General Secretary Act

I 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 3945 To prohibit using Federal funds to refer to the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as ‘‘President’’ on new United States Government documents and communications, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JUNE 16, 2021 Mr. PERRY (for himself, Mr. TIFFANY, Mr. NORMAN, and Mr. GOSAR) intro- duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs A BILL To prohibit using Federal funds to refer to the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as ‘‘President’’ on new United States Government documents and com- munications, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘General Secretary 4 Act’’. 5 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 6 Congress finds the following: 7 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:54 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3945.IH H3945 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 3945 IH (1) The leadership of the People’s Republic of 1 China has gone unchallenged in its perverse pursuits 2 of human rights abuses across decades, including in 3 its commission of the following: 4 (A) The Campaign to Suppress Counter- 5 revolutionaries, which killed 712,000 people. 6 (B) The Chinese Land Reform Movement, 7 which may have killed up to a million Chinese 8 citizens. 9 (C) The Great Chinese Famine, a man- 10 made disaster that may have killed approxi- 11 mately 30,000,000 people; of that total, it is es- 12 timated that anywhere between 2,000,000 and 13 3,000,000 people were beaten or tortured to 14 death. 15 (D) The crackdown of the pro-democracy 16 Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, which may 17 have killed up to 10,000 people. 18 (2) In recent years, the Chinese Communist 19 Party (CCP) has continued its barbaric and uncivi- 20 lized rule, including by— 21 (A) harvesting the organs of up to thou- 22 sands of Chinese citizens every year, many of 23 whom are Falun Gong practitioners; 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:54 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3945.IH H3945 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 3945 IH (B) coercing over half a million Tibetans 1 to work in forced labor camps in the first seven 2 months of 2020, and forcibly sending thousands 3 of Tibetans to areas within the People’s Repub- 4 lic of China (PRC); and 5 (C) imprisoning up to 2,000,000 Uyghurs 6 and ethnic Kazaks and Uzbeks in ‘‘re-edu- 7 cation’’ camps since April 2017, as well as 8 condoning and facilitating the practice of forced 9 abortion, sterilization, and other forms of sex- 10 ual abuse on women imprisoned in these camps. 11 (3) On January 19, 2021, then-Secretary of 12 State Michael R. Pompeo determined that the CCP 13 has committed genocide against the predominantly 14 Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious mi- 15 nority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous 16 Region. 17 (4) Since late 2016, when the CCP escalated its 18 ‘‘Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism’’, 19 Xinjiang province’s criminal justice system has con- 20 victed and sentenced more than 250,000 people to 21 imprisonment, often without the defendant having 22 committed a ‘‘genuine’’ offense. 23 (5) The blatant disregard that the CCP has for 24 basic human decency runs contrary to the well-func- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:54 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3945.IH H3945 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 •HR 3945 IH tioning of an open and civilized society, and respon- 1 sibility for the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang and 2 human rights abuses throughout China must lie with 3 the head of state of the People’s Republic of China. 4 (6) The title of ‘‘President’’ has often been uti- 5 lized to describe the office of the head of state of the 6 People’s Republic of China, in both the United 7 States Government and private publications. 8 (7) Addressing the head of state of the People’s 9 Republic of China as a ‘‘President’’ grants the incor- 10 rect assumption that the people of the state, via 11 democratic means, have readily legitimized the lead- 12 er who rules them. 13 (8) The head of state of the People’s Republic 14 of China derives all power and authority from the 15 CCP and is accountable only to them. 16 (9) The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and 17 Security Review Commission stated the following in 18 the Executive Summary of their 2019 report to Con- 19 gress: ‘‘If there were glimmers of political opening in 20 China, they have been firmly extinguished. It is for 21 this reason that this year the Commission made the 22 decision to start referring to Xi Jinping using the 23 title by which he derives his authority: General Sec- 24 retary of the Chinese Communist Party. China is 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:54 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3945.IH H3945 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 •HR 3945 IH not a democracy, and its citizens have no right to 1 vote, assemble, or speak freely. Giving General Sec- 2 retary Xi the unearned title of ‘President’ lends a 3 veneer of democratic legitimacy to the CCP and Xi’s 4 authoritarian rule.’’. 5 SEC. 3. UNITED STATES POLICY. 6 It is the policy of the United States to— 7 (1) condemn in the strongest possible terms the 8 horrific human rights abuses being perpetuated and 9 enabled by the leadership of the CCP; 10 (2) urge all countries to do the same; 11 (3) recognize the deep friendship between the 12 United States and the citizens of the People’s Re- 13 public of China, the first victims of their govern- 14 ment’s cruelty; and 15 (4) honor the memory of all those who have 16 died as a result of the callous rule of the CCP. 17 SEC. 4. PROHIBITION ON USING FEDERAL FUNDS TO 18 REFER TO THE HEAD OF STATE OF THE PEO- 19 PLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA AS ‘‘PRESIDENT’’ 20 ON NEW UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT DOC- 21 UMENTS AND COMMUNICATIONS. 22 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Fed- 23 eral Government may not obligate or expend any funds 24 for the creation and dissemination of United States Gov- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:54 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3945.IH H3945 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 •HR 3945 IH ernment documents and communications that refer to the 1 head of state of the People’s Republic of China as any- 2 thing other than ‘‘General Secretary of the Chinese Com- 3 munist Party’’, or alternatively, as ‘‘General Secretary’’. 4 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:54 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H3945.IH H3945 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS