Lives, not Leverage: the Long Arm of China and North Korea’s Repression

Outbreaking as it was, I could not give her an exact answer. I could only reassure her that I will do everything in my power to protect her and to bring him home. Though every month, we anxiously await his counselor visits, because they reassure us that he is alive. Even though they often raise more questions than answers, we've learned that he was initially being interrogated every day, for four to six hours, and is held in a small cell where the light stays on for twenty four seven. Over a hundred days into his detention, my husband has not been granted access to his Chinese lawyers, and I have no idea where he is being held. I'm trying to be strong for our daughter, but I'm constantly wondering if he's OK, and how to get him back home to us. I'm deeply hopeful that President Trump will raise my husband's case with President Xi Jinping, during the summit next week. Knowing the President's historic record on bringing wrongfully det detained Americans home has reassured me that he will also be able to secure the swift release of Min Jin and other wrongfully detained American citizens, such as Doctor Yu Lin Chan. Thank you again for inviting me here today and for all that you've done to advocate for my husband's immediate and unconditional release. I humbly ask that you continue to use your voice for my Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Xin. I now recognize Doctor Victor Cha for your opening statement.

Well, uh, thank you, uh, Chairperson Kim, Ranking Member Barra. Thank you for those two very powerful testimonies as well. Um, I'm gonna speak on the topic of China and North Korea human rights abuses and transnational repression. I'll focus on three areas in particular, repatriation of refugees across the border, uh companies using forced labor embedded in special economic zones um and then how china and north korea are both helping russia in the war in the war on ukraine using forced labor uh china has been actively engaged in the sweeping up enforceable repatriation of north koreans who enter its territory pursuant to a nineteen eighty-six bilateral agreement since the late nineteen nineties beijing has forcibly returned tens of thousands of refugees um to north korea As a signatory to the nineteen fifty-one UN refugee convention and the nineteen sixty-seven protocol, China is obligated to recognize a political refugee who flees their country because of fear of political persecution. Uh, but China has consistently refused to recognize North Koreans as refugees, and instead classifies them as illegal economic migrants that require deportation. Uh, in twenty twenty-three, the UN secretary general referred the issue, this issue, to the UN office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, instead of the High Commissioner for Refugees, because of Chai- China's sizeable funding for refugee programs around the world, which has made the UNHCR hesitant to pressure Beijing. China likes to defend its policy by comparing it with US deportation policy with regard to Mexico, but this is absurd, uh because Mexico doesn't torture or execute citizens whom the United States sends back. Beyond China's forced repatriation of refugees, the collusion on transnational repression is embedded in their supply chains. An ongoing CSIS project examines the hidden links between North Korean forced labor and international supply chains. This points to a systematic division of labor between the North Korean state entities and Chinese entities operating in North Korean special economic zones. Factories are formally registered under a North Korean trading but the actual operations function as a joint venture with the PRC. The Chinese side exercises control over all of the funding, raw materials, production, equipment, uh and final export destination, while the North Korean state is responsible for providing the labor. And much of this labor is coerced labor from workers who are held in def- in detention facilities and political prison camps. Their workday starts at five thirty AM, it goes until dark, they receive no cash wages, and food is weaponized. These products enter global supply chains under Chinese brands or with the Made in China label. Allow me now to talk about the link between the Ukraine war and North Korean human rights abuses. The most significant development for North Korea coming out of the pandemic lockdown in twenty twenty three has been gro the growing military cooperation with Russia. Um, it is estimated that North Korea may have provided over fifteen million rounds of ammunition deployed twenty thousand troops with reports of thirty to fifty thousand more expected to be deployed in the near future CSIS estimates that North Korea may have profited roughly fourteen billion dollars so far from this burgeoning relationship with Russia the Yele Buga special economic zone drone factory uses Iranian designs Chinese production equipment and North Korean labor It is literally the crank in action. The workers trafficked to Yelabuga belong to three broad groups, Russian domestic youth, foreign workers, and North Korean laborers. The domestic youth and foreign workers are brought there under the pretense of ent uh being trained for the hospitality industry, hotels, and the North Korean workers are there as basically a state trafficking enterprise project, up to twelve thousand. The money that North Korea receives from this forced labor enables its nuclear and ballistic technicians sent to Yelibuga will return to North Korea with invaluable lessons from working at a mass production uh drone assembly line. Finally, let me uh close with two points. The first, that has been mentioned already, Congress needs to reauthorize the North Korean Human Rights Act, which has been languishing since September, twenty twenty two. I know Chairperson Kim, Ranking Member Barra, Senators Kane and Sullivan have been working very hard on this, and we appreciate all of your work there. And second, thank you for pro- providing a platform for calling for the release of Min Xin, as my colleague on this panel has already talked about. No American citizen should be unlawfully detained in China while attending an academic conference. And I agree that this issue should be on the agenda of the summit meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi next week. Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for your powerful testimony, and especially Miss Choi and Mrs. Zin for sharing your personal heartfelt um you know testimonies. Thank you. Uh we're gonna go into um a questioning session, so let me now first recognize myself. Uh You know, we cannot tolerate the behavior of a hostile foreign power that treats Americans like pawns to be traded. So we must look for ways to deter that behavior, but we're in a very difficult position. The CCP has no qualms about taking hostages. Meanwhile, we're not gonna take the hostages for good reason. Mr. Matiz, the State Department recently added new language in the China travel advisory as I mentioned in my opening statement, to reflect that threat. But the level of the travel advisory is still a two, which means exercise, increase caution. Should the State Department raise the travel advisory to three, which means reconsider travel?

