Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress makes the following findings: The Government of the People’s Republic of China has a long history of repressing Turkic Muslims and other Muslim minority groups, particularly Uyghurs, in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region ( Xinjiang or XUAR ), also known as East Turkestan. Central and regional Chinese government policies have systematically discriminated against these minority groups by denying them a range of civil and political rights, particularly freedom of religion.

In May 2014, the Government of the People's Republic of China launched its latest Strike Hard Against Violent Extremism campaign, using wide-scale, internationally linked threats of terrorism as a pretext to justify pervasive restrictions on and serious human rights violations against members of ethnic minority communities in Xinjiang. The August 2016 appointment of former Tibet Autonomous Region Party Secretary Chen Quanguo to be Party Secretary of the XUAR accelerated the crackdown across the region.

Scholars, human rights organizations, journalists, and think tanks have provided ample evidence substantiating the establishment by the Government of the People's Republic of China of internment camps. Since 2017, the Government of the People's Republic of China has detained more than 1,000,000 Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in these camps. The total ethnic minority population of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was approximately 13,000,000 at the time of the last census conducted by the People's Republic of China in 2010.

The Government of the People's Republic of China's actions against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang violate international human rights laws and norms, including— the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which the People's Republic of China has acceded; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the People's Republic of China has signed and ratified;

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which the People’s Republic of China has signed and ratified; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the People's Republic of China has signed; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labor Organization’s Force Labor Convention (no. 29) and the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention (no. 105). Senior Chinese Communist Party officials bear direct responsibility for gross human rights violations committed against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups.

These abuses include the arbitrary detention of more than 1,000,000 Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups, separation of working age adults from their children and elderly parents, and the integration of forced labor into supply chains. Those held in detention facilities and internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have described forced political indoctrination, torture, beatings, food deprivation, sexual assault, coordinated campaigns to reduce birth rates among Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims through forced sterilization, and denial of religious, cultural, and linguistic freedoms.

These victims have confirmed they were told by guards that the only way to secure their release was to demonstrate adequate political loyalty. Poor conditions and lack of medical treatment at such facilities appear to have contributed to the deaths of some detainees, including the elderly and infirm. Recent media reports indicate that since 2019 the Government of the People’s Republic of China has newly constructed, expanded, or fortified at least 60 detention facilities with higher security or prison-like features.

In September 2018, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet noted the deeply disturbing allegations of large-scale arbitrary detentions of Uighurs and other Muslim communities, in so-called reeducation camps across Xinjiang . In 2019, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China concluded that, based on available evidence, the establishment and actions committed in the internment camps in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region may constitute crimes against humanity .

Uyghurs and ethnic Kazaks resettled or residing in third countries report being subjected to threats and harassment from People’s Republic of China officials. There is a backlog of approximately 3.6 million visa applicants waiting to enter the United States. Wait times for certain visas are between 5 and 18 years.