`[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                        BRINGING HOME AMERICANS
                            DETAINED IN CHINA

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

              CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 18, 2024
                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
 
 
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 


              Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
56-796 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2025   


              CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                    LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

House                                Senate

CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey,       JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair
    Chair                            STEVE DAINES, Montana
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts     MARCO RUBIO, Florida
BRIAN MAST, Florida                  TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia            ANGUS KING, Maine
MICHELLE STEEL, California           TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon               LAPHONZA R. BUTLER, California
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa                   SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
RYAN ZINKE, Montana

                     EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

               DANIEL K. KRITENBRINK, Department of State
                  MARISA LAGO, Department of Commerce
                   THEA MEI LEE, Department of Labor
                     UZRA ZEYA, Department of State
                      Piero Tozzi, Staff Director
                   Todd Stein, Deputy Staff Director

                                  (ii)



                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               Statements

Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from 
  New Jersey; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.     1
Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon; Co-
  chair, 
  Congressional-Executive Commission on China....................     3
Statement of Nelson Wells, Sr., father of detained American 
  citizen Nelson Wells, Jr.......................................     4
Statement of Harrison Li, son of detained American citizen Kai Li     6
Statement of Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn 
  Michelle Hunt..................................................     8
Statement of Peter Humphrey, journalist, due diligence 
  specialist, Sinologist, and former prisoner of China...........    10
Statement of Katherine Swidan, mother of detained American 
  citizen Mark Swidan............................................    12

                                APPENDIX
                          Prepared Statements

Wells, Sr., Nelson...............................................    39
Li, Harrison.....................................................    41
Hunt, Tim........................................................    42
Humphrey, Peter..................................................    44
Swidan, Katherine................................................    55

Smith, Hon. Chris................................................    56
Merkley, Hon. Jeff...............................................    57
McGovern, Hon. James P...........................................    58

                       Submissions for the Record

Submission of Jason Ian Poblete, Counsel and President of the 
  Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign..............................    59
Submission of Benedict Rogers, co-founder and trustee of Hong 
  Kong Watch.....................................................    61
Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, ``Foreign Prisoners 
  in China: Abuse, Forced Labour and a Denial of Human Rights,'' 
  a briefing, July 2023, submitted by Benedict Rogers............    62
Submission of Cedric Witek, advocate for detained American 
  citizen David McMahon..........................................    72
Submission of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, Inc..........    74
Submission of Cynthia Sun, researcher, Falun Dafa Information 
  Center.........................................................    77
Submission of Sir William Browder KCMG, head of the Global 
  Magnitsky Justice Campaign.....................................    78
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    81
Witness Biographies..............................................    83

                                 (iii)

 
                        BRINGING HOME AMERICANS
                           DETAINED IN CHINA

                              ----------                              


                     WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

                            Congressional-Executive
                                       Commission on China,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The hearing was held from 10:14 a.m. to 12:29 p.m., in room 
106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 
Representative Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China, presiding.
    Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair, and 
Representatives Steel and Nunn.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 
 FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON 
                             CHINA

    Chair Smith. The hearing will come to order, and good 
morning to all of you.
    We open today's hearing knowing that Pastor David Lin is 
back in the United States after nearly two decades unjustly 
detained. Pastor Lin's crime was that he worked to strengthen 
the Protestant Chinese house church movement. For this, he 
received a life sentence. We are overjoyed for the Lin family. 
This Commission has pressured both the previous administration 
as well as this one. And we're happy that the Biden 
administration helped facilitate his return. So much--the agony 
that all of you here are experiencing, not just today but every 
single day and night--I don't know how you do it. You know, 
it's got to be beyond words cruel what the Chinese Communist 
Party has put you and your loved ones through.
    Despite the release of David Lin, we now know, and we know 
beyond--(off mic)--more than anywhere else in the world. 
Wrongfully detained U.S. nationals are serving--(off mic)--Mark 
Swidan, Kai Li, Nelson Wells, and Dawn Michelle Hunt know these 
hard facts--you know these hard facts all too well. They have 
all languished far too long in Chinese prisons. The Foley 
Foundation identifies 11 wrongfully detained Americans in 
China, including those subjected to exit bans. John Kamm, 
however, the preeminent expert on political prisoners in China, 
estimates that there are 200 or more American citizens 
coercively detained (with 30 Americans being held under exit 
bans, where U.S. citizens are stopped from leaving China) to 
settle economic disputes or to coerce their relatives to return 
to China to face alleged crimes.
    This is absolutely unacceptable. If the Chinese government 
wants to improve relations with the United States, they should 
release Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned without 
condition and unilaterally end the use of exit bans, a form of 
de facto hostage taking that violates Article 12 of the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty 
that the PRC has signed, though it has not yet ratified. And I 
would note parenthetically that they went for years getting all 
kinds of accolades here in Washington that they had signed that 
covenant--(off mic)--that covenant and didn't ratify it. And 
it's not enforceable anyway. But it is a good statement of 
principles, and we wish that they would at least ratify it.
    The release of American citizens should be the first thing 
President Biden says to Communist Party Xi Jinping whenever 
they talk. Their names should be mentioned so often that Xi 
Jinping memorizes them. Their cases should be agenda item No. 1 
at every meeting the Secretary of State has with Chinese 
officials. And every U.S. official traveling to China--and that 
includes Members of Congress, Senate and House, and of course 
members of the administration at every level--they should be 
constantly raising the names of those who are being held--
Americans being held in captivity.
    Every channel of the U.S. Government must be focused on the 
release of wrongfully detained Americans. It's that simple. All 
Americans detained in China deserve robust diplomatic 
assistance to gain their transfer out of prison or at the very 
least, to have more frequent U.S. consular official visits, 
more frequent and longer visits with their families, and better 
access to legal representation and health care, which is almost 
nonexistent. Given the legal system in China, and the poor 
prison conditions, more Americans should be considered by the 
State Department to be unjustly detained. That list needs to 
grow based on the facts.
    How many Americans currently in Chinese prisons receive a 
transparent trial, with a genuine legal defense, in an 
impartial Chinese court? In China's rule by law system, where 
the Party can dictate sentences of guilt or innocence--and it's 
so often guilt--there is none of that. It doesn't exist. (Off 
mic)--of the poor conditions in PRC prisons where Chinese and 
foreigners alike are forced to work long hours, where they are 
often tortured or mistreated by guards and other prisoners, 
where they suffer from insufficient medical care and nutrition.
    Your testimony today about what you and your families have 
endured while jailed should be--and we will submit it as--
evidence of torture to the U.N. Committee Against Torture for 
its upcoming review of China. We need more people speaking out. 
There's been far too few voices. And, of course, the U.N. has a 
golden opportunity, particularly the U.N. Committee on Torture, 
to speak out, and to do so robustly. I will ask our staff to 
work with you to submit your testimony to the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. Mission in 
Geneva.
    But that's just the start, given the number of Americans 
detained and the Chinese Communist Party's willingness to 
engage in this ongoing atrocity. To that end, I will introduce, 
along with Tom Suozzi, a bill that will, among other things, 
direct the U.S. Department of State to create a strategy for 
gaining the release of your family members, gain insight into 
the diplomatic tool the State Department is using for your 
family members--Executive Order 14078, Bolstering Efforts to 
Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals 
Home, seek more transparent information from the State 
Department about the cases of your loved ones, including 
gaining access to the resources Congress allocated to assist 
families with the financial burdens of advocacy.
    I know this is a very tough and emotional day for our 
witnesses, but every day and every night is tough and 
emotional. Again, I don't know how you endure it. No amount of 
words or empathy from us can replace your missing loved ones. I 
hope you know that our purpose here today, in an absolute 
bipartisan way--and Senator Merkley and I work like brothers on 
these issues and we will work very hard. And I know here in the 
Senate, and of course over in the House--(off mic)--not 
personally done enough either, and so it's time we did more as 
well. Thank you so much for being here. Your loved ones are in 
my prayers.
    [The prepared statement of Chair Smith appears in the 
Appendix.]
    I yield to my good friend and colleague, Co-chair Senator 
Merkley.

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON; CO-
       CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for 
convening this hearing. And much appreciation to each of you 
for coming.
    For more than two decades, the Members of Congress and 
executive--(off mic)--who have been unjustly jailed by Chinese 
authorities for seeking to exercise basic human rights. Our 
Commission maintains a Political Prisoner Database that 
currently has 2,764 nationals of the People's Republic of China 
known or believed to be detained. And as the Chairman pointed 
out, the Foley Foundation has a list of about a dozen 
individuals--American individuals wrongfully detained in China. 
But estimates by human rights organizations go up to about 200. 
Two hundred Americans detained. We don't know the exact number.
    What we know is this--even one American detained as a 
political prisoner in China is too many. If an American breaks 
the law in China, that individual can be prosecuted just as a 
Chinese national would be here in the United States. But here's 
the problem--many laws of the PRC are not consistent with--(off 
mic). And the rule of law is undermined by political 
considerations. Now, our U.S. Government has been developing 
some tools to counter this--the executive branch issued 
directives--by President Obama in 2015--to implement an 
interagency response to overseas hostage taking, including the 
creation of a special Presidential envoy for hostage affairs at 
the State Department.
    In 2020, President Trump signed into law the Robert 
Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability 
Act. In 2022, President Biden issued an executive order to 
authorize sanctions against foreign government officials and 
others who are complicit in hostage taking. With these tools, 
and under President Biden's leadership, we have seen a 
decrease--a 42 percent decrease--in the number of detained 
Americans overseas since the peak of 2002, according to the 
Foley Foundation. Now, there have been some high-profile 
returns, including some from Russia, including Paul Whelan, 
Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and others. But not 
every American detained overseas gets a spotlight.
    Today we are putting a spotlight on three individuals, Kai 
Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt, who have been unjustly 
detained in China for eight or more years. We want to hear 
their story from their family members today, because in hearing 
your story we're then able to tell the story. We can tell the 
story to the administration, to the media. Most importantly, we 
can carry that message and work toward their release with the 
government of the People's Republic of China.
    Our Americans in detention suffer from illness and mental 
anguish. We want to make sure they get proper care and counsel. 
But most of all, we want them united with their families. And 
we're joyful that David Lin has been released, that he's now 
reunited. I'm sure--what a celebration that is. But we want a 
celebration for each of your families. Reportedly, China 
wrongly holds more Americans than any other country. We want to 
know why the Chinese government refuses to allow them to come 
home.
    Our U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns has met with 
the three Americans that we're focused on today. Secretary of 
State Antony Blinken raised their cases directly with President 
Xi. But despite these efforts, despite the tools we have, 
representations made, the Chinese government continues to turn 
a blind eye to the suffering and the heartbreak. So here today 
we'll not only hear your stories, but your stories represent 
the stories of so many Americans with family members detained. 
And they'll help inform us of the circumstances, but also help 
us ponder what more we can do, as Chairman Smith has suggested. 
We look forward to hearing from you.
    [The prepared statement of Co-chair Merkley appears in the 
Appendix.]
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Chairman Merkley.
    I'd like to introduce our distinguished witnesses--oh, 
Michelle Steel, one of our commissioners, I understand, has 
just come online. She's going to have a few opening comments.
    Commissioner Steel.

                  STATEMENT OF MICHELLE STEEL,
             A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA

    Representative Steel. Yes. Americans detained in China. As 
already mentioned, there are more Americans detained by the CCP 
than anywhere else in the world. But this doesn't stop at 
Americans. The CCP and other communist governments, such as 
North Korea and Vietnam, are imprisoning journalists, human 
rights defenders, religious figures, and dissidents.
    One of my constituents had been wrongfully detained in a 
Chinese prison for nearly two decades and just returned home 
this week. And David Lin is a pastor from Garden Grove who was 
in China helping--building a church. He can finally see his 
family and meet his grandchildren he never met before for the 
first time in 20 years. Mr. Lin isn't the first person to be 
jailed for life for committing contract fraud. It is appalling 
that the CCP requires Christian churches to pledge loyalty to 
the Communist Party. I'm grateful that he's back in the United 
States.
    I have other constituents who live in fear of their loved 
ones being apprehended by the CCP. One of my constituents had a 
loved one tracked by text messages and arrested by CCP 
authorities while we were in the process of helping them flee 
the country. According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnamese 
authorities have convicted at least 163 people since 2018 for 
exercising their right to freedom of association or freedom of 
expression against the Vietnam communist government.
    And I have written many letters to President Biden with the 
names and sentences of journalists and other prisoners of 
conscience and urging him to take action to secure their 
release. As we speak, I'm advocating for the release and 
protection of Y Quynh Bdap with them and urging his 
resettlement in the U.S. or Canada. He's a Vietnamese citizen 
and U.N.-recognized refugee being held in Thailand on false 
charges by the Vietnamese communist government.
    I have urged the State Department to redesignate Vietnam as 
a country of particular concern, due to their human rights 
abuse. I especially requested that Secretary Blinken prioritize 
addressing Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, who has faced continued 
religious persecution by his government. And I'm hopeful that 
shining more light on the communist authorities falsely 
detaining innocent people will help bring justice to those 
already in prison and prevent future detainments.
    And I'm so happy that Chairman Smith is having this meeting 
today and talking about the detainees--that we really have to 
bring them to a free country. And, you know, our job is not 
done yet, and we are still working. Thank you for having this 
meeting today.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Commissioner Steel. And 
thank you for joining us, and for your leadership, which has 
been ongoing and very effective.
    I'd now like to introduce our very distinguished panel of 
people who are fighting so hard for their loved ones, beginning 
with Nelson Wells, Sr. He's the father of Nelson Wells, Jr., 
and a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. He and his wife, 
Cynthia, who is here with us today as well, now live in 
Haughton, Louisiana. Mr. Wells is a 20-year U.S. Army veteran 
stationed all over the country and world, including a stint in 
the Middle East during the Gulf War. His wife Cynthia worked as 
an Army recruiter for the Department of Defense for 28 years. 
Both are retired and are now advocating full-time for their 
son's release.
    Then we'll hear from Harrison Li, who is a doctoral student 
studying statistics, who has begrudgingly had to become a 
political advocate for his father, Kai Li. Never expected he 
would have to do this. He is originally from Long Island, New 
York, and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He 
serves on the steering committee of the Bring Our Families Home 
Campaign, an advocacy group of families of Americans wrongfully 
detained around the world working together to try to cut 
through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting assistance for 
and information on their wrongfully detained family members. 
His greatest wish is for his father to be home and in good 
health, to see him graduate next spring, after missing his 
college graduation in 2018.
    We'll then hear from Tim Hunt, who is the brother of Dawn 
Michelle Hunt, and a native of Chicago. He attended Whitney 
Young Magnet School and DePaul University and served as a 
Chicago police officer for 28 years. So thank you for that 
service, as well as to you, Nelson Wells, for your service in 
the military. But he worked everything--beat, car, 
plainclothes, bicycle, mounted, and forensic unit roles. 
Serving and protecting the public is a family business, as his 
mother, father, and three uncles were all Chicago police 
officers as well. Tim retired in 2017 and has been advocating 
tirelessly for his sister's release from prison.
    We'll then hear from Peter Humphrey, who is a British 
sinologist who has spent half a century working and studying in 
China and lived there for 25 years as a student, teacher, 
journalist, philanthropist, corporate due diligence detective, 
and then prisoner. In 2013, Peter and his American wife, Yu 
Yingzeng, were wrongfully imprisoned on false charges of 
illegal information gathering. Their only crime was to have 
offended someone with connections in the Chinese Communist 
Party. It was all about revenge.
    Since his release in 2015, Peter created a support network 
for the families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their 
welfare and for their release. Through his work he has become a 
specialist on justice and imprisonment in China and is 
undoubtedly the leading authority on foreign prisoners in 
China. In addition to his work with families and the wrongfully 
detained, he is also an external research affiliate at Harvard 
University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, an occasional 
columnist and documentary advisor, and has been a guest speaker 
at universities and think tanks about China's judicial and 
penal system. I would like to thank you for that great work. 
After suffering so much, you are just giving back so well to 
try to help all the others who have been left behind.
    I'd now like to yield such time as he would like to take to 
Mr. Wells.

           STATEMENT OF NELSON WELLS, SR., FATHER OF 
          DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN NELSON WELLS, JR.

    Mr. Wells. Good morning, Chair Smith, Co-Chair Merkley, and 
esteemed Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on 
China. Thank you for inviting me and our advisor, Peter 
Humphrey, to testify at this hearing on Americans detained in 
China. My name is Nelson Wells, Sr. I am a native of New 
Orleans, Louisiana and live in Haughton, Louisiana. I am 
appearing before you on behalf of my wife, Cynthia Wells, our 
family, and asking for your assistance in bringing home our 
son, Nelson Wells, Jr., who has been unjustly imprisoned in 
China for 10 years.
    I served in the United States Army for 20 years, and 
Cynthia served at the Department of Defense for nearly 28 
years. We have been stationed and traveled all over the United 
States and the world, and most often brought our two children 
with us. In the spring of 2014, we were awakened in the middle 
of the night by a call that no parent ever wants to receive. 
Paraphrasing, the male caller said: I am a companion of Nelson. 
He's in trouble. He's been arrested in China. They're going to 
kill him. Naturally, I thought it was a prank, a scam. We 
didn't even realize Nelson, at 40 years old, was in China. When 
we called his wife in Japan, she learned that he had taken a 
trip to China. And we knew we had a problem.
    Over the next weeks and months, we reached out to the 
United States embassy multiple times to find Nelson, or a 
record of his arrest. But they could not locate him. It was not 
until we contacted Mr. John Kamm at the Dui Hua Foundation that 
we were able to confirm that Nelson had indeed been arrested. 
For Nelson's part, he had been incarcerated all that time in 
China, a country where he was only visiting, where he did not 
read or speak the language, and where he did not know if we 
were looking for him or even knew that he had been arrested.
    Frightened and desperate, Nelson was willing to do anything 
to improve his conditions, even plead partially guilty so that 
he could enter the prison system to be allowed phone calls 
home. Ultimately, we learned that Nelson had been arrested on 
drug charges. As he was leaving the country, he naively agreed 
to carry a bag of what he thought to be baked goods for a so-
called friend through the security at the airport. Those baked 
goods were allegedly laced with illegal drugs. For that one 
mistake, that one betrayal, none of our lives will ever be the 
same.
    Nelson originally received a life sentence, but that 
sentence was ultimately reduced in 2019 to 22 years. We are 
thankful to the Chinese government for that, but his sentence 
did not include time served. This means that Nelson will not be 
released until the year 2041. In the years since 2014, my wife 
and I have become consumed with efforts to secure Nelson's 
release, to ensure his safety and health while in prison. We 
expended almost all of our savings in those early years via 
trial-and-error efforts to help Nelson, without meaningful 
guidance from our own government.
    For years, we wrote letters to our Members of Congress, to 
the White House, to State Department officials, to Democrats 
and Republicans, to anyone who was in a position of influence. 
But our calls for assistance went unanswered, until recently. 
American Citizen Services in Beijing was helpful, but some case 
officers were better than others, and they change frequently. 
One of Nelson's former best case officers is working with your 
committee now, and his current case officer is outstanding as 
well. But no matter how good or how well meaning, with each 
swap it feels like we--like Nelson--is starting all over.
    This inconsistency takes a toll on him, as have the years 
of incarceration. Over the years, Nelson has suffered from 
debilitating chronic pain, seizures, malnutrition, internal 
issues, dental pain, severe depression, and thoughts of self-
harm. We also know that, based on family history, Nelson needs 
regular cancer and heart health screening. He also needs 
regular contact with a mental health professional, regular 
calls, ideally video calls, with us, and the ability to speak 
English with another person on a regular basis.
    We're thankful to those who have helped us, but we often 
feel that meaningful change is blocked at every turn. For 
example, Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or held 
unjustly. We've been told that humanitarian release is not a 
possibility. And although Nelson has also sought to utilize the 
2018 law in China that allows for prisoners to be transferred 
to an American facility without a bilateral treaty with the 
home country, the United States still requires a treaty. And so 
Nelson remains in Chongqing prison.
    Whatever the path, we are asking, pleading with this 
Commission, with Congress, with the administration, and with 
the Chinese government to work together on behalf of our son to 
create a pathway for outright release or prisoner transfer to a 
home prison. I hope you will read my longer testimony and 
attachments so that you understand our full story. I look 
forward to answering your questions during and after the 
hearing. Learn more about 
Nelson, my son, whom I love, and follow our story at 
www.nelsonwellsjr.com. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Nelson Wells, Sr. appears in the 
Appendix.]
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Mr. Wells.
    Mr. Li.

                   STATEMENT OF HARRISON LI,
            SON OF DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN KAI LI

    Mr. Li. Thank you, Representative Smith and Senator 
Merkley, for convening this important hearing. It's been a long 
time coming. All of us here have suffered far too many years. 
And it is about time--it's past time for more attention on our 
loved ones' plight, to bring them home.
    Today marks 2,932 days--that's more than 8 years--since my 
dad, Kai Li, was arrested in Shanghai, China. He spent 2 months 
under ``residential surveillance at a designated location,'' 
during which he was held at a secret location, interrogated day 
and night with no access to legal counsel. Then almost a year 
passed before he was subjected to a closed-door trial, and 
another year went by before he was sentenced to 10 years in 
prison for stealing so-called state secrets--even though these 
alleged secrets can be freely found and searched on the 
internet, even in China.
    More than 3 years ago now, the United Nations Working Group 
on Arbitrary Detention issued a landmark decision calling for 
the release of my dad on the basis that his detention was, in 
fact, arbitrary. And yet, despite all of this, in more than 8 
years we have seen no visible positive movement on my dad's 
case. Since 2022, I am fortunate to have gotten to know a 
really large number of families of American hostages and 
wrongful detainees around the world through the Bring Our 
Families Home Campaign.
    In that time, we've seen the campaign shrink dramatically 
from 18 families now down to just 6. And that's because of 
Americans who have come home from Afghanistan in September 
2022, from Venezuela and Iran in October 2022, Russia in 
December 2022, Niger and Rwanda in March 2023, then Iran again 
in September 2023, Venezuela again in December 2023, Russia 
again last month, and finally, of course, just this past Sunday 
we were thrilled to see that David Lin was finally released and 
reunited with his family after 18 years in China.
    In fact, I got that news just as I was on the train coming 
down here to D.C. And each time we get this news, it's a really 
complex mix of emotions because, of course, you know, we're 
just so thrilled for these families. We know, of course, what 
it's like to have a loved one unjustly missing for so long, and 
to know that the family is finally being made whole again, and 
that they're on the road to recovery. You just can't help but 
feel your heart swell with pride and happiness. But at the same 
time, it raises the question for us, What about my dad? When 
will it be his turn?
    One thing that has become clear to us, in light of all 
these recent developments, is that when the various parts of 
our government--from the State Department to the National 
Security Council all the way up to the President himself--when 
they put their heads together to come up with creative 
solutions, American hostages and wrongful detainees in fact do 
come home. Frankly, it's incredibly impressive seeing how last 
month's Russia prisoner swap materialized, just the sheer level 
of effort and coordination it took really shows that these 
cases can be solved. And now seeing an American finally come 
home from China last week in a major diplomatic breakthrough, 
to us there's really no reason now why my dad--who has now 
spent more time behind bars than Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, 
and Evan Gershkovich combined, cannot come home too.
    Unfortunately, time is not on our side. No matter who wins 
November's Presidential election, we will have a change of 
administration. And we know from experience, unfortunately, 
that that means months or even years where absolutely no 
progress on these cases will be made. And that's because 
communication channels will need to be reestablished, reworked, 
and carefully worked out. The good will that the Chinese 
government has built up by releasing Pastor Lin will fade. And 
so the next few months before President Biden leaves office is 
a critical window for getting my dad home, and getting home all 
of the Americans wrongfully detained in China.
    Personally, I've now spent a third of my life missing my 
dad. Every day, I wake up and shudder at the thought of him 
crammed in that tiny cell with anywhere from 7 to 11 other 
people, no climate control, unable to sleep in the summer due 
to the heat, experiencing the mental and physical anguish that 
Peter here, unfortunately, can tell you about firsthand, having 
spent 2 years in the very same prison and the same brigade 
where my dad is now being held. In his time in captivity, my 
dad has suffered a stroke, he's lost a tooth, he's endured 
draconian COVID-19 lockdowns that had him essentially locked in 
a cell 24/7, for over 3 years. And so I ask President Biden, 
how much longer does he need to suffer? Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Harrison Li appears in the 
Appendix.]
    Chair Smith. Mr. Li, thank you, too, so very much. And for 
pointing out that there is a window of opportunity right now. 
There needs to be a surge. I do hope that whoever wins the 
Presidency will move quickly on this issue as well to bring 
Americans home; but you're right, the chaos, the beginning of a 
new administration can frustrate those efforts. The idea that 
there needs to be a surge right now is well taken. Thank you 
for that.
    Mr. Hunt.

