民主与共和党均对拜登政府对中国少数民族群体——维吾尔族人遭受压迫的立场感到压力并采取不同策略进行施压。
纽约民主党众议员里奇·托瑞斯本周致信国家情报总监阿维尔·迪·海恩斯，谴责了拜登政府在未能提供关于中国对待维吾尔人的报告后所表现出的失职。
周三，众议院通过了一项由共和党主导的议案，旨在迫使拜登政府禁止与中国参与少数民族群体压迫的官员进行接触。
美国政府在2021年将中国政府针对维吾尔族的行动定性为种族灭绝，并通过了《防范新疆强制劳工法》，对与人权侵犯相关的中国实施制裁。
“但自官方行动以来，情报社区就中共持续迫害、种族灭绝活动针对维吾尔穆斯林群体的现状一直保持沉默。”托瑞斯在提及中国共产党时说。“因此，我对联邦政府以及情报部门的这种普遍沉默感到深深忧虑。”
去年，国会批准了一项要求国家情报总监生成一份公开报告关于中国人权侵犯行为，尤其是针对维吾尔族人的报告，原定于六月发布。作为一名众议院中国委员会成员，托瑞斯表示他制定该法案是为了凸显所谓中国政府对穆斯林少数民族的种族灭绝活动。
海恩斯女发言人确认收到了托瑞斯的信函，但拒绝对此作出回应。
国会通常要求情报机构提供许多机密和非机密报告，而这些机构往往难以按时提交报告。
拜登政府官员表示他们对中国迫害维吾尔族人一事持严肃态度，并未回避批评北京。但托瑞斯怀疑报告延迟是因为地缘政治复杂因素导致的。
“我们不能仅仅因为符合地缘政治利益或是中国共产党可能感到不适而掩盖这一事实。”他说，“我们无法简单将其搁置一旁。”
保护维吾尔族成为国会山两党罕见的共同关注点。众议院已经通过多项旨在为该群体争取人权和剥夺利用维吾尔族劳工的公司的法案。
然而，随着大选临近，对维吾尔族处境的关注被政治化了，议员们在是否应通过共和党的议案以对中国政府进行人权侵犯制裁的问题上展开了争论。这一议案针对参与制定限制香港自治、威胁台湾或违反中国境内包括维吾尔族群体权利政策的任何中共党派成员实施制裁。
尽管对维吾尔族命运的关注得到了跨党派支持，民主党和共和党长期以来在如何强硬对待中国的问题上一直争执不休。共和党的领导人指责拜登政府采取了无力的对华策略，而民主党人则指控共和党采取了破坏外交关系的激进策略。
随着选举季的到来，政治僵局升级。本月，众议院共和党人在表决中提出了他们知道民主党会反对的一系列中国法案作为展现国家安全议题实力的手段，在大选中有望控制国会的背景下，这些投票在国家的安全问题上进行展现强硬。
周三通过的一项议案“停止中共”法案，旨在对任何在中国共产党内参与制定限制香港自治、威胁台湾或侵犯包括维吾尔族在内的中国民族群体权利政策的重要人物实施制裁。具体措施包括冻结财产，禁止入境美国，并允许官员参加联合国会议或从事情报搜集活动，或者如果该官员得到有限的总统豁免。
众议院以243票对174票通过了议案，其中33名民主党议员投票支持，全体共和党议员（除两名外）均支持此法案。
尽管这项法案获得了大量民主党的支持，但其领袖在众议院认为该法案中的惩罚措施过于宽泛，几乎囊括了中国的高层领导。
“这一法案将破坏与北京政府的高层外交沟通。”纽约民主党众议员、外交关系委员会首席民主党人格雷戈里·韦克斯表示，“它不仅无助于帮助维吾尔族人、香港人和台湾人民，反而使与中国进行任何利益相关的接触变得极其困难。”
托瑞斯也表示他将反对共和党行动，因为这会切断与中国的外交沟通，他认为此举具有破坏性。
“美中两国间缺乏交流是世界上最具危险的事实之一。”他说，“当出现交流缺失时，意味着距离战争爆发只有一个失误或误判的距离。”
白宫此前亦对此表达了相似的谴责，声明指出该法案可能“断绝了我们两政府之间的任何沟通渠道”。
共和党人对此表示不满，并强调该议案并未禁止与中国领导人的外交交往。
“议案中并无说明我们不能与他们对话。”密歇根州共和党众议员、提案起草者丽莎·麦克莱恩在议会发言时说，“议案中无处提及我们不能进行这层外交。”
麦克莱恩也对拜登政府的外交努力表示了不屑，她说道：“我希望话语能发挥作用，但它们并没有，从未有过。”
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：Democrats and Republicans Press China on Abuse of Muslim Minority
新闻日期：2024-09-25
原文摘要：
Democrats and Republicans are stepping up pressure on the Biden administration to strengthen its stand on China’s oppression of its Uyghur minority but are using different tactics. This week, Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, sent a sharply worded letter to Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, chastising the administration for failing to deliver a report on China’s treatment of the Uyghurs. On Wednesday, the House passed a Republican-led measure that attempts to force the Biden administration to prohibit contacts with Chinese officials involved in the oppression of the minority group. The U.S. government declared China’s actions against the Uyghurs to be a genocide in 2021 and passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which imposed sanctions on China related to human rights violations. “But since those official actions, there has been radio silence from the intelligence community about the present state of the C.C.P.’s campaign of repression, genocidal campaign against Uyghur Muslims,” Mr. Torres said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “So I’m deeply troubled by the deafening silence from the federal government in general and the intelligence community in particular.” Last year Congress approved a measure requiring the director of national intelligence to produce a public report on China’s human rights abuses of the Uyghurs, which was due in June. In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Torres, a member of the House’s China committee, said he had crafted the legislation to highlight what he called the Chinese government’s genocidal campaign against the Muslim minority. A spokeswoman for Ms. Haines acknowledged receiving Mr. Torres’s letter but declined to comment on it. Congress requires many classified and unclassified reports from the intelligence agencies, which often struggle to deliver them on time. Biden administration officials say they take the Chinese oppression of the Uyghurs seriously and are not shying away from criticizing