I think the answer probably is is yes. But more importantly, I think it's useful for those travel advisories to explicitly give examples, like what happened to Min Jin,

Mm-hmm.

what has happened to Dr. Chun, what has happened to many others, of like what are those risks, why are they, why are those risks? Right? Because one of the reasons we discovered the human rights abuses against Uighurs in Xinjiang and the forced labor problem was because due diligence investigators were being arrested and detained. Right? So if anyone is involved in research, in information of any kind that might be detrimental to the Chinese state, it's worth explaining all of the different ways in which that kind of information has actually been considered a threat to state security going back decades. Um, you know, we may remember an Australian, Stern Hu, that was detained almost twenty years ago,

Mm-hmm.

simply because he was trading effectively. Right? These are what we consider crimes, what we consider issues, are not what the the CCP considers problems. And I think we would actually do better by detailing all of those instances that we know of so that people can have a clear sense of just what how vast that scope of problems are.

Very good, uh, recommendation there. I hope our State Department is watching our hearing and hearing that advice. Uh, I was just having dinner with some of our friends in my district in California, and they were telling me, should we travel to China, because they have a trip coming up. And I had given them exactly what you just said, specifying what's happening and uh hopefully they will heed my advice. And I did tell them, however, if there are people watching and still traveling to China or North Korea, um we asked them to let the state department know because you know we have the american overseas uh protection program we just need to know you just can't do it on your own so with that um miss choi you came to united states in two thousand six as you said because uh the north korea human rights um act of two thousand four provided the opportunity for you to do so And so we have a duty in Congress to ensure that important legislation uh continues, and the key programs that are included are remaining in uh in effect for years to come. Uh, Mister Cha, you just talked about the importance of doing so, so can you tell us about the impact of the North Korea Human Rights uh Act of two thousand four uh that has had on North Koreans and on uh countering regime uh propaganda?

Uh, great. Um, so thank you, thank you for the question. I think the, the original passage of the North Korean Human Rights Human Rights Act was really a watershed. Not just um uh here in the United States, but in Asia and globally, uh as the United States was the only country at the time that had a legislation of this nature uh that started a refugee resettlement program outside of South Korea, uh that provided funding for um um broadcasting going into North Korea. Um we learned from all the defector accounts that nearly a hundred percent of them have had access to foreign like foreign news broadcasts.

Mm-hmm.

That was a very important reason for them. So it really was a seminal moment and the uh the reauthorization of every of the act um at every interval with uh full bipartisan support was something that I think gave a lot of energy to the movement. So it's actu it's it's actually been absolutely critical.

Thank you. I I wanna come back to you, Miss Choi. Can you talk about how your experience of fleeing North Korea changed between the time when you left in two thousand six to today? Because I know you um talk and work with a lot of uh recently arriving North Korean refugees. And based on their experiences, can you see the difference between when you came and then those who are just arriving recently?

