1 USCIRF Policy Update: CHINA | JANUARY 2024

POLICY UPDATE:

CHINA

UNITED STATES COMMISSION on

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

732 N. Capitol Street, NW, Suite #A714

Washington, DC 20401

202-523-3240

January 2024

By Mingzhi Chen, Senior Policy Analyst

Countering China’s Techno-Authoritarianism, 

Transnational Repression, and Malign 

Political Influence

Overview

Despite efforts to integrate human rights as an important part of the U.S. government’s 

China policy, religious freedom and human rights concerns remain sidelined—

including in the U.S. government’s multilateral engagement—due to overriding 

security, economic, and other foreign policy priorities. 

This policy update highlights the U.S. policy on religious freedom and human rights in 

China, the U.S. government’s technology policy and China’s human rights abuses, and 

China’s transnational repression and malign political influence in the United States. 

The report concludes with specific recommendations for steps the U.S. government 

can take to further elevate religious freedom and other human rights matters in its 

policy toward China. 

U.S. Policy on Religious Freedom and Human Rights in China

In recent years, the U.S. government has framed its bilateral relationship with China 

as one of “strategic competition” and it has grown confrontational. In the National 

Security Strategy (NSS) released in October 2022, President Joseph R. Biden’s 

administration expressly considered China as posing the broadest and most significant 

challenge to the United States, calling the country “America’s most consequential 

geopolitical challenge” and “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape 

the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and 

technological power to advance that objective.” This heightened concern about China 

was repeated throughout the NSS and reiterated in the administration’s March 2023 

National Cybersecurity Strategy and the U.S. Department of State’s Integrated Country 

Strategy on China. A key area of contention between the two countries is China’s 

worsening human rights record, particularly its systematic, ongoing, and egregious 

violations of religious freedom targeting virtually all religious groups in China, 

including Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, underground 

Catholics, house church Protestants, and Falun Gong practitioners. 

The Biden administration has sought to put human rights at “the center of U.S. 

foreign policy,” and has highlighted the importance of coalition building with likeminded international partners and allies to advance shared values and interests. 

Abraham Cooper

Chair

Frederick A. Davie

Vice Chair

Commissioners

David Curry

Susie Gelman 

Mohamed Magid 

Stephen Schneck

Nury Turkel 

Eric Ueland

Frank Wolf

Erin D. Singshinsuk

Executive Director

USCIRF’s Mission

To advance international 

freedom of religion or 

belief, by independently 

assessing and unflinchingly 

confronting threats to this 

fundamental right.

www.USCIRF.gov

@USCIRF

Media@USCIRF.gov
2 USCIRF Policy Update: CHINA | JANUARY 2024

These multilateral partnerships are critical to holding 

China accountable in international fora, including in 

the United Nations (UN), the Group of Seven (G7), 

and through other emerging platforms such as the 

new Camp David trilateral partnership with Japan and 

South Korea. However, other competing foreign policy 

priorities such as trade, climate change, and security issues 

can at times override concerns about religious freedom 

and other human rights as the U.S. government seeks 

to “responsibly manage” its strategic competition with 

China and to cooperate with the country on key issues 

of mutual interest. In these instances, the protection 

of human rights, including religious freedom, is often 

sidelined, rather than treated as a priority at the center of 

U.S. foreign policy.

Multilateral Partnerships for 

Religious Freedom and Human Rights

The U.S. government has taken some significant actions 

in concert with Western partners and allies to hold China 

accountable for its violations of religious freedom and 

other human rights. Examples include the imposition

of multilateral targeted sanctions against abusers and 

the joint diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Winter 

Olympics, in protest against the Chinese government’s 

ongoing “genocide and crimes against humanity” in 

Xinjiang. Following the United States’ determination of 

genocide in Xinjiang, a number of Western countries’ 

parliaments and the European Parliament also declared

that the atrocities amount to genocide and crimes 

against humanity. At the UN, the United States has 

worked with like-minded partners to condemn and press

China to address its human rights abuses and religious 

freedom violations. 

