Groups praise bill designating China's Communist Party as ‘demonic,’ 'transnational criminal organization'

By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Assistant Editor Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening session of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 18, 2017. | REUTERS/Aly Song

Religious and human rights groups are applauding a bill designating the Chinese Communist Party as a “transnational criminal organization” for posing an “existential threat to American freedoms and liberties.”

On Thursday, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., introduced the “Designating the Chinese Communist Party a Transnational Organized Crime Group Act,” which aims to “Protect Americans from Chinese Criminal Activity.”

According to the press release on Perry’s website, the legislation, co-sponsored by Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., “will add the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the Top International Criminal Organizations Target (TICOT) List and provide the United States law enforcement agencies a strategic directive to target the CCP’s malign activity.”

The bill, which would eliminate sovereign immunity for Chinese diplomats in the U.S. engaging in criminal activity, specifically cites the CCP’s "coordinated and government-directed theft of American intellectual property, cyber-attacks on U.S. systems, espionage, and international fentanyl trafficking” as top reasons the CCP qualifies to be on the TICOT List.

Dede Laugesen, executive director of Save the Persecuted Christians, which worked alongside Perry to bring about the legislation, applauded the bill.

“Save the Persecuted Christians is very grateful for this legislation,” says Laugesen. “It’s the first step in righting the injustices and making the world a safer place for all at-risk populations, which seemed to be multiplying exponentially as China’s malign influence had continued unchecked — but, no more.”

Sean Lin, of the Falun Dafa Association at Washington, D.C., also praised the bill. He noted that in the past seven decades, more than 80 million Chinese people have died due to “waves of CCP-sanctioned politics persecutions.”

“This bill tells the tragic reality that Chinese people, regardless of their race and ethnicity, are under the ruling of an evil gangster entity — the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “And, it also has highlighted the CCP’s existential threat to global civilization and the free world. All congressional leaders must stand strong to support this legislation to name the CCP for what it is, as it presents an outcry for freedom for all people suffering under CCP.”

Perry introduced the bill following the Resist China demonstration held Thursday outside the U.S. Capitol. The event sought to bring attention to the CCP’s “crackdowns against freedom, democracy, and human rights, which have intensified across China, along with a gross increase on the assault on communities living under its rule.”

“The CCP is an abject moral failure,” Perry said in introducing the bill. “You know this. It is decrepit, it is demonic, it is an institution that subjugates and enslaves the people it has dominion over. In the past hundred years, our world saw the rise of communism in the Soviet Union and we witnessed freedom imperiled by evil. And we’re witnessing it right now today. Right as we stand here, it is happening right now today. But it cannot be allowed to endure.”

In July, a coalition of over 600 human rights advocates and organizations penned an open letter to Attorney General William Barr asking him to officially condemn the CCP as a criminal outfit responsible for violating human rights, committing injustices around the globe, and causing millions of deaths worldwide.

“The CCP transnational criminal organization designation is clearly justified by the epidemic of American citizens victimized and killed by the Chinese manufactured and transmitted lethal synthetic drug, fentanyl. According to the CDC, deaths involving other synthetic narcotics, including fentanyl and fentanyl analogs continued to rise with more than 31,335 overdose deaths reported in 2018,” the letter says.

The letter adds, “for decades, the CCP perpetrated and proliferated IP embezzlement and economic espionage on Americans and U.S. businesses, resulting in theft and loss of vast wealth and prosperity. The extent and breadth of the criminal reach of the CCP knows no bounds.”

Groups including MS-13, the 18th Street Gang, and the Laos-based Zhao Wei Network have been slapped with TOC designations by the U.S.