               STATEMENT OF TIM HUNT, BROTHER OF 
          DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN DAWN MICHELLE HUNT

    Mr. Hunt. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, and 
members of the Commission, thank you for inviting me today to 
tell you the story of my sister, Dawn Michelle Hunt. Dawn is 
incarcerated in Guangdong Women's Prison. She was arrested in 
2014 and charged with smuggling, a charge she vehemently 
denies.
    Since her incarceration, I've written hundreds of letters 
to officials, lawyers, and anyone else who would listen. Over 
the years, things have changed. My sister and my family are 
getting worn down. Dawn's health has been failing, and our 
father's health is failing as well.
    It all started when my sister was tricked into believing 
she had won a contest. She received an email stating that she 
had won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hong Kong. She didn't 
believe it at first, but checked on the company and believed 
they were legitimate.
    She was in Hong Kong for 9 days and she told me that the 
organizers treated her well. She went sightseeing, shopping, 
and started to trust the organizers who put together her trip. 
After exploring Hong Kong, she was asked if she wanted to visit 
mainland China. After her positive experience in Hong Kong, she 
agreed. She went to mainland China and traveled around for 
another 9 days.
    The organizers then asked if she wanted to visit Australia. 
Once again, she agreed. Before she left for her Australia trip, 
she was told that she also won some designer purses. Trusting 
the organizers, she took the purses and packed them in luggage 
given to her by the organizers. It was at the airport, waiting 
to board her Australia flight, that she was called by airport 
security. They escorted her to a room and her luggage was in 
the room as well. She was asked if the luggage belonged to her, 
to which she responded ``yes.'' She stated that she was asked 
multiple times, and each time she stated ``yes,'' not knowing 
drugs were in the lining of the purses.
    I hope you can see that something like this could happen to 
a lot of people. As a matter of fact, in May of this year, the 
Secret Service issued a warning for law enforcement to educate 
the public on similar schemes. Such a warning didn't exist in 
2014.
    After her trial she was found guilty and received the 
``death penalty with 2-year reprieve.'' She was duped. She was 
scammed! She trusted the wrong people! She doesn't deserve 
this! My sister is trusting and believes that people are good. 
This ordeal has hurt her and has taken years from her life.
    While in prison she has developed physical ailments 
(uterine fibroids and possibly ovarian cancer) according to the 
doctors who examined her in prison. She has received numerous 
blood transfusions due to heavy bleeding and has been advised 
that she needs a hysterectomy, which she has refused out of 
distrust. How can she trust the same people who have 
incarcerated her after she cooperated with the Chinese 
authorities?
    When I visited her recently in prison, I could see the 
depth of her depression. She has lost weight, her eyes are 
bulging. She has an abdominal bulge on her right side, and her 
complexion is very pale. She told me that she still has to work 
in the prison despite her illness but that she can't lift heavy 
objects because her fibroids might rupture and she would start 
bleeding. After my visit to her, I updated my father on her 
condition. I had to leave out some details of her physical 
appearance because my dad is 91 and has recently been diagnosed 
with cancer. I wanted to avoid giving him an additional shock.
    I'd like to share a bit about my father. He's an Army 
veteran and a retired Chicago Police Sergeant of 32 years. 
Policing is a family business; I followed in my dad's footsteps 
and served on the Chicago PD for 28 years until my recent 
retirement.
    Dawn Michelle is my dad's only daughter and he is 
devastated by her predicament. In a strange way, my dad is 
locked up as well. He is worried that with all this, he's not 
going to live long enough to see his daughter free and safe. 
He's getting worn down, just like my sister. We've gotten our 
hopes up over the years, only to be disappointed again and 
again. This hearing today offers us some new hope that Dawn 
will not be forgotten. I've come to learn that Chinese law 
allows for transfer of prisoners out of China and it doesn't 
require a bilateral prisoner extradition treaty. It is our hope 
that this mechanism can be used by the State Department to get 
Dawn Michelle out of a Chinese prison, get her the medical care 
she desperately needs, and get her back home to her family.
    And I'd also like to add that my sister sent me a 
handwritten letter. And in this handwritten letter, she refused 
the surgery. And she said, and I'm going to quote this to bring 
some of her own words to this hearing: ``I, Dawn Michelle, 
refuse to take the surgery and will hold China liable for all 
the consequences from August 11, 2021, in regard to my tumor 
and safety of my life.''
    I say this because China knows, in addition to the U.S. 
Embassy, that Dawn Hunt is innocent and has been since June 
2016. There is written documentation of the status in the 
courts and computers of Guangdong No. 1 Detention Center. She 
also goes on to say, and I'm going to quote this--she says, 
``The American government has sided with China and knows of my 
innocent status from Judge Zhang Hui Ting in May 2016, but did 
nothing for their own citizen and did not prevent me from 
coming to the Chinese prison but left me out to dry.''
    Gentlemen, this isn't political for me and my family. I'm 
just asking you, as a brother, just bring my sister home. Do 
whatever it takes; just bring her home. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Tim Hunt appears in the 
Appendix.]
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hunt.
    Mr. Humphrey.

    STATEMENT OF PETER HUMPHREY, JOURNALIST, DUE DILIGENCE 
      SPECIALIST, SINOLOGIST, AND FORMER PRISONER OF CHINA

    Mr. Humphrey. Good morning to you all. I have submitted 
detailed written testimony and will keep my oral remarks brief.
    I've spent almost 50 years involved with China in various 
roles. And two of those years were in Xi Jinping's prisons--
also my American wife, Yingzeng Yu, both of us falsely accused 
of illegal information gathering for my due diligence company. 
And I have described this experience in great detail in the FT 
magazine in a long article a few years ago, and in the written 
testimony that I've submitted to you at this hearing.
    After my release, in between battles with cancer, PTSD, and 
a former client who got us into trouble, I decided to work to 
help other families suffering from similar ordeals. I have 
about 25 cases around the world in different countries, and I'm 
mentoring and supporting such families with a loved one locked 
up in China. I've accumulated many case studies and carried out 
a great amount of related research.
    The most important lesson from all of it is that not a 
single American prisoner held in China has had a fair and 
transparent trial, and prisoners there from any other country 
as well, for that matter. China's judicial system is a 
political system of oppression. It is not a system of justice. 
All of its organs--the police, the prosecution, the judiciary, 
the prisons and the Chinese lawyers--form a single organic 
whole, all controlled by the Communist Party. No judge is 
independent or impartial. He is just a messenger of the Party.
    The system is exploited by connected individuals to harm 
their perceived opponents and rivals. Cases are built upon 
forced confessions, often televised, and upon forced witness 
statements. Inside China's prisons, the prisoners, including 
Americans, are subjected to horrendous daily living conditions. 
In addition, there is forced labor for the prison's commercial 
profit. There is the withholding of proper medical treatment, 
even for cancer. And there is the writing of mandatory thought 
reports, in other words brainwashing, to mention just a few 
things.
    And speaking of labor, these are Christmas cards that were 
packaged for a Western supermarket chain called Tesco by 
foreign prisoners in Shanghai's Qingpu Prison, including 
American prisoners.
    The U.S. Government withholds the total number of Americans 
held in Xi Jinping's jails. Based on my inquiries and research 
over the years, I estimate up to around 300 Americans may be in 
some form of incarceration in China or under exit bans, mostly 
just because they are Americans. It is possible that not all of 
them are registered with American consulates.
    Now, just remember, none of them have had a fair and 
transparent trial. Some are in dire health. Some are over 50, 
aging rapidly. Some of them have been in Xi's jails for over 10 
years and are there for life. I don't think any of them deserve 
to be there. It doesn't matter what they're accused of. It 
doesn't even matter whether they are guilty or not, when they 
have never had a fair and transparent trial in an independent 
court with an impartial judge. And in Xi's China, they never 
will.
    Today, we see some new examples of American prisoners 
coming into the public view--Nelson Wells, Dawn Michelle Hunt, 
and David McMahon. They are horrific cases. They are the tip of 
an iceberg. And let me say something about David's case. David 
McMahon is the most egregious case, the most toxic case, the 
most disgusting example of China's injustice. He is one of my 
mentees. I shared a cell with him for 1 month in Shanghai in 
2014, while he was trying to appeal. I interviewed him for a 
whole month. I call it an interview because throughout my life 
I have been a professional interviewer. I've conducted 
thousands of interviews as a journalist, and then as a 
corporate investigator. And I know that David is innocent.
    This American primary school teacher was falsely accused 
and framed of molesting a 6-year-old child, a girl, in the 
Shanghai French School. How toxic can you get? I hope you will 
read the written testimony that I have submitted on David's 
behalf in his absence today, plus the testimony from 
investigator Cedric Witek and ex-prisoner Marius Balo. And I 
hope that you will read the protest letter that David McMahon 
wrote this year personally, on his 43rd birthday, in the 11th 
year of a 12-year sentence on a false conviction--an American 
robbed of his prime by the Xi Jinping system. Or I can read it 
for you, if you want me to. I have it here. I can read a 
snatch, yes? Let me get through this, Congressman, and then if 
you think I've got time I'll read a snatch or two from it, 
okay?
    Today, only three Americans held in China have been on the 
list of the U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs. One has 
just been released, to our joy, probably because of this 
imminent hearing on the calendar, which China was very well 
aware of. The timing seems to be not a coincidence at all. But 
I believe that all Americans held in China qualify to be on 
that list, first of all, because there is no independent 
judicial system and none of them have had a fair and 
transparent trial. And that is the key criterion for qualifying 
them to be on that list based on the Levinson Act.
    It's good that we have this act, but I believe the U.S. 
Government should treat all American prisoners in China 
equally. I believe the U.S. Government must abandon its policy 
of nonintervention in these judicial cases in China and should 
intervene in them all. It has a duty of care to protect its 
citizens against abusive dictatorships and their so-called 
judicial systems. It can lead the world in this pushback like 
no other country can. I imagine that these families wonder 
which candidate in the upcoming election will bring their loved 
one home.
    In the final points and recommendations of my written 
testimony I've called for legislation that would increase the 
onus on the U.S. Government to take real action for its 
citizens imprisoned in China. As Alex Karp, the founder of 
software firm Palantir, said a few days ago: If you touch an 
American, we're going to make you and your friends' life hell. 
And that's the way it should be. Americans are suffering in Mr. 
Xi's dungeons. The United States must hold China to account. 
Just imagine a new kind of Magnitsky Act to target this 
problem.
    So thank you very much. Those are my remarks. If you would 
like me to read from David McMahon's letter, I'll do that.
    ``My name is David McMahon. And I've been imprisoned for 
the past 11 years for a crime that never happened. Maybe you've 
heard of me. I've sent letters to Ambassador Burns and to Roger 
Carstens, but neither has responded to me. I'm hoping you will. 
[``you'' is referring to the Consul General Scott Walker in 
Shanghai.]
    ``I get released, as far as I know, in 1 year. [Actually, 
it's next May.] I think it's probably too late for anyone in 
the State Department to try to help me get released. I'm not 
asking for that anymore. What I'm asking now is this: Why 
didn't you help me when you had the chance? I've read the 
entire Levinson Act. My case qualifies. I've read, copied from 
the SPEHA website, what they consider to determine wrongful 
detention. But when my case was rejected [by SPEHA] they 
refused to tell me why. I don't think you, anyone at the State 
Department, anyone at the FBI, any French law enforcement 
agency, or any of the Chinese investigators can justify what's 
been done to me. I'm not going to try my case in this letter, 
but I will simply state I am completely innocent.
    ``There are approximately 13 U.S. citizens in this prison. 
[By the way, one of them is Kai Li. They're in the same place.] 
The State Department currently is only helping to recognize the 
release of one. [He means Kai]. One out of thirteen. From a 
country where all men are created equal, you only help one 
person?
    ``I remember when Brittney Griner's story was in the news. 
I don't believe for a moment that she was a drug trafficker, 
but let's be clear, she brought a small amount of illegal drugs 
into Russia. Her arrest was not in any way arbitrary. She was 
not arrested because of her race, sexuality, nationality, 
religion. She was arrested because she had drugs on her. And 
while the sentence handed to her was absurd, make no mistake 
about it--she was kind of guilty. Now I look at the Levinson 
Act, and I look at the SPEHA website, and I ask myself: How the 
hell does her case qualify for help?
    ``I'm wrongfully imprisoned. I'm not telling you how to 
feel, but if I worked for the State Department, I'd be ashamed. 
Innocent Americans left to suffer while celebrities are home in 
time for Christmas. I used to think America was better than 
that--but I digress. If you know why my case was rejected for 
help, or if you can find out, I feel that I deserve to know. 
The SPEHA's secret process of deciding who to help and who to 
abandon totally lacks transparency. The decision not to help me 
not only hurt me very deeply, but my entire family. We deserve 
an explanation.''--David 
McMahon, Qingpu Prison.
    [The prepared statement of Peter Humphrey appears in the 
Appendix.]
    Chair Smith. Peter, thank you.
    We have a short video from Kathrine Swidan, the mother of 
Mark Swidan. She could not be here, but she asked that we play 
it right now.