However, the Chinese government has increasingly used

its economic, geopolitical, and other influence to silence, 

punish, and retaliate against countries that criticize its 

human rights record or otherwise refuse to bend to its 

will. China has made human rights an area of strategic 

importance in its policy by intertwining it with other 

issues—such as its economic and trade policy—giving the 

government significant leverage to silence international 

condemnation and weaken the effectiveness of a 

multilateral coalition critical of its human rights abuses. 

The response by the G7—comprised of the seven largest 

industrialized democracies, including the United States—

to China’s human rights record provides a case in point. 

Jointly, the G7 has been vocal in condemning the Chinese 

government’s human rights and religious freedom 

abuses, particularly in Xinjiang and Tibet. However, 

observers have noted that it has not translated this joint 

expression of concern into coordinated and actionable 

policy responses due to its members’ economic and trade 

dependence on China and fear of retaliation.

Moreover, the U.S. government has also sidelined 

its attention toward China’s human rights violations 

as it pursues other pressing foreign policy priorities 

like security. For example, the United States’ new 

trilateral partnership with Japan and South Korea has 

overwhelmingly underscored the importance of security 

and other areas of cooperation while downplaying human 

rights. Official statements on the trilateral partnership 

provided either no mention or mere passing reference to 

“protecting human rights.” The United States could use the 

partnership with these two crucial Indo-Pacific countries 

to do more to hold China accountable for its worsening 

human rights record. Such a values-based multilateral 

policy approach elevates human rights as a core strategic 

Beijing

China
USCIRF Policy Update: CHINA | JANUARY 2024 3

objective in U.S. policy toward China, rather than treating 

it as an expedient means to other foreign policy ends. The 

protection of human rights, including religious freedom, 

and other foreign policy goals should be complementary—

rather than mutually exclusive—objectives. This 

principled, human rights-centered partnership should 

guide U.S. policy actions, in coordination with likeminded partners, to uphold our shared commitments to 

human rights and religious freedom. 

U.S. Technology Policy and 

China’s Human Rights Abuses

Techno-authoritarianism 

U.S. partnerships with key like-minded countries are 

especially critical for addressing China’s technologyenabled violations of religious freedom and other human 

rights. The Chinese government has been a leading player 

in implementing and promoting techno-authoritarianism

at home and abroad. Domestically, Chinese authorities 

have aggressively employed “smart city” technologies—

including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, biometric 

collection, and facial, voice, and gait recognition—to 

carry out mass surveillance throughout China. For 

example, the government has used these surveillance 

technologies to target religious groups throughout 

the country, including Christians and Falun Gong 

practitioners. In the ethno-religious minority regions 

of Xinjiang and Tibet, such technologies have played a 

critical role in the government’s violent repression of 

Uyghurs, other Turkic Muslims, and Tibetan Buddhists, 

including the placement of millions of Uyghurs in 

Xinjiang concentration camps where they experienced 

torture, rape, forced sterilization, and forced abortion. 

Through Chinese companies like Hikvision, Huawei, 

and AI startup Cloudwalk, the government has exported

its “smart city” products and services and its underlying

techno-authoritarian approach to over 100 countries. 

Many of these countries participate in China’s “Belt 

and Road Initiative” and its Digital Silk Road program. 

China’s techno-authoritarianism poses a significant 

challenge to the protection of human rights, including 

religious freedom, globally. Chinese Communist Party 

leader Xi Jinping has declared his determination to make 

China a global leader in critical emerging technologies, 

such as AI and quantum computing. 

Export Control of Critical Technologies

The U.S. government and partners must continue to 

tighten export controls of critical technologies to China, 

especially advanced semiconductor chips and chipmaking equipment that are vital to China’s technological 

ambition and, by extension, its technology-enabled 

repression of religious freedom and other human rights 

at home and abroad. The NSS explicitly expresses concern 

over the misuse of technology that threatens security 

and human rights, and highlights the need to modernize 

and strengthen export controls to ensure that strategic 

competitors like China “cannot exploit foundational 

American and allied technologies, know-how, or data.” 

