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[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 364 Introduced in House (IH)]

105th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 364

Urging the introduction and passage of a resolution on the human rights 
situation in the People's Republic of China at the 54th Session of the 
               United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 12, 1998

  Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Gilman, Mr. Gephardt, Mr. 
      Wolf, Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. Lantos, Mr. Frank of 
 Massachusetts, Ms. Norton, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Burton of Indiana, Mr. 
 Tierney, and Mr. Clay) submitted the following resolution; which was 
          referred to the Committee on International Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
Urging the introduction and passage of a resolution on the human rights 
situation in the People's Republic of China at the 54th Session of the 
               United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Whereas the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 
        1997 state that ``[t]he Government [of China] continued to commit 
        widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, in violation of 
        internationally accepted norms,'' including extrajudicial killings, the 
        use of torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and 
        sterilization, the sale of organs from executed prisoners, and tight 
        control over the exercise of the rights of freedom of speech, press, and 
        religion;
Whereas, according to the State Department, ``Serious human rights abuses 
        persisted in minority areas [controlled by the Government of China], 
        including Tibet and Xinjiang [East Turkestan], where tight controls on 
        religion and other fundamental freedoms continued and, in some cases, 
        intensified [during 1997]'';
Whereas, according to the 1997 Country Reports, the Government of China enforces 
        its ``one-child policy'' using coercive measures including severe fines 
        of up to several times the annual income of the average resident of 
        China and sometimes punishes nonpayment by destroying homes and 
        confiscating personal property;
Whereas, according to the 1997 Country Reports, as part of the Chinese 
        Government's continued attempts to expand state control of religion, 
        ``Police closed many `underground' mosques, temples, and seminaries,'' 
        and authorities ``made strong efforts to crack down on the activities of 
        the unapproved Catholic and Protestant churches'' including the use of 
        detention, arrest, and ``reform-through-education'' sentences;
Whereas, each year since 1990, the United States has participated in an 
        unsuccessful multilateral effort to gain passage of a United Nations 
        Commission on Human Rights resolution addressing the human rights 
        situation in China;
Whereas the Government of China has mounted a diplomatic campaign each year to 
        defeat the resolution and has succeeded in blocking commission 
        consideration of such a resolution each year except 1995, when the 
        United States engaged in a more aggressive effort to promote the 
        resolution;
Whereas China's opposition to the resolution has featured an attack on the 
        principle of the universality of human rights, which the United States, 
        China, and 169 other governments reaffirmed at the 1993 United Nations 
        World Conference on Human Rights;
Whereas United States leadership is critical to the possibility of success for 
        that resolution;
Whereas, in 1994, when the President announced his decision to delink Most 
        Favored Nation (MFN) status for China from previously announced human 
        rights conditions, the Administration pledged that the United States 
        would ``step up its efforts, in cooperation with other states, to insist 
        that the United Nations Human Rights Commission pass a resolution 
        dealing with the serious human rights abuses in China'' as part of the 
        Administration's ``new human rights strategy'';
Whereas a failure vigorously to pursue the adoption of such a resolution would 
        constitute an abandonment of the ``expanded multilateral agenda'' that 
        the Administration promised as part of its ``new human rights strategy'' 
        toward China;
Whereas Chinese democracy advocate and former political prisoner Wei Jingsheng 
        has stated that ``[t]his [United Nations Commission on Human Rights] 
        resolution is a matter of life and death for democratic reform in 
        China''; and
Whereas a broad coalition of human rights organizations, including Amnesty 
        International USA, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Human Rights 
        Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, International Human Rights Law 
        Group, International League for Human Rights, Jacob Blaustein Institute 
        for the Advancement of Human Rights, Minnesota Advocates for Human 
        Rights, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, have 
        stressed ``the critical importance of a multilateral effort to pursue a 
        resolution on China at this year's session of the [United Nations 
        Commission on Human Rights]'': Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives urges the President to 
initiate an immediate and determined United States effort to secure 
passage of a resolution on human rights violations in China at the 54th 
Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
                                 <all>
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