IV

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;
2

•HRES 364 IH

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 ‘‘reformthrough-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;
3

•HRES 364 IH

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
4

•HRES 364 IH

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

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives urges

2 the President to initiate an immediate and determined

3 United States effort to secure passage of a resolution on

4 human rights violations in China at the 54th Session of

5 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Æ