IV 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 327 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding China’s 
membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
AUGUST 2, 2013 
Mr. BENTIVOLIO submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regard-
ing China’s membership in the United Nations Human 
Rights Council (UNHRC). 
Whereas the United States endorsed the Charter of the 
United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights, and is a party to the Convention Against Torture 
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights, and other relevant human rights instruments; 
Whereas the People’s Republic of China has ratified or signed 
the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhu-
man or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural 
Rights; 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
Whereas all United Nations Member States have an obliga-
tion to promote and protect human rights and funda-
mental freedoms and the duty to fulfill the obligations 
they have undertaken under the various international in-
struments in this field; 
Whereas the People’s Republic of China has continually flout-
ed its obligations under those instruments, by actions 
such as its pervasive use of torture, extra-judicial execu-
tion, slave labor, cultural degradation, and routine 
refoulement of refugees from North Korea despite the ex-
treme likelihood that they will suffer torture and other 
inhuman treatment, in violation of China’s obligations as 
a signatory of the Convention Against Torture; 
Whereas General Assembly Resolution 60/251 of March 15, 
2006, states that the United Nations General Assembly 
may suspend the rights of membership in the United Na-
tions Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of any member 
of the Council that commits gross and systematic viola-
tions of human rights, which manifests the incompati-
bility of such a United Nations Member State and mem-
bership on the UNHRC; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
continues to unlawfully imprison and abuse Nobel Peace 
Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, and hold his wife Liu Xia 
under harsh house arrest; 
Whereas the People’s Republic of China has ‘‘disappeared’’ 
and severely mistreated prominent human rights lawyer 
Gao Zhisheng, who went missing while in the custody of 
public security officials in February 2009, and is now im-
prisoned in China; 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
brutalized and imprisoned blind, human rights attorney 
Chen Guancheng, who is now living free in the United 
States only because of strong demands for his liberty by 
both the United States Department of State and Con-
gress, while China continues to abuse, incarcerate, or 
prosecute his innocent relatives, such as his nephew Chen 
Kegui; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
imprisons, tortures, intimidates, and harasses individuals 
of various faiths for peacefully practicing their chosen re-
ligion, including members of the Protestant and Catholic 
faiths, such as Ms. Yang Rongli, leader of a persecuted 
Protestant ‘‘house church’’, who is serving an 8-year sen-
tence for ‘‘assembling a mob’’, and Uyghur religious lead-
er Abdukerim Abduveli; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China, 
in its campaign to ‘‘reform’’ practitioners of Falun Gong 
and to entirely extinguish that religion systematically 
uses long imprisonment, torture, and other inhumane 
treatment of practitioners and their family members, 
often resulting in death, ‘‘solely because of adherence to 
their personal beliefs’’, as stated in the prior near-unani-
mous 2010 House Resolution 605, including Cao Dong, 
who has been detained on 4 separate occasions for a total 
of 10 years, and has been tortured severely during that 
time, and Dr. Charles Lee, a United States citizen who 
was released after years of imprisonment and torture 
only because of pressure by United States officials and 
human rights groups; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
brutally represses the cultural, educational, linguistic, 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
and religious rights of ethnic minorities, using torture, 
beatings, imprisonment, and inhumane treatment, as il-
lustrated by its violent actions against Uyghurs, Mongols, 
such as Mr. Hada, who is still detained after serving an 
unlawful 15-year sentence and whose wife and son re-
cently have been ‘‘disappeared’’, and against Tibetans, 
such as Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a monk sentenced to life 
imprisonment, which persecution has, in the case of Ti-
betans, also induced numerous desperate monks to self- 
immolate; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
systematically denies its citizens freedom of expression 
and has incarcerated at least 24 Chinese journalists, in-
cluding Uyghur journalist Gheyret Niyaz, who was sen-
tenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for publishing articles 
and giving an interview criticizing government persecu-
tion; 
Whereas hundreds of thousands of Chinese dissidents and po-
litical prisoners have suffered from the Government of 
the People’s Republic of China’s use of illegal forms of 
detention, including prolonged isolation through house ar-
rest without legal grounds, detention in unofficial ‘‘black 
prisons’’, incarceration without medical basis in ‘‘psy-
chiatric institutions’’, and forced participation in brutal 
‘‘re-education programs’’; 
Whereas the United States Department of State has des-
ignated the People’s Republic of China as a ‘‘Country of 
Particular Concern’’ in regard to human rights violations 
every single year since 1999, including its consistent re-
porting of such violations in China, and in special sec-
tions on Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau; 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
Whereas the United States Commission on International Reli-
gious Freedom has continuously reported China’s system-
atic and egregious violations of religious freedom, and the 
Congressional-Executive Commission on China has con-
stantly found, and continues to find, systematic and 
gross violations of human rights by China; 
Whereas independent human rights organizations such as 
Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Human 
Rights Watch have all documented similar horrific 
human rights violations by the People’s Republic of 
China; 
Whereas many of the human rights violations committed by 
the Government of the People’s Republic of China are 
