internet companies to tighten restrictions on
online expression, including mandating “real name”
registration for popular users.
■ Authorities continued to harass, detain, and imprison
people who participated peacefully in protests,
demonstrations, and other gatherings, including demon-
strations against opaque handling of school deaths and
the demolition of Tibetan villages and monasteries.
■ The PRC intensified its efforts to exert control over edu-
cational and research institutions, impeding the free
exchange of information and hindering international
academic collaboration.


Civil Society
■ During the Commission’s 2024 reporting year, the
Chinese Communist Party and government continued
their efforts to control, co-opt, or dismantle civil society.
■ In December 2023, the National People’s Congress
Standing Committee passed a series of amendments to
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Charity Law of 2016.
The amended law states that charity work must “uphold
the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” requires
that charities report on any cooperation with foreign
organizations, and makes it more difficult for registered
organizations to assist unregistered organizations, many
of which work in sensitive areas, with fundraising.
■ PRC authorities continued to push for the consolidation
of Party and government control over social organiza-
tions (SOs), co-opting SOs to serve their policy priorities
and objectives.
■ The Party and government continued to target so-called
“illegal social organizations” (ISOs) through a co-
ordinated effort at both the central and local levels. The
Ministry of Civil Affairs, along with 10 other depart-
ments, launched a six-month-long “special campaign”
in June 2023 that aimed to crack down on ISOs, with
1,100 organizations censured in 2023, according to of-
ficial media.
■ During the January 2024 session of the U.N. Human
Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of the
Chinese government’s human rights record, the PRC
sought to “game” the process, using channels estab-
lished for independent civil society participation
to promote entities influenced or controlled by the
government.
■ Despite government efforts to comprehensively deter
public dissent, Chinese citizens continued a pattern of
organizing adhoc protests during the reporting year,
often gathering in the hundreds or thousands to protest
perceived injustices.
■ The Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court sentenced
women’s rights advocate Sophia Huang Xueqin to five
years in prison, and labor rights advocate Wang Jianbing
to three years and six months, on June 14, 2024 on charges
of "inciting subversion of state power."
■ During the reporting year, the Party and government
detained or sentenced rights advocates involved in
democracy efforts, including a former public security
officer and those involved with the China Human
Rights Watch group.
■ During the Commission’s 2024 reporting year, PRC
authorities continued to suppress lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) advocacy groups,
limit public space for LGBTQ-identifying persons to asso-
ciate, and to censor expressions of LGBTQ identity.
Freedom of Religion
■ During the Commission's 2024 reporting year, the
Chinese Communist Party and government enacted
legal provisions that strengthened control over religious
practices, including the Measures for the Management
of Venues for Religious Activities and the PRC Patriotic
Education Law. Since 2018, the Chinese Communist
Party and government have issued several key provisions
to tighten control over religious activities.
■ The five state-recognized religious bodies overseeing
Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestant Christianity,
and Islam, each published updated Five-Year Plans for
“sinicization.” Individuals and religious sites were pro-
moted as “models” of sinicization.
■ During this reporting year, the Commission observed
the Chinese government's efforts to “sinicize” Taoism,
emphasizing Party control and alignment with Party
ideology rather than religious identity. The govern-
ment also continued to exert pressure on Buddhism
to use historical reinterpretation to promote religious
subordination to the Party.
■ The Party cracked down on folk religious practices that
it views as potentially undermining its authority.
■ During this reporting year, four Catholic bishops were
consecrated with mutual approval from both PRC
authorities and the Holy See, the only appointments
made since 2021, while about 40 dioceses remained
without leadership. Authorities continued to hold
Catholic clergy in detention or forcibly disappear them
due to their refusal to join the Christian Council of
China, including Catholic Bishop Shao Zhumin of the
Diocese of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province.
■ The PRC government continued its campaign to
remove Islamic architectural elements from mosques
or demolish them. These policies target Hui Muslims
and aim to eradicate religious and cultural distinctive-
ness while promoting assimilation with Han Chinese
culture. Experts commented that this year marked the
conclusion of the nationwide mosque “sinicization”
campaign, as the last major mosques in China lost their
Arabic-style features.
■ The Party exerted pressure on Hong Kong religious
communities to conform to the “sinicization” policies
of mainland China, including through continual trips
between mainland China and Hong Kong. Experts on
religious freedom and belief also noted the threat posed
to the confidentiality of the Sacrament of Penance with
the enactment of the Safeguarding National Security
Ordinance.
■ PRC authorities continued to violate Protestants’
religious freedom through detention of leaders of
unregistered churches, surveillance of activities and
participants, and use other legal tools to control and
punish church leaders. Authorities continued to order
the removal of crosses and other Christian symbols from
church buildings.
■ During this reporting year, PRC authorities continued to
monitor, detain, and imprison Falun Gong practitioners,
Church of Almighty God members, and others for being
members of “evil cults” (xiejiao, 邪教). In March 2024,
the Commission held a hearing in which witnesses
expressed concerns about possible forced organ removal
from religious and ethnic minorities in China, including
Falun Gong practitioners.


