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THE TRAGIC CASE OF LIU XIAOBO

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 14, 2017

Serial No. 115–45

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

BRIAN J. MAST, Florida 

FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida 

BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

NORMA J. TORRES, California 

BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York 

TED LIEU, California

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia 

KAREN BASS, California 

AMI BERA, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Yang Jianli, Ph.D., president, Initiatives for China ............................................. 4

Mr. Jared Genser, founder, Freedom Now ............................................................ 23

Perry Link, Ph.D., chancellorial chair for innovative teaching, University 

of California, Riverside ........................................................................................ 29

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Yang Jianli, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................................ 7

Mr. Jared Genser: Prepared statement ................................................................. 26

Perry Link, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................................. 32

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 54

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 55

(1)

THE TRAGIC CASE OF LIU XIAOBO 

FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2017

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order, and good morning to everyone. 

Liu Xiaobo’s premature death was a jarring shock to everyone 

who admired this champion of freedom and democracy. We mourn 

his loss because it is a tragic loss for his wife, family, and friends, 

and a catastrophic loss for China and really the entire world. 

We owe Liu Xiaobo a debt of gratitude because he demonstrated 

that the noble idea of democracy and due process, liberty, and the 

rule of law are not foreign ideas to China. They are universal principles that beat strongly in the hearts of people everywhere, from 

New Jersey to California, to the Nineveh Plain, to Iraq, from Poland to Peru, from Burma to Beijing. 

We owe Liu Xiaobo a debt of gratitude because he reminded us 

that the desire for democracy and human rights is shared by everyone because each person is endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights. 

The Chinese Communist Party has tried to curtail his ideas, they 

call them dangerous and subversive, and they seek to silence, censor, and repress them. Yet they live on in the hearts of untold millions of Chinese people. 

With Liu Xiaobo’s death we also reminded of the words of Dr. 

Martin Luther King who said, ‘‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to 

justice everywhere.’’ We should all agree that what was done to Liu 

Xiaobo and his wife Xia was a grave injustice. 

Liu Xiaobo’s imprisonment in 2009 became a death sentence. The 

blame for this should lie squarely on the Chinese Government, and 

for his death, they alone, should be held accountable. Liu Xiaobo 

was the first Nobel Peace Prize winner to die in state custody since 

Carl von Ossietzky died after being held in a Nazi concentration 

camp. 

Two days ago, we heard the Chinese Government complaining 

that it was stabbed in the back by those expecting it to deal quickly 

2

with its client state of North Korea. How shameful it is to play the 

victim card while the victim of their own repression lay dying. 

No nation should be judged entirely by crimes of the past, but 

this crime, the death and silencing of Liu Xiaobo, should follow the 

Chinese Communist Party like an unwashable permanent stain. 

We must never forget Liu Xiaobo’s enduring contributions, whether 

during the Tiananmen massacre where he helped save the lives of 

many students, or with Charter 08, the treatise urging political 

and legal reforms in China based on constitutional principles. 

We must not forget Liu Xiaobo. We must advance and preserve 

his legacy and repeatedly confront the Chinese Communist Party 

with his ideas and his memory. In this time of need, we must signal the Congress’ unanimous support for Liu Xiaobo’s family, his 

wife Xia, and all those bravely standing up for human rights and 

liberty in China. 

I was invited by Liu Xiaobo’s family to attend the 2010 Nobel 

Peace Prize ceremony. It was a moving ceremony. The now famous 

empty chair, and we have a photograph of that over on my right, 

speaks volumes of the Chinese Communist Party’s abiding fear 

that human rights and democracy will undermine its power. 

I will always remember the words of Liu Xiaobo’s speech that 

day—of course not given in Oslo—about the importance of pressing 

for human rights. ‘‘Freedom of expression,’’ he said, ‘‘is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of 

truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, 

stifle humanity, and suppress truth.’’

He also expressed his hopes for China’s future. He said, ‘‘I firmly 

believe that China’s political progress will not stop. And I, Liu 

Xiaobo, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future 

free China. For there is no force that can put an end to the human 

quest for freedom, and China will be in the end will become a nation ruled by law where human rights reign supreme.’’

Liu Xiaobo would, sadly, never see a free China. Chinese authorities have gone to great lengths to stifle his ideas and those who followed him. In recent years, the government of President Xi Jinping 

has engaged in an extraordinary assault on the rule of law, human 

rights, ethnic minority groups, and civil society. As China’s economic and military power grows, more and more countries will be 

afraid to raise subjects that the Chinese Communist Party wants 

to make taboo. 

The U.S. stands alone, inadequate as its efforts are at times, in 

its willingness to keep on raising human rights issues that need to 

be raised. The U.S. cannot lightly shrug off the mantle of being democracy’s defender no matter how heavy that mantle may become. 

It is tempting to be pessimistic about China’s future and the future of U.S.-China relations. But I am not pessimistic, and taking 

a cue from Liu Xiaobo, none of us should be. Constant repression 

has not dimmed the desire of the Chinese people for freedom and 

reform, and, of course, that is attributed to the great work of Liu 

Xiaobo. 

Nevertheless, the U.S. cannot be morally neutral or silent in the 

face of the Chinese Government’s repression of fundamental freedoms. Human rights are not a secondary interest, but one critically 

3

linked to all issues in China, including U.S. economic and security 

interests. 

The U.S. must not shy away from meeting with China’s other 

Nobel Laureate, the Dalai Lama, or other dissidents. We must use 

congressionally authorized sanctions to hold Chinese officials accountable for torture and gross abuses, including those proscribed 

in the International Religious Freedom Act and, of course, the 

Global Magnitsky Act. 

We must connect Internet and press freedoms as both economic 

and human rights priorities. And we must demand repeatedly and 

clearly that unconditional release of political prisoners is in the interest of a better U.S.-China relationship. 

I believe that someday China will be free, someday the people of 

China will be able to enjoy all of their God-given rights, and a nation of free Chinese women and men will honor and celebrate Liu 

Xiaobo as a hero. He will be honored along with others like him 

who have sacrificed so much and for so long for freedom. 

I yield to my distinguished ranking member, Karen Bass. 

Ms. BASS. I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today. I 

extend my condolences to Liu Xiaobo’s family and friends on his recent passing. 

Chairman Smith, you have long been a champion, as demonstrated by your actions over the years and today. 

The loss of Liu Xiaobo has once again brought attention to the 

issues of human rights in China. Tragically, his imprisonment and 

passing is a reminder of the importance of monitoring the treatment of those who have been imprisoned or who have lost their 

lives fighting for freedom, freedoms like the freedom of religion, 

speech, press, and the right of people to peacefully assemble, as 

well as the often-implied freedom of association. 

Central to those freedoms is the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Liu Xiaobo spent the final months 

of his life appealing to the Chinese Government to allow him to 

leave China to receive cancer treatment, and even in his final request he was denied. 

He could have lived a quiet life as an academic, a scholar, a writer, but instead he decided to challenge the status quo and actively 

engage in efforts for democratic reform. He leaves behind the embers of democratic principles that will be fanned by generations to 

come. 

I yield. 

Mr. SMITH. I thank my good friend for her comments. 

I would like to now recognize our very distinguished panel, beginning with Yang Jianli, who was born in Shandong Province in 

northern China and graduated from college at the age of 19. A rising star in the Chinese Communist Party, Yang Jianli quickly became disenchanted by the corruption and duplicity he witnessed in 

the Communist system. 

He left China to pursue a career in mathematics at UC Berkeley. 

In 1989, at the age of 26, his fellow graduate students at Berkeley 

elected him to go back to Beijing in support of their counterparts 

in China who were demonstrating for democracy in Tiananmen 

Square. After escaping the gruesome massacre, he dedicated his 

entire life in promoting a peaceful democratization. 

4

He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from UC Berkeley. But of 

significance, when he returned to China in 2002 he was put in prison for 5 years. Upon his release he founded Initiatives for China. 

So he knows the inside of a gulag. 

And we thank him for being here, especially with the loss of his 

brother-in-law. And he will be going to that funeral right after 

here. He wanted to be here so badly. 

We will then hear from Jared Genser, the founder of Freedom 

Now and managing director of Perseus Strategies. Previously, 

Jared was a partner in government affairs at DLA Piper. He is a 

visiting fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy. His 

human rights clients have included Vaclav Havel, Aung San Suu 

Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel. 

He holds a B.S. From Cornell and a master’s in public policy 

from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He 

got his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law 

School. 

He is an author of ‘‘The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Commentary and Guide to Practice,’’ and he is a co-editor of 

‘‘The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass 

Atrocities in Our Times.’’

And I want to thank him for his tenacious leadership for Liu 

Xiaobo and other wonderful and leading dissidents around the 

world. 

Then we will hear from Perry Link, who is professor emeritus of 

East Asian studies at Princeton University and chair for Teaching 

Across Disciplines at the University of California at Riverside. He 

has published widely on modern Chinese language, literature, and 

popular thought. As a member of the Princeton China Initiative, 

Human Rights Watch Asia, and other groups that support human 

rights, he has authored many, many books, and he has testified 

here in the past as well. 

I would like to go to Dr. Yang. 