                 STATEMENT OF KATHERINE SWIDAN,
        MOTHER OF DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN MARK SWIDAN

    Ms. Swidan. My name is Katherine Swidan. I'm the mother of 
Mark Swidan. He's been wrongfully detained in China, Jiangmen, 
China, for 3,641 days, nearly 10 years. In a few days, it'll be 
a 10-year anniversary.
    The way I would describe Mark is, he's a good man, he's 
funny, he's very smart, he's also gracious. Loves his mama. 
While I was on the phone with him at his hotel, I heard a lot 
of commotion. And he said, Hold on, Mom. And Chinese police got 
into his apartment. They said, we need to take you in for 
questioning. And the phone hung up. We figured, Okay, he's 
going to be questioned, they'll find out the truth. There's 
nothing there. And they'll let him go. Didn't happen.
    I just can't fathom what Mark is going through. I know he's 
suffering. I received about 300 pieces of artwork, countless 
letters. He said, ``I'm in a lot of pain, physically and 
mentally. I'm in a dark place.'' He's made out on this picture 
to be his own superhero, that nobody's going to help him so he 
has to do it himself. It took 8 years before anyone paid 
attention to me. I feel like I'm one little woman against all 
China.
    When Mark comes home--I say when, not if--but when Mark 
comes home I have to be greeting him coming off of that plane. 
And he said, Mama, I will come home in a box of ashes or 
walking off the plane, but I will come home.
    [Video presentation ends.]
    Chair Smith. Katherine, thank you for producing and 
submitting to this Commission that very moving video about your 
son. I know you're watching and know that, like our very 
distinguished people here who are advocating for their loved 
ones, we will work on that case as well, as a Commission, and 
do everything we can. And Peter, thank you for the way you have 
taken the cruelty you suffered, and your wife, and now have 
turned it into advocacy, and with the precision of a journalist 
asking all the right questions and doing everything you can to 
assist and to get us, in government, to do our part. Because 
again, there are some well-meaning people, but we don't do 
enough. And I think we have to triple our efforts.
    This hearing, to me, is a pivot point for us to take that 
next series of steps. And again, Mr. Li, your thoughts that 
this is a time for the Biden administration to really triple 
its efforts before it leaves--I agree with that. If that does 
not happen, know that we will try, with whomever wins the White 
House, to make this a very high priority. These are Americans. 
These are your loved ones. And we can't sit by and say, Well, 
there's only a few that are on the list. I mean, that is 
absolutely--you know, I love the statement that you gave from 
David McMahon, ``who to help and who to abandon.'' I mean, that 
says it all. All have to be helped! All have to be helped! And, 
you know, I read The New York Times piece, Tim, by Mara 
Hvistendahl, who, parenthetically, has testified before my 
committee in the past. She is an absolute truth teller. And she 
writes for The New York Times. And it was a very moving piece 
that she did. She did quote that your father, I believe it is, 
had said that he believes that she [Dawn Michelle Hunt] has 
been raped by the guards and of all things, a family of police 
officers who have protected innocent people your whole life, 
you know your father, you, your relatives--to have that kind of 
indignity, that cruelty imposed upon her. That, again, 
motivates all of us, I think, to triple our efforts as well. 
And we will, I guarantee it.
    I know, and Mr. Wells, you are concerned about this as 
well--that African Americans have been mistreated, perhaps even 
more so, because of racism. I remember reading extensively 
about how African students in China were mistreated so very 
often. So, you know, there they are studying in China and not 
being well treated. So there is a significant racist issue with 
an undertow of hatred toward Africans and African Americans 
that has to be taken into consideration. All people are equal 
and need to be protected. We need to be aware of that. And that 
needs to come into the equation as well.
    You know, the whole idea of not having a treaty or a way of 
transferring a trickle of people that are on the list--that is 
un-
acceptable. As you said, Peter Humphrey, all these trials are 
sham trials. All these processes that are undergone--if you're 
accused, you're guilty, that's it. And it's just how long 
you're going to serve, and on trumped-up charges to boot. So 
there is no judicial independence. The judges are all part of 
the Chinese Communist Party apparatus. And we need to realize 
that and not put our head in the sand like ostriches, you know, 
and say, Well, we can't deal with that.
    Trumped-up charges--it's the worst game in the book. If I 
go to China tomorrow, they could trump up--I'm barred right now 
from going because of my advocacy. But, frankly, if I go, I am 
always aware that something can be put into my suitcase--
because they come in and they check your suitcases anyway. They 
rifle through them when you're in a hotel. You know, it might 
be harder to do that to somebody that's an elected official, 
but not beyond. Your families are totally at risk.
    So--window of opportunity. We need to surge. But the surge 
has to go right into the next administration. This has to 
become the priority. These Americans have been left behind, and 
Xi Jinping has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that in the 
annals of history he will go down as one of the worst 
dictators. But that doesn't mean everybody around him has to be 
complicit in that. You know, there are people who hopefully 
will say, wait a minute. Time out. The maltreatment needs to 
stop. You know, it brings dishonor to the Chinese Communist 
Party to treat people in this horrendous way, and not honor. 
Yes, they're feared. Big deal. But it brings dishonor and loss 
of face to so mistreat people and trump up charges.
    And I get your point about David Lin. You know, what about 
your families? You were so happy for him to be released, 
joyous. But I understand the sense of disappointment that you 
feel anew. Hope rises, but--and, again, this idea of 
celebrities always getting the additional focus, whatever they 
are. You know, I'm glad that reporters and basketball players--
very glad that they get out. But you're all celebrities, 
especially in the eyes of God. We're all equal in the eyes of 
God. And, you know, all people are equal and need to be treated 
so. So I would ask that all of us focus on that, too.
    The media doesn't cover the hardworking American man or 
woman, or like your sister, Tim, who got tricked. How easy it 
is for them to trick your sister, as they did. So I would just 
ask if you'd want to respond to that--the idea that there 
should be no differentiation between a celebrity and somebody 
who's a good, honest, hardworking person like yourselves. And, 
again, not only the U.S., but the world, has to stop its 
complicity by its indifference. And I know--and maybe you could 
speak to how the State Department has handled your cases.
    I know, because I just chaired a hearing on child parental 
abduction--I wrote a law on it 10 years ago--and they feel that 
they get short shrift from the U.S. Department of State. There 
are great people at the Department of State. But very often the 
individual cases get crowded out by big geopolitical concerns, 
and to me it should be the other way around, because the canary 
in the coal mine is how well or poorly they're treating that 
individual, that vulnerable person. And I think we need to make 
the biggest statement and push for your families. They're 
Americans. They need to be rescued.
    So if any of you would like to speak about how well or 
poorly you think the State Department--and without any fear of 
retaliation. You know, we're all here to work for you. And that 
goes for the U.S. Department of State. It goes for the 
President. Goes for Members of Congress, House and Senate. So, 
I mean, you pay our salaries, you elect us. We have an 
obligation, a duty, to respond as aggressively and as 
effectively as we can. And again, Tim, reading that New York 
Times piece, just, again, the mistreatment, and Mr. Wells as 
well, because they're African American, that's a further 
abomination in this process. So if any of you would like to 
speak to that.
    Mr. Hunt.
    Mr. Hunt. Yes. Thank you, Senator. The State Department, 
American Citizen Services, they have been helpful in some ways. 
When my father went to visit my sister, he actually missed his 
flight home. And when I went to pick him up, he wasn't on the 
flight, and I thought he was detained as well. And I did a 
quick phone call, and the person at ACS, she located him, told 
me, made me feel comfortable. And said, hey, he missed this 
flight. He should be--he's on this flight. He should be on his 
way home. However, as Mr. Wells stated, these officers change 
quite frequently. So it's--I'm not trying to downplay it--it's 
almost as if when you call someone or when you write an email, 
it would be the same as if you have a problem, you call 
customer service, and they say, Oh yes, well, I'm going to 
transfer you to another department, and then you have to 
explain it all over again.
    And unfortunately--I won't make light of it--that's sort of 
how it is. And if it's that way with us, imagine how it is 
trying to get information from the prison about our loved ones, 
if the officers who are taking care of our loved ones continue 
to change. They don't know our loved one's story. They don't 
know if they need medical attention. They don't know if 
they're--what they're going through, because they're new. And 
try as they might, they have to get caught up with each 
individual case. And, just to bring up quickly, it took me 
between six and eight months to visit my sister because the 
Chinese prison didn't submit the paperwork to give to ACS, so I 
could have permission to see her. However, ACS was helpful in 
facilitating my visit. But it took that long for me to have 
that visit arranged.
    Chair Smith. Mr. Li.
    Mr. Li. Yes. Thank you, Chair Smith, for asking the 
question. I will say--yes, I echo Tim's statements about ACS. 
You know, they, for the most part, try their best to help. They 
have been able to push for monthly consular visits for my dad. 
But of course, at the same time, it has varied. We've seen so 
many officers come and go very quickly. So, you know, it's hard 
to maintain that long connection.
    I also wanted to speak to another aspect, which Peter 
touched on, reading from David's letter, about designation of 
cases by the State Department. Now, of course, my father is 
fortunate to be one of the cases that has been designated, but 
obviously that's not the case for the others on the stage. And 
I fully agree that there's no transparency in that process. You 
know, for the first 4 years my dad also was not designated by 
SPEHA. We asked for it and we just got the response--no. You 
know, it's not going to happen.
    I've worked with a lot of other families who are trying to 
go through this process in other countries. And it's really--
it's really the same. You know, the Levinson Act is great, but 
there's no timeline for a response. There's no transparency. 
And it really does seem like families are owed that at a 
minimum. They should be provided the opportunity to be told, if 
no, then why not? And what additional information is needed? 
But to my understanding, that's never been offered to any of 
the families. It's unfortunate that it's creating this kind of 
division. You know, it really should not be the case. And I 
think this process of designation needs to be reviewed 
thoroughly for that reason.
    Mr. Wells. Thank you, Chairman Smith. I would like to say 
that what Tim and Harrison said, I agree 100 percent on some of 
the things. And I share their same pain. But one of the things 
that appalled me the worst is when we called the embassy--and 
they couldn't find my child. It took an outside source to find 
him. And then after they did find him, we didn't know how to 
navigate through this at all, period. So we wondered, how could 
they--you all--support us in trying to get Nelson home? My 
response to what they said was an angry one. And I have spoken 
with an outburst many times on Zoom calls. I guess they 
probably feel they don't want to deal with Mr. Wells.
    And the reason is because I think the policies should be 
improved. I think they should have more power to be able to 
visit, to be able to get the medical records that we are 
demanding for the prisoners. When we asked them if there was 
any way they could advise us on legal representation, they 
said, No, this is not something we can do. So if you're a 
family with no political background or power, you're out there 
all alone. And I believe that the embassy, being that they are 
supposed to support American citizens, should be more 
accountable for helping us in getting the support we need. If 
it hadn't been for Cynthia, as strong as she is, and staying up 
all night, and corresponding with Mr. Humphrey, Mr. Kamm, we 
would probably have never found Nelson. And to me, I think we 
need to do a better job. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Recently, I put together a meeting with 
families--left-behind parents through parental child abduction. 
Like I said, I wrote a law on that. And we had Rena Bitter, 
who's the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, sit in on 
that meeting, as well as other administration people. And the 
beauty of it was she sat across from people who had very 
serious criticisms that needed to be taken into account and 
then rectified. And she walked away after a 2-hour meeting--it 
was just recently we did this--saying, we need to change this, 
we need to work on that.
    I would love if you can come back, whenever you can. We can 
put it together as quickly as you can come. She's a very 
responsive person. She runs it all. There's always a problem 
with crossing into the political side with the assistant 
secretaries who manage--human rights becomes a sub-issue. And 
that's been on every human rights issue, from religious freedom 
to you-name-it. But, again, these are American human rights 
that are being violated with impunity. But I would invite you, 
if we could put together that meeting--we'll do it. And if you 
can come and share this with her and her staff, I think that 
will lead to serious reform. Because she has been responding 
extremely well on the parental abduction issue. And she's done 
that before with some of the issues that we've brought to her 
attention.
    So I would invite you. We'll put it together, a week, 2 
weeks, whatever works for you and her. Roundtable, no press, 
just talk and get it right. Because I think that feedback, they 
don't get it necessarily. It does not percolate up to the top.
    Mr. Humphrey.
    Mr. Humphrey. I'll just pick up on the comments the other 
three witnesses made about service on the ground, as it were--
ACS, etc. I mean, everything Mr. Li said I can certainly 
confirm, because I've been involved in many cases, not just 
some of these here. Their experiences are very, very, similar 
to my wife's as well, because my wife was in prison at the same 
time--an American citizen. And one of the questions that people 
often ask me about our experience is, How well did your 
government perform? How much did they help you? And I always 
answer this in a two-tiered way.
    I say, well, you know, there's the nanny and messenger 
service, first of all. And that's the service provided by 
consular officers who visit people in the prisons. And they're 
allowed to bring messages and letters and sometimes reading 
material, and so forth, and to carry messages from you back to 
your family. I call that the nanny and the messenger service. 
And I say, well, that service is provided very well by the U.K. 
consulate, in my case, and by the U.S. consulate in my wife's 
case. But there's this other level of service--which I think is 
necessary, and that is at the higher political level--which is 
completely lacking.
    So it comes down to, when people visit us, you ask them for 
this or that, you ask them to do this or that. And they say, 
I'm sorry, we can't--we can't intervene in your case. That was 
the phrase I heard many times during consular visits. And my 
wife also heard this phrase many times. And that's wrong. You 
know, where there is no real justice--you can't treat China as 
a country under the rule of law in the way we understand the 
rule of law to be for our own citizens. You have to intervene.
    And finally, in connection with the same issue, after my 
release and when I started investigating my own case, and what 
had happened to me and all the things I didn't know when I was 
behind those walls, I tracked down a former ACS officer--in 
other words a State Department officer--who had been 
coincidentally both the visitor to my wife and the visitor to 
David McMahon at the same time in the Shanghai detention 
center. That's the pretrial detention center. I tracked him 
down and I interviewed him twice for a couple of hours as part 
of my investigation, and he told me how he would come away from 
visits to David McMahon feeling very, very troubled because--
and then he said, there's a film I want you to watch. It's 
called ``The Hunt.'' ``The Hunt'' is a Danish film about a 
schoolteacher who is falsely accused of molesting a young boy, 
and the whole thing balloons into a witch hunt and this poor 
man is almost harassed into suicide. And so he was basically 
telling me that he did not believe David was guilty. He visits 
him--visited him many times in his capacity and he was coming 
away from this thinking, This man is innocent--but I'm not 
allowed to say that.
    And when his superiors found out that I'd been talking to 
him about this--he was silenced. I find this very unacceptable 
and I think it's an illustration of this problem of ``we cannot 
intervene.'' We must. We absolutely must intervene in these 
cases.
    Chair Smith. Senator Merkley.
    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Wells, in your testimony you note that American Citizen 
Services in Beijing was very helpful in arranging visits or 
helpful in visiting, calling, communicating, reporting back. 
Were any of those visits by you or your family or were those 
visits they were conducting and then reporting back to you?
    Mr. Wells. Mr. Merkley, all those visits were from ACS. We 
never had any visits at all, period. All information that we 
get is from them and every communication--we may have phone 
calls that we will engage or some Zoom calls that we set up--
basically they will give us a personal comment as we speak. But 
it's always been emails and done by them.
    Co-chair Merkley. And I assume you've all sought to visit 
but always been turned down?
    Mr. Wells. Yes.
    Co-chair Merkley. And Mr. Li, have you been able to visit 
your father?
    Mr. Li. Senator Merkley, I have never visited my father in 
prison. I believe--you know, he spent 3 years in a pretrial 
detention center where no outside visits were allowed. Now that 
he's in the prison I believe he is allowed visits from family 
but I've personally chosen not to visit my father as much as I 
would like to due to the inherent risk to myself and my family 
for doing so.
    Co-chair Merkley. This is something I'm going to follow up 
on in terms of trying to understand what the norms are and the 
protections are for Americans to be able to visit their family 
members.
    And Mr. Hunt, you noted that your sister had a series of 
things and I think that was your observation. You were able to 
visit her?
    Mr. Hunt. Yes, Senator. In June of this year I went to 
visit my sister. If you'd like to know I can tell you how it 
was. ACS did arrange that visit. However, there was a letter 
that ACS was supposed to tender to me and that letter was the 
letter that allowed me to visit my sister. It was basically the 
permission slip to visit her and they didn't give it to me 
until the day of my visit. There was nothing that I had before 
that except the communication from ACS but not the 
communication from the Chinese government--that had their seal 
and their stamp that allowed me to visit.
    So I still visited her without that letter, and I just want 
to highlight the point that I didn't access my emails once I 
was in China so the permission slip that ACS gave me--I should 
have gotten that earlier so I had it. I just went there with an 
ACS communication from our government, not a permission slip 
from their government. So that was one risk that I inherited.
    In visiting her, just so you know, there are armed guards--
military-type guards that are outside of the prison that escort 
you with long guns, weapons, everything. They took my passport. 
They held my passport, so I understand why Mr. Li would not 
want to visit because there's no guarantee you're going to get 
your passport back. After this hearing I don't believe it would 
be advisable for me to go and visit my sister again.
    Co-chair Merkley. And you mentioned ATS. ATS stands for----
    Mr. Hunt. ACS. American Citizen Services.
    Co-chair Merkley. Oh, American--oh, ACS. Okay. Just to 
clarify.
    And that is a group that's formally liaised with our State 
Department?
    Mr. Hunt. Yes, it's part of the State Department.
    Co-chair Merkley. Part of the State Department. Okay.
    I look forward to learning more about that because I know 
visits can be pretty meaningful to those of our families that 
are detained, but the risks, the uncertainty about what else 
might happen, one injustice implies another injustice may 
occur.
    Several of you mentioned a law--a Chinese law--and you 
expand on it in detail, Mr. Humphrey--a 2018 PRC law on 
international judicial assistance and criminal matters, and you 
say that--if I understand the testimony right--this law allows 
for the opportunity for foreign prisoners to be transferred to 
a facility near their home which I assume is back, in this 
case, in the United States.
    But then you note, ``To the best of my knowledge the U.S. 
Government has never explored this mechanism on behalf of any 
individual.'' Are there other governments that have been able 
to utilize this? Has Canada been able to utilize this? Have 
European countries utilized----
    Mr. Humphrey. I know of two successful cases by France 
bringing citizens home that way. The other cases are not so 
prominent countries, not so obvious democracies, such as 
Turkey, for example. But France has been very diligent in 
helping its citizens get out of these situations in China.
    Co-chair Merkley. So at least one Western nation has been 
able to utilize this----
    Mr. Humphrey. Yes.
    Co-chair Merkley. And I think that in your testimony you 
note that a response from our government as to why they have 
not explored this mechanism is that we do not have a transfer 
treaty with China--and you note that a transfer treaty is not 
required.
    Mr. Humphrey. Yes. I mean, between governments it is 
possible to establish what's called a PTA, which is a prisoner 
transfer agreement. That is a treaty and it provides a 
framework for prisoner transfers. I know a lot have been done 
with some of the Middle Eastern countries but America doesn't 
have one. Some European countries do and they have used the 
treaty mechanism to manage transfers.
    But the point about the law, Senator--the Chinese law--is 
that it provides a nontreaty pathway to do something similar on 
a case by case, individually negotiated basis, and the onus is 
on the foreign government to open the discussion by saying, We 
would like to speak to you about such and such a person, and 
this should be directed toward the Chinese ministry of justice 
and the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs.
    And there is no requirement on China's part that a PTA must 
exist bilaterally with that particular country in order to use 
this law. The American government, however, has taken the 
position that we can't do it without a treaty with China 
because somehow our law doesn't allow it. But I have actually 
not seen any law which disallows this.
    Co-chair Merkley. Are you aware of whether our State 
Department has pursued the possibility of such a treaty?
    Mr. Humphrey. The possibility of what, sir?
    Co-chair Merkley. Such a treaty, a treaty on----
    Mr. Humphrey. I don't think so. I'm not aware that they 
have.
    Co-chair Merkley. Well, certainly, this is something that 
we can follow up on as well, both the treaty strategy and the 
use of the 2018 law in the fashion that France has used it.
    Just as we've noted in all your testimony, China is not a 
rule-of-law nation and so I'm well aware that no matter what 
they have in their law, when it comes to their strategy--and we 
see their strategy of transnational repression all the time--of 
what they're doing to their own citizens as well as detaining 
our citizens, my heart really does go out to each of you on 
your family members detained under these various premises. I 
think about my own children and if my own child had been told 
they won a contest, and then developed a relationship over 
time, going to Hong Kong and then to China and then invited to 
go to Australia and then told that they won some purses--they 
get to take those, too--how easy and seductive that scam is. Or 
to carry baked goods laced with drugs or to have something 
invented to detain somebody. Or to send a message to everyone 
else, in the case of your father, Mr. Li.
    And our relationship with China, I think, has really taken 
a terrible turn under President Xi. My impression is that these 
circumstances became much more difficult and common following 
Xi coming to power. I'm not sure if that's accurate but, Mr. 
Humphrey, could you comment on that?
    Mr. Humphrey. I think that's accurate to say. As an 
overview of this whole thing over the last 10 or 12 years--
we've seen the situation growing steadily worse in China's 
prisons and in particular for foreign prisoners whom he is 
trying to drag down to the same treatment as Chinese prisoners, 
whereas 12 years ago foreign prisoners were treated much 
better.
    Senator, there was another point in connection with your 
original question to me and that is that there's a very able 
American lawyer based in Beijing. His name is James Zimmerman, 
known as Jim Zimmerman, and we have a memo from him on the 
subject of this Chinese law where he sets out the case along 
the lines I just described to you, and we would be happy to 
share that memo with you.
    Co-chair Merkley. Great. That would be----
    Mr. Humphrey. And I can also assure you that John Kamm 
holds a similar view as well on this topic.
    Co-chair Merkley. Great. And, Mr. Wells, you mentioned in 
the beginning it was very hard to find anyone in the U.S. 
Government to help. As you see others go through this--is the 
place that you direct them to now, this American Citizen 
Services branch of the State Department, is this the key group 
to help facilitate contact with the Chinese government in 
regard to detained individuals?
    Mr. Wells. Yes. I think that's something that they 
definitely need to improve on, and one of the things that was 
brought to my attention--Mr. John Kamm, he's a great advocate--
there was always a list whenever an American was detained 
overseas that would come on his radar and the shocking thing 
was when we spoke to him he said, I'm surprised that Nelson 
didn't come on our radar.
    So when we contacted the embassy he was able to find them 
before the embassy was and I was confused because it took his 
information--for him to give it to us and for us to give it to 
them and that was when they were able to find him.
    Co-chair Merkley. Right. No, that does raise real questions 
about why--what network existed that our government didn't 
succeed in accessing when you were in need.
    You've given us--you've shared your stories which, as I 
mentioned in my initial statement, by you speaking to us you're 
really speaking to our Nation, and this process publicizes not 
just your individual cases but the overall challenge that we 
face with citizens being detained in China. And so you've given 
us some ideas of how we might pursue improvements. So thank you 
very much for taking the time and effort to be here. I hope 
that there is a celebration in each of your futures. You're not 
only helping your own family members, you're helping many other 
families as well.
    Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator.
    Just to conclude, have any of you had any contact with our 
Ambassador, Nicholas Burns? Has he been in contact with you?
    Mr. Li. Yes. I will comment that in our case Ambassador 
Burns has been in touch with our family. He has, fortunately, 
visited my father three times in prison. We're grateful for the 
work that he's doing for my father and I know he's also visited 
Mark Swidan. But ultimately, he's not going to be able to bring 
them home; we need a more coordinated, larger government 
effort.
    Chair Smith. Okay. Mr. Wells.
    Mr. Wells. For our family we've had no contact at all, and 
to my knowledge I'm not sure he's even aware of my son.
    Chair Smith. Well, he will be after today. So thank you for 
that.
    Mr. Wells. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Mr. Hunt.
    Mr. Hunt. No. My family has had no contact with him.
    Chair Smith. Again, if you're not on the right list you 
don't have contact and that's contemptible. As Peter Humphrey 
pointed out, this is not a rule-of-law country. So we will do 
our level best to engage him.
    You know, interestingly enough, Daniel Kritenbrink, who is 
the assistant secretary for Near East and Pacific Affairs--he's 
on this Commission. So it would be very helpful, with you as 
the family members, to have that kind of meeting with a member 
of the Commission who is also a point person for the 
administration with regard to policy.
    And I would also add that Uzra Zeya is also--she's the 
undersecretary. She's been at some of our hearings and I know 
her staff is following this today. We'll put together a meeting 
to just convey all of this and your points.
    I have to say this. I understand how frustrating it is when 
they change case officers and somebody is reading a chart 
somewhere, maybe, about your case. One time I was so frustrated 
with this transfer of the case to someone else who has no idea 
what your case is all about. That's if they even open up a case 
for you.
    It reminded me of a--I'm a big ``Seinfeld'' fan and there 
was one famous episode where George Costanza had the Penske 
file and he kept holding the file saying, I've got it--and 
nothing was happening with it. It was just information that was 
going nowhere, nothing actionable. So, you know, by being here 
today my hope is it'll help make your cases actionable.
    Mr. Li, I know that yours already is but, Mr. Wells and Mr. 
Hunt, yours are not, at least the way they should be. So we'll 
work on that and we'll try to get Daniel and others to come and 
meet, as well as the head of Consular Affairs.
    I have found that Consular Affairs is very often empathetic 
but it stops there, as you pointed out, Peter, when it gets to 
the political side. And this is something that causes 
consternation at the political level so, therefore, we drop it 
and don't do all that we can do. Your point is well taken.
    Michelle Steel, by the way, is still with us. Commissioner 
Steel, do you have a question or any comment you want to make?
    Representative Steel. Yes.
    Chair Smith. Oh, good.
    Representative Steel. I just have questions because I've 
been engaging with the State Department. I have another 
constituent that's been detained in China. So we try to work 
with them and we tried to ask the State Department how they 
negotiated the release of Pastor Lin this time.
    So to all the witnesses, how can we improve policy tools 
and resources to deter foreign governments from engaging in the 
wrongful detention of U.S. nationals and citizens of other 
countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea, and others? Are 
there policy options? Could Congress consider disincentivizing 
foreign governments for engaging in the wrongful detention of 
U.S. nationals? Anybody can answer this if you have any idea.
    Mr. Humphrey. It sounds to me really like a question for 
Senators and Congressmen to address. I don't think any of us 
really are qualified to make such suggestions at a really high 
level.
    Representative Steel. So you don't have----
    Mr. Humphrey. What deterrence we could introduce to deter 
that awful government in Beijing from arresting so many 
Americans--it's hardball, you know.
    Representative Steel. Yes it is. It is.
    Mr. Humphrey. You have to play hardball back. What else can 
I say? I mean, obviously, I'm not suggesting that you go around 
arresting lots of Chinese citizens who are innocent in America, 
but you are the leaders and you have to fight back for your 
citizens.
    Representative Steel. Thank you, Mr. Humphrey. The thing is 
that, while we've been working with the State Department, a lot 
of times we get very frustrated and, you know, open up the 
conversation. That's the State Department issue that was the 
one I asked.
    What's going to be so helpful--what role do other leaders 
and those global platforms have in raising awareness on this 
issue, especially corporate America or people with major 
platforms? Should they criticize abuses and raise awareness? 
I'm saying this because I actually sent a letter out before the 
Beijing Olympics. We had 17 corporate sponsors for the 
Olympics. They spent billions of dollars, and I asked them can 
you use a little bit of that platform to find out--to let the 
whole world know what China is doing, how China is abusing the 
system, and they're the one detaining our--and not just our, 
citizens but at the same time the human rights violations that 
they've been practicing. It's just awful that, you know, we 
hear those stories.
    So do you think it is good that these corporations--by the 
way, after we sent a letter out to those 17 Olympic sponsor 
corporations, none of them answered. So do you think that they 
should use major platforms and then, you know what? We have to 
let the whole world know what China is doing.
    Mr. Humphrey. I think that this problem, the types of 
prisoners who we've been discussing today--and we're not 
talking about Chinese political prisoners or religious 
prisoners in general but the type of prisoners we're talking 
about today are people who are accused of common crimes--I 
would call them common crimes, whether it's theft or fraud or 
rape or whatever, whether they're guilty or not, and this is a 
systemic problem that so many people are getting prosecuted and 
convicted on totally murky bases, with no fairness, no 
transparency, no proper defense.
    So it is systemic. It's the Chinese system and one thing 
you can do is talk more to other governments of similar mind 
and spirit about this to try to exert more international 
influence, put more pressure on China to behave. I don't see 
that happening very much when it comes to the prisoners who are 
accused of common crimes. I think they're very often forgotten 
about. But you can do that, I think. You only need to get four 
or five or six governments together on the same page on the 
same platform.
    I will point out that later this month the Australian 
Senate is holding a hearing similar to this one. They have an 
inquiry ongoing and they will report in November. I will be 
speaking at this Senate hearing there.
    And I think that's another example of how you can connect. 
In the U.K. we've had a lower key thing last year which I 
participated in and I'm working at the moment to try and get 
something like this convened in the EU parliament as well. So I 
would suggest that one way of strengthening your muscle 
internationally is to combine with other countries to provide a 
united front against China to behave.
    Representative Steel. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman. I yield back.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much.
    Commissioner Nunn.
    Representative Nunn. Well, thank you, Chairman, very much 
for bringing us all together here to talk about just a--
historically challenged Beijing.
    As we look at bringing Americans home--I think you have 
highlighted specifically the intent of the Communist Party 
within China to use Americans as a pawn in a larger political 
game, so let me be clear from the git-go, Mr. Chairman, that 
any nation that holds Americans hostage to exert their 
political will against the United States is, first and 
foremost, responsible for those Americans' safety and their 
safe return to the United States, and second, that the full 
weight of the American people is looking on those countries to 
be responsible actors in making sure those hostages are brought 
home.
    We expect our citizens to be treated well and we expect 
them to be released. As an Air Force officer for more than two 
decades serving on our Nation's front line, I know that no 
mission is complete until every American makes their way back 
to U.S. soil.
    It is completely unacceptable, even though China is our 
number-one trading partner, that there are more Americans 
detained in China than anywhere else on Earth. Due to the lies 
and deceptions of the Chinese Communist Party we are unsure 
exactly how many Americans are even being held today on the 
mainland in China.
    But what we do know is that our fellow Americans, including 
this incredible panel before us today, are on the front line of 
exposing how many Americans are being held in captivity 
including Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt.
    Each faces unknown health concerns, potential threats of 
torture, mistreatment at the hands of the CCP, and I want to 
begin by thanking each of you for taking time to come here 
today to share your stories and be the face for so many stories 
that remain unspoken at this time.
    The threats from the CCP range. We know that its false 
imprisonment for trumped-up charges of espionage simply for 
preaching Christianity in China--to family members who were 
detained and used as political pawns against the United States. 
These Americans have unjustly and unfairly found their freedom 
stolen by the Chinese Communist Party.
    It's our duty today to bring attention to these very 
important cases and work hard to ensure that we bring all of 
our brothers and sisters back home. So thank you each and, Mr. 
Humphrey, I'd like to begin with you. You are a China expert. 
You're a former CCP detainee yourself.
    In June of this year four citizens from my state, teachers 
from Iowa teaching at Cornell, were viciously attacked in rural 
China simply for being Westerners. But, certainly, it appears 
that the attack may have been propagated by an anti-West 
feeling stoked by local officials.
    According to ABC News these four instructors from Cornell 
were brutally attacked simply by bumping into a 55-year-old 
Chinese national. There seemed to be an overall hostility 
toward Westerners throughout the region. So I want to begin. 
Does the CCP look for opportunities to target, attack, and 
arrest ordinary citizens while operating in China?
    Mr. Humphrey. What we can say, I think, is that the CCP 
under Xi Jinping's leadership--in other words, him--has 
fostered an atmosphere of xenophobia in China during his reign 
and we've seen it expressed initially in policies toward the 
outside world and we've seen it expressed in constraints and 
harassment of foreigners in China.
    But there's an element in the Chinese population which 
takes these kind of signals as signals to get rough with people 
and--there was a prisoner--American prisoner--held in the same 
cell as Nelson Wells some years ago. He's out now. He's a 
footballer and his name's Wendell Brown, from Detroit, and he 
was certainly a victim of that type of arrest where he was 
working, coaching in China, and he started to get bullied in a 
bar because he was with a Chinese woman and some local people 
started a fight with him and he got arrested and jailed for 
brawling.
    I think he was held for a few years--two and a half years, 
something like that--and a skillful Chinese lawyer got him out 
in the end with a reduced sentence. That's an example of the 
atmosphere that you're talking about, Commissioner Nunn.
    Xi Jinping has engendered an atmosphere of hatred of the 
outside world in China today. Not everyone buys it but the kind 
of people who beat up, you know, your four guys from Iowa--they 
were victims of precisely this atmosphere which he has created.
    He came to power saying, you know, we need to clean up all 
this foreign trash we've got in China. That was precisely the 
time when we saw this wave of people getting arrested and 
imprisoned in the category of Dawn Hunt, Nelson Wells, and Mark 
Swidan. They were all taken in that period as that atmosphere 
was being whipped up by the new Xi Jinping regime.
    I hope that answers your question.
    Representative Nunn. Mr. Humphrey, thank you very much. And 
let me first say as somebody who has worked as a counter-
intelligence officer in Guangzhou, a large swath of Chinese 
people truly believe in a greater humanity and it's a salute to 
those who are trying to push back against this type of 
brutality coming out of it.
    Mr. Humphrey. Yes.
    Representative Nunn. But this is clearly a dictate coming 
from the CCP trying to identify leverage, in my opinion, 
against the United States. And their tactic now has become this 
incarceration of U.S. citizens to use as leverage. And this 
goes for Hamas or anyone else.
    Mr. Humphrey. I agree with you entirely.
    Representative Nunn. Let me ask this. When the CCP arrests 
and detains American citizens, what do you believe is the 
ultimate goal when they take these individuals, as you know, 
for brawling--for years in a Chinese detention facility?
    Mr. Humphrey. I mean, I think in a way they see it, like, 
as a warehouse, and they're building up inventory in that 
warehouse to trade off when they need to. In fact, one of my--
one of my detention center guards, a senior one, once said to 
me, we're just a warehouse. We move people in and at some point 
in time we move people out. So that metaphor is very 
applicable, I think. They're building stock to trade on.
    Representative Nunn. That is frightening and I think 
absolutely, something we would say in the military, building a 
stock of blood chits that they get to cash in--that happen to 
be U.S. citizens that they're housing. In your words, and I 
think it's correct, warehousing American citizens for a time 
that they want to gain leverage over the United States.
    Mr. Humphrey. Yes.
    Representative Nunn. Can I just briefly--what are the 
tactics they're using--you noted instigating a brawl to be able 
to identify--are these intended targets? Are they looking 
across the board? Is it happenstance? How do they go after what 
you call these common crimes to be able to draw a noose around 
an American?
    Mr. Humphrey. I do think it's partly happenstance and 
opportunism when an opportunity arises and it involves those 
kinds of people--those kinds of Chinese people, those elements. 
They take the opportunity. I mean, I know many cases where 
foreigners including Americans have been subjected to this 
treatment over the last 10, 12, 15 years. It's been quite 
common.
    Representative Nunn. Mr. Humphrey, you brought up a very 
good point here. This is not unique to just the United States. 
They are targeting other nations as well. Could you share with 
us who else is being targeted in these wholesale roundups of 
foreigners?
    Mr. Humphrey. I think the Japanese are a particularly 
favorite target because even though there's not such a large 
number of Japanese in prison in China, they're harassed a lot 
because there's a lot of hatred toward the Japanese nation in 
China.
    But we see it also with Australia. Australia has a 
substantial number of prisoners in China, and we see it in 
general toward the laowai, the dabizi, or the foreigners around 
in China. There are less of them now because in recent years 
they've been leaving in an exodus, you know. There are far 
fewer foreigners in China now because of this atmosphere which 
has been created.
    Representative Nunn. I'd like to talk to the families, 
particularly those who have loved ones currently in detention 
there. It's an open question, but, Mr. Li, I'll start with you. 
Your father was arrested on unspecified so-called espionage 
charges. How are Americans treated when they go through these 
Chinese courts? You had a front row seat to it. Is it 
transparent? Is there an appeal process? Does the accused get 
any kind of defense?
    Mr. Li. Thank you for the question, Mr. Nunn.
    Yes. Look, it's certainly not a transparent process. I 
think that goes without saying. Like I said, my father did not 
have access to legal representation in the first six months 
when he was being interrogated. The trial was behind closed 
doors.
    Members from the consulate tried to attend but were not 
able to get in and, you know, it's because allegedly the trial 
is about ``state secrets''--so that's a convenient way for them 
to bar access to the trial.
    So it's certainly not a transparent process. It's a long 
process. You know, for my father it was two years from initial 
detention to sentencing. For a lot of others it's been, 
unfortunately, much, much longer.
    In terms of an appeal process, such a process exists. My 
father did appeal his sentence. Ultimately, it got denied. I am 
not aware of a single case in which an appeal has been 
successful.
    Representative Nunn. Mr. Wells, first of all, thank you for 
your military service and long-rendered sacrifice for our 
country. You are now fighting another battle, to bring your son 
home. When he was detained by the Chinese, can you speak about 
or are you aware of the type of environment he was placed in 
once in the Chinese detention facility, how he was treated, and 
what updates you have on his well-being?
    Mr. Wells. Thank you, Mr. Nunn.
    As I stated before, it took us a while to find Nelson. He 
was in a detention center quite a long time and while he was 
there he wasn't able to reach out to us. So when we did find 
out where he was and we contacted numerous lawyers and that 
didn't work out well, but there was one lawyer that picked up 
the case and he said, I will try to assist Nelson.
    But by the time he got there Nelson had already gone to 
trial and, as Harrison said, it was closed. He didn't have 
anybody to speak for him so it had to be through 
interpretation. But it was already stamped that Nelson was 
going to be guilty regardless.
    But one of the things that the lawyer did tell us, he said, 
while I was there I was able to do two things. The first thing 
is that I listened to what the case was about, and he said that 
it was inconclusive. He said, As far as I'm concerned Nelson 
should be free.
    The second thing that he was able to do is to tell Nelson 
that your parents are aware that you are in this situation and 
that they are doing everything they can so that you will not 
feel like you are all alone and by yourself.
    Those were the only two things that he was able to do. But 
when Nelson finally talked to us--and you've got to remember 
that all his phone calls are monitored. They are censored. So 
when he had the opportunity to talk to us he started telling us 
the duress that he was under, how he was being treated, how the 
guards were handling him and doing things that--to me, it's 
inhumane.
    So he was crying out, Pops, get me out of here! Get me out 
of here! I can't take it! So I told him--as we started 
discussing--they hung up the phone. He was able to give us 
another call--six months later. He asked us were we making any 
progress, and he was still in this detention. So he said, I've 
got to get out of here, so I set up an appeal and the appeal 
should help me get out. Is there any legal assistance that you 
could help me with?
    And I told him that we were--it's hard to tell your child 
that your hands are tied. So I told him I was not capable but I 
will do everything I could. So that's when he decided--under 
coercion and having been through what he was going through--he 
decided to do a plea. And at that point, that's when they 
accepted his appeal, and then they agreed to put him in a 
regular prison system to get him out of detention.
    And then he was able to give us code on telling us how he 
was being treated. He would reminisce about a movie or anything 
of that nature and say, Pops, remember this movie? It went like 
this, and that's how we understood what he was going through.
    Nelson has been attacked because in the situation that he's 
in--he's the only American and only black American in the 
prison where he's at. So he has no communication with anyone to 
speak English. Everything he does has to be within himself, 
internal. All the guards are Chinese, all the inmates are 
Chinese, and so he has been attacked just for who he is, being 
American--a black American. He has been put in the hospital 
several times as well as the fact he's been attacked by guards, 
which was just recently.
    So the situation that he's going through when he 
communicates this to us, we tell ACS and we ask them to do more 
frequent visits because from Beijing to where Nelson is I 
understand it's quite a distance so they will only go see him 
every 3 months.
    Well, we were requesting that they would go see him at 
least once a month because of the fact he's out there on his 
own. And the correspondence that we get to him when we send it 
through--like Mr. Humphrey said, it's a nanny service. When we 
give him--our family members write letters to him and books 
that we try to send to him, and it is being screened by the 
guards and they won't allow him to have it. So that means it'll 
be at the prison but he can't receive it because of the fact 
they feel it's not appropriate. So it takes away from his 
communication with his family and loved ones.
    So to answer your question, while he was in the detention 
center he tried to explain that he was sleeping on the floor 
and, as Mr. Li said, because of the weather he said, Send me 
some clothes so I can weather the winter because the windows 
are open. There's no way to close the windows.
    So his plea to us has always put an emotional strain on us 
as well, because we know our child is suffering. And that 
detention center, for those that go there and stay there for 
long periods of time, that's a stressful situation.
    Representative Nunn. Mr. Wells, you are doing so much for 
your son even just by being here today to raise awareness to 
the American people. As a father I compliment you. As a warrior 
I thank you, and for your son Nelson not only do our hearts go 
out, there must be action taken on our side to hold the Chinese 
accountable and you have our commitment for that. I'm grateful 
for you being here.
    Mr. Hunt, thank you for your service, first and foremost, 
as a Chicago police officer. You are one of these great heroes 
from the heartland. You have been on the front line here in the 
United States protecting our country and, certainly, there is a 
need for public safety. But it is different when a foreign 
country seeks out Americans to use as political tools.
    Your sister Dawn, a woman detained inside China--speak to 
us about what the Chinese have put her through while in the 
detention facility and what information you've been able to get 
out because we hear reports here of health concerns, of 
potential threats of torture, of mistreatment at the hands of 
guards, particularly of women. I can't imagine how difficult 
this is for you.
    Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Nunn.
    Yes. My sister conveyed to my father that she was sexually 
assaulted in the detention facility. I understand what Mr. 
Wells was saying because his story is the same story that I 
have. Denial of access to reading materials. Only being able to 
have anything in Chinese and she doesn't understand it. The 
cold, laying on the floor, wanting--requesting blankets. The 
food. Everything--Mr. Wells, everything that you've--every 
story that you've heard is correct.
    Our citizens are being mistreated, abused, and it's 
coordinated. It's not something that is a ``one off.'' It's 
not, Oh, it happens to this prisoner--it doesn't happen to 
others. It happens to every prisoner.
    I understand that we are convened here today so we can give 
you information. I hope you take this information to heart and 
I say this because during the visit with my sister there was a 
person who was standing right next to her with the headphone 
and listening to everything we said, taking notes.
    I asked my sister about the sexual assault. She briefly 
looked up, looked down, and there was a tension there I could 
see in her eyes, I could feel, and she said no. But I knew she 
was under duress. I knew that her freedom to tell me the truth 
had been taken away.
    Now imagine, not only is your freedom of movement taken but 
your freedom to tell the truth, your freedom to speak up, your 
freedom to cry out, your freedom to ask for help is taken as 
well. That's what I need this panel to understand. That's what 
all of our family members are going through right here, right 
now.
    Representative Nunn. Mr. Hunt, that is powerful. It is 
real.
    Mr. Chairman, I am so grateful for you doing this fact-
finding hearing that is bicameral, that is bipartisan, that has 
the White House's ear, and it is clear that not only does more 
need to be done but we have to recognize the strategic threat 
here as well as the tactical human suffering that's going on.
    We've heard, Mr. Humphrey, that this is a coordinated 
effort by the Chinese Communist Party to build a warehouse of 
U.S. citizens in detention facilities that these families and 
so many, many more are going through right now--that there is 
intentional coercion of American citizens while in Chinese 
detention facilities to either plead guilty so they can speak 
to their family and have at least some hope of an appeal--or 
remain in solitary confinement year after year and, as you've 
each highlighted. In any country in the world we would consider 
this to be barbaric.
    But in a country that presents itself as an equal to the 
United States--to strip another citizen of not only their 
freedom but their humanity--this must be called into question, 
they must be held accountable, and we need to recognize that 
China not only is playing the long game here but they continue 
to build an arsenal of Americans to be held in detention at a 
time and place of their choosing to be able to negotiate 
against the United States. We should never allow this to 
happen.
    I thank the panel for being here. Our hearts are with each 
of your families. We will maintain the fight. Thank you, Mr. 
Chair.
    Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Nunn, and I would ask 
you--I'll give the last word to each of our witnesses.
    But before that, as you probably know there are four levels 
of travel advisory. The first is ``exercise normal 
precaution,'' No. 2 is ``exercise increased caution,'' No. 3, 
the State Department calls it ``reconsider travel,'' and No. 4 
is ``don't travel.'' Right now the PRC is ``reconsider travel'' 
because of the arbitrary enforcement of laws and people being 
incarcerated simply because they happen to be Americans.
    In your view should the State Department now go to ``don't 
travel'' since we have a situation where your family members 
traveled and have now been unjustly detained and harassed and 
imprisoned? It seems to me that would get the attention of the 
Chinese Communist Party as well. Because it's an open risk. 
People are traveling there not even knowing that there is a 
travel advisory, that it's number 3 on the 4 scale. But perhaps 
it's time for No. 4 to be imposed.
    Peter, do you want to respond to that?
    Mr. Humphrey. I'll be very quick. There's one phrase I've 
been using for quite some years now and it's starting to dawn, 
and that is ``nobody is safe in China.'' Nobody.
    Chair Smith. Thank you.
    Mr. Hunt. Don't travel to China. That needs the security 
level. Whatever you do it needs to be raised to the highest it 
could be raised to. Don't travel.
    Chair Smith. So that's your word to the administration?
    Mr. Hunt. That is my word right here right now. Don't 
travel. None of us here want to have another story.
    Chair Smith. Thank you.
    Mr. Li. I will say this. It's been reported in the media 
that the Chinese government has requested the United States to 
reduce its travel advisory from level three down to level two 
or level one and, you know, I think it is laughable that that 
they are even willing to consider that, while they keep our 
loved ones arbitrarily detained.
    And so I think that the Chinese government clearly wants 
more Americans to travel to China. But as long as our loved 
ones are being held, as long as there are so many people at 
risk, then that travel warning must be escalated.
    Chair Smith. Thank you.
    Mr. Wells.
    Mr. Wells. If this would put pressure on the Chinese regime 
I say don't travel. No one should even go there.
    Chair Smith. I appreciate that. You know, I now give you 
the last word. I do by unanimous consent ask that the 
statements of Bill Browder be included; Ben Rogers, who we've 
worked with--both of those men--for years; Cedric Witek, 
Cynthia Sun, Jason Poblete, Katherine Swidan, who was on 
earlier with her son, and the Foley Foundation. Without 
objection, so ordered.
    But I'd like to give the four of you the last word, if you 
would, and I can't thank you enough. This, to me, is a pivotal 
hearing. You know, motivation is everything but information 
that motivates--you have motivated us to do even more and we 
will. I guarantee it.
    Mr. Wells.
    Mr. Wells. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I am grateful that we and all of these people who are in 
the same situation as us are here today in front of you all to 
raise awareness of our situation as well as the other Americans 
that are there.
    My last comment is that there were always three, and Mr. Li 
knows that these were on the radar of our administration and we 
tried to get Nelson's name included, and today you all have 
done that for us, as I know Tim agrees.
    But there's one thing that you will notice--the picture 
that all of you put out there. If you notice, everybody else is 
in civilian clothes--but my son is in his prison uniform. And I 
was apprehensive and afraid but I knew I needed to do this 
because everything that we do is going to help get him home.
    But that uniform prison picture that's out there--Nelson 
has received death threats. He has received harassment and been 
attacked because of that picture; they tried to force him to 
say how that picture got to us, and because we could not tell 
how it was done, Nelson has suffered at their hands.
    So I am proud and happy to be here. This picture has now 
shown the American people about my son but I'm also afraid of 
what might happen to him from this. So I know you all are going 
to be diligently trying to help us but there's one other thing 
that I wish, that you all can at least get the American 
citizens, consulars, to make more frequent visits to Nelson, to 
make sure they don't harm my child because if the illness 
doesn't take him out, I'm afraid they will. Thank you.
    Mr. Li. I would just like to end with this statement, you 
know, building off what Mr. Nunn just mentioned of China 
wanting to present itself as a country that is equal to the 
United States, yet at the same time engaging in these horrific 
practices, ripping apart our families, ripping apart our loved 
ones, torturing them physically, mentally, it needs to stop, 
and whatever other bilateral issues that need to be worked out 
irrespective of that, these cases have a tangible solution.
    The Chinese government has our loved ones. They can do the 
right thing and release them, and it's incumbent on our elected 
leaders to call for that, to make that the number-one priority 
in their diplomacy because it is something tangible, something 
doable, something with a clear-cut solution. So it should be 
one of the easiest things to get in diplomatic discussions. I 
think by bringing awareness to this issue that it is easy to 
get swept under the rug because we are individual families, 
ordinary Americans who have a difficult time getting attention.
    We need to be heard. We need to be made a priority. And so 
I thank you, of course, Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, but 
also all the commissioners on the CECC for convening and 
organizing this hearing and this forum to listen to our voices 
and take to heart and understand just what we have been going 
through and why it needs to be rectified immediately. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Hunt. First of all, I'd like to--I thank you, Mr. 
Chairman and Mr. Humphrey and everyone who's here on this 
panel. Thank you for allowing us to speak. I will state this 
just to repeat what you said about how to keep up the pressure.
    You asked whether we should raise the threat level. Of 
course. The other Senator asked, Is there something we could do 
socially by holding these companies responsible and yes, of 
course. I say this because my sister was making lithium 
batteries. That was her job, her duty, while she's 
incarcerated.
    I'm not sure what products these lithium batteries go to 
but I'm sure that some of these are imported here in America. 
I'm sure the citizens here need to understand and they need to 
know that the Chinese motto was ``rehabilitation through 
labor'' and a lot of this labor, as Mr. Humphrey says, goes 
into making greeting cards that we purchase.
    There needs to be a sort of transparency on what products 
are being made by prison labor and if that--if those things are 
transparent then that puts pressure on them as well as what you 
said, raising the threat level because, from what Mr. Humphrey 
said, if there's going to be a warehouse of Americans that 
they're going to use to gain political favor or use to do 
something to, I guess you could say, move the needle on their 
side by releasing a citizen from America--that needs to stop--
and we need to put all types of pressure on them through 
political, economic, judicial means.
    Whatever we can do to bring everyone home, we need to do 
it. No one should be in this situation and this panel should 
not grow. There should be fewer of us, not more of us. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Humphrey. I prefer to leave most of these final words 
to these three very courageous families that you've got here 
today.
    But I'll just say one thing very, very briefly, and that is 
that I think it is incumbent upon Congress to legislate to deal 
with this problem of the prisoners in the categories that we've 
discussed today.
    You mentioned you received a statement from Bill Browder, 
who we could say was the creator of the Magnitsky Act concept--
you know, a great campaigner who brought that about here. It 
was aimed heavily at the time against other countries, 
especially Russia, for human rights abuses and wrongful arrests 
and mistreatment of prisoners and so forth and we need 
something like that here to confront this problem with China.
    So I think it is incumbent upon Congress here to push some 
legislation forward which will be punitive in nature and also 
will be holding the U.S. Government to greater account to 
actually act and punish China for these kinds of wrongful 
detentions and arrests.
    I hope to see that in the next year or two. I realize that 
you're going to go through some changes over the coming year 
which may slow some progress down. But this is a bipartisan 
issue and I don't really think it matters who's running the 
administration. I think it is incumbent upon every Congressman 
and every Senator to get behind something like this. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. We do have a duty to act and we 
must, so thank you. Who do we help and who do we abandon? To 
paraphrase again, we help all and abandon no one and I can't 
thank you enough for the powerful testimony and for the love 
that you have shown for your loved ones. It's incredible.
    The hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]

