LIVE: House CCP Committee Holds Bipartisan Press Conference to Commemorate Tiananmen Square Massacre 2024-06-04 15:24

I'm starting to speak now. the great people of Colorado. Perhaps the last of those who have told us. Throughout the decades, Americans and French have generated great respect for the indigenous people, including the dead, the disappeared, the imprisoned, the exiled, and yet the light of liberty burning has sought to bring a brighter future to this place. Today, we honor them. We stand with those who continue to work to free the Chinese people, including this incredible lineup of speakers. But it's not just those gathered here today because Congress stands with them. As we speak, the Congressional Executive Commission on China is holding its own commemoration hearing, building upon the incredible work they do to shed light on the CCP's human rights abuses and to support the victims. Today, on this 35th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, Congress sends a clear message. We stand with the victims of Tiananmen Square and all those currently facing the oppression of the Chinese Communist Party. And with that, I turn it over to you. Thank you, Chair Moolenaar. Thank you to all of our members for coming. Thank you, Speaker Emerita. Pelosi, thank you, Mr. Speaker McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker McCarthy for coming. Thank you to all of you. A philosopher once said, the secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage. Today, I brought a visual which is indelibly printed in our minds, and that is of the Tank Man. In Tiananmen Square, this man stood up to power, and many stood with him, including many of those who are present today. But people had a choice that day, either to stand with him or stand with the tank. And for far too long, too many people stood with the tank, and the tank represented the thuggish, brutal Chinese Communist Party, which sought to squash the freedom of this man and countless others, not only then, but today. Today, we have to remember that when Chairman Xi Jinping says he will, quote, crack down hard on subversion and separatist activities, and that he will go up, he will crack down on enemy forces, he's telling the world that the CCP will send those tanks again against anyone that stands up for freedom, and he will deem his own people enemies of the state. We've seen this in Xinjiang. We've seen this in Tibet. We saw this last week in Hong Kong, where a man who was commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre was thrown into jail because he was allegedly peddling, in quote, seditious content. And so today, we say in one voice, in a bipartisan fashion, no more silence. No more silence about the Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang. No more silence about Tiananmen Square. No more silence about the cultural genocide happening in Tibet. No more silence about the political persecution that countless others are facing today in the People's Republic of China. Instead, we're going to stand for freedom. We're gonna stand with anyone who does the same. So, Chairman Moolenaar, I wanna say thank you today for commemorating Tiananmen Square and remembering the victims of Tiananmen Square. But today, it's not just about remembering, but it's also a call to action. And we're going to act in support of those who stand for freedom, not only in Tiananmen Square, but everywhere in the world. Thank you again. Now, I'd like to bring up Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you very much, Mr. Northrop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's wonderful to be here in strong bipartisan support and in remembrance of what happened in Tiananmen Square. Your remarks, Mr. Chairman, were so clear when you spoke here at 1911 about what happened that day. Just a couple of things since then, a couple of years after Tiananmen Square, in a bipartisan fashion, some of us unfurled a banner for Tiananmen Square as representatives of that past progressive movement. Of course, we were riveted troops from Tiananmen Square, but since then, we've always said we will never forget what happened. Imagine a million people, not just the children, but all those who were speaking out for the African people and the new fraction of Tiananmen Square. We promised the mothers of Tiananmen Square that we would go very far in order to free and also to honor those who gave their lives. The martyrs and young people, I mentioned that two years later, we went to Tiananmen Square for a banner. But here, after that, we went, and you know what we found out? We found out that most of the students at universities, because I lived in a university, had no idea, had no idea what that was. Was it an ad to a political in America? The man before the tank. They had tried to erase the memory of what you can or wouldn't acknowledge. It's terrible. So as I say, when I am in China, and when I'm not in China, but when I'm talking about it, and I say it in the highest level of the world, we as Americans must speak out for human rights in China. If we don't, because of commercial reasons, we lose all moral authority to speak out for that human right. Anyway, this is a test of our resolve. And in my part of the, my panel for Congress has stood the test. Whether it's about the fight of the people, or the destroying of the culture, the religion, or with the Tibetans, whether it's the violation of rights of people. And again, it's about what happened. And just last week, pro-democracy advocates were consulting under the CCT article 20, and the latest example of those back down on rights of people. They talk about, they talk about one country, two systems. And what they are is one very violent system that is getting used up. So on this 35th anniversary, which will be tomorrow, of Tiananmen Square Massacre, it is an honor. We want them to be sure that they are not forgotten. And I talked to many secretaries, government officials, to come here to get them to know. You'll be hearing from some of them, we are trying to do, to have a chance to deal with them. Kevin, and I'm so proud that Kevin has this beautiful event that he has at the Reagan Library, a great prestigious institution in our country. So we welcome