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U.S. senators have voiced support for ordinary Chinese people and denounced communist regime leader Xi Jinping for lying to Americans and committing human rights abuses.
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution (S.Res.444) on June 16 by voice vote condemning Xi for “deceit, undermining prospects for peace and security, and orchestrating crimes against humanity.”
The resolution also encourages the U.S. government and its agencies to use all available tools—including the authorities under the Global Magnitsky Act, which allow sanctions against individuals responsible for serious human rights violations or corruption—to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials accountable.
The vote came just a day after Xi’s 73rd birthday.
“There is no greater threat to America’s way of life, peace, and prosperity in the world than Xi Jinping and the CCP,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who introduced the resolution earlier this month, told the Senate before the vote.
“Xi Jinping hates us. Communist China wants to destroy us,” Scott said. “He is not a partner. He is not a competitor. He is a brutal dictator leading a criminal organization that lies, cheats, steals, exploits slave labor, and commits genocide and crimes against humanity on an industrial scale.”
Under Xi’s leadership, the CCP covered up the COVID-19 outbreak after it first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, allowing it to develop into a global pandemic.
The resolution notes that the CCP lied to the world about where the SARS–CoV–2 virus, which causes COVID-19, originated and how easily it was transmitted, while using international organizations such as the World Health Organization to “peddle falsehoods.”
As a result of these deceptions, more than 1 million people died from COVID-19 in the United States alone, according to the resolution.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, on March 28, 2026. Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images
In addition to the global pandemic, the resolution also highlights the CCP’s role in the fentanyl crisis in the United States.
Xi pledged, in 2019 and again in 2023, to work more closely with the U.S. government to curb the flow of fentanyl precursors from the country. Despite these promises, more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses in recent years, with the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment identifying fentanyl and other synthetic drugs as the “primary drivers of fatal drug overdose deaths nationwide,” the resolution stated.
On the trade front, Xi “doubled down” on the CCP’s decades-long “tradition of cheating,” the resolution stated.
When the Clinton administration sponsored China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the CCP promised to transition to a more market-oriented economy, including reducing state control of trade and protecting intellectual property.
However, after more than 25 years, the CCP still “fails to uphold many” of those promises and continues to violate WTO obligations, the resolution stated.
Espionage and cyberattacks have also surged, according to the resolution. In 2017, for instance, four Chinese military-backed hackers carried out a cyberattack against the U.S. credit company Equifax and stole the personal information of about 145 million Americans, according to the FBI.
People at a press conference and rally in front of the America ChangLe Association, a now-closed secret Chinese police station, protesting Beijing's transnational repression, in New York City on Feb. 25, 2023. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
More than 60 espionage cases linked to the CCP were documented in 20 U.S. states from February 2021 to December 2024, according to the resolution.
Among these was a naturalized U.S. citizen who, in December 2024, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent of the Chinese regime in relation to running a secret Chinese police station in New York City.
The resolution cites the CCP’s records of human rights violations, including the massacre of student-led protesters demanding political reform and greater freedom at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in June 1989.
Even 36 years later, the bloody repression continues to serve as a “stark reminder of the sheer evil and cowardice” of the CCP and its inability to squash the aspirations of the Chinese people, according to the resolution.
It also highlights the regime’s ongoing abuses, such as the state-sanctioned practice of killing prisoners of conscience for organs, most notably Falun Gong practitioners.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. First introduced to the public in China in 1992, the practice quickly spread by word of mouth to reach an estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners by 1999.
The CCP, fearing that Falun Gong’s popularity threatened the regime’s power, began a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice, on July 20, 1999. Since then, many have suffered arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and death.
On Wednesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, which would sanction perpetrators of state-sponsored forced organ harvesting in China.
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day and call for an end to the persecution in China, in New York City on May 10, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
In the far-western region of Xinjiang, at least 1 million Uyghur and other Muslims minorities are believed to be held in a sprawling network of internment camps, according to the resolution. Both the Biden and the first Trump administrations determined that the CCP’s repression in Xinjiang constituted “genocide.”
In the nearby region of Tibet, the CCP has expanded a similar forced labor program targeting Tibetans and depriving them of their unique cultural identity, according to the resolution.
In Hong Kong, the CCP’s imposition of the national security law in 2020 has compromised basic freedoms and led to the imprisonment of pro-democracy activists, including former publisher Jimmy Lai, the resolution said.
In February, Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced 78-year-old Lai to 20 years in prison, the harshest penalty ever under the national security law.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he spoke directly with Xi about releasing Lai during his recent visit to Beijing, but that Xi called Lai’s case “a tougher one” for him.
Scott, in a June 16 statement, called for courage and action.
“The CCP, especially under Xi Jinping’s tyranny, has a particular brand of evil,” Scott said in a statement. “They seek to control the world, and in their mind, that means destroying anyone who stands in their way—whether it’s their own people or not.
“We cannot be afraid to stand up to our enemies and hold the line for the next generation of Americans.”