Criminal Justice
■ The criminal justice system remained a political instru-
ment used for maintaining social order in furtherance of
the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian rule. The
government punishes criminal acts, but it also targets
individuals who pursue universal human rights, partic-
ularly when they independently organize or challenge
the Party’s authority.
■ Government officials arbitrarily detained religious
practitioners, ethnic minorities, and rights advocates,
including through extralegal means such as “black jails”
and psychiatric facilities, or through criminal prose-
cution under offenses such as “picking quarrels and
provoking trouble” or crimes endangering state security.
Some detainees reported being mistreated or tortured.
After entering the formal legal process, defendants
sometimes faced prolonged pretrial detention, closed
trials, and delayed sentencing.
■ Reports of detainees being denied counsel and family vis-
its, especially in political cases, continued to emerge. In the
case of rights lawyer Lu Siwei, for example, officials denied
a meeting request by the lawyer retained by Lu’s wife on
grounds that the government already had appointed coun-
sel for him. The unilateral appointment was said to be
intended to allow the government to have full control over
the proceedings in order to secure a conviction.


Access to Justice
■ While China’s Constitution recognizes certain univer-
sal human rights, the court system continued to lack
any legal channel through which citizens can assert or
protect these constitutional rights, thus failing to fulfill
the obligation to provide enforceable legal remedies for
rights violations committed by government officials.
■ As courts in China slowed the rate of uploading judi-
cial documents to the publicly accessible database,
the Supreme People’s Court announced the creation
of a parallel database that is accessible only to judicial
personnel. This development prompted concerns that
authorities planned to phase out the public-facing data-
base, thereby reducing judicial transparency, which
would have the effect of undermining the rule of law
and judicial credibility.
■ Developments this past year indicate that the petition-
ing system has been weakened. The petitioning system,
an extrajudicial channel through which citizens file
grievances involving official misconduct, is being assim-
ilated into the grassroots governance system overseen
by the newly established Chinese Communist Party
organ called the Social Work Department. One of the
department’s missions is to implement the “Fengqiao
Experience,” which is a way to exert granular social and
political control through neighborhood committees and
other grassroots-level organizations.
■ Petitioners continued to suffer retaliation from local
officials who tried to suppress exposure of their wrong-
doing. Mistreatment experienced by petitioners included
criminal prosecution, forcible commitment to a psychi-
atric hospital, arbitrary detention, and torture.
■ Rights lawyers likewise suffered mistreatment, includ-
ing criminal prosecution, for their legal work. After
completing their sentences, lawyers typically have
their law license revoked and are subjected to sur-
veillance, restrictions on domestic and international
travel, repeated forced relocation, and punishment
of their family members, such as denial of education.
As a United Nations special rapporteur pointed out,
preventing lawyers from fulfilling their legal duties to
their clients may “open the door to systematic viola-
tions of the right to a fair trial and equality before the
law” in certain kinds of cases.


Governance
■ The People’s Republic of China (PRC) continued to be
an authoritarian Party-State that increasingly sought to
exert comprehensive ideological control. Central author-
ities implemented Chinese Communist Party General
Secretary Xi Jinping’s expansive notion of national
security through legislative acts, potentially making
repressive measures more enduring. Amended laws
extended secrecy requirements to non-classified mate-
rial under the vague and expansive concept of national
security, exposing travelers and businesspersons to the
risk of arbitrary enforcement.
■ With a stated goal of improving administrative efficiency,
local governments created “comprehensive administra-
tive enforcement” units. These units, however, serve as a