all your presence. Hi, thank you for being here. One thing I'd like to first start, I want to thank the bipartisan China Select Committee. I will tell you that, let me begin. When I first became speaker, I said to Hakeem Jeffries, I want to create a new group. I want to tell you why I was creating it. I got the idea for the Select Committee on China actually walking at the 75th anniversary of Tiananmen Square with Speaker Pelosi to the basement. And I looked to see, thinking about what could the lawmakers have done to the policy makers then that got them there. When I think back to my own personal life, 1989 was a very moving year for the entire world. In my early 20s, to watch a man that we do not know his name, but we know his actions, to stand before a tank. And the picture does not do it justice because if this picture would actually be in motion, when this tank moved, he moved. It moved to the left, he moved to the left. It moved to the right, he moved to the right. He had his bag in his hand and he was willing to give his life. And we do not know his name because he did give his life. Innocent, with a lot of hundreds and thousands possibly other innocent Chinese in that day at Tiananmen Square. Not far from the gate, it's called the Heavenly Gate. That they rose with the idea of freedom and freedom of speech. And later that year in 89, we watched the complete opposite in East Berlin when the Berlin Wall came down. And here we are 35 years later. And we wonder around the world, will people look to this day? Hong Kong used to have ceremonies about what transpired on Tiananmen Square. Not now, it's the CCP to report. You will not see candle lit. But I want you to know that it still burns brighter. You'll hear from a few of those behind me. But what I'm most proud of and I want to thank those on the committee. Not just for today, but how they have handled this committee day in and day out. It speaks volumes to the world where America stands. No question between party, between majority or minority, where we stand about Tiananmen Square and where we stand about freedom around the world. And what will we stand up to? Proud of what they have done. Proud of the motion of what they're taking together. And most importantly, proud that we will never hide the fact that we stand with the men everywhere we go until no longer will there be tanks in China. So today I have the honor of introducing probably the most famous and greatest Chinese leader, Wang Qingcheng. He's here with us today. He has an interpreter as well. But he'll show time and again what he's able to do to stand up for freedom. Wang. WANG QINGCHENG, CHINESE INTERPRETER This is a translation of his speech. During the last century, there were two major political movements in China and their ideas have been impactful on the rest of the world. The first was the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. His revolutionary idea based on the use of violence coupled with the Chinese Communist Party's extreme Marxist ideology have inspired violent revolutions and terrorism around the globe. This idea remained ideological basis for supporting violence to this very day. The second was the pro-democracy movement, which began with the Democracy War in 1978, culminated in a massive but peaceful protest in 1989 involving hundreds of Chinese cities that were violently put down by the CCP regime. The massacre in Beijing was televised to the world. Its ideas, anti-Marxism, pro-democracy, pro-liberal values also had a huge impact on the world and eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the democratic revolution in Eastern Europe. The next ideological and revolutionary movement in China, we believe, will be able to change China's Communist Party's democratic regime, alter the world's geopolitical landscape, promote the trend of global democratization, stop the current global democratic retreat, and bring lasting peace to the world. This will require a united effort from all of us. Hence, the role of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party will be critically important. This is the work that will alter the destiny of mankind. Thank you to you all, especially to Speaker Pelosi and Speaker McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, on June the 4th, 1989, I was only in ninth grade, but I remember watching on television in horror with the rest of the world as communist Chinese tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to brutally repress peaceful Chinese pro-democracy protesters and bystanders alike. Chinese government troops opened fire on student-led pro-democracy protesters, resulting in hundreds, if not thousands, dead. Today, we honor Wei and the other Chinese dissidents who join us, whose legacy in fighting for freedom and democracy is more relevant today than ever before. In Hong Kong, once a beacon of commemorative freedom, the massive June 4th annual vigil that mourned the victims for decades has now vanished, a casualty of the city's clampdown on dissidents following huge anti-government protests in 2019. And last week, under a new homegrown security law, Hong Kong police arrested seven people on suspicion of alleged sedition over their posting of social media content about commemorating the Tiananmen crackdown. Last week, I joined a bipartisan delegation traveling to the democracy of Taiwan, where we were there to celebrate not just a successful election and inauguration of a new self-governing democracy led by a new president in Taiwan, but we were there to celebrate a successful democracy and freedom on that island. And so, as we commemorate the victims of Tiananmen, my message to my fellow Americans and to the Chinese people is that the victims of Tiananmen, 35 years ago, their legacy is more relevant today than ever before. And their legacy stands as a tribute to the people of Taiwan today, the people in Hong Kong today, and the people in mainland China who continue to struggle and fight for freedom and democracy. And with that, I yield to my, to another brave, a brave pro-democracy dissident, Lang Dan, Wang Dan. Wang Dan. Today is the 35th anniversary of my nightmare, when thousands of my fellow countrymen and women were massacred for the simple act of wanting