In October 2022, the Biden administration issued an 

unprecedented set of export control rules, banning the 

export of advanced semiconductor chips and chipmaking equipment to China, as well as restricting U.S. 

citizens and permanent residents from supporting the 

development or production of chips in certain Chinese 

facilities. A year later in October 2023, the administration 

updated and strengthened existing export controls by 

closing loopholes in the October 2022 rules, allowing 

the U.S. government to more effectively ban exports 

of high-end chips for AI used in military applications 

and human rights violations. Moreover, in August, 

the Biden administration signed an executive order 

prohibiting certain U.S. investment in China and other 

countries of concern in the sensitive technology sectors 

of semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum 

information technologies, and AI. 

The U.S. government cannot engage in this effort alone. 

Key international partners—notably the Netherlands, 

Japan, Germany, the European Union, South Korea, and 

Taiwan—are needed to implement export controls more 

effectively on China so the Chinese government does not 

obtain advanced semiconductor chips and chip-making 

equipment from other countries. The U.S. government 

has engaged in such multilateral efforts with partners like 

the Netherlands and Japan, and both countries announced

in 2023 export restrictions on advanced semiconductor 

chips and chip-making equipment to China. Some 

partners like Taiwan have already implemented

comparably rigorous export control regimes prior to the 

U.S. government’s October 2022 export control rules. 

However, China’s retaliatory economic coercion against 

the United States and other countries with economic 

and trade dependence on China could threaten the 

effectiveness of multilateral export control measures. 

For example, China accounts for roughly 40 percent of 

Taiwan’s total annual export and 60 percent of Taiwan’s 

semiconductor export, 60 percent of South Korea’s annual 

semiconductor export, and 60 percent of the entire 

world’s semiconductor demand, giving it significant 

economic leverage over key chip-producing countries. In 

addition, China produces 98 percent of the global supply 

of gallium and 68 percent of germanium—two key raw 

materials critical to the global chip-making industry. 
4 USCIRF Policy Update: CHINA | JANUARY 2024

In 2023, the Chinese government imposed retaliatory 

measures against the United States and its partners 

by sanctioning U.S. chip maker Micron in May and by 

restricting the export of gallium and germanium in July. 

In that regard, the U.S. government and its partners must 

find ways to lessen their economic and trade dependence 

on China and to diversify supply chains. These actions 

would strengthen the effectiveness of their export control 

measures, counter China’s economic coercion, and deter 

China’s ability to perpetrate technology-enabled human 

rights abuses.

Additionally, the U.S. government and partner nations 

could consider a formal, binding, multilateral export 

control regime—similar to the Wassenaar Arrangement—

to prevent the proliferation of critical technologies that 

could enable egregious human rights abuses, including 

mass atrocities against religious minority groups. 

Currently, the United States participates in four major 

multilateral export control regimes, including the 

Wassenaar Arrangement, that are aimed at preventing 

the “proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and 

destabilizing accumulations of conventional weapons and 

dual-use technologies.” Following the December 2021 

Summit for Democracy, the U.S. government and its 

partners established a multilateral voluntary, nonbinding 

written code of conduct “outlining political commitments 

by Subscribing States to apply export control tools 

to prevent the proliferation of goods, software, and 

technologies that enable serious human rights abuses.” 

Standards for Governing Advanced Technologies

The United States and the international community must 

update and establish standards for governing emerging 

critical technologies that are consistent with international 

human rights law, including the right to freedom of 

religion or belief. This is particularly important given 

China’s efforts to promote and institutionalize its own 

techno-authoritarian vision for developing and using 

critical technologies. 