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                            A P P E N D I X

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                          Prepared Statements

                              ----------                              


                Prepared Statement of Nelson Wells, Sr.

    Good morning, Chair Smith, Co-chair Merkley, and the esteemed 
members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Thank you 
for inviting me and our advisor, Peter Humphrey, to testify at this 
hearing on Americans detained in China.

                               Background

    My name is Nelson Wells, Sr. and I am appearing before you on 
behalf of my wife, Cynthia Wells, and our family, asking for your 
assistance in bringing home our son, Nelson Wells, Jr., who has been 
unjustly imprisoned in China for 10 years. We are natives of New 
Orleans, Louisiana, but relocated to Haughton, Louisiana in the 
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We lost many of our worldly possessions 
to that storm, but nothing prepared us for the loss we would experience 
in 2014.
    In the spring of that year, we were awakened in the middle of the 
night by a call that no parent ever wants to receive. Paraphrasing, the 
male caller said, ``I'm a companion of Nelson's. He's in trouble. He's 
been arrested in China. Do you have money? Hurry up! They're going to 
kill him!'' Naturally, I said, ``Hang that phone up.'' I thought it was 
a prank, a scam. We didn't even realize Nelson, then a 40-year-old man, 
was in China. We thought he was at home in Japan, where we had recently 
spoken to him by phone, and he had been living with his wife and 
children--two daughters and a son--from two different marriages.
    I served in the United States Army for more than 20 years, and 
Cynthia served at the Department of Defense for nearly 28 years. We 
have been stationed and traveled all over the United States--from the 
South to the South Pacific--and the world. At each opportunity, we 
brought our children, Nelson and his sister, Kendria Wells, with us. 
Thus Nelson always had a love for travel, and it was not unusual to us 
that he settled in Japan, where his wife is from. But due to a medical 
condition he suffered from a traffic accident, we were discussing the 
possibility of the family re-
locating to the United States permanently, so that he could get better 
treatment and expand his professional opportunities. Unfortunately, it 
was not to be.
    When we called his wife, our daughter-in-law, we learned that he 
had taken a trip to China. He is a dedicated husband and father, and we 
are a close family, so after he did not return immediately and we did 
not hear from him, we knew we had a problem.
    Over the next several weeks and months, we reached out to the 
United States Embassy multiple times to find Nelson or a record of his 
arrest, but they could not locate him. It was not until we took matters 
into our own hands and contacted Mr. John Kamm at the Dui Hua 
Foundation, which tracks and assists American detainees oversees, that 
we were able to confirm that Nelson had indeed been arrested. We think 
that somehow he had not been considered an American citizen--even 
though he, his wife, and his children all are citizens--and had fallen 
through the cracks. Only then did the U.S. Government begin working on 
behalf of our son. By then, precious months had passed.
    For Nelson's part, he had been incarcerated all that time in China, 
a country where he was only visiting, where he did not read or speak 
the language, and where he did not know if we were looking for him or 
even knew he had been arrested. It must have been torture for him. It 
was not until a Chinese lawyer we hired appeared at one of his court 
proceedings and passed him a note that he learned we were aware of his 
predicament. The lawyer could not represent Nelson, but he was able to 
provide him with a lifeline. Frightened and desperate to reach out to 
us and unfamiliar with the documents he was being presented, Nelson was 
willing to do anything to improve his conditions, even plead partially 
guilty so that he could enter the prison system and be allowed phone 
calls home, more regular contact with American Citizen Services, and 
other benefits. It was at that time that we were able to speak with our 
son, albeit on short calls that were heavily monitored and would 
disconnect abruptly when he attempted to share sensitive details about 
his treatment or condition or when we would express our own 
frustration.
    We learned that Nelson had been arrested on a drug charge. As he 
was leaving the country, he naively agreed to carry a bag of what he 
thought to be baked goods for a so-called friend through security at 
the airport. Those baked goods were allegedly laced with illegal drugs. 
That so-called friend made it through, but Nelson did not. For that one 
mistake--that one betrayal--his life, his wife's life, his children's 
lives, and our lives will never be the same.

                           Priority Concerns

    Though Nelson admitted partial guilt, he did not speak the 
language, never received proper due process, and did not have adequate 
legal representation to be able to offer a defense to the allegations 
or fully understand the terms and consequences of his pleadings. There 
were some bright spots: Nelson originally received a death sentence, 
but that sentence was ultimately reduced in 2019 to 22 years. We are 
thankful to the Chinese government for that, but his sentence did not 
include time served. This means that Nelson will not be released until 
the year 2041 when he is in his late 60s, if by some miracle he 
survives.
    In the years since 2014, my wife and I have become consumed with 
efforts to secure Nelson's release and to ensure his safety and health 
while imprisoned. At first, we did not have access to trusted lawyers 
or advisors that we could count on to advocate for Nelson and not take 
advantage of us. We expended almost all our savings in those early 
years via trial-and-error efforts to help Nelson and without meaningful 
guidance from our own government. With the exception of some former 
prisoners who were able to get messages to us and third-party 
advocates, we were virtually alone and operating in the blind. For 
years, we wrote letters to our Members of Congress, to the White House, 
to State Department officials, to Democrats and Republicans, to anyone 
who was in a position of influence, but our calls for assistance went 
unanswered.
    American Citizen Services in Beijing was helpful in visiting, 
calling, communicating with, and reporting back on Nelson, but some 
case officers were better than others and they changed frequently. One 
of Nelson's best officers is working with your Committee now, and his 
current case officer is outstanding as well. For that, we are forever 
grateful. But no matter how good or how well meaning, with each swap of 
a case officer, it feels like we, like Nelson is starting all over--
having to re-tell his story, re-teach his spoken and unspoken language, 
and recount his mental and physical health challenges. The 
inconsistency takes its toll on him, as have the years of 
incarceration.
    While in the beginning we heeded warnings not to shine a public 
light on Nelson's story out of fear of retaliation against him, his 
declining health has forced us to escalate our efforts to share his 
story and gain attention for him in the hopes of mounting political and 
public pressure and ultimately diplomatic intervention. While it 
shouldn't be this way, we have seen with other released prisoners that 
public pressure--and perhaps nothing else--works; it encourages the 
government to prioritize your loved one and to advocate more 
aggressively for their release.
    Over the years, Nelson has been a target for being one of the few 
Americans and Black Americans in the prison, which has exposed him to 
harsher treatment and sometimes physical attack. He has suffered from 
debilitating chronic pain, seizures (a Chinese MRI report shows he has 
an atrophying of the brain), malnutrition, internal issues, dental 
pain, severe depression and thoughts of self-harm. We also know that 
based on family history, Nelson needs regular cancer and heart health 
screenings, which it is not always clear he has received. He also needs 
regular contact with mental health professionals, regular calls and 
ideally video calls with us, and the ability to speak English with 
another person on a regular basis. Without these things, we fear that 
he will die in prison from physical or mental illness and without our 
ever seeing him again.
    Thus, my wife and I built a multidisciplinary team of China 
legislative and communications experts, including Peter Humphrey, who 
is also testifying today, and also with the help of Marc Morial, 
President of the National Urban League, who is a childhood friend. We 
decided to share Nelson's story loudly, beginning in Louisiana with 
KSLA's Domonique Benn. After her 2023 story on our fight for Nelson's 
release, we began garnering attention from Louisiana to Washington and 
beyond. We are especially thankful to Senator Bill Cassidy and his 
team, who are working on our behalf, and the many journalists in the 
United States and China who have reported on our story. We are also 
thankful to the Commission for inviting us here today to share our 
story--the story of everyday Americans who found themselves in the 
midst of an international diplomatic nightmare.
    Still, a meaningful change in Nelson's circumstances has remained 
out of reach and only underscores the difficulty, and sometimes 
hopelessness, of our situation, where we feel thwarted at every turn. 
For example:

    1. Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or as being held 
unjustly, even though he received an impossibly harsh sentence for a 
first-time offender and did not receive proper due process, which means 
his case has not received the same diplomatic attention as others 
within the State Department.

    2. Nelson's declining health, length of time served, and record of 
good behavior certainly should make him eligible for some sort of 
humanitarian release, but we have been told that this is not a 
possibility. It should be noted that over the past decade, Nelson has 
been a cooperative prisoner. Indeed, he promised me personally that he 
would not fight, even if he is provoked or attacked. He doesn't want to 
do anything to make his situation worse.

    3. Nelson has also sought to utilize a 2018 law in China that 
allows for a prisoner transfer to an American facility, absent a 
bilateral treaty with the home country (Law of the People's Republic of 
China on International Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters). 
Unfortunately, the United States still requires a treaty to engage in 
those negotiations and so Nelson remains in Chongqing Yudu Prison.