freedom and democracy. Human rights are the natural rights of all human beings. I believe Chinese people deserve these rights no less than any people on earth. Thank you, Honorable Chairman and all the Honorable Members of Congress who have come here to remember this tragic day with us. I still remember vividly how shocked I was when I saw the Chinese Communist government deploying regular military troops to attack its own people and to massacre its own people. I could hardly think, not utter a single word. Since then, I have come to understand that the rule of the Chinese Communist Party could only be maintained by violence. This was the case in 1989, and it remains the case to this very day. We come here today to commemorate not only what happened in 1989, but also to recognize the political reality in 2024. Every person in free society, including United States, should know that the Chinese Communist Party is the enemy of freedom and democracy. Today, we commemorate not only China's lost opportunity for freedom and democracy, but we also want to alert others that the freedom and democracy of all humanity are threatened by the ambitions of the CCP. I was once deeply moved by Martin Luther King's famous speech, I Have a Dream, and I have my own Chinese dream. I dream that one day, the Chinese people will live in freedom and dignity. For 35 years, I have not forgotten this dream for a single day. Nor have I ever spared any effort to realize this dream. At this very moment, we are here to remember all the students and the citizens who lost their lives on June 4th, 1989. And I call on all the world not to forget these courageous people. I call on the entire world to pay attention to those in China today who are being persecuted for the simple act of seeking democracy and human rights. I also urge that we all take practical action to help the Chinese people realize their dream of freedom and dignity. It is only when Chinese people achieve true democracy and human rights that we can be assured of a lasting world peace. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Seth Moore. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's an honor to be here alongside this group of patriots who have dedicated their lives to promoting freedom for the Chinese people. 35 years ago, the world saw what the Chinese government did not want us to see, that even the most democratic systems are no match for a few extraordinarily courageous souls. This was a story of a regime that feared its own people so much that they chose to hide behind guns and tanks. The funny thing about the pursuit of freedom is that it's not even a match for the heaviest of them. The anniversary we mark today reflects a fundamental truth. The fight for freedom in China has persisted from generation to generation, and it continues on. We see it when ordinary Chinese citizens holding up white sheets of paper, quietly but powerfully protesting the CCP's draconian COVID policies, and when whistleblowers bravely exposed the Uyghur genocide around the globe, even under the threat of transnational repression. These acts of defiance, inspired by the example of those who faced down tanks and gunfire in Tiananmen Square as they demonstrated their freedom, continue on today. As much as the CCP may not want to hide or deny it, they simply cannot, not least because we see these images and read the stories with our own eyes on social media from intrepid independent journalists. And just like they couldn't hide what happened three and a half decades ago, today the CCP cannot crush the basic human aspiration for a free life. Even as we speak, police in China and Hong Kong have tightened security because they know exactly what this anniversary represents to the Chinese people. I truly believe that Xi's greatest weakness isn't his economy or COVID, it's the will of the Chinese people. As we all know here in America, the myth that democracy can be messy plays out in the open for the world to see. But that's how it's supposed to work. That is how voices are heard and compromise is built. Autocrats mock our democracy and that messiness that comes with it, but they do so out of fear, fear that their people will one day want the same freedoms. And when that happens, just like Tiananmen Square shows us, when enough people have the courage to speak out, change will come. Today, I'm hopeful because generations upon generations of the Chinese patriots have embraced the cause of freedom and it will stay in that fight for as long as it takes. It's now my honor to introduce one of the most courageous of those patriots, Zheng Shuguang, a key leader of the Tiananmen Square student group. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, members of Congress, I'm Zheng Shuguang, one of the witnesses and the survivors of the 1989 democracy movement in China and the massacre in Beijing. I'm honored that the House Senate Select Committee on the CCP invited me to participate in this event to commemorate the noble spirit and extraordinary courage of the brave people who sacrificed their lives for freedoms and the dignity of humanity in 1989 on the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. 35 years ago, more than 200,000 PLA troops used machine guns and tanks in Beijing to massacre unsuspecting young students and the citizens who were peaceful protesting. The massacre claimed thousands of lives and put thousands of families into a bottomless abyss. The nationwide arrests and the purges that followed changed the fates of countless families. 