also in violation of its own constitution and statutes, 
which have often been subordinated to such catch-all 
statutes as section 105 of China’s criminal code for ‘‘in-
citement to subvert state power’’, a law that is improp-
erly used by China’s repressive regime, and which provi-
sions also are undermined by more recent enactments of 
criminal procedure laws depriving accused persons of fair 
trial on false charges; 
Whereas during its previous membership on the UNHRC, the 
People’s Republic of China repeatedly opposed and tried 
to impede efforts supported by the United States to effec-
tively monitor or reduce human rights abuses in other 
countries; 
Whereas when the People’s Republic of China submitted its 
last required self-assessment of its claimed compliance 
with its obligations under the Convention Against Tor-
ture, that report was roundly disputed by international 
human rights groups as to its accuracy and omissions; 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
Whereas the UNHRC’s Universal Periodic Review, in which 
all United Nations Member States must participate, is 
based upon the Member’s compliance with its obligations 
and commitments under the United Nations Charter, the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other 
human rights instruments to which it is a party; 
Whereas the State Under Review has the responsibility to im-
plement all recommendations contained in the final re-
view report, but the UNHRC’s Mid-Term Implementa-
tion Assessment indicated that the People’s Republic of 
China had failed to implement 71 of the 138 UNHRC 
recommendations from its initial 2009 Universal Periodic 
Review for China; 
Whereas the above-mentioned human rights violations and 
the many others systematically inflicted by the Govern-
ment of the People’s Republic of China, as well as its 
prior efforts to undermine the work of the Council and 
to hinder the Committee Against Torture, are blatantly 
incompatible with membership on the UNHRC; 
Whereas United States policy acknowledges that the United 
States and China have overlapping interests to pursue co-
operatively, but also acknowledges the United States’ ob-
ligation to stand up for universal human rights and to 
speak out against their brutal repression; 
Whereas in the past, the United States has been able to ne-
gotiate arms control and trade agreements with other 
countries while continuing to press them for human 
rights reform; 
Whereas the House of Representatives acknowledges the 
United States friendship with the Chinese people and the 
goal of pursuing shared national interests in combating 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00006
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
true terrorism, promoting economic stability, and the 
nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, but also remains 
gravely concerned about these gross and systematic viola-
tions of human rights by the Government of the People’s 
Republic of China; 
Whereas countries that have openly confronted the human 
rights abuse by the People’s Republic of China, such as 
Norway, which awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu 
Xiaobo over China’s strong objection, Australia, which 
sharply criticized its treatment of Tibetans, and the Eu-
ropean Union, which condemned human rights abuse in 
China at the UNHRC meetings, all subsequently enjoyed 
marked trade increases with China; 
Whereas the currently publicized ‘‘reforms’’ in the People’s 
Republic of China, involve reforms of economic and gov-
ernmental institutions or minor legal procedural improve-
ments, but there is no indication that they will extend to 
meaningful reform of human rights protection, and, in 
fact, those reforms have been accompanied by intensified 
repression of human rights; 
Whereas the most recent instance of such intensified repres-
sion is a blatantly unfounded prosecution and severe 11- 
year sentence of Mr. Liu Hui, simply because he is a 
brother-in-law of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, 
which, coming right after the summit between China’s 
President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama, was 
a defiant rebuke to the United States; 
Whereas even the recent discussion in China of ‘‘reform’’ of 
so-called ‘‘re-education labor camps’’ is confined to puni-
tive treatment of petty criminals and protesters about 
personal economic disputes, rather than including the 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00007
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
pervasive illegal detention of religious practitioners and 
ethnic or human rights protestors; 
Whereas although a number of current UNHRC members, 
and prospective candidates for it, have blemished human 
rights records, the scope and intensity of human rights 
violations by a major country like the People’s Republic 
of China is so great that opposition to its renewed mem-
bership would send a strong signal to those other coun-
tries to change their behavior as well; 
Whereas the United States has previously opposed the can-
didacy of other countries for membership in the United 
Nations Human Rights Council because they had com-
mitted pervasive violations of human rights, and has re-
cently expressed strong opposition to the candidacies of 
Iran and Syria because of their human rights records; 
Whereas the United States, at the urging of the Congress, 
has previously helped to improve the effectiveness and 
credibility of the UNHRC; and 
Whereas United States opposition to the People’s Republic of 
China’s rejoining the Council would be consistent with 
the congressional tradition of supporting the United Na-
tions while helping it to achieve one of its main goals, 
namely, the protection of human rights: Now, therefore, 
be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) the United States Government should 
strongly oppose and vote against the People’s Re-
public of China regaining membership in the United 
Nations Council on Human Rights (UNHRC) and 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00008
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS
•HRES 327 IH 
encourage other members to similarly vote against 
its election; and 
(2) the United States Government should en-
courage a suitably qualified member to stand for 
election, under the UNHRC procedures, as alternate 
candidates from the Asia-Pacific region. 
Æ 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
00:34 Aug 03, 2013
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00009
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6301
E:\BILLS\HR327.IH
HR327
tjames on DSK6SPTVN1PROD with BILLS