Uyghurs, Tibetans Urge Congress: ‘The Chinese Empire Must Be Dismantled’

Activists representing communities facing ethnic cleansing and genocide under the Chinese Communist Party urged Congress during an event on Monday not just to oppose China’s human rights abuses, but identify their communities as sovereign nations colonized under an imperial Chinese state.

Among those speaking were representatives of the regions of Tibet, East Turkistan, and Southern Mongolia, which the Chinese Communist Party has colonized and refers to as “Xizang,” “Xinjiang,” and “bei jiang wenhua,” respectively. The Chinese government regularly attempts to rename land under its control — and land it wants to control but is not part of China, such as various regions of India and the South China Sea — with Mandarin-language names. The speakers made the case for the United States recognizing these various regions as countries in themselves, rather than regions of China where “Chinese minorities” are being repressed.

Those assembled addressed Congress for an event known as the Congressional Briefing on Captive Nations as part of “Captive Nations Week” — a weeklong commemoration established in 1959 under former President Dwight D. Eisenhower as an annual event in Washington to honor the struggles of peoples subjugated by communist imperialism and totalitarianism. Captive Nations Week is typically observed on the third week of July and focuses on the human rights atrocities committed by imperialist Marxist regimes against nations such as Laos, North Korea, China, Cuba, and Venezuela.

The Uyghur, Tibetan, and Mongolian representatives at Monday’s Congressional briefing included Iran — run by an Islamist theocracy closely bonded with the world’s most notorious communist regimes — and Cuba on its list of captive nations.

The East Turkistan Government in Exile, which advocates for the international recognition of East Turkistan as the sovereign nation of the Uyghur people, published video of the event.

At the briefing, East Turkistani Foreign Ministry Salih Hudayar emphasized that the region has experienced arguably the most brutal genocide currently ongoing today at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

“East Turkistan was explicitly named in the 1959 Captive Nations Resolution, not as part of China, but as a nation subjugated by Communist imperialism,” he noted. “That law remains in force. And tragically, so too does our captivity.”

“Removing the CCP is not enough,” Hudayar continued, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “The Chinese empire must be dismantled.”

“The restoration of liberty and independence for East Turkistan is not a dream. It is a duty enshrined in the Captive Nations Resolution,” he emphasized.

East Turkistan is home to the majority of the world’s Uyghur people as well as several other Turkic ethnic groups, including the Kazakh and Kyrgyz people, who have been subjected to genocide by the Chinese Communist Party. The country existed as a sovereign republic in 1933, then was restored as a second republic from 1944 to 1949. That year, when mass murderer Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China, Mao also colonized East Turkistan after a mysterious plane crash killed its top leadership.

The Chinese communists have subjugated the Uyghurs for decades, but evidence of widespread, systematic genocidal activity began emerging in 2017. The Uyghur Tribunal, an independent tribunal of human rights experts, found China guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” of genocide in December 2021, citing expansive forced sterilization and forced abortion programs, the separation of children from their families to raise them away from their culture, the destruction of Uyghur cultural sites such as mosques and cemeteries, the imprisonment and enslavement of millions of people in the region in concentration camps, and gruesome torture and sexual assault detailed by survivors. Experts have also found evidence shared in prior years with Congress that the Chinese regime is harvesting the organs of as many as 100,000 people per year in the region, a gory and lucrative business for the government.

“Millions have been locked in concentration camps and prisons… the separation of over one million children from their families,” Hudayar noted in his remarks on Monday.

Tibet has similarly faced extreme communist repression, most prominently with the attempt to exterminate the dominant religion in the region, Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetans have experienced the implementation of similar programs to those of East Turkistan such as the mass abduction of their children into communist indoctrination camps and the forcing of entire Tibetan communities into state-sponsored slavery programs.

“Tibet has never legally been a part of China,” Tenzin Wangdu of the Tibetan Rangzen (independence) movement, told Congress on Monday. “We had our own government, our own culture, our distinct identity for over a thousand years.”

Korean-American journalist Se Hoon Kim spoke at the event on the plight of the Southern Mongolian people, who have also experienced the Chinese government attempting to eradicate their language and culture.

“For decades the Mongolian people of Southern Mongolia have faced systematic efforts to erode their cultural identity, suppress their language, and marginalize their traditional way of life,” Kim explained. “What we are witnessing is not merely a crackdown, it is a deliberate assimilation that threatens the survival of an ancient heritage.”

Kim also made a note of China’s deepening relationships with communist regimes around the world, expanding the Communist Party’s imperialist ambitions. The journalist noted in particular China’s inroads in Cuba, 90 miles away from the American mainland and home to one of America’s most pivotal military bases. The Chinese government under dictator Xi Jinping has dramatically expanded its footprint in China through the predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Multiple reports have also indicated that China has expanded espionage activities on the island.

The Cuban government openly boasts of the help it receives from China in repressing its own people, most prominently thanking Chinese Prosecutor General Ying Yong for training Cuban kangaroo court prosecutors.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.