Title: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the atrocities perpetrated by the Government of the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region constitutes genocide.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution declares that the violence perpetrated by China against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups constitutes genocide. The resolution demands that China cease its persecution of the aforementioned groups and urges the United States, as well as the international community, to take measures to prevent the continuation of atrocities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 760 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. RES. 760

 Expressing the sense of the Senate that the atrocities perpetrated by 
   the Government of the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs, 
ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in 
      the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region constitutes genocide.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

             October 26 (legislative day, October 19), 2020

   Mr. Cornyn (for himself, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Risch, Mr. 
Merkley, and Mr. Cardin) submitted the following resolution; which was 
             referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of the Senate that the atrocities perpetrated by 
   the Government of the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs, 
ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in 
      the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region constitutes genocide.

Whereas Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and 
        Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which both the United States and 
        the People's Republic of China have ratified, defines genocide as ``any 
        of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in 
        part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) 
        killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm 
        to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group 
        conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction 
        in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births 
        within the group; [or] forcibly transferring children of the group to 
        another group.'';
Whereas the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Public 
        Law 115-441) states that it is the policy of the United States to 
        ``regard the prevention of atrocities as in its national interest'';
Whereas, since 2017, the Government of the People's Republic of China has 
        detained an estimated 1,800,000 Turkic Muslims, mostly Uyghurs, ethnic 
        Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups, in 
        internment camps without due process;
Whereas detained Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim 
        minority groups are tortured, coerced to disavow their religious beliefs 
        and cultural practices, compelled to work in forced labor programs, and, 
        in some cases, raped, subjected to involuntary forced abortion, 
        sterilization, and forced organ harvesting;
Whereas, as a direct result of the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China's targeted and coercive population control campaign against 
        Uyghurs, the birthrate of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang Uyghur 
        Autonomous Region plummeted by 24 percent from 2017 to 2018, with 
        birthrates in the Uyghur majority regions of Hotan and Kashgar 
        decreasing by more than 60 percent from 2015 to 2018;
Whereas sterilization rates in Xinjiang grew seven-fold from 2016 to 2018 to 
        more than 60,000 procedures;
Whereas, in 2018, 80 percent of all net added IUD placements in China 
        (calculated as placements minus removals) were performed in Xinjiang, 
        despite the fact that the region only makes up 1.8 percent of the 
        nation's population;
Whereas nearly 500,000 Muslim children in Xinjiang have been forcibly separated 
        from their families and subjected to indoctrination and inhumane and 
        degrading treatment in state-run boarding schools;
Whereas, since 2017, the Government of the People's Republic of China has 
        destroyed or damaged approximately 16,000 mosques and over 30 percent of 
        Islamic shrines, cemeteries, and pilgrimage routes across the Xinjiang 
        Uyghur Autonomous Region;
Whereas Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority 
        groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are subjected to 
        constant, unwarranted, and intrusive mass surveillance through the use 
        of new and emerging technologies, including facial recognition software, 
        artificial intelligence, and genetic testing;
Whereas, between 2017 and 2019, an estimated 80,000 Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, 
        Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups were forcibly 
        transferred out of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to work in 
        factories across China, which raises serious concerns of forced labor 
        being used in global supply chains; and
Whereas the policies of the Government of the People's Republic of China are in 
        contravention of international human rights instruments signed by that 
        government, including--

    (1) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the People's Republic of 
China has signed but not yet ratified;

    (2) the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural 
Rights, ratified by the People's Republic of China in 2001; and

    (3) the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish 
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), 
to which the People's Republic of China has been a state party since 
February 2010: Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) declares that the atrocities perpetrated by the 
        Government of the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs, 
        ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority 
        groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region constitute 
        genocide;
            (2) demands that the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China immediately--
                    (A) adhere to its commitments under the 1948 United 
                Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of 
                the Crime of Genocide;
                    (B) halt the genocide it is perpetrating against 
                Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other 
                Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur 
                Autonomous Region;
                    (C) release individuals from internment camps, 
                forced labor programs, and state-run boarding schools;
                    (D) reunite families and rebuild or repair mosques; 
                and
                    (E) guarantee freedom of religion, including Islam;
            (3) urges the Administration to take all appropriate 
        measures, including working with like-minded states and 
        multilateral coalitions, to compel, induce, or otherwise oblige 
        the Government of the People's Republic of China to immediately 
        take the actions described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) of 
        paragraph (2);
            (4) urges all national governments and international 
        organizations, including the United Nations and its Office of 
        the Secretary-General, to call the Government of the People's 
        Republic of China's atrocity crimes by their rightful name: 
        ``genocide'';
            (5) urges the Permanent Representative of the United States 
        to the United Nations to take steps to coordinate with other 
        members of the United Nations to enact measures to prevent 
        atrocity crimes by the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China, and to punish those responsible for these ongoing 
        crimes, including by the collection and preservation of 
        evidence, imposing sanctions against perpetrators, and if 
        necessary, the establishment and operation of appropriate 
        tribunals;
            (6) urges member states of the United Nations to use their 
        votes to bar the Government of the People's Republic of China 
        from membership of any United Nations councils or other 
        component overseeing human rights until an independent 
        commission established by the United Nations verifies that the 
        People's Republic of China has returned to adhering to its 
        commitments under the 1948 United Nations Convention on the 
        Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; and
            (7) encourages the United States Government and United 
        States companies to lead global coalitions ensuring businesses 
        are not enabling, supporting, or profiting off the mass 
        surveillance and forced labor, which is a form of human 
        trafficking, of Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of 
        other Muslim minority groups in China.
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