The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its second hearing on March 23, titled "The Chinese Communist Party's Ongoing Uyghur Genocide."
Nury Turkel, Chair of U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), said in his testimony during the hearing that the CCP's ongoing genocide against the minority Uyghurs involves technologically advanced tools, and although the U.S. has made efforts to hold the Chinese government accountable for its actions, it has not succeeded.
"In spite of the strong bipartisan action and legislation from the United States, we are approaching a sobering milestone: the month, we are entering the seventh year of active genocide," Turkel said in his testimony. "Millions of people are still suffering, totally apart from the still-uncounted deaths in custody. It’s a somber indictment of our own failures to prioritize efficient responses to atrocity crimes."
Turkel testified about the role technology plays in the situation.
"The Chinese government has mobilized 21st-century high-tech tools like biometric scanning - forced collection of DNA, iris scans, facial scans and voice prints," Turkel said in his testimony. "Combined with mobile-phone tracking apps and a massive network of surveillance cameras, the regime has mobilized machine-learning to build a comprehensive and permanent 'total control'," Turkel said.
Turkel called the CCP's persecution of Uyghurs "the most sophisticated genocide in the modern era, supported by technology and facilitated through forced labor programs. It is the largest incarceration of ethnoreligious groups since the Nazi era."
A Citizen Lab report released last year states that under Chinese President Xi Jinping's leadership, DNA collection has played a key role in suppressing ethnic and religious minorities such as the Uyghurs. In 2016, Chinese authorities began requiring DNA samples from residents of Xinjiang who applied for travel documents, Citizen Lab reported, and it is now estimated that Xinjiang authorities have collected millions of samples. The collection efforts extend beyond Xinjiang; across China, authorities have collected DNA and genealogical records from as many as 70 million Chinese men.
He asserted that China uses its economic strength to cover its crimes.
"The CCP has masked its true face behind a cloak of dubious economic prosperity," Turkel said. "The Chinese Communist Party has not suffered enough tangible costs for driving its repression at home and aggression abroad. It is our obligation to address this, especially as our own American corporations and even investments are funding atrocity crimes."
Although President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law in Dec. 2021, the "de minimis" loophole allows for goods valued at less than $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free, as reported by the Coalition for a Prosperous America in November. De minimis packages are not reviewed by U.S. Customers and Border Protection when they enter the country, the article reports, citing an investigation by Bloomberg that found that through the loophole, Americans have been able to continue purchasing goods from the popular fast-fashion retailer Shein, despite evidence that Shein's garments are made from Xinjiang-sourced cotton.
Turkel stated in his testimony that the March 23 hearing is the sixth time he has testified before Congress about China and its treatment of the Uyghur population since 2018. Turkel called on Congress to crack down on American companies that are complicit in Uyghur forced labor and urged lawmakers to pass and enforce bills that address the ongoing genocide.
Committee member Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) asked Turkel during the hearing about Uyghurs' reaction to China's membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council, which the committee shared in a Twitter post.
"What message does it send to the Uyghur people… that China continues to hold a seat on the UN Human Rights Council?" Turkel said.
"It sends a disturbing message to say the least," Turkel said.
Turkel, a Uyghur American born in the Xinjiang region, said that even though he is now an American citizen and a congressionally appointed official of a U.S. agency, he has not been able to escape the "long arm of the Chinese state" and "retaliation" from the Chinese government. He said he has not been allowed to see his mother, who is not allowed to leave China, in twenty years, and he was not allowed to attend his father's funeral last year. He added that "every Uyghur in exile" experiences the same retaliatory actions.
"This is the hostage situation that every diaspora member is suffering," Turkel testified. "It’s a tool of transnational repression to silence and punish everyone who tries to tell the truth about what’s happening in the Uyghur homeland or to advocate for human rights as a fundamental principle."
Turkel said that American companies are supporting the ongoing genocide against Uyghurs by "financing the state-sponsored forced labor programs operating in the Uyghur Region."
He named Home Depot, Gap, Nike, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Ford, GM, Tesla and Shein, as well as "practically all of the fast-fashion industry", for either operating factories in or using materials sourced from the Xinjiang region.
Turkel in his testimony called on Congress to "end the financing of atrocities" and pass bills including the Uyghur Policy Act, the Uyghur Human Rights Sanctions Review Act, the Visa Ban Act, the Transnational Repression Policy Act, and the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act.