STATEMENT OF YANG JIANLI, PH.D., PRESIDENT, INITIATIVES 

FOR CHINA 

Mr. YANG. Chairman Smith and Ranking Member, I had a sleepless night. At this grievous moment I would like to thank you for 

holding this critical hearing. It is critical for us to discuss how we 

can still lend a helping hand to assist Liu Xiaobo and his family 

and how we can fight to honor the legacy of his courage and sacrifice. 

Liu Xiaobo’s tragedy represents the tragedies of many human 

rights activists in China, but it is also unique in its own way. In 

all of the Nobel Peace Prize history there have only been three 

jailed laureates, but among them Liu Xiaobo is the most tragic one. 

Liu Xiaobo had been held incommunicado since December 2008 

until he became terminally ill and was eventually allowed a visit 

by a German doctor and an American doctor after the pleas to Xi 

Jinping from both President Trump and German Chancellor 

Merkel. 

During his entire imprisonment he was not allowed even to talk 

about any current events with his wife Liu Xia during her visits, 

nor the persecutions Liu Xia and her family suffered. Even on his 

5

deathbed he had no freedom to leave his last words. Now that he 

is gone, the world will never know. 

Liu Xiaobo’s cancer was diagnosed on May 23 during an emergency hospital visit because of internal bleeding. And since then he 

had been hospitalized in the First Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. However, the news of his 

late stage cancer was not leaked out until late June. 

During this time his tumor enlarged from 5 to 6 cm to 11 to 12 

cm. It is reported that Liu Xiaobo had two CT tests last year. How 

can two tests—two tests—fail to reveal Liu Xiaobo’s fairly large 

liver cancer tumors? Many, including myself, suspect that the Chinese officials intentionally concealed this information. This is why 

they have been withholding his medical records. These records are 

classified as a top state secret. 

I strongly believe that the Chinese regime deliberately chose not 

to treat Liu Xiaobo’s cancer earlier. As early as 2010, Liu Xiaobo 

was suspected of suffering from hepatitis B. His lawyers had been 

petitioning the government to grant him medical parole. But the 

Chinese authorities never allowed him proper diagnosis and treatment. 

In China it is not doctors, but the party officials to decide whether to grant medical parole. In other words, medical parole in China 

is a political, not a medical decision. 

In Liu Xiaobo’s case, it was up to China’s top leaders to decide. 

The denial of medical care led to Liu Xiaobo’s advanced liver cancer 

and at its core was a disguised death sentence. 

When Liu Xiaobo’s worsening condition became public, human 

rights activists, 150 Nobel laureates, and world leaders called for 

Liu Xiaobo’s immediate release and medical treatment overseas. 

Liu Xiaobo himself also expressed his wish to seek medical treatment abroad and to die in a free place. 

Unfortunately, the Chinese regime carelessly disregarded these 

requests. After persecuting him for so many years, the regime still 

did not even hesitate to crush his final wish. 

I believe the reason that the Chinese regime denied Liu Xiaobo’s 

wish and the world’s appeal to allow him medical treatment abroad 

and to die in a free place is that it fears that the truth of its ruthless persecution will come to light. The world media would focus on 

Liu Xiaobo and the regime’s lies would be exposed. More and more 

people in China would see the true nature of this one-party state. 

The government would lose control. 

No doubt, the Chinese Communist regime is responsible for Liu 

Xiaobo’s death. However, the world’s democracies’ appeasement 

policy toward China’s human rights abuses has made them accomplices of Liu Xiaobo’s slow murder. 

If the world continues to acquiesce to China’s aggression against 

its own people, engaging it without any moral clarity, Liu Xiaobo’s 

tragedy will repeat. 

Mr. Chairman, the U.S. can and should do more to help Liu 

Xiaobo and his family. We should urge the Trump administration 

to make it a high priority to urge China to grant Liu Xia full control over any funeral arrangements for her late husband and to 

help Liu Xia to leave China for a country of her choosing. 

6

The U.S. should implement country-specific and tougher sanctions against those personally responsible for Liu Xiaobo’s death. 

The U.S. should use the Global Magnitsky Act as a tool to sanction 

them, banning them from travelling in the U.S., and freezing their 

assets in this country, and also encourage its allies to do the same. 

It should also consider trade sanctions. 

In addition, the U.S. can honor Liu Xiaobo’s life and legacy by 

passing legislation to permanently rename the street in front of 

China’s Embassy in Washington, DC, as Liu Xiaobo Plaza. 

To fight for the ideals of human rights and democracy Liu Xiaobo 

give up his career, he gave up his freedom, and now he has given 

up his life. But we cannot give up on him. We have to seek justice 

for his death at the hands of China’s regime, and we have to preserve the legacy of Liu Xiaobo’s struggle for a democratic, free 

China. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yang follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Dr. Yang, thank you for your eloquent and moving 

and enlightened recommendations and testimony. 

Mr. Genser. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JARED GENSER, FOUNDER, FREEDOM 

NOW 

Mr. GENSER. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Bass. It is with a heavy heart and after a tragic day yesterday that 

I appear before you this morning. 

Undoubtedly, Yang Jianli and Perry Link, who were friends with 

Liu Xiaobo, will be able to bring to life who he was as a person and 

will be able to speak better than me to his life and to his legacy. 

Sadly, I never met Liu Xiaobo, and now I never will. 

The intersection of my life with Liu Xiaobo came only after he 

had been convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison for inciting 

subversion of state power. I was introduced to Liu Xia by my friend 

and colleague Yang Jianli. 

It was Jianli, among many others, who 20 years ago inspired me 

to become a human rights lawyer, as we helped organize the protest against Jiang Zemin when he visited Harvard in the fall of 

1997. And 5 years later I served as Jianli’s lawyer when he was 

detained in China and faced a death sentence on the pretextual 

charge of being a spy for Taiwan. It was in mid-2010 that I was 

introduced by Jianli to Liu Xia. 

What I can uniquely speak about today, however, is the brutality 

of the Chinese Government and its fear of change, for I have seen 

through the intense and unrelenting persecution of Liu Xiaobo and 

Liu Xia some of the most horrific, callous, and inhuman acts that 

go beyond the power of an ordinary and normal person’s power of 

imagination. 

Over the summer of 2010 I got to know Liu Xia as we began preparing to take her husband’s case to the United Nations. As the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize approached that year it was 

rumored he was on the short list, and Liu Xia and I discussed if 

it made more sense for her to travel abroad to fight for her husband’s freedom or to remain in China. Despite the concerns I expressed to her that she would not likely remain free if Liu won the 

prize, she told me unequivocally, ‘‘My place is in China with my 

husband.’’

Shortly after he was announced as the recipient of the prize in 

October 2010, the security cordon came down and she was placed 

under house arrest, and she has been held without charge or trial 

ever since. 

I had the tremendous privilege and honor to represent the Lius 

in Oslo and to sit in the front row as the prize was presented to 

the empty chair. But I know and I knew on that day that the prize 

was awarded that getting them both out would be a virtually impossible task. 

For myself, while I expected her ability to communicate or travel 

to be restricted, I never could have imagined how much the Chinese Government would punish Liu Xia for the crime of being married to her husband. 

She was held in a one-bedroom apartment in Beijing, one of the 

most popular cities in the world, and for the first several years virVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:09 Aug 01, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\071417\26226 SHIRL
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tually incommunicado, with a security guard posted outside of her 

door and security at the front of the building to turn people away. 

She had no telephone, no Internet access, and was only able to see 

her parents once a month and was taken to see Liu Xiaobo once 

a month. She suffered severe depression and had a heart attack. 

On a handful of occasions journalists broke through the security 

cordon, captured brief images of her, clearly in intense agony. To 

punish her for these incidents the Chinese Government prosecuted 

her brother Liu Hui on bogus economic crimes charges and sentenced him to 11 years in prison, and he served some 2 years-plus 

in jail. She was captured by one journalist and she was taken to 

his trial crying out, ‘‘Tell the world I am not free.’’

In her latter years under house arrest and with her own health 

deteriorating rapidly, she was allowed to be in touch with a very 

small number of friends, but the pressure on her was unrelenting. 

We don’t know anything, anything at all, about how Liu Xiaobo 

has been treated in prison. The last time he said anything that was 

reported publicly was when he was sentenced to prison in December 2009. All we know is that he was held in extended solitary confinement throughout this time, which constitutes torture under 

international law, and we know that Liu Xia was able to visit him 

monthly, and we know that with all of its resources at the disposal 

of the Chinese Government it neglected his medical care so much 

so that it had no idea he had liver cancer until it had reached 

Stage 4 and was terminal. 

As the Lius’ counsel I fought their cases aggressively in every 

forum that I could find. We took their cases to the U.N. Working 

Group on Arbitrary Detention, and in response to our submission, 

the Chinese Government remarked regarding Liu Xia’s detention, 

regarding her Kafkaesque existence, that she was ‘‘under no legal 

restriction.’’

That was perhaps actually literally true. She had been held actually illegally without charge or trial now for almost 7 years. The 

U.N. found that they were both held arbitrarily and in violation of 

international law. 