In June 2021, senior officials of the Biden administration 

and the European Union jointly established the U.S.-

E.U. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) to coordinate 

policies in this area, including standardizing rules related 

to emerging technologies. The joint council consists of 

ten working groups, including on Technology Standards, 

Secure Supply Chains, Data Governance and Technology 

Platforms, Misuse of Technology Threatening Security 

and Human Rights, Investment Screening Cooperation, 

and Cooperation on Export Controls of Dual Use 

Items. Since 2021, the TTC has held four ministerial 

meetings to enhance cooperation on various technology, 

trade, and economic issues. In the fourth meeting 

held in June 2023, the TCC announced important 

initiatives, including: advancement of shared standards 

in critical and emerging technologies; implementation 

of the Joint AI Roadmap; alignment of approaches to 

address risks associated with outbound investment in 

sensitive technologies, in coordination with G7 allies; 

enhancement of coordination to counter economic 

coercion; and cooperation on export controls and 

sanctions-related export restrictions.

The U.S.-EU transatlantic partnership on technology 

governance is vital but needs to expand to include 

other like-minded countries and key stakeholders in 

the Indo-Pacific region—including Japan, South Korea, 

and Taiwan—with a particular focus on the intersection 

between technology and human rights. U.S. government 

statements indicate the Biden administration has started 

high-level bilateral and multilateral initiatives with 

Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to deepen cooperation 

on technology standards and export controls. In October 

2023, G7 nations developed the Hiroshima AI Process 

Comprehensive Policy Framework and jointly issued the 

Hiroshima Process International Guiding Principles and 

the Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct. 

Both the Guiding Principles and the Code of Conduct 

underscored the importance of respecting and protecting 

human rights in line with international frameworks such 

as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business 

and Human Rights, as states and organizations develop 

and deploy AI systems. The G7 also stated its intention 

to consult governments outside of the G7 to further 

advance the Hiroshima Process. In November 2023, 

the United States and 17 other countries signed a nonbinding agreement providing general recommendations 

for industry providers to develop AI systems securely 

and to prevent their misuse. However, many of these 

partnered multilateral initiatives—apart from the G7 

Hiroshima AI Process—tend to overwhelmingly focus 

on technology’s military application and other uses, thus 

lacking a human rights emphasis.

China’s Transnational Repression and Malign 

Political Influence in the United States 

Transnational Repression

The Chinese government relentlessly pursues, harasses, 

and intimidates diaspora religious communities, political 

dissidents, and others with ties to China who reside in 

the United States, including Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan 

Buddhists, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners. In 

response, the U.S. government has prosecuted individuals 

who engage in these illegal activities on behalf of the 

Chinese government. 
USCIRF Policy Update: CHINA | JANUARY 2024 5

In May 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted

Wang Shunjun and four of Chinese Ministry of State 

Security agents for transnational repression activities 

targeting Uyghurs and Tibetans in the United States. 

Additionally, in April 2023, the Justice Department 

arrested and charged Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping 

in connection with opening and operating an illegal 

Chinese overseas police station in New York City. Lu 

has a history of engaging in transnational repression 

on behalf of the Chinese government—including 

the Ministry of Public Security—targeting religious 

groups and dissidents on U.S. soil. Chinese overseas 

police stations operate in at least 53 countries, 

including Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, and the 

United Kingdom. 

China’s Lobbying and Malign Political Influence

The Chinese government’s malign political influence 

campaigns in the United States, too, warrant the U.S. 

government’s attention and tangible policy response. 

China’s lobbying efforts in the U.S. Congress represent 

a particularly insidious form of political influence, 

aimed at shaping federal policymaking in furtherance 

of the Chinese government’s interests and goals. China’s 

state-owned and private companies hire American 

lobbyists—including former members of Congress and 

other former U.S. government officials—to represent 

the Chinese government’s interest on Capitol Hill. For 

example, former members of Congress lobbied on behalf 

of the Chinese government-owned surveillance company 

Hikvision, which the U.S. government has sanctioned for 

its complicity in human rights abuses against Uyghurs 

and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang concentration 

camps. Such malign political influence activities 

undermine religious freedom and broader human rights 

and threaten U.S. national security and sovereignty.

