House China Committee Chairman Urges Trump, Rubio to Address Beijing’s Human Rights Abuses

Rep. John Moolenaar urged the president to secure the release of China’s prisoners of conscience and asked Rubio to consider sanctions on Hong Kong officials.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 19, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) is urging President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to confront the Chinese regime over its human rights abuses, calling for the release of prisoners of conscience and sanctions against Hong Kong officials tied to the prosecution of former media mogul Jimmy Lai.

Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said on March 24 that he sent letters, each dated March 19, to Trump and Rubio. The letters come as Trump is scheduled to travel to China in May to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a trip originally planned for this month.

In his letter to Trump, Moolenaar noted that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of human rights defenders, dissidents, and religious and ethnic groups “has grown dramatically more severe” under Xi. The groups have included Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and Uyghurs.

“The CCP under Xi Jinping has been carrying out its most systematic campaign of religious and political persecution since the Cultural Revolution,” the lawmaker wrote.

Citing a 2025 report from the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Moolenaar noted that the CCP has been using “ambiguous provisions” of its laws, such as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “endangering national security,” as legal tools in its oppression.

From January 2019 to December 2024, the Chinese regime arbitrarily detained thousands and convicted 1,545 prisoners of conscience, according ot the report.

“In many if not all of these cases, the CCP’s persecution of prisoners of conscience continues well after they serve their unjustified prison sentence through means that deprive them of their rights, including surveillance, harassment, and other forms of intimidation,” Moolenaar’s letter reads.

The report documented cases of women prisoners of conscience, including Jiang Yongqin, a Falun Gong practitioner who was serving a five-year sentence at the time. It said that when Jiang was first detained in 2022, she was subjected to police torture, including sexual assault, molestation, and other physical abuse, while being held in an extrajudicial detention site known as a “black jail.”

Minghui.org, a U.S.-based website that tracks the persecution of Falun Gong in China, reported on Feb. 24 that Jiang, 56, had died in late January while on parole. The report said that prior to her death, Jiang had become “weak and emaciated” due to a broken leg caused by torture, as well as late-stage lung cancer. It added that prison authorities “waited until she was on the verge of death” before granting her parole.

Moolenaar also cited the case of Ezra Jin, founder and pastor of the prominent underground Zion Church in China, who was detained along with other pastors and church members in a sweeping clampdown in October last year, before being charged a month later.

The letter also included the names of several imprisoned Uyghurs—Rahile Dawut, Gulshan Abbas, Ilham Tohti, and Ekpar Asat. Moolenaar said these cases “serve as stark reminders of the unconscionable abuses by the CCP.”

In Hong Kong, the prosecution and sentencing of Lai, former student leader Joshua Wong, and Kwok Yin-sang, the father of U.S.-based pro-democracy activist Anna Kwok, underscore the “erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy” under Chinese and Hong Kong officials, according to the letter.

Moolenaar called on Trump to press Xi for the release of prisoners of conscience in any future meeting.

“To maximize its benefits to our national interests and values, I urge you to call for the release of China’s prisoners of conscience in those discussions with Xi Jinping,” Moolenaar wrote.

In a separate letter to Rubio, Moolenaar said Lai was effectively handed a “death sentence” in February, given his advanced age.

Lai, 78, founder of now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, was sentenced to 20 years in prison over two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” under the Beijing-imposed national security law and one count of “sedition” under a colonial-era sedition law.

“Lai’s lifetime work advocating for democracy, press freedom, and religious freedom stands in stark contrast to the totalitarianism promoted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its lackies in Hong Kong, who clearly wish that he never sees freedom again,” Moolenaar wrote.

In light of Lai’s case, Moolenaar urged the State Department to consider whether four Hong Kong officials “meet the criteria necessary for sanctions” under the Hong Kong Human Rights Democracy Act, the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, and Trump’s 2020 executive order on Hong Kong. The officials include Police Commissioner Joe Chow Yat-ming and three National Security Law judges: Esther Toh Lye-ping, Alex Lee Wang-tang, and Susana Maria D'Almada Remedios.

“The United States must not let the injustice against Mr. Lai go unanswered,” Moolenaar wrote.