We secured a letter from 134 Nobel laureates urging President 

Xi to let them go, which was joined by 450,000 people around the 

world whose petitions we had delivered to a half dozen Chinese 

Embassies. And we published countless op-eds, testified before parliaments, held candlelight vigils, and did everything possible to 

persuade governments around the world to act. 

In the last few weeks we have seen President Xi and the Chinese 

Government at its worst. 

First, their leaders were pressured not to tell anybody about Liu 

Xiaobo’s cancer diagnosis. 

Second, when they were able to make it public they were held 

virtually incommunicado at the hospital. 

Third, the Chinese Government flagrantly lied about his conditions to the international community to justify him not being able 

to travel abroad for medical treatment. 

Fourth, after a German and American doctor found he would 

have actually been able to travel abroad and there were treatments 

that could have extended his life for several weeks, the Chinese 

hospital published a statement asserting that the doctors, those 

25

foreign doctors, had actually said that he had gotten excellent care 

and was too sick to travel abroad. 

Once the foreign doctors put out their own statement refuting 

what the Chinese hospital said, the government retreated back to 

telling the international community not to interfere with its internal affairs. 

And fifth, as if Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia had not suffered enough, 

in his dying days not only were family and friends denied the ability to visit and to tell him good-bye, but they were never even allowed to be alone with each other. The entire time, a Chinese security official was with them around the clock. And in the end, President Xi showed no humanity and no mercy. 

If this is how China treats its most famous political prisoner, it 

is self-evident that the brutality of the Chinese Government in repressing its own population is as complete as it is unapologetic. 

Truly anything can be justified in the name of the greater good. 

Yet despite the tragedy that Liu’s freedom has come from his 

death, it is clear today that the Chinese Government has lost. Liu’s 

ideas and his dreams will persist, spread, and will one day come 

to fruition. And his courage and his sacrifice for his country will 

inspire millions of Chinese activists and dissidents to persevere 

until China has become the multiparty democracy that Liu knew 

to his core was within its people’s grasps. 

So what do we do from here? The work is clearly not done in so 

many different respects. First and most immediately, the world 

must rescue Liu Xia. She must immediately be allowed to have 

open communication with the outside world, and her wishes for the 

burial of her husband and relocation of herself and her family must 

be fully honored. Given Xia is under ‘‘no legal restriction,’’ this 

should be easy to achieve. 

Second, the world must never forget Liu Xiaobo and what he 

stood for. I would urge all freedom-loving countries around the 

world, starting with the United States, to rename the street in 

front of the Chinese Embassy Liu Xiaobo Plaza. The Chinese Government is literally erasing him from existence in China. If you 

type his name in Chinese in the WeChat program online, for example, his name is instantly erased. The Chinese Government should 

never be allowed to forget Liu Xiaobo. 

And finally, the best way to honor the legacy of Liu Xiaobo would 

be for the United States and so many other countries around the 

world to stand in solidarity with the Chinese people’s struggle for 

freedom, democracy, and human rights. 

As I noted before, the last time the world heard from Liu was 

in a statement released his by his counsel on December 25, 2009, 

right after he was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment. Liu said, 

‘‘I have long been aware that when an independent intellectual 

stands up to an autocratic state step one toward freedom is often 

a step into prison. Now I am taking that step, and true freedom 

is that much nearer.’’

It is tragic that Liu was only free when his soul left his body, 

but the legacy he left behind will never be forgotten. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Genser follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Genser, thank you very much. 

Dr. Link. 

STATEMENT OF PERRY LINK, PH.D., CHANCELLORIAL CHAIR 

FOR INNOVATIVE TEACHING, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 

RIVERSIDE 

Mr. LINK. I would like to join my fellow witnesses in congratulating Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, Representative 

Suozzi, and everyone on this committee, not only for this session, 

but for the many sessions you have done in the past and I hope 

will continue to do in the future. They truly are important. 

In order to challenge a repressive regime like the one in China 

today, a regime that demands comprehensive control of society and 

resorts to extreme brutality if it perceives a threat to itself, a person needs to make a judgment that speaking the truth is more important than personal safety. Dozens of Chinese in recent decades 

have accepted those stakes, have persisted in speaking honestly in 

public, and have suffered dire consequences. 

Liu Xiaobo stood out within this courageous group because of his 

truly unusual determination. He went to prison four times, yet 

none of the punishments deflected him in the slightest from his 

view of the truth or from his willingness to express it. 

Three related events during the years 2008 to 2010 turned him 

into China’s most prominent dissident. 

One was his sponsorship of the citizen’s manifesto called Charter 

08, which is the only public document since the Communist revolution in 1949 that calls for an end to one-party rule. 

Second is the 11-year prison sentence that was the consequence 

of having worked on that charter. And third was the 2010 Nobel 

Peace Prize, which came as a consequence of the prison sentence. 

So you can see there is a chain of causality there. 

Intellectually, Liu was one of those unusual people who could 

look at human life from the broadest of perspectives and reason 

about it from first principles. His keen intellect noticed things that 

others only look at but don’t see. He was deeply erudite on a variety of topics in history and literature, both Eastern and Western, 

ancient and modern. 

His remarkable habit of writing free from fear was so natural 

and routine that it seemed almost genetic, almost something that 

he himself could not stop. Most Chinese writers today, including 

many of the best ones, write with political caution in the backs of 

their minds and with a shadow hovering over their fingers as they 

pass across a keyboard. How should I couch things? What topics 

should I not touch? What indirection should I use? 

Liu Xiaobo did none of this. With him, it was all there. What he 

thought, we got. 

The combination of Charter 08 and the Nobel Prize seemed for 

a time to open an alternative for China, a new alternative. Chinese 

citizens had long been accustomed to the periodic alternations between more liberal, so-called, and more conservative, so-called, tendencies within Communist rule, as if those limits described how far 

one could think. 

But Charter 08 removed the blinkers and showed that there 

could be another way to be a modern Chinese. It was hard to find 

30

Chinese people who disagreed with the charter once they read it, 

and this potential for contagion was clearly the reason why the regime suppressed it. 

Today, the severe tightening of controls on Chinese society that 

has come during the last few years under the rule of Xi Jinping has 

pushed China in the opposite direction from what the charter stood 

for, and the question, therefore, arises, is the charter dead? Was 

the effort in vain? 

This question is difficult, but my answer would be no. The movement has been crushed, but its ideas have not been. The government’s assiduous, unremitting, and very expensive efforts to repress anything that resembles the ideas in Charter 08 is evidence 

enough that the men who rule are quite aware of the continuing 

potential of the ideas to spread. 

Liu Xiaobo has been compared to Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, 

and Aung San Suu Kyi, each of whom who accepted prison as the 

price for conceiving and pursuing more humane governance in their 

homelands. But Mandela, Havel, and Suu Kyi all lived to see release from the beastly regimes that repressed them, and Liu Xiaobo 

did not. 

Does this mean his place in history will fall short of theirs? Is 

success of a movement necessary in order for its leader to be 

viewed as heroic? Perhaps so. 

It may be useful, though, to compare Liu Xiaobo and China’s 

President Xi Jinping for a moment. The two men differ in age by 

only 2 years. During Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution both missed 

school and were banished to remote places. Xi Jinping used the 

time to begin building a resume that would allow him, by riding 

the coattails of his elite Communist father, to vie one day for supreme power. Liu Xiaobo used the same time to read on his own 

and learn to think for himself. One of them mastered the skullduggery and sycophancy that a person needs in order to rise within a 

closed bureaucracy. The other of them learned to challenge received 

wisdom of every kind, keeping for himself only the ideas that could 

pass the test of rigorous independent examination by himself. For 

one of them, value was measured by power and position. For the 

other, by moral worth. 

Today, after their final standoff, one of them has ‘‘won,’’ the other 

has ‘‘lost.’’ But 200 years from now who will remember the names 

of the tyrants who sent Mandela and Havel and Suu Kyi to jail? 

Will the glint of Liu Xiaobo’s incisive intellect be remembered or 

the cardboard mediocrity of Xi Jinping’s? 

I have just a few extra comments on his final days. 

Before Liu Xiaobo died of liver cancer in a prison ward in a 

Shenyang hospital, he asked for safe passage for himself, his wife, 

and his brother-in-law to go to Germany or the U.S. The two Western governments agreed, but the Chinese Government, saying Liu 

was already receiving the best possible medical care and was too 

weak to travel, did not. 

Until then Liu had always rejected suggestions that he leave 

China, primarily because dissidents who leave China lose credibility back home. Moreover, Liu had made it his personal mission 

to show exactly what happens, right to the last detail, when an 

independent thinker confronts an authoritarian regime. 

31

We do not know why he changed his position in his last few 

days, but we can guess that the reasons, and I have two guesses. 

One is the obvious one, that he was critically ill and transfer 

abroad might have been the only chance, however slight, to save 

his life. 

Second, and I think this is really the more likely, he knew that 

his death was imminent and wanted to spend the last of his energies to help his beloved and long-suffering wife Liu Xia, who has 

been held under house arrest for the last 7 years even though formally charged with nothing and who has had bouts of severe depression. 