grassroots-level mechanism of social control under the
grid system, which is a Party-devised method of man-
aging and surveilling citizens. Local governments hired
large numbers of grid workers and tasked them with
non-political community services, as well as political
duties including disseminating propaganda, surveilling,
and collecting personal information of residents.
■ With laws requiring political education, Party offices
merged with college administrative offices to allow for
more direct control over academic institutions’ delivery
of political indoctrination to students. Political topics
that became a requirement this past year included patri-
otism, Party history, and national defense.
■ As Party propaganda emphasized “culture building” as
a way to reduce ideological risks by unifying people’s
beliefs, authorities implemented policies that aimed
at erasing ethnic cultures to promote a single Chinese
nationality. Such policies included replacing Uyghur
buildings with ones that reflect Chinese culture, ban-
ning Mongolian-language instruction in schools, and
punishing advocacy for the Tibetan language.
■ Despite official rhetoric promoting constitutional enforce-
ment, citizens continued to lack judicial or administrative
means to assert their rights as enumerated in the PRC
Constitution. At the same time, the government con-
cealed or manipulated public data, undermining citizens’
right to meaningfully participate in civic affairs.


Ethnic Minority Rights
■ During the Commission’s 2024 reporting year, Party
and government officials championed the “integration”
of ethnic minorities, continuing the implementation of
policies contravening the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans,
Mongols, Hui, and other ethnic minorities to maintain
their own languages and cultures.
■ Reports indicate that authorities had altered,
destroyed, or closed large numbers of mosques
serving Hui communities in an effort to “sinicize”
these communities and restrict their religious free-
dom, particularly in Gansu province and Ningxia
Hui Autonomous Region. In February 2024, Radio
Free Asia (RFA) reported that officials in Nagu town,
Tonghai county, Yuxi municipality, Yunnan prov-
ince, had installed pagodas in place of the dome and
minarets they demolished the previous year at the
local Najiaying Mosque. Authorities also replaced the
Arabic-style dome and minarets on the Grand Mosque
in Shadian subdistrict, Gejiu city, Honghe Hani and
Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, with a pagoda
rooftop and pagoda towers.
■ Officials in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
(IMAR) continued to implement policies suppressing
the use of Mongolian as a language of instruction in
schools. In September 2023, authorities largely com-
pleted the transition to a region-wide policy, begun in
2020, of enforcing instruction in Mandarin Chinese
for all subjects from kindergarten through senior
high school.
■ Mongols originally from the IMAR who sought ref-
uge in Mongolia reportedly experienced transnational
repression from PRC authorities, against a backdrop of
PRC pressure on Mongolian authorities to prevent criti-
cism within Mongolia of the PRC’s actions in the IMAR.


Status of Women
■ Women’s rights were the subject of recommendations
during the fourth Universal Periodic Review of the
People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) compliance with
international human rights norms in January 2024.
With legal provisions weakly implemented in China,
rural and urban women are at risk of losing property
rights, face gender discrimination at work, are vulner-
able to gender-based violence, and have limited access
to justice.
■ At the October 2023 National Women’s Congress, offi-
cials emphasized building families and the nation, and
the role of the All-China Women’s Federation in pro-
moting family values to promote population growth.
■ The Commission continued to monitor official harass-
ment and detention of women’s rights advocates, as well
as women harassed and detained for political advocacy
and religious belief. These included: Huang Xueqin,
Ye Haiyan, Rei Xia, Wu Qin, Xu Qin, and Tang Hui.
■ So-called "everyday feminism” is on the rise in China,
but the overall environment for feminist advocacy in
China is highly restricted in the wake of crackdowns on
independent and grassroots civil society advocates and
organizations, suspicion of women’s public participation,
and the censorship of feminist websites and social media.
■ Women’s political empowerment in China remains
low, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global

Gender Gap Report. Scholarly analysis published this
past year concluded that the Party’s “commitment to
gender equity and its quota policy have failed to integrate
women meaningfully into the inner circles of power so
that Chinese politics remains largely gendered.”
■ A State Council assessment of the PRC Anti-Domestic
Violence Law in August 2023 highlighted problems
with implementation, such as a minimal use of manda-
tory reporting in cases of children harmed by domestic
violence, the low number of protection orders and
warnings issued by local courts and public security
bureaus, the vulnerability of women with disabili-
ties, inadequate funding, and a lack of legal knowledge
among frontline personnel.