Beijing. But Mr. Torres said that he suspected the report had been delayed because of geopolitical complications. “We cannot simply sweep it under the rug because it’s geopolitically expedient to do so or because it might discomfort or offend the hypersensitivities of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. Protecting Uyghurs is a cause that enjoys rare support from both parties on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan majorities in the House have passed several measures aiming to advance human rights for the group and divest from companies that exploit Uyghur labor. But with the U.S. election looming, the Uyghurs’ plight has been pulled into partisan politics, as lawmakers argued over a Republican effort in the House to impose sanctions on the Chinese government over human rights abuses. Though the congressional concern for the fate of Uyghurs has been bipartisan, Republicans and Democrats have long bickered over how best to get tough on China. G.O.P. leaders have accused the Biden administration of pursuing a feckless approach to Beijing, while Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to undermine diplomacy with a scorched-earth approach. As the campaign season has picked up, the political standoff has escalated. This month, House Republicans voted on an array of China bills they knew Democrats would oppose, as a way to demonstrate strength on national security issues before elections in which control of the House is up for grabs. The bill approved on Wednesday, the Stop C.C.P. Act, would place sanctions on any member of the Chinese Communist Party who played a significant role in developing policies that limit Hong Kong’s autonomy, threaten Taiwan or violate the rights of ethnic groups in China, including the Uyghurs. The sanctions would freeze the assets of the Chinese officials and prohibit them from traveling to the United States, with exceptions to attend meetings at the United Nations and participate in intelligence-gathering activities or if the official had received a limited presidential waiver. The House passed the bill Wednesday on a vote of 243 to 174, with 33 Democrats joining and all but two Republicans supporting the measure. Although the bill drew significant Democratic support, the party’s leaders in the House argued that the punitive measures in it were too broad and encompassed almost all of China’s leadership. “This bill would sabotage high-level diplomacy with Beijing,” Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Wednesday. He said the legislation would “do nothing to help the Uyghurs, the Hong Kongers, the people of Taiwan, while making it incredibly difficult to engage China to advance any U.S. interests.” Mr. Torres said he too was voting against the Republican action because it would cut off diplomacy with China, which he called counterproductive. “One of the most dangerous facts in the world is the lack of communication between the United States and China,” he said. “And when there’s a lack of communication, it means that you’re one accident or one miscalculation away from a catastrophic outbreak of war.” The White House issued a similar rebuke earlier this week, noting in a statement that the legislation “would likely cut off any channels of communication between our two governments.” Republicans took umbrage at the characterization, arguing that the bill did not specifically outlaw diplomatic engagement with China’s leaders. “There’s nothing in the bill that says we can’t talk to them,” Representative Lisa McClain, Republican of Michigan and the author of the bill, said on the floor. “There’s nothing in the bill that says we can’t have this diplomacy.” Ms. McClain also expressed disdain for the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts to engage China. “I wish words would work, but they don’t, they haven’t,” she said.
