On December 6, 2024, during a hearing held by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) in Washington D.C., a Chinese-American witness testified to members of Congress, stating that “the CCP has hijacked China and the Chinese people.”
Rowena He, a senior researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and former associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, emphasized that one of the CCP’s biggest distortions of history is the claim that “the CCP equals China.” However, she emphasized that “the CCP is not China, and it cannot represent the Chinese people.”
He expressed that generations of Chinese people have grown up and lived under the fear manufactured by the CCP. She recounted a personal childhood memory of contrasting emotions displayed by adults after the death of Mao Zedong, highlighting the impact of the regime’s control on emotional expression within families.
Reflecting on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, He shared how her teacher warned her to remove the black armband worn in memory of the students who died in the protests to protect herself, illustrating the climate of fear and censorship imposed by the CCP.
He explained how the CCP engaged in historical revisionism following the Tiananmen Square movement, promoting nationalism through a carefully orchestrated campaign of rewriting textbooks and political narratives to justify violent repression as necessary for stability and China’s rise, ultimately distorting truth and manipulating public sentiment.
She revealed that the CCP covered up the deaths of 36 million Chinese during the Great Famine under the guise of natural disasters, exporting food abroad while censoring information and creating generational ruptures in historical memory.
Rishat Abbas, director of the Uyghur International Academy, highlighted the CCP’s systematic efforts not only to perpetrate genocide against the Uyghur people but also to erase their language and culture through mass detentions in Xinjiang since 2017.
Geshe Lobsang Monlam, founder of the Mongolian Tibetan IT Research Center, criticized the CCP’s cultural assimilation policies targeting Tibetans, specifically citing the imposition of Mandarin as the primary language in schools to diminish Tibetan language use and heritage.
Temulun Togochog, a young activist from Southern Mongolia, decried the CCP’s erasure of Mongolian language in the educational system since 2020, displacing nomadic herders and disrupting traditional ways of life and cultural identity.
CECC Chairman Christopher Smith underscored the commission’s role in documenting political prisoners in China to protect the memory of victims and preserve the diverse cultures, languages, and religious identities threatened by CCP oppression.
Senator Jeff Merkley, co-chair of the CECC, stressed the importance of preserving memory to safeguard cultural identity and human rights in the face of CCP historical revisionism.
Addressing the importance of promoting cultural rights and preserving memory, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya condemned the CCP’s ongoing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong, suppression of Tibetan culture, and broader violations across China.
Zeya highlighted the U.S. government’s efforts to combat CCP abuses, including raising concerns at the United Nations Human Rights Council regarding multiple human rights violations by the regime.