But if Liu’s reasoning cannot be known, and now it cannot be, 

there can be no doubt whatever about the reasoning of his captors. 

Their concerns had little to do with medical care one way or the 

other and much to do with preventing Liu Xiaobo from speaking 

his mind one last time. 

What did he see as he lay dying for a world in which China’s 

beastly dictatorship continues to grow? China’s rulers are no doubt 

relieved to see that the answers to that question are now, with his 

very life, sealed in eternity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Link follows:]

32


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35

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Link, thank you so very much for that eloquent 

and heartfelt message. 

We are privileged on the subcommittee to be joined by Leader 

Nancy Pelosi, who has been tenacious in her advocacy for Liu 

Xiaobo and other dissidents in the People’s Republic of China. 

I would like to yield such time as you like to consume. 

Ms. PELOSI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is such a 

sad day for all of us who were so hopeful that we could have seen 

an opportunity for medical care to be given to Liu Xiaobo in the 

last days of his life to extend his life, the life of this great man. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your ongoing, consistent, persistent advocacy for human rights throughout the world, and particularly in this case in China. You and I have worked on these 

issues for decades. Your staff said to me, ‘‘You are now sitting on 

the Republican side.’’ When it comes to these issues there is no 

side. We have always worked in a very strong bipartisan way, and 

I have always saluted your leadership, as well as our colleague 

Frank Wolf from Virginia, who was also very relentless. 

I have seen Dr. Yang’s testimony and Mr. Genser’s testimony 

and heard Dr. Link’s beautiful statement, as well. I just wanted to 

make a statement for the record. 

I just was being interviewed over in the Capitol for a statement 

on this, and what I partially said was: The world grieves the loss 

of Liu Xiaobo, one of the great moral voices of our time. His clarion 

call for democracy and human rights in China represented the best 

hopes of humankind. His courage became a poignant symbol for 

freedom-loving people across the globe. 

Liu Xiaobo’s death is a tragedy and a deep affront to the basic 

notions of justice and human dignity. The role that poor medical 

care in prison played in his death and the cruelty of confining a 

dying man in captivity away from his family and friends should 

disturb us all. His arrest for the so-called crime of putting his political views into writing is a sobering reminder of China’s shameful 

disregard for basic freedoms. 

The world is a bleaker place for this crushing loss, but we must 

continue to carry forward Liu Xiaobo’s legacy. America must honor 

its moral duty to speak out in defense of the many journalists, 

human rights lawyers, democracy advocates, and religious freedom 

advocates unjustly and unfairly lost in jail simply for aspiring to 

a more free and hopeful future. 

If we do not speak out for human rights in China because of commercial interest [audio malfunction in hearing room.]. 

Two weeks ago, I was pleased to join Congressman Chris Smith, 

co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, as 

the House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolution calling 

for the unconditional release of both Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu 

Xia. We strongly hoped that China would heed the call to free Liu 

Xia for unjust house arrest and will allow her to travel wherever 

she may choose. 

I just want to join Dr. Link in his comments about Liu Xia. 

Reading from Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel lecture in absentia on December 

10, 2010, he said in this: ‘‘If I may be permitted to say so, the most 

fortunate experience of these past 20 years has been the selfless 

love I have received from my wife Liu Xia. She could not be present 

36

as observer in the court today,’’ he was talking about the court. 

‘‘But I want to say to you, my dear, that I firmly believe your love 

for me will remain the same as it has always been.’’

More things, but, ‘‘Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high 

walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking 

every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me 

to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart. Even 

if I were crushed into powder I would still use my ashes to embrace 

you.’’

I think that he has given us our direction. We must work very 

hard to protect Liu Xia, hopefully to bring her and brother-in-law 

of Liu Xiaobo out of China. I will take my guidance from Chairman 

Smith. We talked about a number of ways to honor the memory of 

Liu Xiaobo and to honor his love of his wife. 

I am particularly happy that Congresswoman Karen Bass is with 

us today. She is a person who respects the dignity and worth of 

every person. She works hard for children in our own country and 

is a supporter of the dignity and worth of people throughout the 

world. 

Thank you, Congresswoman Bass, for making this a priority for 

us. 

And, again, under your leadership, Mr. Chairman, you will give 

me some guidance as to what you think the best path is to go, but 

I will close by saying: May Liu Xiaobo life and legacy continue to 

inspire all who strive for justice and democracy. May his memory 

be a blessing to us all. And may his family take some solace in 

knowing that the whole world mourns with them. 

And, Dr. Link, I don’t think it is going to take 200 years. I think 

right now and very soon the contribution, the legacy of Liu Xiaobo 

will certainly eclipse the authoritarians of China. 

With that, I thank the chairman and yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Leader Pelosi, thank you very much for your eloquent——

Ms. PELOSI. I am honored that the chairman——

Mr. SMITH. And we are joined by the full committee chairman, 

the distinguished Ed Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much, and 

Leader Pelosi. 

It is a sad day. Yesterday was a very sad day. A sad day for 

human rights. I was deeply saddened to learn of Nobel Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo’s tragic passing. I think the world mourns. Our 

thoughts are with his loved ones, especially his widow, Liu Xia, 

who has been under house arrest now since 2010. 

Liu was a prolific writer. He was an academic. He dedicated his 

life to giving voice to the oppressed. And he did this by calling for 

his government to grant more freedom to the Chinese people. 

He was imprisoned multiple times, and he was imprisoned for 

his peaceful protests for human rights and for democracy in China. 

It happened first during Tiananmen Square in 1989 and later for 

releasing the Charter 08 manifesto in 2009, which articulated the 

need for reforms in China. Those reforms, it was his intent, would 

achieve the rule of law, would achieve freedom of press and speech 

and religion. 

37

He was an inspiration to all of us. Liu’s efforts were not in vain. 

His sacrifice and death while in the custody of the Chinese Government, while serving an unjustified 11-year prison sentence, has 

shined a light on the sad state of human rights in China. 

As we take stock of these sad events, we should remember that 

there are prisoners of conscience in China and around the world 

who continue to need our support. Let us be part of his legacy. May 

the bravery of Liu Xiaobo inspire us to seek their freedom also. 

And thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Royce. 

And, again, thank you, Leader Pelosi. We were together in Oslo. 

Ms. PELOSI. What an honor. 

Mr. SMITH. And what an honor. And what a heartbreak this is. 

Hopefully, Liu Xiaobo’s death will be a global pivot to human rights 

in China, and we certainly have to do our part in doing that. 

Mr. Suozzi. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we are very 

rushed for time because we have to go over for votes. 

But I just wanted to say, Dr. Yang, my condolences to you. 

Mr. Genser and Dr. Link, thank you so much for your life’s work 

and for your testimony, as well. 

It is hard to imagine when we are in this air-conditioned room 

that is so august and in this setting to think of the suffering that 

went on in his life and now goes on in his wife’s life and in so many 

other people’s lives, from cancer to depression and heart attacks 

and suffering. And this is going on all over the world right now in 

people who are trying to fight for human rights and fight for 

human dignity throughout the world. 

And his life is such an inspiration to me and I know to so many 

other others, and we are so grateful to all of you for helping to 

bring notice to this important message. 

You know, China right now is trying to participate in the modern 

world through its economy. But economic improvement is not a 

substitute for respect for human dignity and human rights. 

And I want the chairman to know and the ranking member to 

know and the leader to know that I will do everything I can to 

work with them to support efforts to make sure that this life was 

not a life in vain. 

So thank you so much for everything that you do. 

[Speaking foreign language.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

We will take a brief recess. We have votes on the floor. It is actually on zero, so we are going to have to run, but we will be right 

back. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will resume its sitting. 

And, Dr. Yang, I know you do have to go to the funeral of your 

brother-in-law. And, again, my greatest sympathies to you and 

your family. But, please. 

Mr. YANG. I have a few further points to make, then I can leave. 

Mr. Chairman, Liu Xiaobo represents the best of what China can 

be, in death as well as in life. He possesses a moral authority that 

his persecutors can only envy. His legacy of love, just as in courage, 

will surely far outlive the deeds of those who persecuted him. 

38

Liu Xiaobo was a major leader of the 1989 democracy movement. 

He shouldered moral and political responsibility after Tiananmen 

Square, continued to fight inside China for its constitutional democracy while many left the country and even left the movement. 

He shared the suffering of his compatriots and made great sacrifices for them. He is a saint. His spirit will be an uplifting and 

unifying force that will inspire more people of China to fight to realize his dream, indeed the common dream of Chinese people. 

To the world, he represents the universal values that all democracies embrace and the unwavering struggle of unfree people for 

freedom. Liu Xiaobo is a representative of ideas that resonate with 

millions of people all over the world. 

But it is a sad and disturbing fact that many leaders of the free 

world, who themselves hold democracy and human rights in high 

regard, have been less willing to stand up for those rights for the 

benefit of others. If this became a widely accepted fashion and continued, the democratic way and the security of the free people 

would eventually be in jeopardy. 

Today I cannot help asking, what kind of a government would 

refuse to grant the final wish of such a peaceful, kind of man as 

Liu Xiaobo, a man who sincerely believes that he has no enemies, 

to die as a free man, to die with dignity? What kind of a government would not even allow him the last moment of being with his 

beloved wife without surveillance? 

This is a totally morally bankrupted regime. Dealing with such 

a regime, one must have moral clarity. There is a lot of talking 

about engaging with China, yes, no one can avoid engaging with 

China. But democracies must engage China comprehensively. Democracies must engage this brutal face of this regime and must not 

look the other way when human rights tragedies take place. The 

Chinese Government can never be considered a true trusted peer 

on the global stage until they address their egregious human rights 

violations. 

The tragic passing of Liu Xiaobo gives us a stronger sense of urgency to help other dissidents. I am afraid that more human rights 

activists will languish and disappear in China’s prisons: Wang 

Bingzhang, Hu Shigen, Zhu Yufu, Ilham Tohti, Tashi Wangchuk, 

Wang Quanzhang, Jiang Tianyong, Tang Jingling, Wu Gan, Guo 

Feixiong, Liu Xianbin, Chen Wei, Zhang Haitao, the list goes on. 

If American advocacy for human rights and justice is to mean 

anything at all, the U.S. Government must do more to support 

these political prisoners and to hold accountable the government 

and the individuals who so brazenly abuse their fundamental 

rights. 

We all hoped that Liu Xiaobo would one day complete his unjust 

prison sentence and then have more time to share his passion and 

energy for human rights and dignity; and also, perhaps, one day 

to have time to enjoy for himself the fruits of freedom. But instead 

he is gone. 

To close, I want to share with you the beautiful words of Martin 

Luther King, Jr., which he delivered in a speech in Memphis, Tennessee, on the evening before his own death:

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We have got 

some difficult days ahead. But it really does not matter 

39

with me now, because I have been to the mountaintop and 

I don’t mind. 

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity 

has its place. But I am not concerned about that now. I 

just want to do God’s will. And he has allowed me to go 

up to the mountain. And I have looked over, and I have 

seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But 

I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get 

to the promised land.

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Yang, thank you for your passion and precision 

and how we present. It is just couldn’t be clearer the stark difference between the gross evil of what is done by the leadership of 

the PRC and a man of light of Liu Xiaobo’s character. 

So thank you for your—all three of you—thank you for bearing 

witness to the noble truth of this man and what he stood for. 

I note again, Dr. Yang, in your testimony you pointed out that 

the denial of medical care led to Liu Xiaobo’s liver cancer, and it 

was at its core a disguised death sentence. To not treat, certainly 

no early detection, and as you point out in your testimony, as far 

as back as 2010 Liu Xiaobo was suspected of suffering from hepatitis B. 

His lawyers—and, Mr. Genser, you spoke about this many 

times—petitioned the government and kept asking to grant him A 

medical parole to get the healthcare, the health attention that he 

needed rather than languishing in a horrific jail cell. 

I think the other story that needs to be told by the media globally is this whole death sentence. It wasn’t like he got Johns Hopkins-like medical care or Sloan Kettering-grade medical care. He 

was ignored. The evidence clearly suggests that they did nothing 

or very little. And to deny his request to go to Germany or to here 

to get the kind of care he needs and to turn that down shows a 

barbarity that just needs to be confronted aggressively. 

Like I said earlier, I think this needs to be the pivot to human 

rights in his legacy, of course, but because there are so many others still suffering horribly in laogai and throughout the Chinese 

concentration camp system. 

And when Xi Jinping goes to Davos and talks about transparency 

and openness, it is a cruel joke. And I am glad that the administration did put China on Tier 3 for its egregious abuses with regards 

to sex and labor trafficking. Magnitsky needs to be full throttled 

in its implementation to hold individuals to account. 

The International Religious Freedom Act, which has China as a 

country of particular concern, or CPC country, carries with it at 

least 18 prescribed sanctions that can be very, very potent if utilized. They have not been. There has to be a response to this the 

likes of which we have never seen before. 

As you said so eloquently, Dr. Yang, a disguised death sentence. 

For what? For peacefully asking for fundamental freedoms and 

human rights. 

So if any of you would like to comment on this lack of medical 

attention, which is appalling, please do. And I do have some other 

questions. But any other points you would like to make, as well, 

we would like to receive. 

40

Mr. YANG. Mr. Chairman, I have to leave right now. 

Mr. GENSER. I do want to build on Global Magnitsky. And my 

view is—and I will work on this myself—is I would like to put together a comprehensive list of everybody who was responsible for 

Liu Xiaobo’s arrest, trial, imprisonment, and care, or lack thereof, 

from the prosecutor, to the judge, to the person who ran his prison, 

to the hospital where he died. 

It seems to me that we can put together a list of a dozen or 15 

names of people that are directly responsible for what happened to 

him. And that should be among a number of different things that 

are done to send a very clear message about where the United 

States stands in regards to those who are actually responsible. 

There will be no justice and accountability, of course, for anybody 

in China. But there needs to be some measure of justice and accountability for Liu Xiaobo as part of his legacy and to send a very 

clear signal about there being consequences to decisions that are 

being made at all levels of government in China. So that is what 

I would just have to say on Global Magnitsky. 

Mr. LINK. It is worth noting, I think, that the pattern of having 

political prisoners die in prison in China is a pattern. It is not just 

that Liu Xiaobo was the first one. A few years ago a woman named 

Cao Shunli, who is not nearly as famous as he is, was ground to 

death. She disappeared about September 15 on her way to go to 

Geneva for a report on human rights in China. The police took her 

into prison. And she was released 6 months later in a coma, given 

to her family after it was clear that she would not live but not 

wanting her to die in prison because the regime is afraid of that 

black eye on its record. 

I would like to make another point, though, as we remember this 

man. I think it is important that we—and by ‘‘we,’’ I mean the 

whole world—recognize him as a world-class person, not just a 

China person. We China scholars have the problem, I think, of 

thinking that he speaks for China, and he is talking about Chinese 

human rights, and we are dealing with the Chinese Government. 

And all of that is true. But he speaks to the whole world. 

In my statement a moment ago, I referred to Mandela and Havel 

and Aung San Suu Kyi, all of whom are viewed as world-class upholders of freedom and human rights, and he should be too. 

I noticed on the PBS television program that announced his 

death last night, I was waiting to see which China scholar would 

come on and talk about it. But they didn’t have a China scholar. 

They had a man from India who represented Amnesty International, and I thought that was wonderful. Because the point is 

he speaks for all of humanity, not just Chinese humanity. 

And in that connection, I think it is good that this subcommittee 

is on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. That is a very good step toward saying 

what Liu Xiaobo stood for is universal human rights, not just 

China. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, Dr. Link. You have testified before, 

and I appreciate your testimony you have provided us on the whole 

university, the 12 campuses—like NYU, for example, Kean College—in China, on Mainland China, and then all the Confucius 

centers? 

41

Has there been any response over the last 2 weeks. We passed 

a resolution—I authored it, it was cosponsored by Leader Pelosi, so 

it was totally and absolutely bipartisan, and it passed unanimously 

in the House 2 weeks ago—calling for Liu Xiaobo and his wife and 

family to be able to come here or wherever they would like to go 

for medical treatment. 

Have we heard anything on those campuses or at the Confucius 

centers about the life and the tremendous legacy and the work of 

Liu Xiaobo. 

Mr. LINK. The Confucius centers are on living, breathing, U.S. 

campuses. So it is certain that some people on those campuses notice these things and support them. 

I haven’t done a survey of what the Confucius Institute’s leaders 

themselves have done, but I feel very confident in saying, no, they 

wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. They get money from the 

Hanban in China. And without it being in written form, know that 

there are certain things you just don’t do. You don’t entertain the 

Dalai Lama or Liu Xiaobo or the Falun Gong problem or Tibet or 

Xinjao or the Beijing massacre. There is a list of about two dozen 

utterly untouchable topics that Confucius Institutes just don’t observe. 

Mr. SMITH. My hope is—and we will, as the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which I also co-chair with Marco 

Rubio—I think it would be very timely for us to write them and 

ask them to raise the issue of Liu Xiaobo’s widow, Liu Xia. You 

know, NYU Shanghai campus, and I did speak there a little over 

a year ago, on human rights. And, of course, Liu Xiaobo was one 

of the first things I said there. 

But they have, I think, an obligation, I would say a moral duty 

to speak out, because they tell us that they have academic freedom 

and the ability to speak in an unfettered way. And you are right. 

There are economic interests intertwined. But the hope would be 

that America’s voice—and I would say not just America, a universally important, universally recognized human rights voice needs to 

be articulated now. 

There needs to be a pivot to human rights. The old days have 

to be over of just thinking that backdoor diplomacy and mentioning 

it, you know, under your breath is going to work. It is not going 

to work. It has not worked. 

We had a number of women testify here before our subcommittee 

just recently, all the wives of human rights lawyers who have been 

detained pursuant to that crackdown by Xi Jinping. And to hear 

them tell their stories about, you know, their husbands, and them, 

because they suffer equally. The idealism is just breathtaking. And 

yet they are in prison. 