Population Control
■ The Chinese Communist Party and government of the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) continued to apply a
birth limit policy, which violates international standards
by seeking to control family size. An expert commented
that the PRC three-child policy instituted in 2021, which
permits and seeks to incentivize families to have up to
but no more than three children, is a project to “[reassert]
Party-State control over [the] population.”
■ The pro-birth policy has not resulted in population
growth, however, and PRC population trends are simi-
lar to those in other East Asian countries. The National
Bureau of Statistics of China’s 2023 data revealed that
the population declined in China for the second year
in a row and that the total number of births in China
declined for the seventh year in a row.
■ Young people’s reluctance to marry and have children
has been linked to a variety of factors, including the high
cost of raising children in China, economic precarity,
and gender inequality.
■ Party leaders emphasized the importance of population
growth during official speeches and events this past
year. Pro-birth and marriage messaging was featured in
official propaganda, municipal governments’ financial
incentives, and judicial opinions. Measures passed in
September 2023 incentivized childbirth for military
personnel. Some legislative proposals focused on sup-
porting women’s rights in the workplace.
■ The legacy of the one-child policy (1980–2015) con-
tinues to have an impact on Chinese society, including
human trafficking for the purpose of marriage and the
commercial sex trade. Data published this past year
showed on average, boy-preference for couples having
a third child, with 133 boys born for every 100 girls,
across China.
■ Chinese authorities’ enforcement of population
control policies has contributed to increasing
socio-economic precarity for China’s elderly popu-
lation, including an underfunded pension system and
the inability of adult children to provide traditional
care for their elderly parents.


Human Trafficking
■ The Outlaw Ocean Project, the New Yorker, and the
Environmental Justice Foundation separately identified
practices indicating forced labor in the Chinese seafood
industry. The reporting found that International Labour
Organization (ILO) indicators of forced labor were pres-
ent onboard Chinese fishing vessels and that Turkic and
Muslim workers from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region (XUAR) and North Korea were likely subjected to
forced labor in the seafood processing industry.
■ Forced employment and poverty alleviation policies
involving Turkic Muslims from the XUAR continued
during the reporting year, and they are set to continue
at least through 2025. Reports found that gold and alu-
minum were likely tainted by forced labor involving
Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims from the XUAR,
and witnesses at a Commission hearing found that
audits were unreliable when investigating instances of
forced labor in and from the XUAR.
■ Scamming organizations in Southeast Asia, includ-
ing many run by Chinese nationals, continued to force
individuals from China and other countries to work
in compounds carrying out online scam operations
targeting people around the world.
■ In a March 2024 hearing held by the Commission, wit-
nesses expressed concern that large-scale collection of
the DNA of Uyghurs and others in the XUAR could be
used to match organs for forced removal. Forced organ
removal is considered a form of human trafficking by
the U.N.

Worker Rights
■ The recorded number of strikes and labor protests in
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) increased in 2023
for the first time since the peak of a “strike wave” that

ended in 2016. The increase can primarily be attributed
to the demand for money owed for back wages. A
slowing economy has led to factory closures, causing
bosses to leave without paying out back wages. This has
contributed to a tenfold increase in the number of fac-
tories that experienced strikes between 2022 and 2023.
Construction workers were denied pay as a tightening in
the housing market led to the closure of or slowdown of
work at construction sites. Police continued to suppress
strike activity after being called in to disrupt at least 181
strikes in 2023.
■ China’s reppression against labor rights activists has
continued. In June of 2024 a court in Guangzhou munici-
pality, Guangzhou province sentenced labor rights activist
Wang Jianbing to three years and six months in prison.
Additionally, in the first half of 2023, police were called in
to 82 strikes, and detained workers at 7 of the strikes. The
continued harassment of whistleblowers such as Lu Yuyu
and Tang Mingfeng, even after their release from prison,
highlighted the difficulties faced by those who try to tell
the truth about labor conditions in China.
■ A system of normalized forced overtime among
white-collar workers persisted despite China officially
having an eight-hour workday, with the workweek not
allowed to exceed 44 hours. In the technology industry,
workers are expected to participate in an overtime prac-
tice referred to as “996,” from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days
a week. This overtime practice dovetails with age dis-
crimination, as workers over 35 are perceived as unable
to handle these long hours and are therefore subject to
hiring discrimination.
■ Inequality continues to be systematized through the
hukou or household registration system. Urban hukou
holders continue to be able to access considerably more
benefits than rural hukou holders and migrant workers.
In December 2023, the World Bank released a report
that documented the unequal treatment of rural and
urban residents when it comes to access to pensions
sufficient to maintain a worker during retirement.
■ The PRC continues to deny its workers the right to
unionize. The official, Party-controlled union, the All-
China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), continues
to be the sole representative of workers. In 2023, the
ACFTU held its 18th Congress, during which it signaled
further consolidation and centralization under the lead-
ership of Party General Secretary Xi Jinping.