    We are at a loss as to what to do next, but whatever the pathway, 
we are asking, pleading with this Commission, with Congress, with the 
Administration--including the State Department and the Justice 
Department, and with the Chinese government, to work together on behalf 
of our son to find a solution that brings him home to us.
    When our country asked us to serve, my wife and I did so 
unreservedly and without hesitation. I even served in hardship posts, 
including during the Gulf War. I am asking now for your help on behalf 
of my child. He is a man, but as every parent here knows, he is still 
my child, and I cannot leave him behind. I am asking you also not to 
leave him--an American citizen--behind. We leave no man behind, right? 
We are people of faith, but he is losing faith. He feels alone. He 
feels helpless. We all do. I do not know how long I will be able to 
implore him to hang on.
    Please help our family by creating a pathway for outright release 
or prisoner transfer to a home prison. Please make improvements to the 
process for meaningfully working with detained citizens and their 
families so that they have help in navigating these crises and are not 
targets for abuse. The State Department should be focused not only on 
care for detainees, which is important, but also on offering resources 
and pathways for release, which is critical.
    Finally, we must improve diplomatic relations with China so that 
our citizens can travel abroad safely and that when an arrest happens, 
we can ensure their fair treatment. We were once told by a State 
Department official that Nelson should have never been in China in the 
first place and that citizens are warned about traveling there. In 
addition to this being a callous statement, it is also an unfair one, 
as those types of warnings were less clear in 2014 than they are now. 
More importantly, what good does that do Nelson or our family now. We 
still must bring him home. I am sure the official meant no harm, but no 
family should ever ask for help from the government only to be 
ridiculed.
    In addition to Nelson, we ask that you collectively help the 
hundreds of other Americans who are languishing in Chinese prisons and 
prisons elsewhere, who are perhaps worse off than us--Americans who are 
not before you today, who have not received media attention, who do not 
have Members of Congress working on their behalf, and who are known 
only to their loved ones. They need to have their stories told. They 
need someone to fight diplomatically for their release and at the very 
least for their fair treatment, their health, and their safety.
    On behalf of my son and all the sons and daughters who are still 
incarcerated on foreign soil, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today, and I look forward to answering your questions during and after 
the hearing for the record.
                                 ______
                                 

                   Prepared Statement of Harrison Li

    Today marks 2,932 days--more than 8 years--since my dad, Kai Li, 
was taken by the Chinese government as a bargaining chip. He spent 2 
months under ``residential surveillance at a designated location'' 
during which he was held at a secret location and interrogated harshly 
day and night without any access to legal counsel. Then almost a year 
passed before he was subjected to a closed-door sham trial, and then 
another year went by before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for 
stealing so-called ``state secrets''--even though said ``secrets'' are 
freely searchable even on the firewalled Chinese Internet. More than 3 
years ago now, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention 
demanded his release in a landmark decision. Yet despite all this, we 
have seen no positive movement in his case or those of the other 
Americans wrongfully detained in China.
    Officials at all levels of the U.S. Government constantly reassure 
us that securing my dad's freedom is their ``highest priority.'' Yet 
their actions, or rather the lack thereof, show otherwise. Since the 
day President Biden took office, our family has made countless requests 
through the State Department, Congress, and White House National 
Security Council to meet with him. In that time, the President has met 
with the families of many Americans detained in places like Gaza, 
Syria, Russia, and Iran, while every single one of our requests has 
gone unanswered.
    In my last two trips to D.C., I sat outside the White House with 
the families of several other wrongful detainees in the Bring Our 
Families Home Campaign. Both times, we watched the President and/or his 
National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, meet with the families of 
other detainees, leaving us out in the cold. Why are we ignored like 
this? The administration is always quick to note that not all hostage 
families who've met with the President have seen their loved ones come 
home, and conversely many Americans have come home without meeting with 
him. But the numbers are clearly in the favor of those who have met 
with the President. That's not surprising, because as the reporting 
around last month's prisoner deal with Russia illustrates, when Jake 
Sullivan and the President put their heads together with hostage 
families, they can collectively come up with creative solutions to 
bring Americans home. Unfortunately, we do not see this happening with 
the China cases, even as my dad alone has now spent more time behind 
bars than Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva combined.
    Time is running out. No matter who wins November's Presidential 
election, we will experience a change of administration. We know (from 
experience, unfortunately) that that means months or years where no 
progress will be made as bilateral relationships and communication 
channels are re-formed. The next few months before President Biden 
leaves office thus form a crucial period for the administration to 
leverage the work they've put in to stabilize the broader bilateral 
relationship against the prospect of another spy balloon incident and 
negotiate a fair deal that will finally bring my dad home. Simply 
mentioning my dad's name in bilateral engagements won't be enough. And 
so we need all of you to raise your voices these next few weeks and 
call on President Biden to stop ignoring us and lead a wholehearted 
effort to bring my dad home before he leaves office.
    I have now spent a third of my life missing my dad. Every day, I 
wake up and shudder at the thought of him crammed into a tiny cell with 
as many as 11 other people, in deplorable conditions that Peter 
[Humphrey] here can unfortunately tell you about firsthand, as someone 
who spent two years in the same prison. In the last eight years, my 
dad's suffered a stroke, lost a tooth, and endured draconian COVID-19 
lockdowns for more than three years without climate control. President 
Biden, how much more does he need to suffer before you stop ignoring 
us?
                                 ______
                                 

                     Prepared Statement of Tim Hunt

    My sister Dawn Michelle Hunt is incarcerated in Guangdong Women's 
Prison. She was arrested in 2014 and charged with smuggling, a charge 
she vehemently denies. Dawn was born on 12 June 1971, so she is now 53. 
She was a receptionist at the time she was arrested. As I write this, I 
think of the numerous times I've written to officials, lawyers, and 
anyone else who would listen. I think I've written this type of letter 
hundreds of times since her incarceration, but over the years, things 
have changed. My sister and my family are getting worn down. Dawn's 
health has been failing, and our father's health is failing as well.
    It all started when my sister was tricked into believing she had 
won a contest. She received an email stating that she had won a cash 
prize. When she contacted the contest organizers, she didn't believe it 
at first, so she checked them out online and was surprised that the 
info they gave her checked out. With that, she sent them her passport 
information and they sent a ticket for her to travel to Hong Kong. She 
was there for nine days and she told me that the organizers treated her 
well. She went sightseeing, shopping and started to trust the 
organizers who put together her trip. After exploring Hong Kong, she 
was asked if she wanted to visit mainland China. After her positive 
experience in Hong Kong, she agreed. She acquired a visa for mainland 
China while she was in Hong Kong with the help of the organizers who 
put together her initial trip. She then flew to mainland China and 
traveled around, sightseeing and shopping for nine days. She was then 
asked if she wanted to visit Australia as part of her prize. Once 
again, she agreed.
    Before leaving for her Australia trip, she was told she also won 
some designer purses. Excited about her upcoming trip, and trusting the 
organizers, she took the purses before her flight, not knowing drugs 
were sewn inside the linings. She explained to me that the organizers 
wanted her to pack the purses in her luggage. She told them that her 
luggage was full so she and some people who organized her trips went to 
the Baiyun leather market and the organizers purchased an additional 
bag for her.
    She told me that while she was in the airport in China, on her way 
to Australia, she was called by airport security. They escorted her to 
a room and the luggage she checked (she checked two pieces) was in the 
room as well. She was asked if the luggage belonged to her, to which 
she responded ``yes.'' She stated that she was asked multiple times and 
each time she said ``yes,'' not knowing drugs were in the lining of the 
purses she won from the organizers of the contest. She told me that she 
even paid a small excess weight fee since the luggage was slightly over 
the weight limit when she checked in for her flight.
    I hope you can see that something like this could happen to a lot 
of people. As a matter of fact, in May of this year, the Secret Service 
issued a warning for law enforcement to educate the public on similar 
schemes. Unfortunately, my sister was arrested in 2014 and never 
received any such warning.
    After her trial, she was found guilty and received the ``death 
penalty with two years reprieve.'' She was duped. She was scammed! She 
trusted the wrong people! She doesn't deserve it. Although she told me 
it happened when she was taking a flight to Australia, a journalist 
said a court record says she was on her way to Qingdao in China on an 
internal flight. I don't know the reason for this discrepancy. The 
death penalty for this?
    In the years she was detained before her trial, she cooperated with 
the authorities, answered all their questions, and produced the emails 
she received from the organizers but unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
    Since her incarceration, she has developed physical ailments 
(uterine fibroids and possibly ovarian cancer) according to the doctors 
who examined her in prison. She has received numerous blood 
transfusions due to heavy bleeding and has been advised that she needs 
a hysterectomy, which she has refused out of distrust. How can she 
trust the same people who have incarcerated her after she cooperated 
with the Chinese authorities? How can she trust the same people she 
tried to help apprehend the organizers who had duped her?
    My sister has never been street-smart. She's trusting and believes 
that people are good. Being her older brother, I've seen her 
disappointed and upset when people in her life turn out to be something 
different from what they displayed. This has hurt her and has taken 
years from her life. When I visited her recently in prison, I could see 
the depth of her depression. She has lost weight; her eyes are bulging. 
She has an abdominal bulge on her right side, and her complexion is 
very pale. She told me that she still has to work in the prison despite 
her illness but that she can't lift heavy objects because her fibroids 
might rupture and she would start bleeding.
    After I visited her, I updated my father on her condition. I had to 
leave out some details of her physical appearance because my dad has 
recently been diagnosed with cancer and I wanted to avoid giving him an 
additional shock. I'd also like to share a bit about my father with 
you. He's an Army veteran and a retired Chicago Police Sergeant of 32 
years. I once witnessed him save our next-door neighbors when their 
house caught fire. Witnessing that event made such an impression on me 
as a kid that I followed in his footsteps and became a Chicago Police 
Officer and retired after 28 years.
    Dawn Michelle is my dad's only daughter, and he is devastated by 
her predicament. In a strange way, my dad's locked up as well. He's 
almost 91, freshly diagnosed with prostate cancer, has other health 
issues and is worried that with all this, he's not going to live long 
enough to see his daughter free, safe, and at home. He's getting worn 
down, just like my sister.
    As I stated at the beginning of this statement, my family is 
getting worn down. We've gotten our hopes up, only to be disappointed 
again and again. The hearing that you're having regarding the cases of 
unjustly detained Americans in China offers new hope.
    Chapter 8, Transfer of Sentenced Persons, in The Law of the 
People's Republic of China on International Judicial Assistance in 
Criminal Matters, offers a path for Americans incarcerated in China to 
come home, and it doesn't require a bilateral prisoner transfer treaty. 
This hearing gives my family a bit more hope that not only will my 
sister, who was unjustly detained, have a path to come home, but also 
other unjustly detained Americans as well. We need the CECC's help, and 
we need its advocacy to bring our loved ones home.

                  Prepared Statement of Peter Humphrey

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              Introduction

    I am a British citizen. Half my family is American. My wife and son 
are American citizens. For much of my life I have interacted with 
American institutions. I have spent 49 years involved with China as an 
academic, teacher, journalist, corporate investigator, and 
philanthropist. I hold a degree in sinology from Durham University in 
England. I am currently an external affiliate of Harvard University's 
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, a member of the UK think tanks 
RUSI and Henry Jackson Society, and a pro bono mentor to families of 
foreign prisoners in China. I and my American wife Yingzeng Yu were 
wrongfully imprisoned in China in 2013-2015 on false charges of illegal 
information gathering for our due diligence firm, ChinaWhys, in an 
extensively publicized case. Since our release in June 2015 I have 
created an information and support network among families of foreign 
prisoners to lobby for their welfare and their release, as well as 
interviewing newly released prisoners in order to track changes in the 
prisons. Before testifying to this commission, I have testified to the 
UK Parliament and the Australian Senate and I have provided evidence to 
support China-related legislation in the EU Parliament on China due 
diligence and the import of prison labor products.
    I am testifying to the CECC both as a specialist on justice and 
imprisonment in China and as a foreign victim of unjust imprisonment. I 
have a wealth of personal experience and insight after being a fly on 
the wall inside the Chinese prison system for 2 years, and one of the 
first victims of dictator Xi Jinping's crusade against foreigners, and 
for the past 9 years an activist who is exposing judicial and penal 
abuses that all foreign prisoners and detainees in China face.
    In my statement I will include some high-level observations in 
addition to some examples of abuse in China's prison system, and I will 
touch upon the cases of some American prisoners that I have followed 
and supported. Finally, I will also make some observations and 
suggestions for improving policy in areas that need review and change.
    First, let me also state that although we can see a number of 
American families presenting their cases of unjust imprisonment in 
China to this CECC hearing, there are a massive number who cannot or 
will not do so, largely due to fear of retribution against their loved 
ones locked up in one of Xi Jinping's jails. In addition, the 
communication of Americans languishing in China's prisons is 
deliberately obstructed by Chinese authorities, making it impossible 
for them to issue their own statements and pleas for help directly to 
such a hearing. We must keep all those Americans in our minds and 
hearts as we digest the testimony of the few who are able to testify. 
Regardless of class background, level of wealth, skin color, religious 
creed, or the crimes they are alleged by Chinese institutions to have 
committed, and whether ``guilty'' or not, they deserve equal support, 
as Americans. Some of them have been in Xi's jails for more than 10 
years and are in dire health.

             The Humphrey and Yu Wrongful Imprisonment Case

    The story of what happened to me and my family in the clutches of 
China's judicial and prison system has been extensively documented and 
written about in the media and in the American litigation records of my 
lawsuit against a former client of mine.
    In short, after decades of benign involvement in China, one morning 
in July 2013, I and my American wife Yingzeng Yu were suddenly 
detained, our Shanghai offices and apartment were raided at dawn and 
our 10-year-old due diligence consultancy company was shut down without 
any legal grounds. I was 57 at the time, and my wife was approaching 
her 60th birthday. Our son, an American citizen, was 18 at the time and 
had just completed high school--our arrest orphaned him for the next 2 
years and seriously damaged his educational path and career ambitions. 
Our only crime really was to have offended somebody who we had 
investigated and profiled for a multinational client who suspected her 
of defaming the company. She turned out to have powerful connections in 
the Communist Party and arranged for us to be arrested in revenge.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ I cannot name this client here, for legal reasons, in order to 
comply with a legal settlement between the Humphrey family and the 
client, the terms of which are confidential. I can only refer to the 
public dockets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We never received a fair and transparent trial and we were treated 
inhumanely during 2 years of wrongful captivity. We spent over a year 
in a Shanghai detention center and the remainder of the period in 
prisons--me in Shanghai's Qingpu Prison and my wife in Shanghai Women's 
Prison.
    The detention center was like a penal facility from day one and not 
a pre-trial detention facility. My cell was unfurnished and it 
incarcerated 12 men in a floor space of 17.5 square yards. The off 
white paint and plaster in the cells was rotting and peeling off the 
walls and ceiling. The other cellmates were mostly Chinese. 
Occasionally there would be another foreigner, from Africa or Asia. The 
ceiling lights were kept on 24/7. There was no furniture, no bed to 
sleep on. We slept on a bare, rough wooden floor, which was our bed, 
our breakfast and dinner table, and where we had to squat or sit cross-
legged for most of the day. We never received outdoor exercise, 
sunshine or fresh air. The toilet was a hole in the corner of the cell 
open to the view of every cellmate and the surveillance cameras. There 
was never a moment of privacy. The only privacy was inside your own 
head. We ate three times a day from doggy bowls containing food that 
was pushed through the bars of the cell by convict laborers. The food 
comprised gritty rice, scraps of vegetable, and the occasional sliver 
of meat. The food lacked vital vitamins and minerals and we all 
suffered from malnutrition and diarrhea, and quickly lost weight and 
grew weak. I lost 22 pounds. The cell provided no hot water but only 
cold water running from a tap in a crumbling stone sink. Medical 
attention was grossly inadequate. One cellmate was dying from heart 
disease and another, a Chinese-born American citizen, was suffering 
from a failing liver transplant that he had undergone just weeks before 
he was arrested on murky fraud charges in the middle of his own wedding 
party. The detention center authorities refused to acknowledge my 
prostate cancer situation and withheld medical treatment for it for the 
whole duration of my arbitrary detention there.
    I and my wife were subjected separately to daily interrogations by 
the police (PSB) and initially also by State Security (MSS) who tried 
to pin an espionage charge on us. In the end they charged us with 
illegal information gathering under a law which at the time of our 
business activities did not make our business activities illegal. 
(Since our release China has introduced new laws which make all 
information gathering potentially illegal, regardless of the means used 
to gather it.) During this detention and interrogation period, I and my 
wife were allowed no contact with each other. After 6 months we were 
allowed to write letters to each other but these took weeks or months 
to travel 300 meters through the concrete walls of the detention center 
due to three layers of censorship. They were censored and sometimes 
confiscated without us being told. We were not allowed to discuss our 
case in these letters. Correspondence with family was highly 
restricted. No family visits were allowed. This severely hampered our 
efforts to help our 18-year-old son who was suddenly cut adrift by our 
disappearance and had no access to our family funds. But we received 
occasional welfare visits from our respective U.S. and UK consulates 
bringing messages, letters and reading material.
    In short, the conditions in the detention center in their totality 
added up to torture designed to crush the human spirit and force out a 
confession, and failed to meet the standards required by international 
conventions or treaties that China has signed.
    In April 2014, my wife's brother, Bernard Yu, an American citizen 
born in Ohio, died in Maryland from a fast-moving cancer accelerated by 
the stress that he was experiencing in handling his younger sister's 
incarceration. His situation was withheld from my wife until our trial 
and she never had a chance to say goodbye to him. He was her only other 
close relative from her original nuclear family. She was only informed 
of his death on the morning of our sham trial in August that year, 
which seriously destabilized her in court, no doubt intentionally.
    During our detention we were allowed only minimalist meetings with 
defense lawyers, whose hands were tied by a rule that requires all 
Chinese lawyers to obey the Communist Party or lose their license. 
These meetings never enjoyed any privacy. The meetings were held in a 
cell with bars between me and the visiting lawyer and were held under 
surveillance. No documents were supposed to be exchanged.
    Needless to say, our defense was thus rendered useless. On 8 August 
2014, we were taken to a court for a show trial that lasted 1 day and 
we were sentenced immediately--me to two and a half years and my wife 
to 2 years. We decided not to appeal because we were falsely led to 
believe that life would be easier in a prison, especially for my wife 
who was ill with swollen kidneys, and because the time required for an 
appeal process might exceed the length of our sentence.
    For 1 month between the trial and my transfer to prison, I was in a 
transit cell for men who had been sentenced and were either awaiting 
transfer to a prison or were in the process of appeal. It was in this 
cell that I met the American prisoner named David McMahon, whose 
travesty I am separately presenting to this hearing, David having 
authorized me to take his case public over 5 years ago. I was so 
shocked by the sheer injustice of his case that I spent that month in 
interview mode, getting to know him as well as possible and assessing 
his case. We shared reading materials including books, magazines, and 
judicial documents and became good friends. David McMahon was a primary 
school teacher who worked at the French International School and had 
been falsely accused of molesting a 6-year-old girl in school. He 
showed me his indictment and judgment documents, family photos and love 
letters and I concluded that he was a normal heterosexual man in a 
normal loving heterosexual relationship with a female American school 
teacher, who would never be a pedophile and who had been wrongly 
accused. He was the victim of a witch hunt by a French mother whose 
daughter had been molested the previous year by another American 
teacher who was indeed a fugitive pedophile, Hector Oruela, and who was 
extradited to America and is now serving a long jail term for crimes he 
had committed in the U.S. Oruela was never tried in China and the 
French family resented this. They seized upon a proxy fantasy that 
their daughter had been molested by David.
    Life in Qingpu Prison \2\ was certainly not easier than in the 
detention center even though I was placed in a cell block designated 
exclusively for around 150 foreign citizens. Again I was in a 17.5 
square yard cell shared among 12 cellmates, a standard cell size in 
Shanghai. The cell had two-tier bunk beds on each side with a very 
narrow floor space in the middle. Lights were kept on 24/7, although 
dimmed at night. Food was similar to the detention center, although 
warmer, cleaner and with a bit more protein, eaten in a separate 
``activity room,'' at tables, served by fellow prisoners. We received 
one boiled egg per week every Sunday. There were restrictions on 
receiving or sending our letters--all are censored by language officers 
known as ``letter captains.'' And restrictions applied to receiving 
reading material--subjective censorship decisions are made by officers 
who confiscate anything that they deem to have a political nature.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Qingpu Prison is the very same prison where Kai Li and David 
McMahon are held today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I was placed in a ``training cell'' where a ``chief prisoner'' was 
assigned to bully me, and a particular officer known to be sadistic was 
placed in charge of my cell with the specific mission to bully me into 
signing a confession. Other prisoners were ordered not to speak to me 
because I was a British ``spy.''
    Most of the prisoners were participating in mandatory manufacturing 
labor and some were employed as corridor cleaners or food servers. I 
boycotted the labor system and got away with it, perhaps because my 
sentence was short and I had no interest in earning points for a 
sentence reduction. Only through labor and through writing mandatory 
thought reports and confessions of guilt can you earn merit points and 
apply for sentence reductions. I had no intention of confessing to a 
crime that I had never committed. Most prisoners with longer sentences 
(including life terms) crumbled and many innocent people falsely 
confessed to uncommitted crimes in order to obtain sentence reductions.
    In connection with forced prison labor among foreign inmates, I 
published a series of articles in the Sunday Times in December 2019 
about Qingpu inmates packaging Christmas cards for the British 
supermarket chain Tesco, and Quaker Oatmeal sachets for PepsicCo. (See 
reading list at the end of this statement.)
    During my time in Qingpu, I witnessed frequent rough handling and 
beating of foreign prisoners and instances of brutal solitary 
confinement for the most minor of offenses such as refusing to get out 
of the bunk bed. Solitary included food deprivation, sleep deprivation, 
and water boarding sessions that were performed by trusted Chinese 
convicts, according to prisoners who suffered this treatment.
    Overall, the conditions in Qingpu Prison added up to torture as 
defined in the international treaty on torture and the international 
convention on minimum standards of treatment for prisoners which China 
has signed.
    In Qingpu, again, medical attention for my prostate cancer was 
deliberately withheld, this time on blatant illegal grounds: Whenever I 
asked for treatment, I was told, ``You have not confessed.'' It was 
only in the 21st month of my captivity in April 2015 that I finally 
obtained an MRI scan confirming my tumor. I managed to get this 
information out to my son and to my consular representative. I made 
clear I would use this news to overcast an impending visit later in 
2015 to the UK by President Xi Jinping. Soon afterwards, I felt that 
certain wheels were moving to try to get rid of me.
    The most senior officer of the foreign cell block, and the governor 
of the prison, tried to negotiate with me to formulate some kind of 
statement--they wanted an acknowledgement of guilt but they were not 
going to get it and never did. In the end they settled for a fudged 
statement full of conditional clauses, ifs and buts. And even this I 
signed only under duress. In June 2015 they finally released me with my 
wife, after fabricating paperwork that claimed we had acknowledged our 
crimes, behaved well in prison and reformed. All of this was a sheer 
box-ticking fabrication, a show. A big lie.
    We arrived in the UK on 17 June 2015. I underwent 5 years of 
prostate cancer treatments which failed. The 2 years in captivity 
without medical treatment for it had allowed it to advance to a 
dangerous point. In the end, in 2020, I had to undergo the removal of 
my prostate in its entirety to save my life. Although life-saving, this 
has brought life-changing consequences and daily management issues. I 
also underwent 5 years in and out of PTSD counseling, which has been 
unsuccessful. I still suffer from painful flashbacks and panic attacks. 
Although I have obtained some triumphs and exonerations outside China, 
delving into the fine details of my ordeal remains a huge mental and 
emotional struggle and I remain fragile as a result of my mistreatment, 
sometimes unable to marshal my thoughts as clearly as I could before 
this ordeal. A man leaves a prison, but a prison never leaves a man.

                           Prison Population

    There are no reliable official statistics for the number of 
prisoners in the People's Republic of China because China intentionally 
obfuscates the situation. Based on piecemeal data available from 
various sources, and on my own experience inside the system, on 
anecdotal information from prisoners and on my research, I estimate the 
prison population to be approaching ten million in various forms of 
regular and irregular incarceration.
    Based on my most recent research, I estimate the number of 
foreigner prisoners in China to be approaching 10,000, having doubled 
under the rule of Xi Jinping. Two very large segments are Africans and 
China-born foreign citizens. Very few foreign governments have 
disclosed how many of their citizens are held in China. Australia has 
disclosed that 55 Australians are being held. Canada has admitted to 
there being 92 Canadian prisoners in China. Japan has admitted to 17 
Japanese.
    America and the UK and many other countries have withheld such 
data, citing ``privacy concerns'' as an excuse. But these total numbers 
are not a matter of privacy at all. The public needs to know. My own 
research estimates that there are close to 300 Americans, including 
many China-born American citizens, held in various forms of 
incarceration and detention in China or subject to exit bans.
    The American prisoner segment in Chinese prisons has ballooned 
since the 2000s as a result of a cooperation agreement on transnational 
crime between China and the United States during the Obama-Biden 
administration in areas such as drugs, pedophiles, trafficking and 
money laundering. The PRC seems to have taken this as a green light to 
arrest Americans. Then, in 2012/2013 when Xi Jinping took power in 
China, Chinese newspapers suddenly started talking about cleaning up 
all the ``foreign trash'' on China's streets and the arrest of 
Americans gathered pace. It was in this period that egregious false 
imprisonment drug cases such as those of Mark Swidan, Nelson Wells, 
Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt occurred.
    By all accounts and standards, China's prison system is indeed a 
veritable ``gulag.'' Its inmates are victims of injustice, as I will 
demonstrate here, and they are forced to work against their will to the 
profit of the prison system and its officers.

