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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. See CECC Frequently Asked Questions. They have developed positions on a number of issues: Access to Justice; Civil Society;Commercial Rule of Law; Criminal Justice; Developments in Hong Kong and Macau ; The Environment ; Ethnic Minority Rights;Freedom of Expression; Freedom of Religion ; Freedom of Residence and Movement ; Human Trafficking ; Institutions of Democratic Governance ; North Korean Refugees in China; Population Planning ; Public Health ; Status of Women ; Tibet ; Worker Rights ; and Xinjiang.
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 periodically distributes open letters urging action. On 16 July 2026 CECC distribuyted a letter addressed to President Trump urging the President to Bar Chinese Seafood Linked to Forced Labor and Illegal Fishing. The CECC Media Release described the letter this way:
July 16, 2026
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), today released a letter urging the President to issue an Executive Order prohibiting seafood harvested by Chinese-linked vessels or processed in China from entering the United States. U.S. Representatives Dale Strong (R-AL) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY), both CECC Commissioners, joined the Chairs in sending the bipartisan letter.
“Chinese seafood is too often produced through forced labor and enters our market at prices honest American fishermen cannot match,” the lawmakers wrote. “That is not competition. It is abuse shipped into the United States.”
The lawmakers commended the President’s April 2025 executive order to restore American seafood competitiveness. They urged the Administration to take the next step by closing the U.S. market to seafood linked to the People’s Republic of China’s forced labor and illegal fishing practices.
The lawmakers also warned that China’s distant-water fishing fleet is not merely a commercial enterprise but “a subsidized maritime force that takes resources, pressures coastal states, and expands Beijing’s influence.” They urged the President to adopt an import prohibition modeled on existing restrictions on Russian seafood and designed to prevent evasion through transshipment, relabeling, repacking, or processing in third countries.
The letter details abuses across China’s seafood industry, including debt bondage, passport confiscation, violent abuse, labor trafficking, avoidable deaths, and coercive labor transfers. These abuses affect workers aboard fishing vessels, in seafood-processing plants, and in aquaculture operations, including operations connected to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet.
The letter also notes that the Department of Labor has identified fish harvested by Chinese distant-water fishing vessels as a forced-labor concern, while the Department of Homeland Security has designated seafood as a high-priority enforcement sector under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The letter further cites longstanding food-safety concerns involving seafood imported from China.
The lawmakers added, “The United States cannot inspect every vessel or police every agreement the Chinese routinely break, but we can decide what enters our market. If you engage in illegal fishing and use slave labor, you should not have access to the American market.”
The signed letter can be found here.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Scott Flipse
(202) 308-6062
CECC has raised this issue before. See From Bait to Plate—How Forced Labor in China Taints America's Seafood Supply Chain (2023).
On 31 July, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) reintroduced The Uyghur Genocide and Sanctions Accountability Act, a collection of policies intended to provide support for Uyghurs and punish Chinese actions against the minority group. Among the proposals included in the legislation is a ban on use or sale of Chinese seafood at Department of Defense facilities – a direct response to the forced labor of Uyghur workers at Chinese seafood processors as reported by the Outlaw Ocean Project. (US lawmakers want to root out any Chinese seafood from the military over Uyghur labor)
This is an issue also picked up by social and news media and civil society reporting. See here, here, here,
The full text of the letter follows below.
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