U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and Chris Smith (R-N.J.) have reintroduced legislation that would require the president to assess China’s human rights record annually and use those findings to evaluate the status of U.S.-China trade.
"America should never let genocide and slave labor become a ‘permanent’ or ‘normal’ part of U.S. trade," Tiffany said in a news release. “It’s time we stopped overlooking widespread human rights abuses as just the ‘cost of doing business’ in Communist China and restored the annual congressional review of China’s ‘most favored nation’ trade status.”
The China Trade Relations Act of 2023 will reconnect China’s trade privileges with its human rights record, requiring the annual review to determine if China has made progress, according to the bill’s text.
"Ever since President Bill Clinton delinked trade with China from human rights in 1994, the Chinese Communist Party has been growing into an economic power, stealing American jobs and intellectual property while getting an absolute pass for its heinous human rights abuses," Smith said in a release. “We must correct President Clinton’s horrific mistake and return to the pre-Clinton norm by making annual renewal of normal trade relations contingent on concrete progress on human rights.”
China was given most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status after a congressional vote in 2000, according to a release from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), which said the preferential trade status paved the way for a significant increase of business investment in China. Cotton introduced the Senate’s companion bill.
In 2021, China was the U.S.'s third largest trading partner, with the U.S. importing $506.4 billion worth of goods from China and exporting $151.1 billion worth of goods to China, according to Visual Capitalist, which cited data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights released a report in August 2022, addressing concerns dating back to 2017 that members of the Uyghur community and other ethnic minorities in China had disappeared, been sent to “re-education” camps in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), or been subjected to forced labor, sexual violence, or other abuse.
Two-thirds of the detainees interviewed by the UN described treatment that amounted to torture and/or other forms of ill-treatment. They described being beaten with batons while strapped to a chair, being interrogated while water was poured on their faces, being held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time and being forced to sit on small stools for long periods of time without moving.
Some of the women also described instances of sexual humiliation and sexual violence while they were detained. Allegations were also made of instances of sexual and gender-based violence, which the report said appear credible.
Smith was selected by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to serve as the chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC), according to a release.
Tiffany has represented Wisconsin's Seventh Congressional District since 2020 and previously served in the Wisconsin Assembly and State Senate representing the 12th District, according to his website.
