Moolenaar Cosponsors Bipartisan Tibet Atrocities Determination Act

Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the Select Committee on China has cosponsored the Tibet Atrocities Determination Act recently introduced by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), and Select Committee member Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-NY). This legislation would direct the Secretary of State to determine if the growing body of evidence documenting the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) systematic abuses of the Tibetan people in Tibet constitutes an “ongoing genocide” or “crimes against humanity.”

“The American people will never turn a blind eye to the CCP’s oppression of innocent Tibetans who wish to live freely and follow their faith,” said Moolenaar. “This legislation is the first step to holding China accountable for its atrocities in Tibet."

Background

Tibet is a region China claims and controls, and the CCP systematically persecutes Tibetans that follow the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader who was exiled after the Tibetan Uprising of 1959.

The CCP has spent decades oppressing the Tibetan people, from regulating monasteries to "sinicizing" the Tibetan language, culture, and education system. The United Front Work Department of the CCP is now engaged in an aggressive cultural erasure campaign codified by the Law of the People's Republic of China on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, and its propaganda continues to peddle the historically false claim that Tibet has been a part of China since ancient times. 

To read the bill text, click here. A version of the legislation was also introduced in the Senate in April by Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR).