Chairman Smith asks Xi Jinping for visa to visit Xinjiang after Chinese official tells him that 'China fully protects the rights of Uyghurs'

  In a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)—Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China—is requesting a visa to visit Xinjiang to personally assess claims touted by a top Chinese diplomat in a bizarre late-night email to his office that “China fully protects the rights and interests of all ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs in Xinjiang.”

            “The Chinese Embassy’s Minister-Counselor for Congressional Affair in Washington, Zhou Zheng, stated that ‘China fully protects the rights and interests of all ethnic minorities including Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and the living standards and human rights protections of  all ethnic groups continue to improve,’” said Smith, citing the email he received from the Chinese official one day after the House passed Smith’s Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, a bill that would impose serious sanctions on those complicit in the Chinese Communist Party’s ghoulish industry of stealing internal organs from political prisoners.

            “This is of great interest to the Commission, which is a bicameral, bi-branch, bipartisan organization, established by the United States Congress to monitor China’s compliance with international human rights standards,” said Chairman Smith, who took the helm of the China Commission for a fifth time in January. “For several years, the Commission has published and maintained a database of victims of human rights abuses and has encouraged the development of the rule of law in the PRC.”

            Smith’s letter comes just weeks after a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson welcomed foreigners to visit Xinjiang to see it “with their own eyes” when asked at a March 27^th press conference if China would be willing to invite a US congressional delegation to the region.

            “In light of Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning’s remarks on March 27, 2023, that ‘the door to Xinjiang is always open,’ and that people from all countries are ‘welcome to visit,’ I write in my capacity as the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) to request a visa in order to visit the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People’s Republic of China,” said Smith.

            “The Foreign Minister’s open invitation is a welcomed opportunity for the CECC, and others, to personally assess Mr. Zhou’s comments against the veracity of reports of mass internment and forced labor in the XUAR.  Having found those multiple reports to be credible, I would like to visit sites where mass detention and forced labor are generally believed to occur,” Smith continued.

            “Additionally, there are a number of American citizens, permanent residents and others who have been detained due to their apparent ties with the United States whom I would like to visit,” added Smith.