The Chinese Communist Party Should Be Held Accountable for Its Crimes

T his Sunday will mark the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In the three-quarters of a century of its misrule over the people of China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never been held to account for its myriad human-rights abuses against the Chinese people or for the crimes it has committed against the global population through its support for illegitimate regimes.

It is time for a Chinese People’s Human-Rights Tribunal (CPHRT). Human-rights abuses would be documented through the testimony of witness and others who, while the abuses remain a living memory, would provide evidence of them. The tribunal could serve as a foundation to promote a democratic transition in China, to prepare it to bring bad actors to justice, and to help the people of China come to terms with their history.

This tribunal would be inspired by and modeled on parallel efforts by Holocaust survivors and Yad Vashem and other organizations. Another model would be efforts by the Ukrainian government and the organization Victims of Communism to document and keep alive the memory of the Holodomor. The CPHRT would serve as a single source for documenting the panoply of the CCP’s crimes against the Chinese people, the Chinese diaspora, party members, and the global community. The crimes would fall into three broad tranches.

First, the tribunal would examine the historical record of the CCP’s human-rights abuses, to determine with historical accuracy what occurred, to publicize the CCP’s decision-making regarding the abuses, and to identify individuals responsible for them. Many of them are still living. Human-rights abuses committed during the Chinese Civil War and after the CCP came to power in 1949 would be investigated. The tribunal’s examination of the CCP’s human-rights record would be conducted on a year-by-year basis. While there have been profound violations every year, particular attention would naturally center on the mass killings during the CCP’s immediate seizure of power and during the nightmare of the “Three Red Banners” campaign, which included the People’s Communes and the Great Leap Forward. Those, in turn, resulted in the Great Famine, which killed tens of millions, perhaps as many as 42 million Chinese citizens. Also warranted are investigations into physical and mental torture in the context of the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four era, and the Tiananmen Square massacre and subsequent crackdown.

Second, the tribunal would document the CCP’s crimes against other states and bring it to account for them. The CCP would be held accountable for its support of the tyranny of North Korea, for intervening in the Korean War on behalf of Pyongyang, for its role in the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, for its violation of its 1984 agreement with the United Kingdom on the status of Hong Kong, and for its long-standing bellicosity toward Taiwan. Neither would China escape scrutiny for its occupation of Tibet or for violations of India’s borders in 1962. Add to the list China’s seizure of all of the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam.

Third, China’s contemporary human-rights record must be investigated, documented, and publicized. The ongoing human-rights violations against the people of the People’s Republic of China, including ethnic and religious minorities, Tibetans, and Muslims in Xinjiang, must be recorded, and charges must be brought. An examination of genocide against Uyghurs must be conducted to mobilize the world’s attention. The policy of organ-harvesting from prisoners and others is particularly brutal and shocking. The CCP must be brought to account for its racism and sexism. The tribunal would urge the United Nations and other international bodies to take action against such practices. The CCP’s damage to China’s and the world’s environment must end, and the party officials who permit it must be identified. The CCP must be brought to account for its actions at the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic and for its atrocious behavior since then, particularly for deceiving the World Health Organization and for its “zero-Covid” policies, a human-rights violation against the entire population.

Countless examples of genocide and gross human-rights abuses may be documented. They are sustained violations of international law and norms. They demonstrate both the CCP’s lack of legitimacy and the warrant for the expulsion of the PRC from international society. For too long the CCP has escaped accountability. The CPHRT would be a mechanism to hold them to account. Surely there are too many cases, and cases too old, for the CPHRT to handle them all at the outset. It could begin with one case or two, investigating the crimes committed in the Tiananmen Square massacre and perhaps in response to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jianli Yang, a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre and a former political prisoner in China, is the founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China. He is and the author of It’s Time for a Values-Based “Economic NATO.” Bradley A. Thayer is the director of China policy at the Center for Security Policy. He is a co-author of Understanding the China Threat.