“Breach of promise is not the exception; it is a hallmark of how the Chinese Communist Party treats the world and its own people,” the committee’s co-chairs, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Rep. Chris Smith (RN.J.), said in a statement on the report.
“These broken promises are impacting the American people,” they said. For example, Americans traveling to China for work or study can be subject to exit bans or arbitrary detention, Chinese forced labor is intertwined with American supply chains, national security laws give the regime “full access” to American data, and the regime commits human rights abuses extraterritorially through cross-border crackdowns, including in overseas police departments.
The annual report includes dozens of recommendations aimed at curbing longstanding Chinese Communist Party practices that harm the United States and the international community, including several bills introduced by lawmakers this year.
The chairs called on the United States and its allies in the free world to reject Beijing’s attempts to encourage and divide. Otherwise, “Americans will pay the price in security, prosperity, and trust.”
“Protecting human dignity will help make markets fairer, travel safer, technology freer, and alliances stronger. It will reduce the influence that authoritarian states, led by totalitarians (the People’s Republic of China), wield over their people and partners,” the chairs said.
Among them are journalist Zhang Zhan, who reported on the Chinese Communist Party’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, and critics of the response, Peng Lifa, Mei Shilin, and Fang Yirong, who hung banners in public places. They include artists who have depicted what the regime considers sensitive issues, such as Gao Zhen, who has created works depicting the Cultural Revolution, and Uyghur film director Ikram Nurmehmet.
Some believers do not promote or practice the Chinese Communist Party’s version of the religion, such as Xin Ruoyu, who worked on a Christian app that gives users access to hymns and worship music, and Zhao Ying, an elderly woman over 80 who was sentenced to more than three years in prison for providing people with materials about Falun Gong.
the worst criminal
China continues to rank among the worst human rights violators in various reports. Reporters Without Borders ranked China 178th out of 180 countries and territories in its 2025 Press Freedom Report, making it the leading prisoner of journalists. Freedom House rated China 0 out of 4 for “free and independent media”.
The committee confirmed that dissenting opinions and repression have increased in recent years. The report cited a China Dissent Monitor report that found a 27 percent year-on-year increase in events from the July-September 2023 period to 2024. The regime created the Central Branch and Local Branches of the Central Social Work Department in 2023 to further control society and eliminate “illegal social organizations.” In 2025, the rules on banning these organizations have been strengthened.
The commission reported that it observed a “systematic campaign led by the United Front Work Department” to strengthen “religious rule” in 2025. This included the crackdown on minority Muslim groups, the assertion of the Catholic Church’s authority in China despite an agreement with the Vatican, mass arrests of Protestant house church leaders, and directing “considerable resources and attention” to the Chinese Communist Party’s continued persecution of Falun Gong.
The report says that under the Chinese Communist Party, the criminal justice system is a “political instrument.” Dissidents can be arbitrarily detained in “black prisons,” such as psychiatric hospitals, without formal legal process, and subject to torture and other ill-treatment.
Influence operations and overseas repression
The commission reported an increase in the regime’s digital activities in the areas of censorship and global influence campaigns. For example, U.S.-based OpenAI has discovered accounts that “appear to originate from China” that use AI to criticize the U.S. and write articles denouncing regime critics.
The regime’s regulations require AI models to incorporate “core socialist values,” raising concerns about how Chinese AI and software could extend the regime’s model of censorship.
The Chinese government is also building out its physical infrastructure through satellite expansion, raising concerns about the regime’s ability to spread digital authoritarianism.
The report said efforts to suppress international critics were “multifaceted” and included bounties imposed by the regime on Hong Kong activists, as well as passport cancellations, harassment, hacking and diplomatic pressure to extradite dissidents.
The committee noted that several laws addressing cross-border repression have already been introduced, and recommended that the government prepare a threat assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s cross-border repression and an assessment of whether there are legal gaps.
It also recommended forming an interagency hub to address the Chinese Communist Party’s negative influence on civil society and institutions.
A long history of agreement violations
In addition to Chinese laws outlining several human rights protections, the Chinese government has signed several international human rights standards agreements that the regime continually violates, according to the report.
In 1979, the Chinese government ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires consular personnel to respect the laws of the receiving country, and the Chinese embassy in the United States has been implicated in the Chinese Communist Party’s cross-border crackdown on regime critics on numerous occasions, including high-profile incidents of inciting violence and spying on peaceful demonstrators during the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco.
In 1981, it ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, requiring a commitment to repeal laws and regulations that perpetuate racial discrimination. However, the Chinese Communist Party is currently actively erasing minority cultures by forcing Tibetan, Uyghur, and Mongolian children to attend “colonial boarding schools” where they are taught a Communist Party-centered curriculum and punish the use of their native languages and cultural practices.
In 1984, the Chinese government ratified the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which aimed to guarantee Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy” with independent executive, legislative and judicial powers. In recent years, the world has watched as the Chinese Communist Party cracks down on protesters in Hong Kong, passing a vaguely worded national security law that gives the party broad powers to target dissidents.
Although the regime ratified the Convention Against Torture in 1988, regular reports from human rights lawyers and religious prisoners reveal that the regime continues to torture political and religious prisoners, including Uyghur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners, who are found to be subject to living organ harvesting. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that teaches truth, compassion, and tolerance. It was introduced to the public in China in the early 1990s and was banned by the regime in 1999. The committee recommended passing legislation that would prohibit U.S. public funds from paying medical costs related to organ transplants in China and impose sanctions on perpetrators of organ harvesting.
In 1996, China ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the regime has violated the treaty by building and militarizing artificial islands in disputed territory in the South China Sea and increasing its maritime aggression against Philippine vessels.
In 2001, Beijing ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which includes an agreement protecting fair labor practices. However, China’s only labor union is led by the Chinese Communist Party, which typically treats strikes as a crime. Multiple investigations in recent years have also uncovered slave labor imposed by the regime, including the exploitation of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
An investigation by the Environmental Justice Foundation also revealed forced labor by North Korean workers on Chinese fishing vessels, and the Brazilian government accused China’s BYD of employing at least 163 workers in “slave-like conditions” and withholding their passports and salaries. The report also said workers were exposed to “excessive overtime,” including coffee plantation workers in Yunnan province that supply coffee to Starbucks and Nestlé.
The code also protects parents’ freedom to choose schools to “ensure the religious and moral education of their children,” which the Chinese Communist Party continues to violate.
Although the regime ratified the Forced Labor Convention in 2022, the commission found that systematic forced labor practices, including among Xinjiang Uyghurs and ethnic Turkic minorities, have expanded over the past year. The U.S. government considers the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of the Uighur minority to be genocide, and in response, it has enacted a law banning products made with forced labor from entering the country. The committee recommended strengthening existing mechanisms, speeding up the blacklisting of companies using forced labor, and mandating supply chain transparency. Most of China’s cotton is produced in Xinjiang, and U.S. lawmakers are pushing Chinese fashion retailers to improve disclosure and due diligence.
The investigation found seafood caught or processed through forced labor, primarily by North Korean workers onboard Chinese ships, on U.S. markets. Lawmakers have introduced legislation to ban Chinese-origin seafood products that involve forced labor, and a committee has recommended that agencies ban all procurement of such products.
