Bipartisan Commission Provides Biden a Political Prisoner List to Hand to China’s Xi

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) speaks during a Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing about “Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations” in Washington on July 11, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A congressional commission has put together a list of political prisoners in China and is asking President Joe Biden to use it when talking to Chinese leader Xi Jinping at this month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), chair and co-chair, respectively, of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, sent a letter to President Biden on Nov. 8, asking him to submit the list to Mr. Xi and “discuss with him the reasons political prisoners are a critical concern of the United States” in bilateral relations.

“For the past decade, PRC officials have refused to accept lists of political prisoners from the United States and have limited our access to information on individual detainees’ treatment and location,” the lawmakers wrote, using China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

Citing San Francisco-based human rights group Dui Hua Foundation, they said that bringing up names of political prisoners matters. “The mention of an individual’s name on a prisoner list meant they had triple the chance of being granted clemency, and officials sometimes took action in individual cases even when they failed to formally respond to these lists,” they wrote.

“Many of these prisoners have been tortured or denied critical medical care in detention. We believe that by raising these cases, you can make a positive impact on prisoners’ lives and the lives of their families, and hopefully, we can bring about their release from politically motivated detention.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) speaks during a hearing titled “Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations” in Washington on July 11, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

According to the lawmakers, Chinese officials have hinted “at a willingness to resume dialogue with other countries on human rights.” As a result, they informed President Biden that “it is more important than ever to shine a light on the cases of individual detainees by submitting a list of political prisoners.”

President Biden is expected to meet Mr. Xi during the APEC summit, which runs from Nov. 11 to 17, but the exact date has yet to be officially announced. On Nov. 8, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to confirm when asked by a reporter whether the two leaders would meet on Nov. 15.

List

The list of political prisoners has 40 names, but it “represents a small selection of individuals” arbitrarily detained in China, the lawmakers noted. On the top of the list are three Americans—Kai Li, Mark Swidan, and David Lin. Others on the list include Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Chinese human rights defenders, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners.

Mr. Swidan, a Texas businessman who has been wrongfully detained in China since 2012, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2019 after being charged with drug-related crimes. A Chinese court denied his appeal and upheld the ruling in April.

According to the lawmakers, Chinese authorities have reportedly subjected Mr. Swidan to physical torture and severe psychological torture, while denying him adequate medical treatment.

Several Chinese human rights lawyers are on the list, including Gao Zhisheng, Ding Jiaxi, Xu Zhiyong, Chang Weiping, and Jiang Tianyong.

Mr. Gao, a self-taught lawyer and a devoted Christian, has been missing for more than six years, after he was taken from his home in northern China’s Shaanxi Province in August 2017.

“Authorities have held Gao in various forms of detention since August 2006, in connection with his representation of farmers in land expropriation cases and for writing open letters condemning the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians,” the lawmakers wrote.

Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, in this file photo. Verna Yu/AFP/Getty Images

Also on the list is Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2020 for posting on her social media accounts about China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was often critical of the measures taken by Chinese authorities to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Three Hong Kong activists are also on the list: Jimmy Lai, the former publisher of the now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily; Joshua Wong, who emerged as a leader of democracy protests during the Umbrella Movement in 2014; and Chow Hang-tung, a barrister known for her involvement in the annual Tiananmen Square vigil in Hong Kong.

Falun Gong

The lawmakers also named Niu Xiaona and Zhou Deyong, two Falun Gong practitioners, in their list.

Ms. Niu, a severely disabled 47-year-old woman from northern China’s Heilongjiang Province, was sentenced in September 2022 to 15 years in prison for her belief.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a Chinese spiritual practice consisting of slow-moving meditation exercises and teachings centered on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. By the late 1990s, the practice was immensely popular in China, with official estimates putting the number of practitioners at 70 million to 100 million.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) perceived the practice’s popularity as a threat to its hold on power and launched a systematic elimination campaign in July 1999. Since then, millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands tortured while incarcerated, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

So far this year, the CCP’s persecution has claimed the lives of at least 77 practitioners, and at least 471 practitioners have been given prison sentences, according to the center.

Zhou Deyong and You Ling in Monument Valley in Navajo County, Ariz., in January 2020. Courtesy of Zhou You

Mr. Zhou, a geological engineer, was handed an eight-year jail term in April, following two years of detention. His wife, You Ling, and his son currently reside in Florida.

“My father is an innocent, kind-hearted man, but these people are going after him like this?” Zhou You, Mr. Zhou’s son, told The Epoch Times after learning of his father’s heavy sentence.

Transnational Repression

The list also includes instances of China’s transnational repression, most notably in the case involving Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur retired medical doctor. The former doctor was detained in China in 2018 just days after her sister, Rushan Abbas, had spoken about Beijing’s mistreatment of Uyghurs at the Hudson Institute. The former doctor has since been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Ms. Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, recently told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders”: “The Chinese government did this to intimidate and silence me. I didn’t want them to have power over me, so I became a full-time activist as the voice for my people and my sister, and to expose China’s crimes.”

Rushan Abbas, founder of Campaign for Uyghurs, in Washington on Sep. 12, 2023. Alejandro Heredia/The Epoch Times

The U.S. government has formally declared China’s treatment of Uyghurs in the region of Xinjiang as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” The CCP has locked up more than 1 million Uyghurs in internment camps, where detainees are subjected to forced labor, torture, political indoctrination, forced abortion, and other inhuman treatments.

To stop the CCP’s transnational repression against Uyghurs, the lawmakers asked President Biden to instruct the secretary of state to put together a list of people who are detained unjustly in Xinjiang and their family members in the United States.

“Even in the United States, they fear speaking up for their relatives who are detained in modern-day concentration camps,” the lawmakers wrote. “We ask that your Administration be their voice both in seeking regular contact with their family members and to allow them the freedom of speech, religion, and movement guaranteed by international law.”

Earlier this month, more than 50 organizations—including Campaign for Uyghurs, Friends of Falun Gong, Hong Kong Democracy Council, and Students for a Free Tibet International—sent a letter to President Biden, asking him to prioritize human rights when meeting Mr. Xi during the summit.

“Xi Jinping and his government are assaulting human rights on a scale unprecedented in decades. President Biden, you have a unique opportunity to send strong messages to Xi Jinping about your position on human rights, which will likely have an impact in halting—and possibly reversing—this crisis,” the groups wrote.