Same way with the five daughters hearing that we had of all of 

those young Chinese daughters who couldn’t even get a meeting 

with President Obama. And they pleaded with us to tell him, 

please let us talk to him face-to-face, he has two daughters, he will 

understand. They never got the meeting. And they were articulate 

and they were daughters that just spoke out so articulately and 

bravely on behalf of their dads who are suffering like Gao Zhisheng 

and others. 

42

So I think that is something we need to do, is to get at least 

these U.S. universities, which should or used to be beacons of academic freedom and human rights and inquiry, to raise the issue of 

Liu Xiaobo’s widow, and the work and legacy of Liu Xiaobo himself, 

and Charter 08, the great manifesto. 

Mr. LINK. I think it is a brilliant idea to have you or others in 

the Congress write to all of the American campuses, especially the 

prestigious ones who have accepted Confucius Institutes, first asking the question, saying, a Nobel Peace Prize winner has died in 

police custody in China, surely, this is a topic worth note. What has 

your institute done about it? And then go on to ask the question, 

what are your plans for helping the wife? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Link. 

Mr. Garrett. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for convening this meeting. 

And my apologies, candidly, to our guests. The timing is not the 

best. But, obviously, it coincides with this tragic loss of the life of 

a vocal leader for human rights around the world. 

It strikes me that the balance that the United States maintains 

with China is an interesting one, that we might be to a greater extent than perhaps in any era in recent history rivals. And yet we 

are arguably codependent upon one another economically and globally. 

The paramount interest of our office, and I think my constituents, based on my listening, is that there would be peace and stability and that there would be a fundamental right to an opportunity extended to people within the Fifth District of Virginia, the 

United States, and, candidly, globally. And pardon me if I don’t do 

service to Liu Xiaobo’s name. 

But when a person of this magnitude exercises the moral courage 

which we have witnessed in this country through the statements 

and actions of people like Patrick Henry and Martin Luther King, 

Barbara Johns and Abraham Lincoln, it is, indeed, as you say, 

something that should be taken note of by the world. While folks 

of my political ilk might sometimes find fault with some of the selections of the Nobel Committee, I think they could have found no 

more appropriate recipient than Liu Xiaobo. 

And one of the things that I have crusaded for as a member of 

the statehouse and now the Congress is a greater awareness by 

Americans of who Barbara Johns was. She was a 16-year-old girl 

who led a student walkout in Farmville, Virginia, in the early 

1950s, which really sparked the civil rights movement in Virginia, 

and did so at the imperilment of her own life, and that of others, 

and did so at a time when at a similar age I was concerned with 

popping zits and whether or not I could get a prom date. 

And so sometimes I wonder what we do well here, what we can 

accomplish here. But, to this end, I would say, Congressman Smith, 

gentlemen, folks in the room, that the more people we can get to 

go to Google and type in Liu Xiaobo’s name and understand what 

he did in the face of the odds in which he did it, the more Liu 

Xiaobos there will be. 

I guess, to the extent that we can help, I commend you on raising 

the awareness and teaching about folks who we might not agree 

43

with on every single piece of subject matter, but who stand for fundamental truths that no one who is an America can deny, and that 

is that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator 

with certain rights. 

And so I suppose I will take my time here to query both of you. 

What, again, within the purview of the legislative branch of the 

United States Federal Government we can do to ensure that his 

legacy doesn’t die with his physical body, to insist that an important trade partner and member of the world community, China, understands that we give a damn—pardon me—and to encourage 

greater freedom and opportunity across the globe, and do so wherever practical and possible without bombs and bullets and missiles 

and rockets, but brave men and women who are willing to stand 

up in the face of potential imprisonment or worse. 

So I would offer first Mr. Genser the floor for suggestions. What 

can we do within the purview of Article I to help perpetuate the 

legacy of this great leader to convey to our Chinese partners that 

we care, that we will not sit by idly as members of, say, for example, the Falun Gong, are imprisoned on the eve of what was supposed to be a meeting with U.S. leadership? What can we do to 

abate my fear that when spouses of imprisoned dissidents show up 

before this committee they have only made their family’s circumstance worse? 

Mr. GENSER. Thanks, Congressman Garrett, for your remarks, 

with which I fully agree, and your commitment to human rights, 

as well. Let me just mention a couple of things that I think are important that the Congress could be particularly involved in helping. 

The first, of course, and most importantly, is to help get Liu Xia 

and her brother out of China as rapidly as possible. We need to restore access to them and then confirm their wishes and get them 

out. And that should be a top priority. 

And I think that pressure by having this hearing today, pressure 

by moving a bill that is focused on Liu Xia and her brother, we 

have also been talking about a private Member’s bill that would 

give them legal permanent resident status immediately upon arriving in the United States, these are things that Congress can do. So 

that would be number one. 

Number two, Liu Xiaobo Plaza, renaming the street in front of 

the Chinese Embassy for Liu Xiaobo, I think, is a way that the 

United States and governments all over the world—I am sure, we 

will be campaigning for this—for all countries in the world to rename the streets in front of the Chinese Embassy Liu Xiaobo 

Plaza. This is something that, obviously, has to go through the 

Congress, and then go to the President for signature. 

Number three, justice and accountability. And I was just mentioning, as well, having a list of those responsible for Liu Xiaobo 

and Liu Xia’s deaths, to have the Congress advocating to have 

them sanctioned under Global Magnitsky and to make clear that 

this is why they are being sanctioned. 

And then let me just step back broadly and make a final point, 

which is something that—I have spent my career as a human 

rights lawyer fighting for the freedom of prisoners of conscience. I 

spent 5 years Aung San Suu Kyi’s international counsel. I have 

represented more than 40 prisoners of conscience over my career 

44

and founded Freedom Now, my NGO, on whose board I sit, which 

has a full-time staff in Washington and London to work on these 

cases. 

One of the things I think the U.S. needs to do more directly, and 

I think the Congress could play a key role in a legislative context, 

is to focus our foreign policy on the world’s prisoners of conscience. 

Because it seems to me that we have annual human rights reports, 

and that is really good, and prisoners of conscience are kind of a 

narrow piece of it, but a more focused set of activities for the 

United States to focus on prisoners of conscience. 

Because what we have found historically—and we were talking 

about a lot of different, obviously, names, people like Havel, people 

like Mandela—is that the prisoners of conscience of today are the 

leaders of their countries tomorrow, and that for the United States 

to stand in solidarity with homegrown pro-democracy activists, not 

the United States imposing our values or our form of government 

onto others, but embracing those that within their own countries 

see the value of democracy, the value of human freedom, and to 

systematically as part of our foreign policy and engaging with 

every country in the world, any country that is persecuting prisoners of conscience, our engagement with that country, not just 

from the State Department or the National Security Council, but 

from every agency, can be focused on a list of names that would 

be raised, focused on training Foreign Service Officers to do these 

kinds of things, focused on reporting requirements for the State 

Department about what is being done to help these people. 

What is interesting is that if you look at the case of Natan 

Sharansky, who of course was a Soviet dissident, whose wife, 

Avital, met with President Reagan, a mentor of mine in my career, 

Irwin Cotler, was his counsel and had a chance to talk to Gorbachev about, ‘‘Why did you release Natan Sharansky?’’

And what Gorbachev said was really telling, and I think really, 

really important, which was to say that, ‘‘Well, I didn’t know who 

this guy Natan Sharansky was until I was’’—many years before he 

became the President of the Soviet Union he was Minister of Agriculture. And he came to the United States on some kind of agricultural exchange and discussion about, well, agricultural issues. And, 

yet, on the U.S. side, our Agriculture Secretary raised to him 

Natan Sharansky’s name in a meeting about agriculture. 

And one of the first things he did when he became President, he 

told my friend and mentor, Irwin Cotler, was to ask the secret police, the KGB, for the file of Natan Sharansky, because he had 

heard about this in many meetings with U.S. Government officials 

over and over and over again. And it was like, why is the Agriculture Secretary doing this? And he looked at the file and he was 

like, well, this makes no sense, why is this guy in jail? And ultimately he was released. 

And so, to me, that is an important lesson for the United States, 

that prisoners of conscience and helping people of this sort isn’t 

just the responsibility of some narrow Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Labor, and Human Rights to be raising, but that it has 

to be part and parcel and central to U.S. foreign policy as a strategic tactic to be regularly deployed to try to advance human freedom around the world. 

45

So let me conclude with that. 

Mr. GARRETT. So to some degree the Sharansky case was almost 

a ‘‘ye have not because ye ask not.’’

Mr. GENSER. Right. 

Mr. GARRETT. One thing that I probably unintelligently voiced 

my frustration with, and I have only been here for a short time, 

is that I don’t feel that we have synergy between the executive and 

the legislative as it relates to working together. We have worked 

on the release of some prisoners of conscience, particularly in the 

southern Nuba Mountain regions of the Republic of Sudan, and I 

almost feel like the State Department wants to know why I care. 

God bless the good men and women there, but we should be 

working together to advance the same goals. And wherever any 

human being is held prisoner based on beliefs, unless those beliefs 

advocate violence against other humans, why can’t we all agree on 

that, right? 

So thank you immensely, and I would love to speak to you briefly 

after the hearing about what you do, because I think we might be 

able to help to the same, I think, admirable goal. 