Public Health
■ The PRC authorities’ response following the COVID-19
outbreak in Wuhan municipality, Hubei province, and
throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been char-
acterized by a lack of transparency and problematic
reporting. In October 2023, the government considered
draft revisions to the PRC Law on the Prevention and
Control of Infectious Diseases, including amendments
that would strengthen reporting of infectious disease
outbreaks within China.
■ During the Commission’s 2024 reporting year, PRC
authorities continued to suppress criticism of the
Chinese Communist Party and government about the
PRC’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak and pan-
demic and have promoted a narrative of “success”.
■ Several Chinese citizens based in Shanghai municipality
faced official harassment and detention in connection
with their efforts to document the COVID-19 pandemic
and protest harsh lockdown measures including: Chen
Pinlin, Ji Xiaolong, Rei Xia, and Zhang Zhan.
■ Although there have been sporadic efforts to punish
corruption in the healthcare sector in the past, during
this reporting year, Xi Jinping’s anticorruption “battle”
engulfed the sector in a nationwide crackdown.
■ The State Council passed new “Regulations on
Human Organ Donation and Transplantation” that
were presented as a means to strengthen oversight and
management of the organ allocation and distribution
system. A group of transplant surgeons and ethicists
expressed skepticism that the PRC had ended abuses
in its organ transplant system, noting China’s failure to
adhere to WHO Guiding Principles—including a lack
of accountability, allegations of forced organ harvesting,
and falsified data on organ transplantation.
■ PRC authorities continued to use forcible psychiatric
commitment as a tool of political control and repres-
sion in China, according to a Chinese nongovernmental
organization, including in the cases of: Wu Yanan,
Wang Yuping, and Song Zaimin.


The Environment
■ China remained the world’s leading emitter of carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2023. China’s CO2 emissions
continued to grow in January and February of 2024,
followed by a 3-percent decrease in March—the first

decline since the discontinuation of the zero-COVID
policy in the country.
■ International media and observers detailed trends
in China’s coal sector that may impede the country’s
progress towards meeting its 2025 targets under the
Paris Agreement.
■ At the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference
(COP28), China did not sign on to the Global Renewables
and Energy Efficiency Pledge. Experts speculate that
China chose to refrain from signing in part due to the
pledge’s references to phasing out fossil fuels and coal.
■ Extreme weather events that observers have linked to
climate change affected cultural heritage, food and
water security, and public health in China. 2023 was
described as the country’s “historic warmest year,”
and July 2024 as “the hottest single month in the his-
tory of observation.”
■ PRC authorities repressed environmental advocates. This
past year, officials detained environmental advocate and
blogger Hu Nengke, known as “Hu Laoshi” (Teacher Hu),
for exposing corruption committed by officials in Gushi
county, Xinyang municipality, Henan province, which
included allowing companies to violate environmental
regulations. In addition, PRC authorities deployed armed
police to peaceful protests in Anqing City, Anhui prov-
ince and detained more than 1,000 Tibetans for voicing
their opposition to the Kamthog (Gangtuo) hydropower
dam in Derge (Dege) county, Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province.
■ The PRC’s dams, island-building initiatives, and giant
clam harvesting contributed to environmental degrada-
tion in the Indo-Pacific region.