Given the severity of this influence, members of Congress 

from both parties have begun to work together to 

introduce legislation that would address this alarming 

trend. In 2023, a bipartisan group of senators and 

representatives in Congress reintroduced the Disclosing 

Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act (H.R.1190) to close 

existing loopholes in the Foreign Agents Registration 

Act of 1938 (FARA) and the Lobbying Disclosure Act 

of 1995 (LDA). It would require registered lobbyists to 

disclose “any foreign countries or political parties that 

are involved in the direction, planning, supervision, or 

control of the lobbyist’s activities.” 

More stringent disclosure requirements alone, however, 

may not deter lobbyists—including former members 

of Congress—from representing the interests of 

their Chinese clients. The Stop Helping Adversaries 

Manipulate Everything Act (also known as the SHAME 

Act; H.R.9140), introduced in 2022, would further ban 

registered agents or lobbyists of foreign adversaries like 

China from receiving compensation for their services. 

The Congressional and Executive Foreign Lobbying 

Ban Act (H.R.3389) would prohibit “any individual 

from registering or otherwise serving as the agent of a 

foreign principal if the individual at any time served as 

a Member of Congress, a senior political appointee, or 

a general or flag officer of the Armed Forces.” Congress 

can help combat this kind of foreign malign influence 

by increasing transparency on foreign lobbying and by 

banning outright lobbying by agents acting on behalf of 

foreign adversaries, like the Chinese Communist Party 

and its government. 

Conclusion and Recommendations

Human rights and other foreign policy priorities are not 

mutually exclusive but can be closely integrated so that 

human rights concerns are not sidelined in U.S. policy 

toward China. To address the Chinese government’s 

worsening domestic abuses of religious freedom and 

other human rights, perpetration of an ongoing genocide, 

and expanded transnational repression and influence, 

USCIRF recommends that the U.S. government:

• Work with like-minded partners to address China’s 

technology-enabled human rights and religious 

freedom violations by strengthening the effectiveness 

of existing export control regimes, countering China’s 

economic coercion, reducing economic and trade 

dependence on China, and diversifying supply chains; 

• Build on existing multilateral efforts by establishing a 

formal, binding, multilateral export control regime that 

is focused on preventing technology-enabled human 

rights violations, especially by countries like China that 

carry out mass atrocities against religious and ethnic 

minorities; Expand the network of countries that abide 

by U.S.-led technology governance regimes that respect 

and protect religious freedom and other human rights, 

including rules governing the development and use of 

AI systems and other emerging critical technologies; 

• Work in close coordination with international partners 

to exchange intelligence and to continue prosecuting 

those engaging in transnational repression activities 

against religious minorities on behalf of the Chinese 

government; and

• Require increased transparency on foreign lobbying 

and ban lobbying by agents acting on behalf of foreign 

adversaries, like the Chinese Communist Party.
UNITED STATES COMMISSION on INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the 

U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, 

the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief.

Professional Staff

Michael Ardovino

Policy Analyst 

Danielle Ashbahian

Chief of Public Affairs

Keely Bakken

Supervisory Policy Analyst

Susan Bishai

Policy Analyst

Mollie Blum

Researcher

Elizabeth K. Cassidy

Director of Research & Policy

Mingzhi Chen

Senior Policy Analyst

Patrick Greenwalt

Policy Analyst

Sema Hasan

Policy Analyst

Thomas Kraemer

Chief Administrative Officer

Veronica McCarthy

Public Affairs Associate

Hilary Miller

Researcher

Nora Morton

Operations Specialist

Dylan Schexnaydre

Researcher

Jamie Staley

Supervisory Policy Advisor

Scott Weiner

Supervisory Policy Analyst

Luke Wilson

Researcher

732 N. Capitol Street, NW, Suite #A714

Washington, DC 20401

202-523-3240 

www.USCIRF.gov

@USCIRF

Media@USCIRF.gov