Last week, on the second night of Ramadan, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its second hearing, this one focused on the ongoing genocide by the CCP against the Uyghur Muslim minority in the People’s Republic of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). As Ranking Member of the committee, I helped plan our bipartisan hearing to inform the American people of the horrific nature of the CCP’s genocide while developing strategies for ending it. Since 2014, as many as 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been jailed in mass internment camps. They are subjected to political indoctrination, torture, forced labor, and other human rights abuses. Countless people have been “disappeared.” nearly half a million Uyghur children have been taken from their families, and tens of thousands of women have been forcibly sterilized.

During our hearing, we heard harrowing testimony of Uyghur and Muslim women who were jailed in mass internment camps by the CCP. We heard from leading researchers who discussed the expansion of the camps, how the CCP has forced detained Uyghurs into slave labors, the expansion of the CCP’s techno-surveillance and transnational repression efforts, and the genocide it’s inflicting on Uyghurs through a forcible sterilization program intended to eliminate an entire people. Comments from a CCP religious affairs official described the party’s policy toward the Uyghurs: “Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins. Completely shovel up the roots of ‘two-faced people,’ dig them out, and vow to fight these two-faced people until the end.” The CCP’s genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups is real, and it is expanding. It is not too late to confront these atrocities so that the famous saying, “never again,” can actually become a reality.

Beyond the clear moral demands our nation faces when confronted with a genocide, what happens to the Uyghur community in China impacts Americans at home. It affects us in the sale of goods produced with slave labor, in the degradation of human rights that makes the world less safe, and in the ceaseless persecution by the CCP of Uyghurs around the world, including those living in America. By exporting the techno-surveillance systems it developed in XUAR, the CCP is targeting not only Uighur dissidents, but also Tibetans, Hong Kongers, and other critics living in the United States. We need to shine a light on these problems so we can continue finding ways to address it, and that’s exactly what we held our hearing to do.

You can watch my opening statement from our hearing here, my full question line with the three expert witnesses during the hearing here, and my interview on ABC’s This Week on the hearing and other threats posed to our nation by the CCP here.

Earlier this month, I introduced a resolution to double federal funding for career and technical education (CTE). This legislation continues my extensive work on CTE policy, including authoring the bipartisan Strengthening Career And Technical Education For The 21st Century Act, which was signed into law in July 2018. That groundbreaking law reformed CTE programs for the first time in over a decade by requiring educators and business leaders to develop curricula together in order to prepare students for in-demand jobs. My new resolution seeks to build on these reforms and investments by doubling funding for these programs at a time when millions of Americans continue to struggle with long-term unemployment.

In an increasingly competitive world, American workers and our entire economy depend on our success in preparing our workforce to meet the demands of tomorrow. By doubling federal funding for career and technical education programs, our country can ensure that American workers have the chance to develop the in-demand skills they need to thrive in the 21st century economy. As our country makes new investments in advanced manufacturing, infrastructure and more, we need to build the capacity of our workforce to fill these in-demand jobs of the future in high-need industries to strengthen our economy and our middle class. You can read the full text of my resolution here.

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