Business and Human Rights
■ Companies that do business in, source from, or work
with companies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region (XUAR) are at risk of complicity in human rights
abuses being committed by the Chinese Communist
Party and government. Reports of corporate involve-
ment in mass atrocities in the XUAR implicate the
apparel, automotive, mining, seafood, solar, tomato,
and tourism industries.
■ Reports and congressional testimony continued to high-
light evidence of the unreliability of social compliance
audits conducted in the People’s Republic of China
(PRC), especially in the XUAR. In December 2023,
German car manufacturer Volkswagen commissioned
Löning Human Rights & Responsible Business to con-
duct an audit of its joint venture factory in the XUAR.
Although the automaker claimed the audit found no
signs of forced labor, human rights experts and advo-
cates raised concerns that social compliance audits are
neither equipped nor designed to accurately identify
state-imposed forced labor in the region.
■ Chinese and international technology companies are
linked to the Chinese government’s data collection, sur-
veillance efforts, and censorship. Reports from this past
year found the following:
■ Accelerated Nuclear DNA Equipment, with the sup-
port of Chinese security equipment vendor Beijing
GAC World Trade, sold DNA testing machines to
public security bureaus across China.
■ Chinese biotechnology firm WuXi AppTec trans-
ferred a client’s data and intellectual property from
the U.S. to China without consent.
■ PRC authorities censored content on Apple’s App
Store by directly requesting that Apple remove specific
apps, by setting complex rules for app developers, and
by creating localized versions of select apps to restrict
access to global versions, among other tactics.
■ Google’s YouTube blocked access to more than 30
videos of the popular pro-democracy protest anthem
“Glory to Hong Kong” for viewers in Hong Kong.
■ Recent PRC legislation expanded the scope of laws
authorizing government control of information, prompt-
ing businesses to self-censor or take other precautionary
measures. The Commission observed businesses imple-
menting heightened precautionary measures, including
1) encouraging use of burner phones; 2) withdrawing
operations from China; 3) limiting access to inter-
national databases; and 4) working from home.
■ As of May 2024, the U.S. State Department’s China
Travel Advisory warns travelers about the “arbitrary
enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit
bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions.” According
to reporting from September 2023, Chinese authorities
blocked a senior executive from American risk advisory
firm Kroll and a senior Hong Kong-based banker from
Japanese financial services group Nomura Holdings
from leaving mainland China.

 

North Korean Refugees in China
■ Shortly after the border reopening in the summer of 2023,
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) began to repatriate
North Korean refugees, many of whom were women. In
October 2023, the PRC government facilitated the return
of 500 to 600 North Korean refugees. International con-
demnation followed, and concerns were raised this past
year at the United Nations by the Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK) and by the Republic of Korea
(South Korea) government, among others.
■ Despite Chinese authorities’ continual denials, there have
been reports of abuse and torture of North Korean ref-
ugees who were repatriated since the border reopening.
According to media reports, seven female refugees who
were repatriated in October 2023 died due to serious
human rights violations that occurred at two detention sites
in the DPRK, including at least one case of reported suicide.
■ North Korean workers dispatched from North Korea
to earn foreign currency in China are overwhelmingly
women and are vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploita-
tion. Despite recent media reports and an international
outcry over human rights violations in seafood pro-
cessing plants, Chinese companies employed additional
workers, defying international sanctions banning the
hiring of workers from North Korea.
■ North Korean trafficking victims, mostly women who had
been residing in China before the outbreak of coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19), remain highly marginalized.
Chinese authorities denied them access to essential health-
care and social services. The number of North Korean
women being trafficked into China has decreased due to
strict border controls. In a couple of cases heavy sentences
were meted out for trafficking of North Korean women.


Technology-Enhanced Authoritarianism
■ The People’s Republic of China (PRC) continued to rely on
a National Anti-Fraud Center (NAFC) app to collect data
and access personal information, monitor online activity,
and potentially aggregate data for surveillance. While use
of the app is prevalent across China, the Tibet Autonomous
Region was a focal point for surveillance, leading indi-
viduals to engage in self-censorship, reducing cultural
expression, and reinforcing control and conformity.
■ Chinese leader Xi Jinping proposed the Global Artificial
Intelligence Governance Initiative, which emphasizes
sovereignty while potentially limiting human rights.
Domestically, the Chinese government has issued regu-
lations that further ensure that artificial intelligence (AI)
is aligned with Chinese Communist Party values, and
Chinese academics have posited a need to guard against
“Western values.”
■ Chinese entities demonstrated competency in using AI
to create social media content aimed at manipulating
public opinion. First Voice, an opinion unit of Chinese
state-owned media outlet China Global Television
Network (CGTN), used AI to generate a series of ani-
mated videos on X and YouTube, called “A Fractured
America,” showing fake strikes and riots happening
across America because of income inequality and a lack
of accountable democracy. Meanwhile, a research report
revealed the first use of an AI-generated human by a
Chinese company in an influence campaign.
■ An online propaganda and disinformation oper-
ation employing a network of social media accounts
(or “bots”) linked to the Chinese government, called
“Spamouflage,” continued to make posts on social
media favorable to the Chinese government and hos-
tile to opinions contrary to PRC policy. The Canadian
government attributed the posting of “thousands” of
comments in English and French on Facebook and X
accounts of Members of Parliament to the operation.


