The Universal Periodic Review allows for the peer-review of UN Member States’ human rights records every four and a half years, a process which China is set to undergo on January 23, 2024.
The review allows for states to present their efforts to improve human rights in their country and report on compliance with human rights treaties. Member States are also empowered to question the country on its human rights record.
U.S. Reps. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia and Chris Smith of New Jersey sent a bipartisan letter calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to emphasize the ongoing atrocities and human rights violations committed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) later this month.
“One of China’s obligations as a current member of the UN HRC is to ‘uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights and fully cooperate with the Council.’ Its re-election to the Council in October 2023 for another three-year term cannot serve as a free pass to avoid oversight. The U.S. government must hold the Chinese government accountable and ask it to end its ongoing gross human rights violations towards its own people and respect its human rights obligations,” Wexton and Smith wrote.
Wexton and Smith highlighted specific examples of imprisoned Uyghurs, persecuted Hong Kongers and Tibetans, and silenced human rights defenders that they request the State Department raise during China’s UPR review. The letter also condemns the Chinese government’s transnational repression of outspoken critics of the regime living in the United States and other countries around the globe.
As the representative of a district that contains one of the largest Uyghur diaspora populations in the country, Wexton has been at the forefront of the fight against China’s human rights abuses, leading the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act and serving as an active member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for the past three years.
In addition to Wexton and Smith, the letter is signed by U.S. Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton of D.C., Young Kim of California, Nick LaLota of New York, Nicole Malliotakis of New York, James P. McGovern of Massachusetts, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Zach Nunn of Iowa, John Rose of Tennessee, Andrea Salinas of Oregon, Eric Swalwell of California, Dina Titus of Nevada and Jill Tokuda of Hawaii.
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Rebecca Barnabi