                       Judicial and Prison System

    Publicly available research and firsthand testimony make it clear 
that China's legal system, judicial system and prison system act as an 
organic whole to exercise repression, resulting in systemic abuse on a 
massive scale, including wrongful imprisonment.
    Research and firsthand experience make it clear that police, 
prosecutors, and judges all hail from the same stable--the Chinese 
Communist Party (CCP). And lawyers are compelled to obey the Communist 
Party, making them part of the same unfair and opaque system. Trial 
judgments are not determined by the judge on a case but are handed to 
the judge by a Communist Party committee who sits above him, known at 
the local level as the Political and Legal Affairs Committee and at the 
national level as the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. At every 
stage, whenever an official signs off on a detention order, a charge, 
an indictment, a judgment, they are taking a political step and 
immediately they have a political stake in this decision not being 
found to be mistaken and then reversed. In this sense, every convicted 
prisoner is a political prisoner, a prisoner of the political system.
    As a victim and as a fly on the wall inside the system for 2 years 
and having conducted many investigations for the private sector over a 
15-year period when I was in the due diligence business in China before 
my arrest, I observed that Chinese police do not conduct investigations 
with any real detective work or forensic procedures. They rely upon 
extracting confessions from detainees who are interrogated day by day 
under duress locked inside cages (as was I) with no lawyer present, and 
by extracting so-called witness statements (which are also often 
coerced) to frame the case the way they want it to be. Contradictory 
evidence is not allowed. People like American citizens Nelson Wells, 
Jr., Dawn Michelle Hunt, David McMahon, Kai Li, David Lin, Mark Swidan, 
to mention but a few, never stood a chance. (Nor did I and my wife.)
    The system during Xi Jinping's reign has also often used televised 
forced and false confessions broadcast on the main party-owned outlets 
CCTV and CGTN in violation of the country's own laws and constitutional 
provisions on trials, to prejudice a trial and poison Chinese public 
opinion. I and my American wife were the first foreign victims of this 
illegal practice.\3\ Our false TV ``confessions'' were broadcast to the 
world without our consent or awareness at the time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ See photos at the top of this document. One photo shows me in a 
steel cage for the fake TV confession.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    After my release, I waged a campaign and legal action in the UK 
alongside an NGO against CGTN and CCTV. It resulted in the UK TV 
regulator Ofcom fining CGTN and stripping its UK broadcast license over 
the illegal forced confession broadcasts of me and my wife and over the 
fact that CGTN was owned by a political party, which is illegal in the 
UK. I also assisted other victims to file similar complaints. I would 
encourage other countries such as America to follow the UK lead on such 
action. (This would not be an assault on freedom of expression, it 
would be an action to protect the human rights of Americans abroad.)
    There is no fair and transparent judicial process. Defense lawyers 
are prevented from conducting genuine and vigorous defense. No defense 
witnesses are allowed to be called to court. (Multiple defense 
witnesses wanted to testify in support of David McMahon but were not 
allowed.) Defense evidence is not permitted to be presented. Defense 
lawyers who try too hard are debarred or jailed. Prosecution witnesses 
are not required to appear in person--only written testimonials are 
presented and cannot be challenged. There is no cross-examination of 
prosecution witnesses by the defense.
    As many as 99.9 percent of prosecutions in China result in 
convictions and sentences. And 99.9 percent of appeals are rejected. As 
beneficiaries of an open and fair judicial system in, say, America and 
the UK, we know that such glorious figures are simply not credible.
    China's pre-trial detention centers do not function like pre-trial 
custody regimes but as penal regimes from day one, even when a detainee 
has not been indicted, tried and convicted of any crime. The harsh 
conditions which I described in my long FT Weekend Magazine article 
published in February 2018 (https://www.ft.com/
content/db8b9e36-1119-11e8-940e-08320fc2a277) have grown worse since my 
own stay in the Chinese prisons. I have interviewed released foreign 
prisoners, who have reported unspeakable woes in pre-trial detention. 
The detention centers are designed to crush the human spirit with the 
result that many prisoners falsely confess to a crime they never 
committed. Grown men and women cry inside those walls every day.
    In the post-trial prisons, the Xi dictatorship has steadily 
toughened and harshened prison regimens for foreign prisoners, reducing 
food rations, exercise, family phone calls, letter writing, the 
receiving of comfort packages, reading materials and so forth, and 
sentence reductions have become impossible to obtain without signing 
false confessions and submitting to coerced manufacturing labor.
    Keep in mind one very important thing: Among the millions of 
prisoners in the system, not a single prisoner has ever had a fair and 
transparent trial. Not a single one. Sentences tend to be reckless, 
inconsistent, and disproportionate to any offense. The entire system is 
arbitrary and subject to the whims of Communist Party officials and 
their friends. The system works to favor anyone with ``guanxi'' 
(connections) to use the law to bash people they dislike. The tone of 
this behavior has been set from the top down. This results in 
substantial harm to masses of innocent people.
    As a result we cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, treat 
China as being a country under the rule of law and we should not accept 
any charges or trial judgments against our citizens at face value. They 
must all be challenged.

                       Forced Prison Labor System

    China's entire prison system holding many millions of prisoners is 
in fact at the same time a gigantic, self-perpetuating commercial 
enterprise which brings profits to the state, and income to prison 
officers, in other words a ``gulag.'' This funds prison operations 
across the country. Foreign prisoners are not exempt from such labor.
    Every Chinese prison imposes forced production labor on its 
prisoners for the commercial gain of the prison system. I have observed 
that prison officers are employed as labor supervisors, marketing and 
sales managers, and they get bonuses and perks for winning orders and 
for high production output. Designated officers go out to win orders 
and contracts from commercial manufacturers. Every prison has 
incorporated one or more companies to hold this business.
    Those of us who have been guests of Xi's jails have witnessed this 
system in practice. Those who refuse to participate in this labor get 
no merit points for sentence reductions. All other privileges such as 
spending on the prison shopping system, calls to family, family visits, 
reading and letter writing, etc., can be withheld if you refuse this 
work. Even food rations can be reduced. Recalcitrant prisoners get sent 
to solitary. (I personally was threatened with solitary when I refused 
to sign a confession.)
    Prison campuses contain entire factories making a range of goods, 
from sports shoes, apparel and daily hardware items, to electronics 
such as keyboards and appliances. Chinese prisoners work up to 12 hours 
a day 6 days per week. The seventh day is spent on writing thought 
reports and on ideological study and on hand-
washing clothes.
    Accidents are frequent in the factories. I met many Chinese 
prisoners (and some other Asians) in the Shanghai Nanhui Prison 
hospital with broken bones caused by factory accidents.
    Foreign prisoners, including Americans, in most prisons, do not 
usually perform heavy factory labor (except Pakistani prisoners who are 
all held in Xinjiang) but perform manual tasks that require no 
machinery. Most perform this labor in a work room in their own cell 
block. In Qingpu Prison, where I was held, they worked five and a half 
days a week, occasionally more. However, in some other prisons, African 
prisoners have complained that they are working 12-hour days every 
day--the same hours as Chinese prisoners--and consider themselves as 
``slave labor.''
    The typical work of foreign prisoners, including Americans, 
includes making gift bags for retail chains (including China's biggest 
duty-free shopping chain), making packaging materials, packaging items 
such as Christmas cards, plastic tags for retail display racks, 
keyboards, and breakfast oatmeal sachets, as witnessed among the 
foreigners in Qingpu Prison.
    I wrote extensively in the Sunday Times in December 2019 about the 
packaging of Tesco Christmas cards and Quaker Oats as revealed by 
foreign prisoners at Qingpu Prison in a message smuggled out inside a 
Tesco Christmas card box and found by a little girl in London at 
Christmas in 2019. [See page 54 for links to the articles.]
    While a prisoner in Qingpu Prison, I personally witnessed items 
being made or packaged for labels bearing the names 3M, H&M, C&A. Other 
prisoners that I have interviewed after their release have listed 
additional brands owned by companies in a number of countries appearing 
on items being made or packaged in Qingpu Prison. These names have 
included PepsiCo, Tesco, Zara, and Disney. These practices are repeated 
in all Chinese prisons.
    With this system, Chinese prisons make huge profits for the 
authorities. There is no incentive to release prisoners early. There is 
every incentive to keep prisoners in prison for as long as possible to 
squeeze more labor out of them. And there is an incentive to grow the 
prison population.
    Thus millions of prisoners are engaged in this enterprise against 
their will and without fair reward. For the Uighurs in Xinjiang labor 
camps things are even worse.
    Most of the almost ten million prisoners in China are performing 
forced labor for the commercial gain of the prison system and hence for 
the CCP dictatorship.
    I advised on and participated in a documentary film premiered last 
year which investigated forced prison labor in China, SOS from a 
Chinese Prisoner, which can be viewed here. It contains some remarkable 
details. https://vimeo.com/manage/
videos/894499408/952924accf.

                             Due Diligence

    Before I was wrongfully imprisoned for 2 years in 2013, I had spent 
almost 20 years as a Reuters journalist, and then 15 years as a private 
sector due diligence and anti-fraud investigator running my own well-
regarded consultancy, named ChinaWhys with offices in Shanghai, Beijing 
and Hong Kong.
    I have extensive experience in performing due diligence in China 
for multinational companies, including many large manufacturing 
companies with deep and complex supply chains, and many American law 
firms. For example I have conducted investigations for Dow Chemical, 
Dell, Apple, PepsiCo, Terex, Baker Mackenzie, Jones Day, H&M, BMW, 
Daimler, Unilever, and Rolls-Royce Engines, to mention only a few.
    In general, many multinationals sub-contract work to Chinese 
factories, which in turn may further sub-contract parts of their own 
job to other small factories and so on. This creates a complex and 
murky supply chain. So very often a multinational has no knowledge of 
what is going on at the bottom, such as the use of a prison enterprise 
or child labor. To illustrate this very simply, a fashion company may 
commission a Chinese factory to make the trimmings for a pair of 
trousers. But that Chinese factory contracts another factory to do the 
zippers, and another one to do the buttons, and another to do 
packaging, etc. Tesco had no idea that its Christmas cards were being 
packaged by a prison. Much of the work done by foreign prisoners is 
indeed such packaging and simple manual assembly.
    The only way that companies become aware of this prison labor is 
when a prisoner manages to smuggle out a whistle-blowing message and it 
gets into the media. This happened with the Tesco Christmas cards in 
December 2019. Since then I have seen several similar messages emerge 
from various other Chinese prisons, related to completely different 
products including pregnancy test kits made at a prison in Tianjin and 
PPE products such as COVID masks made in a prison in Guangdong, all 
sold in Europe.
    It was always difficult for due diligence investigators to drill to 
the bottom of the chain but Xi Jinping has recently erected barriers to 
all information gathering by foreign companies and their agents, making 
meaningful on-the-ground due diligence impossible today. First it 
introduced privacy restrictions that limited due diligence activity. 
And the latest example is the new anti-espionage law introduced last 
year. Now, many activities that previously might have been treated 
merely as privacy matters have been moved under the spying law and 
could result in life sentences.
    In these circumstances, multinationals cannot satisfactorily check 
whether a Chinese company is using prison labor or other illegal 
unsocial labor. The only way to avoid this risk today is not to do 
business in China at all. Anybody who says you can avoid it is either 
lying or fantasizing.

                         Life and Death Matters

    The Chinese prison system weaponizes prisoners' health and medical 
care as an instrument to extort written confessions to crime, refusing 
to provide needed medical attention to prisoners who refuse to admit 
guilt. This is what happened to me and many others. They refused to 
treat my suspected prostate cancer and by the time of my release after 
2 years I had developed advanced prostate cancer and then had to battle 
it for 5 years after my return to the UK. Finally my treatment failed, 
my cancer relapsed and my prostate had to be removed. I am lucky to 
still be alive.
    Imagine what this means for anybody held in such conditions with a 
long sentence to serve, such as Americans Nelson Wells, Jr., Mark 
Swidan, Dawn Michelle Hunt, David Lin and many others.
    This practice is the norm in Chinese prisons. Medical treatment is 
also withheld simply to avoid spending money on it. I learned of 
several Chinese deaths inside my prison from untreated cancers. Since 
my release I have learned that a number of foreign prisoners have died 
soon after their own release, and at least two foreign prisoners in my 
cell block have died from cancer inside the prison in the last few 
years.

        USG Should Treat All American Prisoners in China Equally

    I have reviewed many cases of foreigners imprisoned in China 
including Americans. I mentor the families and/or prisoners in around 
25 cases on a pro bono basis, to varying degrees as needed. I and other 
volunteers have analyzed the situations of prisoners including 
available judicial documents, for prisoners such as Nelson Wells, Jr., 
David McMahon, Dawn Michelle Hunt, Mark Swidan, and Kai Li. I have 
followed other cases closely without being directly engaged to assist.
    In all cases I have concluded that material and forensic evidence 
was absent in their prosecution, that these convictions are false, and 
that these cases would be thrown out of court in a country under the 
rule of law. I have concluded that not a single one of these prisoners 
received a fair and transparent trial and a proper defense. I have 
concluded through my wider research and experience that beyond these 
few cases, not a single prisoner in China as a whole has received a 
fair and transparent trial. The key values of justice that we espouse 
in democratic countries under the rule of law, and enshrined in the 
American Constitution, are absent.
    America has a law known as the Levinson Act which sets criteria for 
defining who is arbitrarily detained and a hostage. Those thus defined 
are supposed to go onto the list of cases handed to the office of the 
Special Envoy on Hostage Affairs (SPEHA). Only three from China have 
made it onto the list. However, all American prisoners meet the 
criteria by dint of not having received a fair and transparent trial in 
front of an independent court. This needs to change. All Americans held 
in China are arbitrarily detained persons by this classification alone, 
not to mention the other criteria listed in the Levinson Act.
    Nelson Wells, Jr.--the judicial documents show a lack of material, 
forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. His self-defense 
arguments were ignored and he was never allowed to tell his story in 
full in court. Mr. Wells is over 50 and critically ill after over 10 
years of a life term in prison. He would receive medical parole if he 
were not a foreigner. He qualifies for a prisoner transfer to America 
under Chinese law. The USG has not explored this opportunity with the 
Chinese side.
    David McMahon--the judicial documents show a lack of material, 
forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. The only witness was a 
6-year-old girl who was clearly primed and manipulated by her mother 
and the prosecution to utter sheer fabrications and fantasies. He has 
served 11 years from an uncommuted 12-year sentence. He has never 
admitted any guilt--because he is innocent. When he returns to America 
in May 2025 he plans to sue parties who have harmed him.
    Dawn Michelle Hunt--the judicial documents show a lack of material, 
forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. She initially received 
a death sentence, now commuted to life. She is over 50 and critically 
ill in prison and qualifies for a prisoner transfer to America under 
Chinese law. The USG has not explored this opportunity with the Chinese 
side. In addition, she would receive medical parole if she were not a 
foreigner. Throughout her captivity Chinese authorities have obstructed 
her communication with the outside world and prevented her from telling 
her story until the family managed to get it into the New York Times on 
11 Sept 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/world/asia/china-us-
woman-imprisoned.html.
    Mark Swidan--the judicial documents show a lack of material, 
forensic evidence tying Mark Swidan directly to the crimes ascribed to 
him and a lack of proper defense. They show he was an innocent 
bystander who had somehow fallen socially into bad company without 
knowing the people. His fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong 
time with bad people, while his only reason for being in China was to 
explore the flooring products sector. For this he was sentenced to 
death now commuted to life. His story has been well told very loudly by 
his brave and vociferous mother Katherine, who is elderly and ailing 
and fears that she will never see her son again. Mark is critically 
ill, as witnessed by his own ambassador (Nicholas Burns) and would 
receive medical parole if he were not a foreigner. He should qualify 
for a prisoner transfer to America under Chinese law. The USG has not 
explored this opportunity with the Chinese side.
    Kai Li--I have had no sight of his judicial documents proving the 
charge of espionage against him. I understand that these have been 
sealed by the Chinese authorities on grounds that it is an espionage 
case. This is a very convenient way for an enemy with powerful 
connections in the Shanghai establishment to cover up a deliberate act 
of false imprisonment perpetrated by a business rival. (My own judicial 
records are now also sealed.) Sources have pointed to a private 
business dispute being illegally criminalized against Mr. Li. I have 
seen other instances of this in Shanghai involving citizens of foreign 
countries. Other prisoners released from Qingpu say Mr. Li has ailments 
common to his age (62) but that he is coping reasonably well, working 
in the mini library of the foreigners cell block, with 2 years of a 10-
year sentence still to serve.

                   Chinese Law on Prisoner Transfers

    A Chinese law promulgated in 2018 commonly known as the PRC Law on 
International Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters contains a 
Chapter 8 that sets out a pathway and mechanism for a foreign prisoner 
to be transferred to a facility in their home country. Separately, a 
bilateral agreement known as a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) exists 
between China and many countries but not with the United States. The 
2018 PRC law puts the onus on the United States to open a discussion 
with China's Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs on any 
individual case. It does not require the pre-existence of a bilateral 
PTA.
    To the best of my knowledge the USG has never explored this 
mechanism with China on any individual case. I have even been told it 
is impossible because ``we don't have a prisoner transfer treaty with 
China.'' But that is not the way the Chinese law reads. And it is not 
the way relevant NGO leaders and American lawyers in the U.S. and China 
see it.
    I also noticed on my last reading of the U.S. State Department's 
guidance notes to its officers on the topic of American prisoners 
abroad that it does not even seem to be aware of this Chinese law. This 
has been a wasted opportunity to assist unjustly held American 
prisoners in China, none of whom have had a fair and transparent trial.

                   Final Comments and Recommendations

      In their aggregate, the harsh conditions in China's pre-
trial detention facilities and prisons are tantamount to torture per 
international treaties and conventions.

      China's judicial and prison system violates international 
norms and treaties such as the U.N. conventions on torture and on 
minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners.

      The Chinese prison system is a political system of 
oppression and slavery, not a justice system.

      The Chinese system is not the rule of law and should not 
be viewed by America as though it is. In America we all know what the 
rule of law is.

      Forced labor products from China's prison system are 
entering our economies, including America's. We must legislate stronger 
laws to prevent this and we must enforce the legislation.

      Prisoners held in China for alleged common crimes 
(including Americans) are just as much victims of human rights abuse as 
China's own political and religious prisoners. The scale of this abuse 
is immense. In a system where every prosecution is political, all 
American prisoners are de facto political prisoners. America needs to 
recognize this and to act and legislate accordingly.

      Not a single prosecution case in China would survive the 
scrutiny of a court in America, the UK, or any other country under the 
rule of law. This postulation is very simple to put to the test in a 
simulated courtroom or even on a college campus.

      Countries which uphold the genuine rule of law, such as 
America, should abandon their practice of non-intervention in Chinese 
judicial cases involving U.S. citizens.

      In every case of a U.S. citizen being detained in China, 
the U.S. Government should challenge the processes and practices and 
the lack of transparency. America should intervene robustly both 
legally and politically in the cases of its citizens in China. This 
requirement should be contained in legislation.

      America owes this duty of care to its passport holders. 
This must not be only the privilege of one or two selected prisoners on 
the SPEHA hostage list. It must be the government's response to all 
such cases, regardless of skin color, class background, or the nature 
of the alleged crime.

      Congress should bring pressure on the USG to fully test 
the 2018 Chinese law on foreign prisoner transfers outside and beyond 
any bilateral treaty.

      America must impose mandatory due diligence requirements 
on all its firms to make them drill down their supply chains to ensure 
that there is no prison labor or other unsocial labor or illegal 
practices in the chain. Where China erects barriers to adequate due 
diligence, American firms must be legally required to abandon said 
business projects.

      Legislators and government should internationalize the 
issue of prison abuse and arbitrary and wrongful detention in China as 
a systemic concern. It is no less a human rights issue than political 
and religious persecution, and the scale is enormous.

      America should actively consider negotiated swaps for 
prisoners held for alleged ``common crimes,'' or even a mass swap, 
exchanging Chinese prisoners held in American jails for American 
prisoners held in China. Past experience (in China and Russia and 
elsewhere) shows this is a possible avenue.

[Recommended media docs for reference--internet links appear on the 
next page.]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 ______
                                 

                 Prepared Statement of Katherine Swidan

    Mr. Chairperson, distinguished members of the Commission, thank you 
for allowing me to share some thoughts with you today. My name is 
Katherine Swidan from Luling, Texas, and I am the mother of Mark 
Swidan, an American citizen who has been unjustly detained in China for 
12 long years.
    Mark is not just a statistic; he is a son, a brother, and a friend 
whose absence has left a gaping hole in our hearts and family. We are 
grateful for the congressional resolutions passed by the House and 
Senate last year. I thought he would be home by now, but 12 years into 
this, I am concerned that I will never see him again.
    I wish I could be with you today, but my health is failing, and I 
need to remain strong and heal for the day Mark finally comes home. 
Over a decade has passed since Mark was taken from us, and every day 
without him is a day too long. Despite overwhelming evidence of his 
innocence and the arbitrary nature of his detention, Mark continues to 
languish in a foreign prison, deprived of his freedom, his health 
deteriorating, and his hope fading. I do not want my son to become 
another Otto Warmbier or James Foley.
    I understand that diplomacy is complex and that negotiations with 
foreign governments can be delicate. However, the Chinese government 
has expressed a willingness to resolve my son's case, presenting 
proposals that, regrettably, have been met with reluctance or outright 
rejection by the Biden-Harris administration. Time is not a luxury that 
Mark or our family can afford. Every moment lost is a moment Mark is 
denied justice, a moment our family cannot regain.
    Despite all the talk about human rights abroad and the U.S. 
taxpayer funding annual reports on human rights abuses around the 
world, there are no such reports about Americans like Mark unjustly 
detained overseas. We rightly highlight the suffering of the people of 
Tibet, the Uyghurs, and repressed Christians in China, but what about 
the rights of Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned? Who speaks for 
them?
    Who ensures that the human rights of our citizens are not 
overlooked or forgotten while we champion those of others? The U.S. 
Government must remember that its first duty is to its own people, to 
defend their rights and bring them home. Do you realize that every time 
we issue reports condemning human rights in China, that is used against 
Americans and others who help or love our country? I support defending 
human rights, but we must focus on our people first. The Chinese may 
get upset about your reports, but they ignore these reports, but not 
when they talk about abuse of our people, such as Mark. Why is that?
    While I am distraught with China for what they have done, I am even 
more upset with my own government. How many more Presidents must take 
office before action is taken? President Obama, President Trump, 
President Biden--none has brought Mark home. Why is that? Why do the 
well connected seem to have their cases resolved more quickly while 
families like mine are forgotten?
    Mark is innocent. Even the United Nations Working Group on 
Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD) has issued a report declaring his 
detention arbitrary and in violation of international law. The UN WGAD 
found no evidence to justify the charges against him and called for his 
immediate release.
    Despite this, Mark remains imprisoned, his rights trampled upon 
daily, subjected to what this Commission knows is ``white torture'' and 
his innocence disregarded. How long must we wait while the world 
acknowledges what we already know: that Mark should be free and back 
home with his family? His case is a clear injustice, yet it continues 
to be ignored by those with the power to act. We need our leaders with 
moral and political courage to do right and use our power to bring Mark 
home.
    I am here today not only as a grieving mother but as a voice for 
every American family with loved ones wrongfully detained abroad. I 
plead for your help. I urge the Biden-Harris administration to 
reconsider its stance and to engage earnestly with the Chinese 
government's proposals. Our loved ones are not bargaining chips or 
political pawns; they are human beings whose rights and freedoms must 
be upheld and protected.
    As leaders of this great nation, I implore you not to let 
diplomatic complexities stand in the way of human decency and justice. 
I am pleading for my son's life, his freedom, and the chance to bring 
him home. Let us show the world that the United States of America does 
not abandon its citizens and that we will fight for their rights and 
their return, no matter the challenges.
    A few months ago, Bishop Strickland from Texas visited me. We 
talked and prayed for Mark, a devout Catholic who, even in captivity, 
has stood up for fellow prisoners when they were abused by Chinese 
guards. Mark's Bible has been confiscated and his rosary destroyed, but 
as I shared with Bishop Strickland, he has not lost his faith in God, 
family, or country.
    I also want to thank Mel Gibson, who did a video for Mark and a 
Mass, and many Members of Congress from Texas, such as Representative 
Cloud and Senator Ted Cruz, for not forgetting Mark and his plight. Of 
course I thank the Commission, Chairman Chris Smith, and Senator Jeff 
Merkley and the staff for helping raise awareness about Mark's plight 
and that of other Americans.
    In closing, I ask for your immediate action and commitment to 
engage in meaningful dialogue and negotiations for Mark's release. Our 
family is counting on you, as is Mark. Please help bring my son home.
    Thank you for your time and consideration.
                                 ______
                                 

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith

    We open today's hearing knowing that Pastor David Lin is back in 
the United States after nearly two decades unjustly detained. Pastor 
Lin's crime was that he worked to strengthen the Protestant Chinese 
``house church'' movement. For this, he received a life sentence.
    We are overjoyed for the Lin family. This Commission has pressed 
the past two administrations to prioritize David Lin's case. We 
acknowledge the efforts of the Biden Administration to gain Pastor 
Lin's release and are hopeful that his release creates space for more 
releases, like of the family members of our witnesses today.
    Despite the release of David Lin, there are more Americans detained 
in the People's Republic of China (PRC) than anywhere else in the 
world. Wrongfully detained U.S. nationals are serving long prison 
sentences--an average of 8 years. The families of Mark Swidan, Kai Li, 
Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt know these hard facts all too 
well. They have all languished far too long in Chinese prisons.
    The Foley Foundation identifies 11 wrongfully detained Americans in 
China, including those subject to ``exit bans.'' John Kamm, the 
preeminent expert on political prisoners in China, estimates that there 
are 200 or more American citizens ``coercively detained,'' with 30 
Americans being held in China under exit bans--where U.S. citizens are 
stopped from leaving China to settle economic disputes or to coerce 
their relatives to return to China to face alleged crimes.
    This is unacceptable. If the Chinese government wants to improve 
relations with the United States, they should release Americans who are 
wrongfully imprisoned without condition and unilaterally end the use of 
exit bans, a form of de facto hostage-taking that violates article 12 
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty 
that the People's Republic of China has signed--though not yet 
ratified.
    But I'll go further than that. The release of American citizens 
should be the first thing President Biden says to Communist Party 
leader Xi Jinping whenever they talk. Their names should be said so 
often that Xi Jinping memorizes them. Their cases should be agenda item 
#1 at every meeting the Secretary of State has with Chinese officials.
    And every U.S. official traveling to China should be repeatedly 
saying the names of Kai Li, Mark Swidan, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn 
Michelle Hunt. Every channel of the U.S. Government must be focused on 
the release of wrongfully detained Americans. It's that simple.
    All Americans detained in China deserve robust diplomatic 
assistance to gain their transfer out of prison or at the very least, 
to have more frequent U.S. consular officials visit, more frequent and 
longer visits with their families, and better access to legal 
representation and health care. Given the legal system in China, and 
the poor prison conditions--more Americans should be considered to be 
unjustly detained by the State Department.
    How many Americans currently in Chinese prisons received a 
transparent trial, with a genuine legal defense, in an impartial 
Chinese court? In China's rule-by-law system, where the Party can 
dictate sentences of guilt or innocence--none.
    How many detained Americans face serious health challenges because 
of the poor conditions in PRC prisons--

      where Chinese and foreigners alike are forced to work 
long hours?
      where they are often tortured or mistreated by guards and 
other prisoners?
      where they suffer from insufficient medical care and 
nutrition?

    Your testimony about what you and your families endured while 
jailed should be submitted as evidence of torture to the Committee 
Against Torture for the upcoming review of China. I will instruct our 
staff to work with you to submit your testimonies to the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. Mission in Geneva.
    But that is just a start. Given the number of Americans detained 
and the Chinese Communist Party's willingness to engage in hostage 
diplomacy, there should be more creative diplomatic approaches to 
counter the threat. To that end, I will introduce a bill with Rep. Tom 
Suozzi that will, among other measures,

      Direct the State Department to create a strategy for 
gaining the release of your family members;
      Gain insight into the diplomatic tools the State 
Department is using for your family members, including the use of 
designations and sanctions authorized in Executive Order 14078 
``Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United 
States Nationals Home.''
      Seek more transparent information from the State 
Department about the cases of your loved ones, including gaining access 
to the resources Congress allocated to assist families with the 
financial burden of advocacy.

    I know this is a tough and emotional day for our witnesses. No 
amount of words or sympathy from us can replace your missing loved 
ones. I hope you know that our purpose here today is to listen to your 
stories and to learn about your loved ones and their ordeal.
    You must all know that we are here today because we are committed 
to bringing your loved ones home. As a Commission, we will continue to 
press the U.S. Government to do more for your loved ones. For my part, 
I promise to remain a tenacious advocate for their release. They have 
suffered too long. They will not be forgotten.
                                 ______
                                 

                Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley

    Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for convening this hearing, and 
much appreciation to each of you for coming to share your stories.
    For more than two decades, Members of Congress and executive branch 
officials on this Commission have sought to shine a light on the 
prisoners of conscience who have been unjustly jailed by Chinese 
authorities for seeking to exercise their basic human rights.
    Our Commission maintains a Political Prisoner Database that 
currently has 2,764 nationals of the People's Republic of China known 
or believed to be detained, and as the Chairman pointed out, the Foley 
Foundation has a list of about a dozen American individuals wrongfully 
detained in China. But human rights organizations' estimates go up to 
about 200. We don't know the exact number. What we know is this: Even 
one American detained as a political prisoner in China is one too many.
    If an American breaks the law in China, that individual can be 
prosecuted just as a Chinese national would be here in the United 
States. But here is the problem. Many laws of the PRC are not 
consistent with human rights standards. Due process is routinely 
denied. And the rule of law is undermined by political considerations. 
Our U.S. Government has been developing some tools to counter this.
    In 2015, President Obama issued directives to implement an 
interagency response to overseas hostage-taking, including creation of 
a Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State 
Department. In 2020, President Trump signed into law the Robert 
Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. In 
2022, President Biden issued an Executive Order to authorize sanctions 
against foreign government officials and others who are complicit in 
hostage-taking.
    With these tools and under President Biden's leadership we have 
seen a 42 percent decrease in the number of detained Americans overseas 
since a peak in 2002, according to the Foley Foundation. Among these 
was the recent high-profile return from Russia of Paul Whelan, Evan 
Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and others.
    But not every American in detention overseas gets a spotlight. 
Today, we are putting a spotlight on three individuals: We will hear 
from the family members of three Americans--Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., 
and Dawn Hunt--who have been unjustly detained in China for eight or 
more years.
    We want to hear their story from their family members today. 
Because in hearing your story we're then able to tell the story. We can 
tell the story to the Administration and to the media. Most important, 
we can carry that message to, and work toward their release with, the 
government of the People's Republic of China.
    Our Americans in detention suffer from illness and mental anguish. 
We want to make sure they get proper care and counsel. But most of all, 
we want them united with their families.
    We are joyful that David Lin has been released and is now reunited 
with his family. What a celebration that is. But we want a celebration 
for each of your families. Reportedly, China wrongly holds more 
Americans than any other country. We want to know why the Chinese 
government refuses to allow them to come home.
    Our U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, has met with three 
Americans wrongfully detained. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised 
their cases directly with President Xi. But despite these efforts, 
despite the tools we have and the representations made, the Chinese 
government continues to turn a blind eye to the suffering and the 
heartbreak.
    So today we not only hear your stories. Your stories represent the 
stories of so many American families of those detained, and they help 
shed light on the details of the circumstances and help us ponder what 
more we can do, as Chairman Smith has suggested.
    We look forward to hearing from you.
                                 ______
                                 

              Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern

    My thanks to Chairman Smith and Co-Chairman Merkley for convening 
today's hearing on the People's Republic of China's detention of 
American nationals. Unfortunately, I am unable to attend in person, and 
so I submit my remarks for the record.
    According to the Foley Foundation, there are 11 U.S. nationals 
wrongfully detained in China. Others believe there could be as many as 
200. Wrongful detention is a human rights violation. Even one wrongful 
detention is too many.
    The Biden Administration has demonstrated a clear commitment to 
obtaining the release of wrongfully detained Americans around the 
world, with some notable successes. In March 2023, the Administration 
brought Paul Rusesabagina home from Rwanda. In April 2023, Russia 
released Brittney Griner. In September 2023, five Americans jailed for 
years by Iran were finally freed. In December 2023, 10 Americans held 
by Venezuela came home.
    And just a few weeks ago, the Administration achieved the release 
of 16 individuals, including 3 U.S. citizens and 1 green-card holder, 
who were unjustly detained in Russia. It was wonderful to welcome home 
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsu Kurmasheva, Evan Gershkovich, and Paul 
Whelan, and to see them reunited with their families. This is what we 
want for every wrongfully detained American.
    The Administration is making good use of available tools, including 
those authorized in the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-
Taking Accountability Act, and President Biden's 2022 Executive Order 
intended to bolster efforts to bring wrongfully detained nationals 
home. Roger Carstens, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, 
has led the delicate diplomacy, often with staunch adversaries of the 
United States, that has made releases possible. But there are still 
many U.S. nationals wrongfully detained around the world, held on 
dubious charges, and denied due process--like the cases the Commission 
will hear about today. My heart goes out to the families of Kai Li, 
Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt, all unjustly detained in China for 
eight or more years.
    Today is the opportunity to hear their stories, and their ideas for 
what more the U.S. Government should be doing to free their loved ones. 
I understand that U.S. officials have raised the cases with the Chinese 
authorities. We also know that, so far, the Chinese government has 
failed to respond.
    I hope this hearing serves to identify additional approaches that 
could help bring these Americans home. Thank you.
                       Submissions for the Record


                    Submission of Jason Ian Poblete,
                   President, Global Liberty Alliance

    Chairman and Members of the Commission, I want to thank you again 
for the opportunity to address this critical issue, not just as a 
lawyer and advocate but as someone who has witnessed firsthand the 
devastation that these unjust detentions bring to American families.
    Today, my brief remarks are focused primarily on discussing the 
case of Mr. Mark Swidan, a U.S. citizen who has been unjustly detained 
in China for close to 12 years. Mark's case is an alarming example of a 
broader and more disturbing pattern of American citizens being caught 
in the web of China's deeply flawed and in-
humane legal system.
    You heard from Mark's mother, Ms. Katherine Swidan, through a 
prepared video statement recorded at her home in Luling, Texas. Her 
health challenges, sadly compounded by the strain of her son's 
prolonged detention, prevent her from being here in person. She carries 
her physical burdens and the emotional weight of this injustice that 
has continued for many years. For the Swidan family, every day Mark 
remains in detention is another day of unimaginable anguish.
    I became involved with Mark's case just two years ago, and frankly, 
I was shocked--not only by the details of Mark's unjust detention--
recognized by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention--but by how 
little had been done for him up until that point.
    Even though Mark is an American citizen who is held under 
conditions that violate basic international human rights standards, his 
case has received little attention. There was minimal public awareness, 
and the focus was scattered and in-
adequate within government circles.
    What I quickly realized, though, was that Mark's case is not 
isolated. It is just the tip of the iceberg. As I dug deeper into 
Mark's situation, I was stunned to learn that many other Americans are 
suffering similar fates in China--imprisoned under dubious 
circumstances, subjected to an unfair legal process, and cut off from 
the protection they should be entitled to as American citizens. This 
problem extends far beyond what is typically covered in human rights 
reports prepared by the State Department.
    Mark and Katherine are grateful that Congress has passed two 
resolutions on this matter, one in the House and another in the Senate, 
and of course, this hearing. They appreciate the work done by many in 
the executive branch and civil society to help in this case. Yet Mark's 
case and others like it should never last a decade or more. It is 
unconscionable that Americans are locked up in Communist China for this 
long. That is a national failure, and we can and must do better.
    For years, I have read countless human rights reports funded by 
U.S. taxpayers and U.S. assistance to NGOs that do essential work on 
human rights issues in China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and 
many other nations. The Global Liberty Alliance has also done that work 
and continues to do so. However, these reports overwhelmingly focus on 
the human rights abuse of foreign nationals in faraway lands, not the 
plight of Americans and other U.S. nationals unjustly detained in these 
nations.
    While advocating for human rights in China is essential, our first 
responsibility must be protecting our citizens. If we fail to 
prioritize the safety and freedom of Americans and U.S. legal permanent 
residents, it becomes much harder to secure their release and 
undermines our credibility as a global advocate for human rights. We 
cannot effectively tell others how to address their injustices when we 
neglect to care for our people.
    Chinese diplomats see this perceived lack of focus on our nationals 
as a weakness, and they exploit it, knowing we are distracted by 
broader issues. Protecting our people first strengthens our position to 
hold others accountable for their actions and influence fundamental and 
individual rights globally.
    American citizens like Mr. Swidan should be at the forefront of our 
human rights and foreign policy agenda. Too often, we see the rights of 
U.S. citizens sidelined in discussions about broader geopolitical or 
humanitarian issues. This must change. The U.S. Government, including 
the State Department, needs to refocus its priorities to ensure that 
Americans wrongfully detained abroad, especially by hostile regimes 
like China, receive the highest level of attention and advocacy.
    China's legal system is not comparable to our own. It lacks 
transparency, due process, and the rule of law. These are basic 
principles that the United States upholds, and we must hold China 
accountable for its failure to do the same. When American citizens are 
detained in China, they are subjected to a system that we, by our own 
assessments, have deemed abusive and unjust.
    Therefore, every American detained in China, regardless of the 
alleged crimes, must be treated as unjustly detained under U.S. law. We 
cannot afford to accept Chinese court rulings at face value, especially 
when we know their legal process is fundamentally broken.
    One of the most troubling aspects of this issue is the tendency to 
equate the plight of Chinese nationals imprisoned in the U.S. with 
Americans detained in China. Let me be clear--these are not the same. 
The U.S. legal system, while not perfect, is governed by the rule of 
law, fairness, and transparency. China's system is arbitrary, 
politically motivated, and often used as a tool of state control. We 
must stop treating these two situations as morally or legally 
equivalent. Americans detained in China deserve better, and we must 
advocate for them with that understanding firmly in mind.
    Additionally, it is time for a more aggressive approach to holding 
Chinese officials accountable for these unjust detentions. We must 
impose real consequences on those responsible, including sanctions and 
visa bans for Chinese diplomats and officials involved in these cases. 
But sanctions and visa bans are tools, not a policy. We must redouble 
efforts to make clear what it means to ``bring Americans and other U.S. 
nationals home.'' It must be more than slogans, or a routine oversight 
and reporting issue.
    We must also reconsider the privileges regime officials and their 
families enjoy in the United States. Far too often, we see the family 
members of these same officials vacationing in the U.S., conducting 
business here, or even accessing our healthcare system. This is 
unacceptable.
    Access to the United States should be considered a privilege, not a 
right, and those who are complicit in the unjust detentions of 
Americans should not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of our country 
while denying fundamental rights to our citizens. Reciprocity is 
earned, not freely given.
    The U.S. Government must protect its people, both at home and 
abroad. This means enforcing and perhaps improving current law, and not 
throwing more money at the challenge. Some political and moral courage 
can do wonders.
    While we continue to champion human rights in China and elsewhere, 
we must maintain sight of the fact that our citizens are suffering 
under regimes that do not respect the rule of law. The time for half-
measures and cautious diplomacy is over. We must take decisive action 
to bring Mark Swidan and other Americans home.
    In conclusion, Mark's case exemplifies a much larger problem and, 
perhaps, a crisis. I say probably since we do not have complete 
information about the scope of the problem. Yet there is no doubt in my 
mind that the U.S. Government must commit itself fully to protecting 
its citizens abroad. This has yet to happen in Mark's case and many 
other cases like it in China, Venezuela, Cuba, and other nations.
    We need more transparency about how many Americans are currently 
detained in China, and we must ensure that all of them are treated as 
unjustly detained under U.S. law because there is no rule of law in 
Communist China. This demands a shift in priorities at the State 
Department and across the government, placing the safety and freedom of 
American citizens above all else. Our ambassadors and diplomats are on 
the front lines as America's strongest advocates in these cases. Are 
they receiving the training and resources they need? What can we 
improve to support their efforts better?
    While the SPEHA office or process is a topic for another hearing, 
the success or failure of these cases ultimately hinges on political 
will and moral courage from the highest levels of leadership--the 
President and Congress. Their commitment is what truly makes a 
difference, as does listening to people who have worked on these cases 
a long time, including experts in the private sector. Simply growing 
the government or throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. 
Solutions come from effective leadership, not expanding bureaucracy. If 
the President prioritizes it, good things will happen sooner rather 
than a decade or more later.
    We also need real accountability for the Chinese government, which 
means imposing sanctions, visa bans, and other measures on those 
responsible for these injustices. Until we stand firm and demand 
justice for Americans detained in China, we will continue to see our 
people used as pawns in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical game.
    Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. I look 
forward to working with the Committee to bring about meaningful change.
                                 ______
                                 

                    Submission of Benedict Rogers, 
                Co-founder and Trustee, Hong Kong Watch

    Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley,
    I am a writer and human rights activist specializing in Asia, 
particularly China and Hong Kong as well as Burma/Myanmar and North 
Korea. I am a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch, an advisor to 
the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and the Stop Uyghur 
Genocide Campaign, co-founder and Deputy Chair of the UK Conservative 
Party Human Rights Commission and author of many articles and reports 
on the human rights situation in China, and of a book, ``The China 
Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party's 
Tyranny,'' published in 2022.
    I warmly welcome the hearing you are holding on unjustly detained 
Americans in China and thank you for doing so. In June 2023, the UK 
Conservative Party Human Rights Commission held a hearing which I 
helped to organize in the British Parliament, chaired by Tim Loughton 
MP, Chair of the Commission at the time, focused on foreign prisoners 
detained in China and the abuse, forced labor and denial of human 
rights which they face. The hearing drew on testimony from Mr. Peter 
Humphrey, a British citizen detained in prison in the People's Republic 
of China (PRC) from 2013-2015, and Mr. Marius Balo, a Romanian citizen 
imprisoned in the PRC from 2014-2022.
    Rather than repeat or quote from the report published by the 
Conservative Party Human Rights Commission in July 2023, following the 
Commission's hearing, I would prefer to attach the report in full--
available also on our website here:
https://conservativepartyhumanrightscommission.co.uk/wp-content/
uploads/2023/07/CPHRC-Foreign-Prisoners-in-China-briefingFINAL.pdf.
    The report details the complete lack of justice in the PRC's legal, 
judicial, and prison system, the complete absence of judicial 
independence or fair trial, the lack of fair or proper police 
investigations into alleged crimes, and the widespread use of prison 
labor, including by foreign prisoners, in the production lines of major 
international corporations. I hope that the Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China (CECC) will study this report carefully as part of 
the hearing and inquiry being held, and that the full report by the 
Conservative Party Human Rights Commission may be entered into the 
Congressional Record.
    In conclusion, I respectively urge the U.S. Congress and the CECC 
to call on the government of the United States of America to do more to 
seek the release of prisoners incarcerated in China who have not 
undergone fair and transparent trials, and especially to intervene more 
robustly to protect the human rights of U.S. citizens and other foreign 
nationals detained in the PRC. In particular, I highlight the cases of 
three American citizens, David Lin, Kai Li and Mark Swidan serving long 
sentences in China.
    The PRC's use of arbitrary detention is widespread and systematic, 
and much more needs to be done to call it out. I wholeheartedly support 
calls for the use of Magnitsky sanctions against those involved in 
arbitrarily detaining prisoners, including foreign nationals, and 
against those within the PRC system involved in torture, mistreatment 
or other cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners and in the use of 
forced labor.
    I thank you, Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley, for your focus 
on this urgent and critical topic.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Submission of Cedric Witek

    Dear Mr. Chairman, dear members of this Commission,
    I make this statement at the suggestion of Peter Humphrey, a friend 
and former colleague also testifying to this Commission. I am a French 
national and a corporate-crime investigator of 25 years' standing with 
a long experience of Asia and especially China, where I lived and 
worked for many years investigating all manner of wrongdoing including 
fraud, corruption and human-rights abuses both on behalf of private 
clients and pro bono. I am fluent in the Chinese language.
    I write this in my capacity of having helped Peter advocate for 
David McMahon, an American citizen imprisoned in China. Peter first 
contacted me about this in the fall of 2016, when he first told me of 
McMahon and his conviction in Shanghai three years previously for the 
alleged sexual abuse of children at the French School of Shanghai.
    At the time, Peter asked me as a personal favor to review materials 
relating to McMahon's conviction in Shanghai and provide analysis and 
input on any potential actions that might help raise awareness of what 
Peter believed was McMahon's wrongful imprisonment. Repulsed by the 
routine Chinese-regime practice of imprisoning the innocent, I agreed 
to do this.
    In doing so I came to believe--as Peter himself did--that McMahon 
was innocent of the charges levied against him, which seemed to me 
poorly supported by questionable allegations and evidence gathered in a 
sloppy and partial manner. My belief in McMahon's innocence has only 
been strengthened by his behavior ever since: despite spending over a 
decade in the hell of the Chinese prison system, he has always refused 
to make a confession even though it is the surest way to leniency and 
even release.
    But I also became convinced that McMahon was denied due process at 
every stage, and perhaps even deliberately framed by parents who were 
utterly convinced of his guilt, acting in collaboration with French 
government authorities. The materials I reviewed suggested deliberate 
collusion between the families accusing McMahon of sexual abuse in 
making sure he was convicted, for example, to the extent of arranging a 
so-called ``secret meeting'' to plot a legal offensive against McMahon 
and even contacting the FBI.
    What also struck me was the sheer amount of effort that seemed to 
have been put in by the French consular authorities in Shanghai to help 
convict David McMahon. Not only did the French Consul-General in 
Shanghai get involved, but so did the Ambassador as well as the Agency 
for French Schooling Abroad (``AEFE''), a French government organ under 
supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I understood 
from the materials given to me that French consular officials went as 
far as to threaten staff at the French School of Shanghai, including 
its principal, into withdrawing their support for McMahon and 
withholding statements that might have exonerated him.
    This seemed to me unusual as well as highly improper. The consular 
authorities of a third country have of course no business actively 
prejudging the merits of a criminal case on Chinese soil, much less 
threatening witnesses or otherwise tampering with the investigation and 
influencing the outcome of the case.
    What I believe really happened based on the materials at my 
disposal at the time is that the parents of the allegedly abused 
children, already deeply traumatized by their children's prior abuse at 
the hands of convicted sex offender Hector Orjuela at the same school 
the previous year and acting under the mistaken belief that McMahon was 
a friend of his, overreacted to their children's routine manifestations 
of affection to McMahon, a common reaction in parents of victims of 
sexual abuse. The parents then likely raised the matter with the school 
in terms brooking no opposition, and probably even threatened to go 
public.
    The French School of Shanghai, like most French international 
schools, was affiliated to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 
received partial funding from the French government. The reputation of 
French schools abroad is generally seen to be tied to that of the 
French state itself. It is clear that a second child abuse scandal at 
the school in less than a year would not have served French interests 
as the Consulate understood them.
    So I believe the French Consulate may have set out deliberately to 
build a case against McMahon and then delivered an entirely prejudged 
and prejudiced case to the Chinese government, which would have been 
only too eager to take receipt of a pre-packaged foreign scapegoat and 
be seen as a resolute enforcer of justice.
    Needless to say, the Chinese regime's actual record in enforcing 
justice is wholly laughable. The overriding objective of the 
prosecution process in China is to vindicate its judiciary, which is 
controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party and operates entirely 
at the discretion of the executive. Nearly a hundred percent of the 
cases end in conviction and criminal lawyers are largely there for 
window-dressing, deliberately denied access to the materials necessary 
to mount a proper defense. No conviction in China is sound.
    I believe that McMahon's accusers, some animated by a sincere 
belief in his guilt and others by a simple urge to head off a looming 
scandal, took full advantage of this fact. If that is indeed what 
happened, then I am deeply ashamed that the authorities of my country 
colluded in this dishonorable outcome. France was birthed in the 
struggle against despotism and then gave the world the first 
declaration of human rights. True French values--my values--prize the 
life of an innocent man above the reputation of an institution, let 
alone some warped conception of national prestige that would involve 
sandbagging the powerless in cahoots with a heinous dictatorship which 
still today harvests the organs of political prisoners and sells them 
to the highest bidder.
    In conclusion, I am making this statement so that it might help a 
man, and others like him, who was denied the most basic due process and 
then left to rot in a prison manned by one of the world's worst 
autocracies. Yet it is only fair to recognize that for many years now 
and despite the always praiseworthy efforts of certain virtuous 
individuals, the record of Western governments as a whole in standing 
up for the rights of their citizens wrongfully imprisoned by 
dictatorial regimes has been poor. Beset by what the retired Australian 
general Mick Ryan recently called ``strategic timidity,'' a polite term 
for cowardice, Western governments in the past generation have 
preferred to avoid awkwardness in their relations with outright 
tyrannies.
    In rolling over for those despotic regimes in the past and taking 
their spurious convictions of our citizens at face value by default, I 
believe we in the democratic West have weakened ourselves and emulated 
the dictatorships. The most essential role of the state is to protect 
its citizens, and the most fundamental mark of a democracy is that it 
honors the inherent dignity of the individual. Unlike the tyrants of 
Russia and China who see their own people as nothing more than faceless 
kindling to be heaped on the bonfire of their twisted ambitions, 
democracies recognize that the individual is endowed with unique and 
unquantifiable worth. We recognize that the rights of the individual, 
even and indeed especially when naked against the lofty designs of the 
mighty and the hulking machinery of the state, are paramount.
    Yet as things stand, unless a Western victim of the Chinese regime 
happens to be famous or connected, they stand little chance of their 
government rallying forcefully behind them. They too become faceless 
kindling. And it then befalls their distraught friends and relatives--
ordinary people with ordinary lives and means, some of them ill, 
elderly or barely adults--to fight long, grim and lonely campaigns only 
to face the cold, slippery marble of their own government, at times so 
remote and Olympian that it can feel little different from the 
heartless mandarinate of Communist China. Meanwhile the months and 
years pass. And the victims and their loved ones can hardly be blamed 
for emerging from the ordeal as embittered about their own country as 
they are about the thuggish regime that mauled them in the first place. 
Being wantonly attacked is bad enough. Being left to bleed by the 
roadside is a moral injury.
    I write this in humble hope for change. Many thanks to all of you 
for reading my statement and for choosing to work for this change.

