Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Hearing: Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has significantly benefited from the international rules-based order. Yet, its growing economic power has allowed it to present an emerging systemic alternative, subordinated to a political and ideological agenda that disregards human rights norms. As a result, international businesses and corporations that seek to operate in the PRC often find themselves complicit in, or at risk of being complicit in, human rights abuses—in China and globally. These abuses range from genocide, imports made with forced labor, forced organ harvesting, the creation of mass technological surveillance systems, internet censorship, and restrictions on free speech.

The hearing examined cases of complicity across various industries and explored options for U.S. policy. Witnesses provided testimony on the range and scope of corporate complicity in human rights violations and the corruption of supply chains by forced labor, detailing the threats to U.S. national security from such issues, and offered recommendations for action by Congress and the Administration.

WITNESSES: Under Secretary Robert P. Silvers, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Shi Minglei, Advocate and wife of Chinese human rights activist Cheng Yuan

Isaac Stone Fish, Author of “America Second: How America’s Elites are Making China Stronger” and visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council