H. Res. 364

In the House of Representatives, U.S.,

March 17, 1998.

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
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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 ‘‘reformthrough-education’’ sentences;

Whereas, although the 1997 Country Reports note several

‘‘positive steps’’ by the Chinese Government such as signing the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social

and Cultural Rights and allowing the United Nations

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to visit China,

Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck has testified

regarding those reports that ‘‘We do not see major

changes [in the human rights siguation in China]. We

have not characterized China as having demonstrated

major changes in the period over the course of the last

year’’;

Whereas, in 1990, 1992, and each year since then, 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
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governments reaffirmed at the 1993 United Nations

World Conference on Human Rights;

Whereas on February 23, 1998, the European Union (EU)

agreed that neither the EU nor its member states would

table or cosponsor a resolution on the human rights situation in China at the 54th Session of the United Nations

Commission on Human Rights;

Whereas on March 13, 1998, the Administration announced

that it would not seek passage of a resolution at the

United Nations Commission on Human Rights addressing the human rights situation in China;

Whereas without United States leadership there is little 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 an important component of the ‘‘expanded multilateral agenda’’ that the Administration promised as part of its ‘‘new

human rights strategy’’ toward China; and

Whereas Chinese democracy advocate and former political

prisoner Wei Jingsheng has stated that ‘‘[t]his [United

Nations Commission on Human Rights] resolution is a
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matter of life and death for democratic reform in China’’:

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) urges the President to reconsider his decision

not to press for passage of a resolution on human rights

violations in China at the 54th Session of the United

Nations Commission on Human Rights;

(2) expresses its profound regret that the European

Union will not table or cosponsor a resolution on human

rights violations in China at the 54th Session of the

United Nations Commission on Human Rights; and

(3) urges all members of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to support passage of a resolution on human rights violations in China at the 54th

Session of the United Nations Commission on Human

Rights.

Attest:

Clerk.