The only thing that I have been able to do in 6 months here that 

I can take pride in and take to my grave is help affect the release 

of individuals held because of their beliefs, right? It is hard to pass 

a bill. But when you tell somebody the United States of America 

is looking and cares about some formerly nameless individual in 

prison because of their faith or their actions of humanity toward 

another and something happens, then you go, maybe this is all 

worth it. Thanks for what you do. 

Dr. Link, what else, within the context of the legislative role of 

the Article I constitutional underpinnings of this body should we be 

doing that we are not doing? And, by the way, I texted my legislative director during your comments to get us on the bill that is out 

there as it relates to the plaza, the Liu Xiaobo Plaza. 

Mr. LINK. Let me add my voice to the chorus that says that the 

Liu Xiaobo Plaza is a great idea. I really strongly endorse that, and 

also endorse what my colleague Jared Genser said in some more 

detail about focus of foreign policy on prisoners of conscience. 

I think it is often perceived that we do that because it makes us 

feel better. And that is good. We should feel better. It is right to 

do the right thing and we are better people for doing it. But what 

he has pointed out is that it is also an investment in practical 

terms in a better world, because these people that we are helping 

emerge—Havel did, Mandela did, Aung San Suu Kyi did, Liu 

Xiaobo can’t, but there are more—it is a good investment from a 

practical point of view. 

I would add a third, which Jared sort of mentioned, but I would 

put it this way, and that is the bully pulpit is a good thing to use. 

It sounds like we are just pontificating, preaching and so on, and 

that there might be backlash. But I think that is not right. Even 

the leaders, even the oppressors in China, at another level, know 

that democracy and human rights are a good thing. Watch the way 

they put the word democracy in their own rhetoric. Stalin, Lenin, 

said they had democratic centralism. Mao Zedong said it was democratic centralism. North Korea, the most repugnant state on the 

46

face of the globe today, calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic 

of Korea. 

There is a two-leveledness in the psychology of the oppressors. 

They want it both ways. On the surface, okay, the West is bad, the 

West’s values are not universal, and they are oppressing us, and 

so on. But I am going to send my daughter to Harvard. Xi Jinping’s 

daughter went there. Send them money. 

I am from California. The Los Angeles area is full of communities that are built on money—probably corrupt money—shipped 

from China that the privileged elite in China wants to ship abroad. 

They send their kids to go to U.S. schools more and more and 

more. 

So what does this say? Does this say that they hate Western values? No. It is a rivalrous feeling. And at one level they say, we are 

all against you. But at another level, we are sending our children 

and our money to your country for safekeeping. 

So that gives us a platform on which to say, without apology, democracy, freedom, human rights are good things. And they may say 

on the surface, no, no, no, no, no, that is Western imperialism. Underneath, they know it is not. A lot of them know it is not. 

Therefore, I think what I have just called the bully pulpit, when 

our officials go to the G20 meetings, when they go to the United 

Nations, or through VOA and Radio Free Asia, don’t be embarrassed to put our values out there. There is more to them than the 

tyrants in China want to admit. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you, Dr. Link. 

I would beg the chairman’s indulgence for another question that 

is tangentially related and not directly related. But your comments 

have got the wheels turning a little bit. 

There is some call from various sectors to, in order to exert pressure on the Chinese to exert pressure on North Korea, consider 

rolling back admissions of Chinese students to U.S. universities. 

My immediate reaction is that we don’t have a Sisi in Egypt if 

there is not a period of learning and experiencing American culture, that we don’t have any number of leaders abroad who have 

turned out to be pretty good allies if they hadn’t spent time here 

in the United States. So there is back-end value to having the children, even of the Chinese ruling class, in American institutions. 

Having said that, the secondary argument is there is a rivalry, 

there is a need for engineers and software developers and expertise, and there is a competitive nature to it whether we like it or 

not. And our institutions are producing the young women and men 

who are beating us at our own game, if you will. 

I would love your opinion on the idea that somehow denying access to our universities might advance goals as it relates to human 

rights and stability and safety on the Korean Peninsula and as it 

relates to geopolitical stability and security, which might manifest 

itself differently based on the regions from which our excellent 

young students might matriculate. This is an opinion question. 

There are no wrong answers. 

Mr. LINK. As a broad principle, I would say that it is good for 

us to take the children of anybody if they are smart enough to get 

through the universities and do well, and that the long-range effect 

47

of a U.S. education on the children of the Chinese elite is a good 

thing. And I work in the university. 

I make certain exceptions for that though. About a week ago a 

Wall Street Journal columnist named Bill McGurn called me up, 

and he asked me what I thought of targeting the offspring of the 

super elite in China and denying them visas to come to Harvard 

and Stanford and Chicago as a method of getting leverage for 

China to cooperate on North Korea. And I said, I think that is a 

good idea. 

So there is an exception there to my broader principle. And I 

would just say I make that exception because it is well known that 

we have no good options on North Korea. And if you bomb and attack, that is going to wreak havoc. It is going to destroy the city 

of Seoul. If you just do what we have done for the last three decades, which is to cross your fingers and hope for the best, that is 

not working either. 

What can we do? China, of course, can play a key role. That 

would be the way to really bring pressure on the North Korean regime. But China won’t. I think the Chinese leadership likes their 

position of being able to waffle and have us constantly begging 

them to help, and they say they will, but then they don’t, and so 

on. That is their endgame. They like that. 

So when Bill McGurn asked me is this a way to get the top leaders’ attention in a very personal way, I said yes. And I would make 

that exception. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you. 

And, Mr. Genser, if you have any comments to that, I would welcome them. I don’t want to freeze you out here. 

Mr. GENSER. I agree with Perry on this. I think as a strategic 

question overall, I think the more that we can expose foreigners to 

U.S. universities the more that our system of government, the system, the free market, our values, will be transmitted. 

But you look at certain countries in the world and their leaders 

send their kids to the United States, and you may have a different 

take on it. So, for example, let’s take Iran. It was reported in the 

media about 1 year, 11⁄2 years ago, that the woman who was actually the spokesperson for the students who took the U.S. Embassy 

in 1979, Masoumeh Ebtekar, who was referred to as Mary back 

then as the spokeswoman, her son is getting his Ph.D. in California. And she is the sitting Vice President of Iran and the head 

of their EPA and has been an unrepentant person with respect to 

everything relating to the United States and including her role in 

taking American hostages. 

Do I think it is a good idea to allow someone like that to have 

their child educated in the United States? Not really. My view is 

that while ordinarily I would never want to punish a child for the 

sins of his or her father or mother, in a case like that, where the 

person is a sitting senior leader and is an unrepentant hostage 

taker, I don’t think that we should be opening up our borders freely 

to people like that. 

And I would note, as well, that among my other clients are 

Siamak and Baquer Namazi, two American citizen hostages in 

Iran, two of four currently. And so Iran isn’t just historically having taken hostages, but it is doing so today. And the current GovVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:09 Aug 01, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\071417\26226 SHIRL
48

ernment of Iran, and particularly the Revolutionary Guard Corps, 

are responsible for that. 

So it does seem to me that one needs to be smart about this and 

not just go with a big hammer and say, well, let’s just not let people in. But I think that strategically the United States can definitely use access to our university system to send targeted messages in the right way and in the right time. 

Mr. GARRETT. So, Mr. Chairman, I will wrap up. 

So, in conclusion, I would ask the yes-or-no question, the succinct 

summary of what you said is, if we target specific individuals and 

paint with a very narrow brush, that there can be an effective outcome. If we paint with a broad brush and essentially say, we are 

not going to have students from country X, it is probably deleterious to our long-term desires. 

Mr. GENSER. Yes. 

Mr. LINK. Correct. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you guys immensely. And, again, Mr. 

Genser, if you will stick around for a little bit, I would be grateful. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Garrett. And I will just 

conclude and then ask if you have any final statements that you 

would like to make before we end the hearing. 

Just for the record, Senator Cruz’s bill to rename International 

Drive Liu Xiaobo Plaza has been hotlined in the Senate. Unfortunately, it has a couple of holds on it, and that is the way the Senate works. One member can hold up a bill. But it is being actively 

pursued there. 

And Mark Meadows, a member of our subcommittee, has introduced H.R. 2537 to rename Liu Xiaobo Plaza. And our hope is as 

soon as that can get approved, the better. And I am very proud to 

be one of the cosponsors, following his lead on that. 

Just one brief point about a whole-of-government approach. We 

recently enacted the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom 

Act, and one of the main parts of that legislation was to have a 

whole-of-government approach so that you don’t get a human rights 

dialogue that becomes a means unto an end, where it is like a culde-sac, you know, everyone talks, everybody leaves, there is no connection to anything else. 

We need the U.S. Trade Representative, we need people in the 

military, particularly when there is a government-to-government 

contact of some kind, to almost, as you pointed out with the Agriculture Secretary and Natan Sharansky, or agriculture officials, 

that they realize that every time they turn around a group of noble 

dissidents are being named as being high priority to the United 

States. When you don’t do that, that speaks volumes as well. 

So that Religious Freedom Act also has prisoners lists by country, which I think has been long overlooked. Some of the dissidents 

in the political sphere get good mention by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which is good. But, again, it often 

stops there. 