                   Submission of the Foley Foundation

                                 ______
                                 

                           Executive Summary

    China is currently holding the most wrongfully detained Americans 
of any other country.\1\ A substantial portion of this number is driven 
by China's use of exit bans. The length of detention is concerning, as 
the Americans wrongfully detained in China today have been held for, on 
average, more than 8 years. Other western countries have also struggled 
in recent years to address China's use of hostage diplomacy.\2\ The 
United States has traditionally relied on diplomatic engagement to 
secure the release of Americans from China.\3\ Given the number of 
Americans detained in China, the length of prison sentences, and 
China's apparent willingness to engage in hostage diplomacy, more 
creative and coordinated international approaches are needed to better 
counter this threat.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and 
the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy 
Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
report/.
    \2\ Hostage diplomacy is defined as the use of a country's criminal 
justice system to hold foreigners hostage. Gilbert, D. (2023, September 
22). Biden's hostage diplomacy, explained. Center for Strategic & 
International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/bidens-hostage-
diplomacy-explained.
    \3\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and 
the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy 
Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
report/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

              The Number of Wrongfully Detained Americans

    The number of known Americans wrongfully detained in China has 
climbed over the last 10 years. In 2014, six Americans were wrongfully 
detained by China.\4\ That number grew to eight Americans in 2016, 
reaching a peak in 2019, with 20 Americans assessed as wrongfully 
detained by the Foley Foundation. Since 2022, we have not seen new 
cases of Americans being wrongfully detained by China; however, until 
this past weekend, releases have also stagnated.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Based on a database maintained by the James W. Foley Legacy 
Foundation.
    \5\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and 
the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy 
Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
report/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The U.S. Department of State classifies Americans as wrongfully 
detained in China: Mark Swidan (detained since November 2012) and Kai 
Li (detained since September 2016). Pastor David Lin, held 18 years, 
was recently released on Sept. 15 of this year. The Foley Foundation 
assesses that an additional nine Americans meet the wrongful detention 
criteria as specified in the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and 
Hostage-Taking Accountability Act based on the publicly available 
information.\6\ This number still likely underestimates the extent of 
Americans wrongfully detained in China, as the Foley Foundation 
monitors several other cases that might, with additional evidence, meet 
the criteria for wrongful detention. Further complicating the problem 
is China's refusal to recognize dual-national citizens. The State 
Department warns that dual nationals may have their access to consular 
services denied by China, limiting the assistance the U.S. Government 
is able to provide.\7\ The problem of accurately reporting the number 
of Americans detained in China is exacerbated by underreporting, 
pressure on families to not come forward because of retaliation 
concerns, and China's use of exit bans.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ The Foley Foundation includes three individuals placed on exit 
bans in our count.
    \7\ State Department. (2024, April 12). China travel advisory. 
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/
traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html.
    \8\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and 
the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy 
Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
report/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        China's Use of Exit Bans

    China leverages exit bans to coerce cooperation with government 
investigations, pressure family members to return from abroad, settle 
civil disputes, and exert political leverage on foreign governments.\9\ 
In its investigation of China's use of exit bans, the Associated Press 
noted that individuals do not receive an official notification that 
they have been placed under a ban.\10\ Additionally, exit bans do not 
have clearly defined time periods, nor a method for remediation. 
Because China does not provide an official count of the exit bans in 
use, it is difficult to ascertain an exact number. China President Xi 
Jinping has expanded the authorities of and use of exit bans.\11\ A 
perception that China is increasing its use of exit bans is shared by 
diplomats from multiple countries.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Department of State. (2024, April 12). China travel advisory. 
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/
traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html.
    \10\ Kinetz, E. (2020, May 5). `No remedy, no rights': China blocks 
foreigners from leaving. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/
shanghai-suburbs-international-law-only-on-ap-china-
5d59ce2a8442d6511cb9e7d8a3494679.
    \11\ Smith, A., & Austin, H. (2023, July 27). China's use of exit 
bans leaves Americans at the risk of being arbitrarily detained. NBC 
News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-exit-bans-detentions-
travelers-businesses-xi-jinping-covid-rcna95264.
    \12\ Kinetz, E. (2020, May 5). `No remedy, no rights': China blocks 
foreigners from leaving. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/
shanghai-suburbs-international-law-only-on-ap-china-
5d59ce2a8442d6511cb9e7d8a3494679.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        An International Problem

    The United States is not unique in its struggle to secure the 
release of its citizens from China. In recent years, Australia and 
Canada have also seen their own citizens used as political pawns to 
secure concessions favored by the Chinese Communist Party (e.g., the 
release of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou).\13\ \14\ \15\ 
National security and foreign policy experts warn of China's 
willingness to flout international norms and engage in hostage 
diplomacy to achieve its aims.\16\ \17\ Given this international 
threat, more creative thinking and tools are needed to counter it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ Needham, K. and Tian Y. K. (2023, October 11). Australian 
journalist Cheng Lei back home after China release. Reuters. https://
www.reuters.com/world/australian-journalist-detained-by-china-arrives-
home-2023-10-11/.
    \14\ McGuirk, R. (2024, February 21). China-born Australian 
democracy blogger won't appeal suspended Chinese death sentence. 
Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/yang-hengjun-china-
australia-espionage-d8ebca29783d0eae30a99b55f11c5b61.
    \15\ Slisco, A, (2021, Septmeber 24). Canadian diplomats detained 
in China since 2018 finally returning home, Trudeau says. Newsweek. 
https://www.newsweek.com/canadian-diplomats-
detained-china-since-2018-finally-returning-home-trudeau-says-1632670.
    \16\ Cecco, L. and Davidson, H. (2021, September 29). Meng and the 
Michaels: Why China's embrace of hostage diplomacy is a warning to 
other nations. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/
sep/29/meng-wanzhou-michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-china-analysis.
    \17\ Klass, A. (2020, July 9). Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor, and 
China's history of hostage diplomacy. The China Project. https://
thechinaproject.com/2020/07/09/michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-and-
chinas-history-of-hostage-diplomacy/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            Recommendations

    The United States needs a robust strategy, using multiple tools, to 
secure the release of Americans held in China. This strategy should 
include cooperation with countries, as other nations are also working 
to secure the release of their own citizens from China. Additionally, 
after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Dui Hua, a nonprofit focused 
on political prisoners in China, noted that ``the Chinese government 
often makes gestures when a new American president is elected.'' \18\ 
Dui Hua encouraged then President-elect Joe Biden to use his election 
to request the release of Mark Swidan.\19\ The 2024 Presidential 
election represents another possible opportunity for the president-
elect to request the release of Americans wrongfully detained in China 
as an act of goodwill.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ Dui Hua. (2020, November 30). American citizen Mark Swidan: 
Eight years in Jiangman detention center. Dui Hua. https://duihua.org/
american-citizen-mark-swidan-eight-years-in-jiangmen-detention-center/.
    \19\ Dui Hua. (2020, November 30). American citizen Mark Swidan: 
Eight years in Jiangman detention center. Dui Hua. https://duihua.org/
american-citizen-mark-swidan-eight-years-in-jiangmen-detention-center/.
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    Diplomatic engagement is still needed, and the State Department 
should use the full range of its tools, including facilitating 
humanitarian releases and prisoner exchanges, as appropriate. Finally, 
the United States should evaluate how it can better leverage the 
authorities and capabilities of Executive Order 14078, Bolstering 
Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States 
Nationals Home (e.g., use of designations, and sanctions against 
foreign government officials directly or indirectly involved with 
wrongful detentions) against China.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \20\ Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-
governmental assessment of U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and 
the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. James W. Foley Legacy 
Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostage-
report/.
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                       Submission of Cynthia Sun

    Thank you to Chairman Smith, Co-Chairman Merkley, and distinguished 
members of the Commission, for holding this hearing. Today, I am 
bringing before you the cases of four U.S. citizens whose families are 
jailed or under house arrest in China.
    In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a violent 
campaign to persecute Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. The ancient 
spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition combines meditation and 
gentle exercises (similar to yoga or tai chi) with a moral philosophy 
centered on the tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.
    A quarter century later, Falun Gong practitioners remain a large 
proportion of prisoners of conscience in China. Included among them are 
multiple relatives of U.S. citizens and residents. These individuals 
have been unjustly imprisoned in China or barred from leaving the 
country, simply for practicing Falun Gong, sharing information about 
it, or exposing the rights abuses faced by others.
    Given the tight censorship and brutality with which Chinese 
security agents treat Falun Gong practitioners, their loved ones in the 
United States are often unable to receive timely updates on their 
condition and are fearful they are being tortured--or even killed--at 
any moment. Indeed, since 2019, at least two Falun Gong practitioners 
jailed in China with family living in the United States have died in 
police custody with signs of abuse (Ms. Meng Hong from Heilongjiang 
whose daughter lives in California and Ms. Ji Yunzhi from Inner 
Mongolia whose son resides in New York).
    The following four U.S. citizens reside in the United States but 
suffer from the trauma of the CCP's persecution by being separated from 
loved ones and fearing for their jailed relatives' well-being.

    New York: Lydia and Steven Wang, a brother and sister who are both 
U.S. citizens, live with their families in New York, where Steven has 
worked for Shen Yun Performing Arts as a principal dancer since 2008. 
Their mother, Ms. Liu Aihua, was sentenced in Hunan Province to 4 years 
in prison on March 10, 2023. She was last seen at the No. 4 Detention 
Center of Changsha City. Ms. Liu was likely sentenced for distributing 
informational pamphlets to raise awareness about the persecution, 
according to family. It is unknown whether she is facing torture in 
prison. She has yet to meet her grandchildren in New York. Lydia and 
Steven's father Wang Guanghui passed away in September 2009 after a 
lengthy detention in China for practicing Falun Gong.
    In a 2021 interview, Steven recalled visiting his parents in prison 
during a prior detention before he left China for the United States. 
``Every time we went to visit them, they looked like they'd been 
starved,'' he said. ``They never told me what it was like in there. 
They only told me they were doing fine. But you can probably imagine--
you could tell from their withered faces that they'd been tortured.''
    Lydia Wang previously testified before a congressional briefing in 
2023. Ms. Liu Aihua's case is included in the USCIRF prisoner database. 
For more details, see a page dedicated to her case on the Falun Dafa 
Information Center website.

    Texas: Grace Chen, a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic and naturalized 
citizen. Her parents, Mr. Yang Chen and Ms. Zhimin Cao, were sentenced 
in Hunan Province in 2020 for an unknown length of time. According to 
Grace, the extended family has been unable to reach the couple in 
detention since their arrest. Lawyers hired by the family were 
pressured by their law firms or provincial justice bureaus to withdraw 
from the case and were stonewalled by the Liuyang Police Department and 
the Liuyang Procuratorate from helping the couple. Mr. Chen is 
currently imprisoned at Wangling Prison; Mrs. Cao is at Hunan Province 
Women's Prison.
    Grace Chen previously spoke on a panel at the International 
Religious Freedom Summit. Her parents' case was also covered by the 
Jubilee Campaign. For more details, see a page dedicated to their case 
on the Falun Dafa Information Center website.

    Texas/New York: Danielle Wang, a civil engineer from Texas and New 
York and a U.S. citizen. Her father, Mr. Wang Zhiwen, was sentenced on 
December 27, 1999 to 16 years in a show trial broadcasted live through 
an international CNN newscast. Prior to the CCP's launch of the 
persecution, Mr. Wang had been a volunteer coordinator in Beijing, 
organizing meditation practice sites for teaching Falun Gong's 
exercises. After his release in 2016, Danielle and her husband traveled 
to China to escort her father to the United States. But CCP agents 
surrounded the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou and followed them, taking 
photos and even monitoring their movement inside their hotel. Before 
the trio could board a ferry from Guangdong to Hong Kong, Chinese 
customs officers cut up his passport and rendered it useless. Wang 
remains under house arrest today.
    Danielle Wang previously testified before a congressional hearing 
in 2013 and a CECC hearing in 2016. Her father's case was also covered 
by the USCIRF, Lantos Commission, ChinaAid, and the Houston Chronicle. 
For more details, visit her interview with Friends of Falun Gong or a 
short documentary about her story on Faluninfo TV.

                            Recommendations

    It is vital that the U.S. Government do more to free these 
prisoners of conscience. Doing so would reunite families of U.S. 
citizens across multiple generations and demonstrate to the CCP that 
the U.S. takes these cases seriously, potentially deterring future 
prosecutions of Falun Gong practitioners with American relatives. Once 
released, these individuals would be able to offer first-hand 
information on detention conditions in China, including potentially 
forced labor linked to exports to the United States. Moreover, their 
release could inspire hope for millions of Falun Gong practitioners and 
other religious prisoners in China, even those without U.S. ties who 
would benefit from the increased scrutiny and advocacy for their 
plight. Specifically:

    1. The U.S. Government should urgently ask Chinese officials for 
information about the whereabouts and expected release dates for Mr. 
Yang Chen and Ms. Zhimin Cao, permission for relatives or lawyers of 
Ms. Liu Aihua to visit her; and for Mr. Wang Zhiwen to receive a 
passport. The U.S. should call for the immediate release of Ms. Liu 
Aihua, Mr. Yang Chen, Mrs. Zhimin Cao, Mr. Wang Zhiwen, and for all 
four of these individuals to be permitted to leave China and come to 
the United States to reunite with their family. The U.S. should further 
bar entry to Chinese official Zeng Qinghong, who was reportedly 
involved in the decision to block Danielle Wang's father from leaving 
the country.

    2. Senators should schedule a vote and pass S. 4914, the Falun Gong 
Protection Act, which would increase transparency, accountability, and 
deterrence surrounding the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners 
specifically, and lethal organ transplant abuses in China more broadly.

    3. Members of Congress should write to the U.S. State Department 
asking the Ambassador to China and top officials to raise these three 
cases in meetings with Chinese counterparts, including at the highest 
levels of diplomacy.

    4. The CECC should add Ms. Liu Aihua, Mr. Yang Chen, and Ms. Zhimin 
Cao to the Political Prisoner Database.

    5. Ambassadors, government officials, and NGO experts on China 
should meet with these U.S. citizens to better understand conditions in 
China and identify ways to support their families' quest for freedom. 
Include them in private hearings, events, or roundtables regarding 
religious persecution, freedom of expression, or political prisoners in 
China.

    ``I don't know if I will ever see my mother again,'' recalls Lydia 
Wang. ``As long as the persecution of Falun Gong continues, my mother 
remains at risk of further harm if she stays in China. I request the 
United States Government's assistance in securing her release. We would 
like to bring her safely home to New York.''
    For more information on these and other family rescue cases in the 
United States, please visit the Falun Dafa Information Center website.
                                 ______
                                 

     Submission of Bill Browder, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign

    Dear Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley,
    My name is Bill Browder, and I am the head of the Global Magnitsky 
Justice Campaign and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management.
    Until 2005, I was the largest foreign investor in Russia. My firm 
worked to expose corruption within Russian companies to improve 
corporate governance. In retaliation for my efforts to shed light on 
illicit activities in Russia through my shareholder activism, the 
Russian authorities declared me a threat to national security and 
banned my entry to Russia. The situation escalated with the wrongful 
arrest, torture, and murder of my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in 2009. 
Since then, I have been deeply involved in advocating for human rights 
and justice. This led to the establishment of the Magnitsky Act, a 
piece of legislation that imposes visa bans and asset freezes on human 
rights violators globally. I am honored to provide testimony for this 
critical hearing on Unjustly Detained Americans in China.
    First, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Chairman Smith for 
his unwavering support and leadership in sponsoring the Global 
Magnitsky Act. Your longstanding commitment to human rights and justice 
has been instrumental in our shared efforts to hold human rights 
abusers accountable worldwide. I commend the Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China for organizing this bipartisan hearing on unjustly 
detained Americans in China. It is a vital initiative that highlights 
the plight of Americans arbitrarily imprisoned in China, and I fully 
support your efforts to bring new light to this pressing issue.
    This hearing highly resonates with my own experiences since Sergei 
Magnitsky's unjust detention, as I have fought against wrongful 
imprisonment and judicial abuse through the Global Magnitsky Justice 
Campaign. The campaign successfully brought widespread global attention 
to human rights violations, and led to significant legislative 
outcomes, including the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Since 
then, I have successfully advocated for the adoption of Magnitsky Acts 
in 35 countries. Through asset freezes and visa bans, Magnitsky Acts 
seek to hold accountable those who commit human rights abuses and 
corruption worldwide.
    The issue of arbitrarily detained individuals is not complicated, 
and democratic governments' response to this ongoing issue highlights 
the difference between right and wrong. It is more important now than 
ever for legislators across the aisles to defend the rights of citizens 
wrongfully detained abroad in authoritarian regimes such as China and 
Russia. At the core of the values of a rule-of-law democracy is the 
fundamental belief in justice and due process, including the right to a 
fair trial in an impartial court. Uniting to protect these principles 
is not just a matter of policy, but a reaffirmation of what a democracy 
like the U.S. stands for.
    Congress must exert sustained and significant pressure on the U.S. 
Government to ensure the protection of Americans detained in China, who 
have long been overlooked at the political level. While consular 
support, such as welfare visits, is beneficial, it falls short of what 
is truly needed. There must be a firm commitment and active 
intervention to confront and challenge the unjust judicial system in 
China.
    Just as in Russia, which I have experienced firsthand on numerous 
occasions, in China there is no such thing as a free and transparent 
trial in front of an impartial judge in an independent court. This is 
because there is no separation of powers within the judicial system. 
The Chinese Communist Party controls the entire judicial system, 
including the police, prosecution, judiciary, and penal system and even 
the legal profession, making fair and transparent trials impossible. 
Verdicts are decided by party committees, not independent judges, 
leaving no opportunity for a proper legal defense. Chinese judgments 
would not withstand scrutiny under the rule of law, and most Chinese 
prosecutions would fail if retried in a Western court.
    I urge the U.S. Government to set aside diplomatic niceties and 
take decisive action by intervening in the judicial cases of all 
Americans detained in China. Research by former prisoner Peter Humphrey 
indicates that up to 300 Americans are currently detained in China 
under various conditions, often on dubious charges. Some American 
prisoners have already been held in China for over 10 years on opaque 
and unjust convictions.
    The arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the potential for exit 
bans without clear legal processes pose significant risks to American 
citizens. It is therefore crucial for the U.S. Government to move 
beyond standard diplomatic protocols and actively engage in protecting 
its citizens, challenging the unjust system, and advocating for fair 
treatment and due process for all detained Americans.
    Governments committed to the rule of law have a moral and legal 
obligation to defend their citizens, especially those considered by the 
State Department to be arbitrarily detained, affording them the 
diplomatic attention of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage 
Affairs (SPEHA). Many of these people are detained for the sole reason 
that they are Americans, effectively handing China a vast supply of 
prisoners to use as diplomatic leverage whenever they please.
    All citizens deserve unwavering support from their home government. 
The large number of Americans arrested on allegations of minor offenses 
merit the same level of advocacy as the select few who have been placed 
on the SPEHA list of arbitrarily detained persons. In China, American 
prisoners often receive disproportionately long sentences for their 
alleged crimes and endure cruel and inhumane conditions, including 
inadequate nutrition, lack of medical care, and restricted access to 
fresh air and sunlight. Their communication with loved ones is 
obstructed or censored entirely.
    For many years, American administrations from both parties have 
shied away from intervening directly in the unfair and biased Chinese 
judicial system on behalf of U.S. citizens caught in legal ordeals. The 
U.S. Government seems to overlook--or deliberately ignore--a crucial 
fact: the 2018 Chinese International Criminal Judicial Assistance Law 
provides a clear mechanism for transferring ``convicted'' prisoners 
from China to their home countries, even without a bilateral prisoner 
transfer agreement. This law offers a potential pathway for action that 
has been largely unexplored. It is time for a change in approach--the 
U.S. Government must leverage this legal framework to more actively 
support and potentially repatriate American citizens unjustly held in 
Chinese prisons.
    The Chinese government is not stopping their practice of arbitrary 
detention anytime soon and has no intention of complying with 
international legal standards. I urge the U.S. Government to take 
seriously the cases of all Americans imprisoned in China, in addition 
to the three Americans, David Lin, Kai Li, and Mark Swidan, on the 
SPEHA list, and to consider Magnitsky sanctions against those 
responsible for these injustices. The U.S., as a global leader, must 
set an example in upholding human rights and the principles of justice 
globally.
    Thank you for your attention to this critical issue.

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                          Witness Biographies

    Nelson Wells, Sr., father of detained American citizen Nelson 
Wells, Jr.

    Nelson Wells, Sr. is the father of Nelson Wells, Jr., and a native 
of New Orleans, Louisiana. He and his wife Cynthia now live in 
Haughton, Louisiana. Mr. Wells is a 20-year U.S. Army veteran, 
stationed all over the country and globally, including a stint in the 
Middle East during the Gulf War. His wife Cynthia worked as an Army 
recruiter for the Department of Defense for 28 years. Both are retired 
and are now advocating full-time for their son's release.

    Harrison Li, son of detained American citizen Kai Li

    Harrison Li is a doctoral student studying statistics who has 
begrudgingly had to become a political advocate for his father, Kai Li. 
He is originally from Long Island, New York and currently lives in the 
San Francisco Bay area. He serves on the steering committee of the 
Bring Our Families Home Campaign, an advocacy group of families of 
Americans wrongfully detained around the world working together to try 
to cut through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting assistance and 
information for the families of wrongfully detained Americans. His 
greatest wish is for his father to be home and in good health to see 
him graduate next spring, after missing his college graduation in 2018.

    Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn Michelle Hunt

    Tim Hunt is the brother of Dawn Michelle Hunt and a native 
Chicagoan. He attended Whitney Young Magnet School and DePaul 
University and served as a Chicago police officer for 28 years, working 
on the beat, and in plainclothes, bicycle, mounted, and forensic unit 
roles. Serving and protecting the public is a family business, as his 
mother, father and three uncles were all Chicago police officers as 
well. Tim retired in 2017 and has been advocating tirelessly for his 
sister's release from prison.

    Peter Humphrey, journalist, due diligence specialist, Sinologist, 
and former prisoner of China

    Peter Humphrey is a British sinologist who has spent half a century 
working and studying China and who has lived there for 25 years, as a 
student, teacher, journalist, philanthropist, corporate due diligence 
detective--and prisoner. In 2013 Peter and his American wife Yingzeng 
Yu were wrongfully imprisoned on false charges of illegal information 
gathering--their only ``crime'' was to have offended someone with 
connections in the Chinese Communist Party.
    Upon his release in 2015, Peter created a support network for the 
families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their welfare and release. 
Through his work he has become a specialist on justice and imprisonment 
in China and is undoubtedly the leading authority on foreign prisoners 
in China.
    In addition to his work with families of the wrongfully detained, 
he is also an external research affiliate of Harvard University's 
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, an occasional columnist and 
documentary adviser, and has been a guest speaker at universities and 
think tanks on China's judicial and penal system.


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