Tibet
■ The Commission did not observe any interest from People’s
Republic of China (PRC) officials in resuming formal
negotiations with the Dalai Lama’s representatives, the
last round of which, the ninth, was held in January 2010.
■ The PRC continued to restrict, and seek to control, the
religious practices of Tibetans, the majority of whom
practice Tibetan Buddhism. As part of the broader pol-
icy of “sinicizing” religion, PRC authorities in Tibetan
areas issued prohibitions on forms of religious worship,
including during important religious events or around
the times of politically sensitive anniversaries, limited
access to religious institutions and places of worship,
including Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples,
and otherwise unduly restricted Tibetans’ freedom
of religion and belief. The PRC continued to assert
control over the process of selection and recognition
of Tibetan Buddhist reincarnated teachers, including
the Dalai Lama.

■ The Commission did not observe reports of Tibetan
self-immolations occurring during the 2024 reporting
year, the second year since 2021 in which no self-
immolations were reported to have occurred.
■ PRC authorities maintained a system of residential
boarding schools in Tibetan areas that observers fear
could constitute a serious threat to Tibetan society
and the intergenerational transmission of culture and
language.
■ Large-scale protests broke out in February 2024 in Derge
(Dege) county, Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous
Prefecture, Sichuan province, due to official plans for
construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Drichu
(Jinsha) River that will submerge at least two villages
and six monasteries, one of which, Wontoe Monastery,
contains well-preserved 13th-century murals. Security
personnel detained approximately 1,000 Tibetans in
connection with the protests; many were later released,
but local authorities escalated surveillance and moni-
toring of local communities in the following months.
■ In contravention of international human rights stan-
dards, officials punished residents of Tibetan areas for
exercising protected rights, including the expression of
religious belief, expressing criticism of PRC policies, and
sharing information online. Notable cases this past year
included those of writer Pema, a monk and teacher at
Kirti Monastery, who in a lone protest held a portrait of
the Dalai Lama and called for the Dalai Lama’s return
to Tibet and religious freedom for Tibetans; Semkyi
Drolma, detained for her participation in discussion
groups about Buddhism on the social media platform
WeChat, and later sentenced to one year and six months
in prison for “leaking state secrets”; and Tenzin Sangpo,
a senior monk at Derge’s Wontoe Monastery detained in
February 2024 as part of the anti-dam protests.


Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
■ Research published this past year indicated that the rate
of imprisonment for Turkic and Muslim individuals in
the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was
disproportionately high compared to China’s overall
prison population. According to analysis published by
the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) in April
2024, based on official figures, Uyghurs and members of
other non-Han Chinese ethnic groups in the XUAR con-
stituted 34 percent of the number of people estimated to
be formally imprisoned in China, although these groups
make up only one percent of the country’s population.
UHRP’s analysis estimates that members of ethnic
minority groups in the XUAR are formally imprisoned
at more than 47 times the rate of Han Chinese people
in the region, with 1 in every 26 ethnic minority XUAR
residents imprisoned.
■ During this reporting year, authorities in the XUAR
maintained a system of forced labor that involved Turkic
and Muslim individuals, shifting from a system involv-
ing former mass internment camp detainees to one that
generally involves people who have not been detained.
According to observers, officials use forced labor pro-
grams to tighten political and social control over Uyghur
and other communities in the XUAR. Official data show
that authorities planned to transfer at least one million
“surplus laborers” through the “poverty alleviation”
program in 2023—a figure that did not include all types
of forced labor transfers—and that this figure included
a significant increase in the number of cross-provincial
labor transfers.
■ New regulations took effect this reporting year in the
XUAR that tightened limits on the religious practices
of Muslim residents in the region. In December 2023,
the XUAR People’s Congress amended the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulations on Religious
Affairs (RRA), which took effect on February 1, 2024.
The revised regulations focus on the need to “sinicize”
religious practices and venues, in line with government
efforts to “sinicize” religious worship nationwide in
recent years, and tighten restrictions on the establish-
ment, construction, and renovation of places of worship.
Human Rights Watch wrote that according to the text of
the revised RRA, “[r]eligious venues are to be, effectively,
training grounds that promote the values of the Chinese
Communist Party to the people.”
■ Reports emerged this past year showing that Chinese
authorities have continued implementing policies that
infringe upon Uyghurs’ rights to maintain their own
language and culture. In June 2024, Human Rights
Watch published research findings, which it produced
together with the Norway-based organization Uyghur
Hjelp, showing that between 2009 and 2023, Chinese
officials had changed the names of more than 600 vil-
lages traditionally inhabited by Uyghurs into names
that removed their cultural or religious significance. In
September 2023, three U.N. special rapporteurs issued a