So we need this whole-of-government approach so that everyone—and that would go for Members of Congress as well, that 

when we travel we don’t go to China and fail to bring up—particularly if you meet with a leader—the names, and the more specific, 

the better. 

49

I will never forget Frank Wolf and I met with Li Peng back in 

the 1990s. And our delegation, he and I, and our staff, were 

merged with a trade delegation. Thankfully, we got the seats closest to Li Peng, Premier, and we raised the issues specifically of 

names, Tiananmen Square names, went through religious freedom, 

forced abortion. We laid out a human rights case. He sat there almost bewildered. Who let these two guys in? But the whole discussion was about that. 

The next day he met with another group from America, and he 

launched into a tirade about democracy and how they protect democracy, and he was all-on defensive mode, because they have 

much to be ashamed of. 

These are willful acts they have taken. What they did to Liu 

Xiaobo, what they continue to do to his wife, is by design, not by 

default. And so we need to hold them to account. And my hope is 

that this new administration will do a whole-of-government approach. 

And, lastly, I learned a lesson from Wei Jingsheng when he was 

briefly let out of prison to procure the 2000 Olympics for China. 

They eventually got it in 2008, but they wanted it in 2000. A high 

value political prisoner, father of the Democracy Wall movement 

who spent 18 years in prison. He went back in after we met and 

had dinner together—not right away, but when they didn’t get the 

2000 Olympics. 

He said, everybody in America and in policymaking around the 

world need to understand that when you kowtow they beat us more 

in the prison. It follows right through into the prison cell itself, and 

those who administer torture and other horrible misdeeds against 

prisoners. 

When you are tough, predictable, look them in the eyes and say, 

we know what you are doing, we know what you have been doing 

to Liu Xiaobo all these years, and you bring it up every time, they 

beat us less and they treat us better. And people do get out of prison. They often go on parole, but they are at least home. 

And so, again, this pivot to human rights in China that the horrific death, death sentence of Liu Xiaobo, is now that the Western 

governments led by the United States need to say, now we are all 

in, in the legacy and in the great pioneering work that was done 

by Liu Xiaobo. 

So if you would like to conclude, or if Mr. Garrett wants to conclude with any statement, I would just yield to my friends at the 

witness table. 

Mr. LINK. I will tell one anecdote to reinforce the point you just 

made. My wife is Chinese, and she was a protester in the 1989 

events and was sent to a labor camp for 3 years. And she had also 

studied law. And she looked up the law, and it says in the law of 

the labor camps that you can labor only 8 hours a day and they 

were having to labor 14 hours a day. So she said, no, I am only 

going to do 8 hours a day. 

And so the prison authorities organized a group of other prisoners to beat her. And they did. And this was terrible. She suffered 

beatings. 

She snuck out a note via another prisoner who was leaving to 

her mother. Her mother told Human Rights Watch in New York. 

50

Human Rights Watch publicized her case, and immediately the 

beatings stopped, and she only had to work 8 hours a day. 

Mr. GENSER. I will end with an anecdote that is a tragic anecdote, but a reason, I think, for further motivation for us to proceed 

full force on all of these issues, which is that over the years I have 

been in touch with many human rights lawyers in China and 

worked with many of them as well. And obviously I can’t provide 

any names here publicly. But there have been a number of human 

rights lawyers I know that have been vigorously interrogated by 

Chinese authorities, beaten and treated very badly, some of whom, 

of course, have been sent to prison, others not. 

But, unfortunately, Liu Xiaobo’s name has been invoked by the 

torturers in torturing individual people in China in recent years. 

And this is when they are trying to persuade a human rights lawyer who maybe hasn’t been as aggressive yet, as somebody like a 

Gao Zhisheng, where as they are beating them, they say, this is 

pointless, you are never going to succeed standing up to the oneparty system. 

And look at the case of Liu Xiaobo, the world’s only imprisoned 

Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and we are holding his wife with impunity, right? The world knows who he is and can’t do anything about 

it. What hope do you have of standing up to our Government? You 

should just give up right now. 

And this is the refrain that the torturers use as they torture people, or certain people, in China. And to me this is both 

unsurprising and equally horrific at the same time. But this only 

reaffirms why we need to do everything humanly possible to keep 

Liu Xiaobo’s memory alive and to stand in solidarity with the prisoners of conscience whose names Yang Jianli was mentioning earlier, as well as the countless hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of others we don’t really even know that are suffering. 

We can’t let the anonymous prisoner of conscience be forgotten 

in China because they will do whatever they would like to them. 

And I think that the case of Liu Xiaobo will also be remembered, 

I think in the best sense, for being, hopefully, a line in the sand 

where the international community is able to say to China, enough, 

enough. 

We are mutually interdependent, as I think Congressman Garrett was saying, on trade, on intellectual property, on North Korea, 

around all the things we have to work on. And China can’t afford 

to walk away from its relationship with the United States because 

it gets angry with the United States for raising human rights. It 

isn’t going to happen under any circumstance. And they are not 

going to dump our trillion dollars-plus of Treasuries either, because 

they are smart and they do not want to lose a lot of money. 

So they are forced to deal with us on human rights. And why the 

international community has engaged in so much self-censorship, 

to me, boggles my mind. 

I also agree—I just want to conclude by noting what Chairman 

Smith was saying about these human rights dialogues. I have always joked that, based on friends of mine who have been on them 

on the U.S. side, and I have heard stories about how they go, that 

these actually aren’t human rights dialogues. They are really 

human rights sequential monologues. 

51

And maybe the Congress could force the administration to call 

them that, right? We are no longer going to have human rights dialogues with China. We are going to require them to be publicly labeled human rights sequential monologues if we are going to keep 

doing them. Because it is not like either side is giving anything. 

And the Chinese side, especially, is just giving speeches that are 

prepared and aren’t able to do anything at all. 

So I also, as well, want to conclude by thanking particularly 

Chairman Smith. I am obviously also grateful for Mr. Garrett, but 

particularly Chairman Smith for your commitment over decades on 

China human rights. You have just been indefatigable, relentless, 

and are such an extraordinary champion here in the Congress on 

China rights issues, along with Leader Pelosi and others. 

But the fact that this subcommittee is so focused on China and 

so focused on human rights more broadly, I don’t know what we 

would do without you, Mr. Chairman, being here and your leadership. And so it is always a pleasure to appear before you. And 

thank you for everything you are doing as well. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you. 

You know, you keep stay saying stuff that makes me want to say 

more stuff. So I apologize. 

It is so frustrating. And so earlier, I believe, the IRGC was mentioned in the context of Iran and some of, what, the four Americans 

currently being held by that regime, which obviously as soon as 

they released a certain subset of Americans found some more 

Americans to hold. 

And it strikes me that the regime is undergirded, obviously—and 

we are taking about Iran, not China now, but we are on the same 

subject, which is global human rights—by the perpetuation of the 

IRGC, and specifically the Quds Force thereof. Any group of people 

willing to shoot their brothers and sisters in the face in the street 

is a difficult obstacle to overcome when you choose to exercise 

peaceful means of protest for expanded human rights. 

But what you said that sort of struck a vein was that the Chinese are not going to turn their backs and walk away from us because they are frustrated that we have discussed human rights. So, 

too, I would argue that if you remove the money that supports the 

IRGC, which supports the Quds subset thereof, and arguably 

Hezbollah globally, that you will see a climate wherein things like 

the Green Revolution are more likely to be successful. 

And so I will take this opportunity to chide the nameless masses 

who are more concerned with losing money by virtue of the termination of trade relationships with entities like the IRGC, or in 

some instances even China, than they are with people who have 

done more to perpetuate human rights and individual dignity and 

honor than they ever will, that if we stood up with a unified voice 

and said to the world, you can do business with the United States 

of America or the IRGC, for example, that the world would choose 

to do business with the United States of America. And millions of 

good Iranian people who yearn to have self-determination and freedom and wish to exercise tolerance toward their brothers and sisters could be the leaders therein. 

So keep doing what you are doing. I think the reason there is no 

more hue and cry, candidly, is because folks like Chris Smith, who 

52

have been at this for years, folks like Frank Wolf, who is somebody 

I genuinely admire, were unable to get the message to a broad 

enough subset. But there is nothing in Washington, DC, that I can 

find that transcends political partisanship like the concept that 

every human being is entitled to a basic level of dignity and selfdetermination. 

And I think we can do things. I really do. But I think we need 

to make hard choices and say, you know what, this revenue today, 

this money today, this business opportunity today will be there tomorrow, but right now we need to say no because there are greater 

things at stake. 

So I thank you all for what you do. It is an honor to sit here next 

to you. And, hopefully, we can get more people aware of circumstances like these. Because I think without ever dropping a 

bomb or firing a gun we can bring change that frees human beings 

who have an inherent, God-given, in my opinion, right, to self-determination and freedom. 

Thank you immensely, and I look forward to working with you 

all in the future. 

Thank you, Chairman Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much, Mr. Garrett, for your very 

eloquent summation and your questioning. 

Let me just, if I could, ask you all to join me in a moment of 

prayerful silence for Liu Xiaobo. 

[Moment of silence observed.] 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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