35 years later, the CCP controls the world's second largest economy. However, the truth about 89 democracy movements and the Tiananmen Massacre is still taboo in China and cannot be talked about freely and openly. To understand contemporary China, we must look back at the scene of the CCP's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement 35 years ago, a crime that has never been punished. Five months after the Beijing Massacre, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended in Europe. However, for the CCP, the Cold War never ended. Today, Xi Jinping's regime is not starting a new Cold War. It is a continuous struggle between the CCP regime and the free world. The essence of the China challenge facing the United States is a challenge to human freedom and dignity from a totally tyrant Stalinist party state. This struggle is both a struggle between the CCP and the people under its oppressive rule who have no freedom of speech and political democracy and the free world's competition with the CCP. Let's work together to win this fight. Thank you. Now, I will introduce Congressman Carlos Jiménez. I told the former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, about the best thing that he had done as Speaker of the National Committee of the China Select Committee. And I was born in Cuba. My parents brought me and my sister here when I was seven years old. And so what is happening is China's kind of personal in that the people of China are suffering from the oppression, the suppression, the lack of democracy that is evident in all Marxist regimes. And the one thing about Marxist regimes that have their common is that they fear their own people. Just think about that. You're in power only because you fear your own people. When you suppress your own people, you intimidate your own people. That's the only way that you're gonna remain in power. And so for the United States, for the beacon of freedom and democracy, we must stand with the people of China. We must support their efforts to throw this regime and relegate it to the fashion of history. I'm very proud to serve on this committee. And one of the reasons I'm very proud to serve on this committee is because it's bipartisan. And in this era where really there's not much that Republicans and Democrats agree on, we agree on this, that China is an existential threat, not only to its own people, but to the world. And so we stand united. And our message to the people of China is that the United States Congress stands with you. We will support you. We will not abandon you. And we look forward to the day that China is a free and democratic nation. With that, I will now, what's that? I will now introduce my colleague on the China Select Committee, Will Cox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Jimenez. I stand united with my colleagues in recognizing the importance and the quest for freedom. And that is ultimately what this is about. America has always stood for the march of freedom, for the march of political rights. And I still believe that that is inevitable around the world, including in China. And I believe that because of the human spirit. We see as countries become more liberal on social values, and I'm told that now people in China have more say than who they can marry and what job they can do. And as people develop more economic power, that eventually freedom will prevail. And the United States will always be on the side of people who are seeking freedom. That has been the bipartisan commitment of this committee. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today. I'd like to go back in time to the year 2012. In 2012, my husband, Dean Jassy, originally a commercial lawyer, joined legal scholar Xu Zhiyuan to launch the New Citizen Movement. The movement encourages ordinary citizens to exercise civil and political rights to confront injustice in society and oppose human rights abuses in daily life. Their peaceful and lawful activities, however, have led the Chinese authorities to arrest and sentence Xu Zhiyuan for four years and Dean Jassy for three and a half years in prison in 2014. After serving their sentences, both Xu Zhiyuan and Dean Jassy resumed their activities in promoting civil, political, and human rights. They reached out to ordinary citizens throughout China who shared the same aspiration in promoting the growth of civil society. But in 2019 and early 2020, the police forcefully disappeared, severely tortured, and four years later, secretly sentenced Dean Jassy and Xu Zhiyuan under the charge of subversion of state power. This time, the court sentenced Xu Zhiyuan to 14 years in prison, and my husband, Dean Jassy, 12 years in prison. Subversion of state power is classified in Chinese law as endangering state security. Let's just think about this. Ordinary people gathering to discuss what it means to be a citizen, according to Chinese own law, is considered by Chinese government to be a security threat to state power. As the wife of a political prisoner, my thoughts are first and foremost with my husband. I worry constantly about the conditions of his imprisonment. Please, when you meet with Chinese officials or dignitaries, please raise my husband's name, Dean Jassy. Please ask them why Dean Jassy is in prison for advocating for human rights in China since 1918. Until today, there are many ordinary citizens in China willing to advocate for their own rights and take great risks to expose human rights abuses by the Chinese government. Although the road toward building robust civil society or a political movement is long and hard, I'm confident that ordinary Chinese citizens' deep desire for freedom and political rights will continue, but they do need the support of the U.S. Congress and the American people. After the Tiananmen Massacre, Chinese activists received significant support from the members of Congress, including Speaker Pelosi and Representative Liz Cheney, among many others. Your support can be seen in congressional hearings providing support to Chinese civil society groups outside China, calling for release of the wrongfully imprisoned activists in China, or supporting forums for Chinese Uyghurs and Tibetan activists together and strategize for the future. We look forward to your continuing to stand with us and keep pressure on Chinese government as we are working towards a future democratic China without the Chinese Communist Party, one party rule. Thank you. I thank those brave activists who told their stories today. I want everyone who came to listen, letting the Chinese people know that they won't struggle alone. Before we go, I'd like to ask everyone to join me in a moment of silence for those who will not be with us today, countless victims of the CCP, those who lost their lives over the decades of communist tyranny and those who remain imprisoned today. Thank you. And with that, I know we're out of time, but thank you for being partners. Thank you.