press release expressing “grave concern” over reports of
a “significant expansion” of the boarding school system
in the XUAR. The three experts expressed concern over
the fact that the boarding schools into which Uyghur
children are placed provide little to no instruction in the
Uyghur language, and that these children are pressured
to speak and learn only Mandarin Chinese.


Hong Kong and Macau
■ As the Chinese Communist Party and government
increasingly interfered with Hong Kong’s affairs in vio-
lation of the “one country, two systems” principle, the
Hong Kong government continued to implement vari-
ous repressive policies purportedly to protect national
security. The arbitrary application of national security
laws has led to the imprisonment of dissidents and activ-
ists, further eroding fundamental freedoms in the city.
■ Ongoing criminal prosecution on charges involving
national security and sedition against individuals who
peacefully exercised their rights included news media
executives Jimmy Lai and Chung Pui-kuen, human
rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung, and student activist
Joshua Wong Chi-fung.
■ Hong Kong police issued warrants of arrest on at least
13 exiled activists and offered rewards for information
leading to their arrest. These individuals advocated for
democratic reform and for imposing financial sanctions
on Hong Kong and People’s Republic of China (PRC)
officials who perpetrated human rights violations. A
group of United Nations (U.N.) experts expressed seri-
ous concern over the case, saying that the Hong Kong
government was punishing people for political speech.
■ Some foreign judges on Hong Kong’s highest court
resigned, with one of them explaining the factors that had
profoundly compromised the rule of law: 1) The National
Security Law severely limited judges’ freedom of action;
2) the National People’s Congress Standing Committee
could overturn judges’ decisions; and 3) authorities were
intent on quashing even peaceful dissent.
■ The Hong Kong government’s application to order
unspecified social media companies to take down a
popular protest song was granted by an appellate court,
which reversed a lower court that denied the application
based on protection of civil liberties considerations.
■ Annual vigils commemorating the violent suppression
of the 1989 Tiananmen protests were no longer held. In
past years, authorities initially denied applications to
hold the vigils on public health grounds. More recently,
no such applications have been made because the orga-
nizing group dissolved after its core leaders became
political prisoners.
■ Allegations emerged this year of physical and sexual
violence taking place at a juvenile detention facility.
Prison guards reportedly abused political prisoners
and sometimes did so using other inmates as proxies.
Avenues through which abuse could be reported were
ineffective because abusers exploited security camera
blind spots and victims were too afraid to step forward
publicly to file complaints.


Human Rights Violations in the U.S. and Globally
■ The People’s Republic of China (PRC) continued a
multifaceted campaign of transnational repression
against Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, journal-
ists, Chinese university students, and others to stifle
dissent and intimidate individuals in emigrant and
diaspora communities. Examples include the issuance
of HK$1,000,000 (US$127,600) bounties on 13 overseas
activists, intelligence-gathering efforts in diaspora com-
munities, and the harassment of China-based relatives
of overseas targets.
■ The PRC’s transnational repression efforts were observed
leading up to, during, and after the November 2023
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit
in San Francisco, California.
■ This reporting year, the Commission observed reports
of PRC authorities forcibly repatriating overseas Chinese
citizens Lu Siwei and Yang Zewei, also known as Qiao
Xinxin, through extrajudicial means.
■ The PRC targeted foreign politicians and govern-
ments by attempting to influence democratic elections
and shape public opinion abroad about the Chinese
Communist Party and government, including in
Canada, the Solomon Islands, and Taiwan.
■ PRC authorities continued to make efforts to influ-
ence processes and procedures within the U.N.
system to limit public awareness of China’s human
rights abuses in the international community. This
past year, reports detailed the PRC’s efforts to influ-
ence and impede the U.N. Human Rights Council’s
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and several U.N.
Special Procedures.

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