Bipartisan duo wants to remind Congress, Trump of China's 'atrocities' ahead of Xi visit
FIRST ON FOX: As President Donald Trump readies for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday, some lawmakers want to remind the public of the several brutal acts the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has committed since its founding over a century ago.
Senators James Lankford, R-Okla., and Angus King, I-Maine, have joined forces to push a reminder of a long list of actions obtained by Fox News Digital undertaken by the CCP in pursuit of its "tyrannical ambitions" to grab ahold of and maintain power in China.
Both lawmakers want to put the "countless lives the Chinese Communist Party has destroyed and the people currently living in fear" at the forefront as Trump and Xi prepare for days of talks. And it comes as the CCP celebrates its 105th anniversary since its founding.
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"For 105 years, the Chinese Communist Party has oppressed its own people, persecuted people of faith and denied basic freedoms," Lankford said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"As the United States engages with Beijing, we cannot forget the millions who have suffered under the CCP or those who continue to live under its repression today," he continued. "The United States must continue to stand for religious freedom, human rights and the dignity of every person."
Lankford and King’s resolution lists several instances over the last century when the CCP and its leaders have slain their own citizens, imprisoned dissidents and crushed opposition.
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Many happened during the CCP’s push for control, which left a wake of blood and carnage, during the vicious period when People’s Republic of China’s founder Mao Zedong was on the rise during and after World War II and up to the 1960s.
During that period, there was the Yan’an Rectification Movement from 1942 to 1945, when "more than 10,000 people were killed" as the CCP purged dissidents of the movement, and the Chinese Land Reform movement of 1949 to 1953, when between 200,000 and 5 million were slain as the party redistributed rural property to peasantry.
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Then came the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries from 1950 to 1952, with millions of arrests, imprisonments and over 700,000 executions. During that same stretch was the Three-Anti Campaign and the Five-Anti Campaign, when Zedong and the CCP "humiliated, terrorized, exiled, imprisoned, and killed thousands of political opponents and capitalists."
And, in the last three decades, the resolution noted, the CCP’s iron fist hasn’t loosened its grip, like undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy, targeting religions with "insidious tools of repression" and subjecting an estimated 1 million Uyghur Muslims to "mass detention and torture" in so-called reeducation camps.
Trump will welcome Jinping at Joint Base Andrews Wednesday afternoon, teeing up meetings that are set to last until Friday.
Lawmakers are hoping that Trump plays a strong hand during his meetings with Jinping and are urging him to strike trade deals and an agreement on the artificial intelligence race, among other top priorities.