New Report Puts Human Rights at Heart of White House China Policy

January 28, 2025 – Today at the Hudson Institute, human rights groups including the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation launched a new policy memo: “Prioritizing Human Rights in U.S. Policy Toward China: A Guide for the New Administration.”

The report, which illustrates the comprehensive nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) restrictions on freedom around the world, offers policy guidance for the new administration in Washington D.C. It includes examples of human rights violations within the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong, and the U.S., as well as policy recommendations to counter them.

Key recommendations include:

• Making better use of legal, financial, and reputational tools to impose consequences on individuals and entities responsible for undermining human rights, including targeted sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials;

• Strengthening support for human rights defenders from China, operating both inside and outside the PRC;

• Strengthening the U.S. government’s apparatus for securing political prisoner release, including the creation of an Office for Political Prisoner Advocacy (OPPA) at the State Department;

• Developing and implementing responses to the CCP’s past and ongoing atrocity crimes;

• Offering dissidents safe haven in the United States; and

• Developing effective domestic and multilateral responses to transnational repression.

The report is co-authored by Olivia Enos, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute; Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD); and Anouk Wear, Policy Advisor, Hong Kong Watch. The CFHK Foundation co-signed the report along with other human rights organizations.

The report was launched at a Hudson Institute event moderated by Senior Fellow Michael Sobolik with co-authors Anouk Wear (center) and Sophie Richardson (right).

CFHK Foundation U.S. Director Jonathan Stivers, said: “The CFHK Foundation is proud to have worked with other human rights organizations in developing this essential roadmap for how the new administration should respond to the CCP’s human rights abuses. In Hong Kong, officials have orchestrated a crackdown that has decimated the freedom that the city once enjoyed by imprisoning pro-democracy advocates and ushering in a new era of repression. The report calls for strengthening the U.S. government’s apparatus for securing political prisoner release and to focus on key prisoners such as Jimmy Lai. The Trump Administration should move quickly to begin the implementation of the recommendations contained in this report.”

The event can be watched in its entirety here.