Um Yeah, um when I first came, yes I'm sorry. Um when I um first came in in the United States two thousand six, cuz obviously it was uh I was the first case. So um well the the government did take care of us. Like uh they uh gave gave us like six month of housing and uh free english class every week and some um some emergency funds but hundred dollar um a week and that was it so as i was uh early i mean i i i really appreciate it and thankful for that um the efforts to uh help us but i really hoping hoping cause as i was uh only twenties i really want wanted to study and pursue um career i mean the um education in college but i couldn't get access anything uh for the uh for for college but now uh i think there are lot of options i guess some several options to help the uh the college um tuition and some some organizations uh for example the bush institution they help some north korean um mmm yes uh scholarship to north korean refugees who wanna pursue education in college so i see uh some of the some um more uh resources uh uh now i saw and back uh what i uh back then so

thank you um

uh yes

in the interest of time i know my time has uh gone on very too long so let me now recognize uh ranking member uh uh amibera to ask his questions and

ok

Hopefully we'll give some time to uh share your stories at the end, OK? Thanks. Go ahead.

Thank you again, um, Chairwoman, and again, Miss Choi, Mrs. N, thank you for sharing your stories. Um, I wanna touch on something that, that I've been concerned about, kind of, and, and I think, Mister Matis, Doctor Cha, you touched on it a little bit, the transnational repression angle of this and, you know, it's a little bit more vague, but you know, you can have um a US citizen or someone who's studying here legally in the United States. And I do worry about, you know, within the PRC, targeting of their relatives that are left back home, um in a very coercive way to get them to either not exercise their full rights as Americans, perhaps sometimes um act in a negative way to their own stated belief system. Um, maybe I'll start with you, Doctor Cha. I think it's hard for us to track how prevalent that is, but it is something that I worry about the course of nature, um, as, you know, folks' relatives are targeted. So, Doctor Cha, if you'd wanna expand on that.

Uh, no, I I agree with you entirely, um, uh, Carson Bearer, that, uh, this this effort at transnational oppression goes beyond actions taken directly against a particular target, but uh it's a way of getting at people who are outside the country that creates a self-censorship effect among all of them. And um uh and so this is clearly a problem. And as um my colleague said here, and as as you said in your remarks, uh we don't this is not a tit-for-tat game. The United States does not, will not do the same sort of thing in response. So this is this is quite a problem. As you say, yeah.

And and then certainly worry about it being on the intelligence committee. Again, I'm not suggesting that this is happen, but certainly it is something that we're concerned about, where you have an academic or someone, again, here doing legitimate research, working legitimately for, you know, um, one of our technology companies or something. But again, because of the that repression, that coerciveness, the threats against their relatives back home. are compelled to do something against their natural instinct. Mister Matis looks like, do you wanna expand on this?

Well, I think we need to understand that the Chinese Communist Party, and the ruling government of the People's Republic of China, does not see their people as citizens, right, who have individual choices. They see them as resources that can be exploited. And what's worse is that when you see the Ethnic Unity and and Progression Progress Law, when you see issues associated with sort of race and united front and community organizations, you can see that in Xi Jinping's own words that he thinks that anybody who is descended from Chinese talk regardless when they left China even if it was in the Qing dynasty or even if it was before that simply they are Chinese and therefore, they are a resource for us. And as a result, the party considers all of these things to be legitimate reasons. Is there information that the party thinks that they should have access to? Is there somebody living abroad that they think should move back to the PRC? Is there information that should be stolen? Is there someone who should be intimidated? Do we need to mobilize protesters to prevent activists from exercising the rights, protected freedoms inside the United States? Right, and, but it's that fundamental difference on how they see their people, that they are simply resources to be tapped and exploited, not citizens who participate.

Miss Choi, um, let me ask you a question, in your um telling of your story, you talked about how you saw a South Korean soap opera, and realized that there was life outside of North Korea, what life was like. Um, I know in my time in Congress, yeah, w- we have seen the impact of folks inside North Korea. you know, for the first time seeing that there was something different than what they had lived their whole life. I also know um Kim Jong-un and his um regime have tried to crack down on the smuggling of um zip drives and other methods to expose um and empower the North Korean people. What was the impact of, you know, again seeing that there was something different, that your life could be different?

It was totally shocking. Cuz I, before watching the South Korean drama, I really believed that what the regime brainwashed us and the prop- I believed the propaganda and the South Korean poor country and the U U United States is uh like, like sworn enemy bad country. But after I saw the drama, I, it was shocking and as a young um young adult back there, back then, it was uh it it's mind-blowing. It was totally shocking and once you know the truth, I couldn't stop thinking, I couldn't stop eating, like all your mind is over over there, the new world. So that's and then once you know it, you gotta find a way to see it, experience it. That's what I what I was uh in my mind was that so.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you. Let me now recognize the gentleman from Guam, Representative Moylan.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our panel. You know, the PRC's methods are what what we see as a carrot, an approach of carrot and stick. The PRC builds rapport with, which pays Americans. That's the carrot. They offer a reward. And enacts transactional repression and human rights violations on persons, families, family members in the PRC, both domestically and abroad, regardless of citizenship. That's the stick, the threat of punishment. So Washington must respond to the PRC's carrot and stick approach to influencing US policy, technology, and society. We need to utilize a range of our tools, sanctions, diplomacy, and rhetoric that deters PRC from ins- influencing US institutions. What complicates our situation is that, the North Korean situation. That complicates our situation in East Asia. PRC and DPRK cooperate on human rights repression, making this not only a human rights issue, but also a security and diplomacy issue. Mister Mathis, Mathis, in your testimony you mentioned that the US is in a difficult situation in responding to these acts because we don't have the option to proportionately respond, nor could we easily de-link these incidents from the broader US PRC relationship. You recommended a list of actions that Congress can take despite these restrictions. In your re- in your view, what are the most effective tools to directly pressure the CCP on releasing wrongfully detained Americans while maintaining peace in the Pacific?

Ultimately, that if we're going to affect Beijing's thinking and Beijing's justification for doing it, we're going to have to hold we're going to hold have to hold at risk things that the party steer or that the party wants. And that means that, you know, we know that they don't, they clearly don't care about their citizens' dignity, well-being, health, happiness. But they do care about access to technology. They do care about access to the US dollar. They do care about being able to operate in a global way, business. And that means, as I, as I mentioned in my response, that, you know, rather than, if we were thinking of sanctioning an entity associated with the U non-state s- security department or the U non- public security department, that if you wanted to affect that government and you wanted it targeted, you would need to go after the state-owned enterprises. You would need to go after the resources because they are combined and they are linked together by the party, by state ownership, and you have to, you have to affect those things. Right? And we have to do it actively, predictably. Right? If you You know, one of the sort of the underpinning logics of deterrence is that the response has to be known, that, meaning we will respond, absolutely. It's the question of the scale, how far will we go? The unpredictability of - of the impact that ho- makes people think that they should hold off. And right now, because we've tended to de-link human rights rather than to link it to other areas the way that the PRC would do it to us, we reduce our leverage and we sort of sweep it under the rug, and rather than taking seriously the very human concern of the well-being of of one point four billion Chinese people and the millions of Chinese that are often US citizens or permanent residents inside our borders.

Uh, thank you. You mentioned strength, and that's exactly what Guam, the US territories, is about. We're the most western soil. We're showing up peace through strength, and that's displaying strong military power, uh, to preserve peace. But thank, thank you for that. Um. Mister Choi. Uh, you mentioned three, three ideas, three key points. And I, just in a few minutes here, uh, can you best how do you think we can best support uh, the US can best support North Korean refugees? As you mentioned, your three points, please expand.

How to invest the North Korean refugees? OK, um, yes, so the reauthorizing the human uh North Korean Human Rights Act is very important, very personal for me, so I want all my um fellow North Korean refugees have this uh access the same uh opportunity to come to the free country, especially in United States pursue their dreams. It's um so to to make make those rules and um um yes, very important. And then um And then continue to send uh information, outside information to inside to North Korea. So that's very, very important. So let them know the truth. Once they know the truth, that we can't you can't stop them. So

Thank you very much. Thank you to the panel. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mister uh Representative Olchewski.

Thank you uh to Chairwoman Kim and Ranking Member Barra. Thank you also to all of our witnesses for being here today. This conversation is an important one, as North Korea and China aren't just repressing their own people. These regimes, regimes that imprison, intimidate, and silence people at home are also exporting those tactics abroad and partnering with other authoritarian governments in ways that puts American interests and our troops at risk. Look at North Korea and Russia. Kim Jong-un has sent Putin artillery, missiles, and thousands of troops for his illegal war against ukraine in return north korea is receiving economic assistance in military technology from russia that could accelerate its nuclear and missile programs that make the regime more dangerous to the us and to our allies now look at china and iran us officials say iran obtained high resolution satellite imagery from chinese entities both before and after its attack on a us base in jordan that killed three American troops and wounded four more. This was not the first time the US has raised concerns about Chinese companies supporting Iran. A month earlier, the administration sanctioned three Chinese satellite firms for supplying Iran with exactly this kind of targeting data on American forces. The bottom line is that Chinese entities are providing capabilities that Iran can use to locate, monitor and kill US forces. And yet, we've watched as President Trump goes out of his way to personally praise these leaders. What an incredible disconnect. Trump has scaled back our joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his very good relationship and great chemistry with Kim Jong-un, who he's called very talented. He's called Xi a great leader. And just this weekend, when asked whether he would raise the Chinese satellite imagery issue with Xi, Trump avoided the question and said he has behaved reasonably well, even as Beijing's networks help target our troops. Diplomacy with adversaries is necessary, but diplomacy cannot ignore reality. Kim Jong-un should not get a pass for being very good to the president, while his troops die for Putin. Xi should not get a pass for a friendly summit, while Chinese companies feed Iran coordinates to kill Americans. We must judge these regimes by what they do, not by how nice they are to President Trump. Doctor Shah, you've written and spoken about the growing alignment among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, the so-called crink grouping. Uh, it's my view that we cannot continue to treat each of these relationships as a separate issue. I think that misses the Can you talk a little bit more about the deepening cooperation among these countries and how that should shape the way Washington approaches Beijing, including at the upcoming summit?

Sure. Thank you so much for the question. I think, you know, initially this really came to the, onto the radar screen when we saw essentially parallel efforts by China, Rus-, China, Iran and North Korea in their support of Russia in the war in Ukraine. But I think as your your comments suggested, we are seeing more and more coordination among these groups. Um uh the the point that you mentioned, particularly about satellite imagery, you know it's it's pretty clear that these Chinese companies, supposedly private companies, um are very much tied into providing, you know, high-resolution imagery for tracking targets for US bases. Um and this is, this is just the beginning. I mean, China has a low constellation orbit of satellites that they plan to grow exponentially, um, which makes the situation even more dangerous, whether they're per providing that imagery to Iran, to Russia, or even to North Korea.

No, I appreciate that. And both for you and uh, Mister Matis, do you think that President Trump should make this an explicit issue in his upcoming, uh, meeting with President Xi? And how can the US effectively balance our diplomacy with Xi while also holding China accountable um for these companies and institutions, enabling these kinds of actions?

So very quickly, I'll just say if if there is going to be a conversation in Iran, I can't on Iran, I can't imagine that that not would would not include this issue.

The the coordination among these countries is absolutely an issue of concern, and it goes back many, many years, and it's had an impact on US interests for many, many years. Almost, I think, fifteen years ago, twelve anyways, the National Security and Counterintelligence Center released information to the press saying that the coordination between China and Russia was disrupting US intelligence operations around the world. This isn't something about the reported losses in China, but this is something that is bigger and, you know, that they had made a mindset shift to work with each other in ways that were not delimited the way that we still often perceive them as being. That there's a mindset shift, and this is something that is fundamental to the way that Russia exercises power, Beijing exercises power, and their prox- their other proxies.

Appreciate all that. My time's expired. I yield back.

I now recognize myself for five minutes. The more comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia. Pyongyang has supplied Russia with foot soldiers and Moscow has given North Korea advanced technology for its military. So, how does this partnership change the strategic uh situation on the peninsula?

Um I mean Russia and China keep uh side with the North Korea too. I think they're teaming up. It's been long time history to defeat in the United States and then make the um North Korea stronger and then they they are just keeping their um gate to you know destroy I mean destroy the Kim's regime so um it makes Kim Jong Un more confident and the country like just keep that abuse to its people like keep um continue to let him do that so it's very bad it's I feel so sad for that.

Thank you very much. I now recognize representative Barr for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, uh, Ms. Zinn, um, our thoughts are with you, your family, for the wrongful detention of your, of your husband, Min Zinn. Uh, we are praying for his release and, uh, We also are uh very encouraged that the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has officially designated your husband as wrongfully detained by uh the um uh the Ministry of Security um in in uh in China. Uh and uh we we are encouraging uh the administration to prioritize uh uh his release uh in the upcoming summit. Uh, during his time in office, as you noted, President Trump has secured the release of more than one hundred Americans detained or held hostage abroad. And we're hopeful that, uh, n- uh, the, the summit next week will yield, uh, the release of your, of your husband, uh, an American researcher, uh, an academic who was, um, lured to, to China, uh, and then arrested unjustifiably, detained. Uh, given your husband's experience, an American wrongfully detained in Ch- uh, Communist China, um, what advice would you give uh, a typical American that is considering traveling to China? Is it safe for Americans to travel to Ch- mainland China?

Um, thank you for the question. I, well, I am not involved with the policies and all of that, so I cannot say, um, is it safe for everybody? But as I can say that as a wife who is at home and who doesn't know what happened to her husband, I can say, um, I don't want this thing, this, what happened to me to happen to anyb- any other family.

Well, I I applaud your courage. Thank you for speaking out to to shine a light on this, uh, very serious, uh, concern, and to Mister Matis. Um, unfortunately, uh, like in the case of, uh, Mr., uh, Xin, um, uh, it is Beijing's strategy to use American citizens as hostages for leverage against us. How can the United States pursue the cases of Americans wrongfully detained in China without incentivizing Beijing to detain more Americans for leverage? And do you believe it is safe for Americans to travel to China?

Well,

Take the easy question first, which is the last one. It might be safe for some Americans, it's certainly not safe for me. Um, it's certainly not safe for anyone making this discussion on the panel. And I would say any of, many of the staff who have worked in Congress at, in places like the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Congressional Executive uh, Commission on China, USCC, and many others. So, that part I think is clear. But if we're not going to incentivize, I think One of the s- one of the tools that had been done previously is that every single time US officials at a given level, say an office director or deputy assistant secretary, across the US government ever met with a PRC counterpart, they used to have a list of the first ten names that were important to us. And that means every single meeting the Chinese had with us, whether it was Commerce, Treasury, the White House, the State Department, Defense, they got that list of names. Didn't matter whether it was the secretary or at the office director. I think that's a practice that we should have, that every single time we raise the names, we raise issue to people. The second is that, again, we have to look at other ways to put pressure on them that are not about hostages. That means, again, if you can't apply visa sanctions in a meaningful way to someone who's not going to travel to the United States who the PRC would not allow to travel to the United States, So you have to, if you're going to apply sanctions, you have to think about where would this actually have an effect? Whether it's an economic one, whether it's a travel sanction, um, are there other things that we can change? As I said, they persistently bother us about armed sales to Taiwan. Is it something where we say, well, look, we can, we can ship five million dollars of munitions the first time that you, the first week that an American is wrongfully detained. The second week we make it ten million dollars.

Uh, uh, I like those ideas, uh, reclaiming my time because I don't have much time. question for you. The Chinese satellite companies that provided imaging, uh, that helped Iran target US troops, uh, also the, um, uh, um, the, the Chinese entities that assisted, uh, the, uh, Yele Buga, uh, uh, drone manufacturing facility, uh, in, in Russia that, uh, manufactures drones. Are these entities, are these Chinese entities, on the Chinese military industrial complex sanctions list at treasury, and if not, why not?

Um, so I don't think we I don't think we have a good sense of which companies are involved in Yele Buga, uh, the drone factory, but um, as far as I know, these satellite imagery companies have been sanctioned, and if there are companies that will be named in the Yele Buga case, they should be sanctioned. They should be on the sanctions list.

Yeah, I I I think my time has expired, but I think that's really, really important for important work for OFAC and the treasury department to make sure we're, we are sanctioning, we're imposing, uh, full blocking sanctions on these Chinese entities that are facilitating drone manufacturing, helping Russia's, uh, uh, illegal war against Ukraine. And then obviously these, these Chinese satellite companies that are helping, uh, Iran target American, uh, troops and, uh, uh, we'll be we'll be making sure that we continue to monitor that from from treasury. I yield back.

I now recognize representative uh Baer for five minutes.

Thank you Madam Chairwoman. Um just had a couple follow-up questions. Miss Choi, your um testimony of the power of truth, the power of information, um is quite powerful and you know certainly um That's backed up by, you know, again over the decades of trying to get information into the North Korean citizenry, um, and the impact it had and and why the North Korean regime was so adamant at at cracking down and keeping information out, does suggest the power of truth. Doctor Cha, um, staying out of the politics, but one of our best tools in in my time in Congress, um, generally has been a nonpartisan issue, is tools like Radio Free Asia. tools um that get the true thought and the information obviously um through budget cuts um and and programming cuts um we don't have as much of that can you talk about the impact of programs like that in in radio free asia and the truth

yes absolutely voice of america radio free asia have been uh instrumental in opening the eyes of north koreans to uh to the world outside Uh, I, there's no denying that. Every piece of empirical evidence that we have seen has attested to that fact. All the defector testimony we've seen have said that. Some of our own work looking, talking to folks um um North Koreans have also confirmed that. So uh, so that's a absolutely critical part of any sort of engagement with the North Korean people.

Certainly um, you know, a commitment from my end and and hopefully go as we go on to the next Congress is, we start thinking about not necessarily rebuilding what we had before, but taking the best parts of what we had before, understanding, you know, again, the power of dramas, the power of, you know, the internet and and so forth. And not just on North Korea, but also throughout some of the repressed, um, populations around the world and rebuilding those tools, doing that, you know, certainly with, um, friends and allies that share similar values of freedom, of democracy, of human rights. Mr. Matis, um, I won't use the term asymmetrical because as as I think both you and Doctor Shah said, we're not a tit for tat. We don't, you know, we hold ourselves to a higher standard, a higher standard of values. But understanding that our adversaries are using different tools, um, you know, taking in our our citizens, um, in an unlawful manner. You touched on, you know, while we can do some targeted sanctions and so. you know visa um restrictions for folks that are never gonna travel here are probably ineffective i think in your opening testimony you did say again in a society that is as private and secretive as um uh as uh the ccp is in in in china exposing some of their financial records exposing yeah would that be an effective um tool would you know again i'm not i think what we're trying to do is coax Beijing to hold itself to a higher standard, and think of itself in a different way, use different tools, but in a society that doesn't see their um the Chinese as citizens, but rather part of a a bigger party. Would that be effective? Would that get people to think twice?

Well, we already know that the exposure of information, that kind of of leadership, families, of the wealth, of the passports, angers them in a way that is um, that you can tell that we've touched something sensitive. Because it's, uh, um, more than thirteen or fourteen years ago were the first reports that the New York Times did, that Bloomberg did, by reporters like Mike Forsyth, by, um, David Barbosa exposing the leadership wealth. And that was where the beginning of an incredible amount of pressure put on news organizations to make sure that those kinds of reports were not done again, and that they might be booted. So this is one of those things where when you were exposing the corruption that is there, right? It's one thing to th- it's one thing to think that you have corruption or that the, that the world is unfair. It's something different to have the empirical proof. And that's what, that's what we can provide. And it's important, I think there's another point to the question that you asked, Miss Choi, that you know, no matter how, say, Victor or I speak. language, if we were to speak Korean, she would always be able to reach North Koreans in a way that we never could. Um, and similarly for, for Chinese. And so these organizations are also important to provide that information, not simply as a, you know, in a sense anyone can do the research. You can do it at CSIS, you can do it at Jamestown, you can do it elsewhere. But it's the transmission of it, the way to communicate it, that is, that is something that can only by, be done by someone who has lived in that system.

Great. Thank you. Um, and thank you again for being witnesses here and and for sharing your stories.

I thank the wit I thank the witness for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions. The members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witness, and we will ask you to respond to these in writing. Pursuant to committee rules, all members may have five days to submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the record, subject to the length limitations. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned.

Thank you, ma'am. Great job.

Thank you.