Fairfax, Va – U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) this week introduced a bipartisan resolution to designate human rights abuses perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) as genocide. The resolution would hold China accountable under the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and begin the process to coordinate an international response to bring these abuses to a halt.

They were joined by Sens. James Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

Americans for Limited Government president Rick Manning praised this resolution as the latest development in the growing movement to condemn China’s human rights abuses.

“Standing together against Communist China’s human rights abuses of its own citizens is a bipartisan issue,” Manning said. “All Americans should agree with. The resolution by Senators Robert Menendez and John Cornyn designating the abuses of the Uyghur people as genocide is evidence that when it comes to China and slave labor concentration camps, forced organ harvesting, and religious persecution, Americans are in complete agreement.

“Now it is time to do something more than complain,” concluded Manning. “I call on our leaders in Washington to take action to divest all federal and state resources from Chinese assets.”

Americans for Limited Government is part of a national coalition seeking to divest all state, federal, and private pension funds from Chinese companies, many of which are engaged in child and slave labor or pose a direct threat to U.S. national security.

Last month, the Department of Labor took steps to combat these exploitive labor practices by releasing its biennial list of goods produced under conditions of forced labor. China topped the list at 17 goods – four more than any other country. The list and the Department’s “Comply Chain” and “Sweat & Toil” smartphone apps, help governments, companies, and consumers fight back against abusive labor practices and, by doing so, protect individuals impressed into forced and child labor because of their religious beliefs.

In August, a top State Department official warned college and university governing boards served notice that the value of Chinese stocks and bonds are likely to be decline as a result of U.S. government action and that they should, therefore, divest from China.

In May, the Department of Labor halted all investing of federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) assets in Chinese companies. The TSP is a retirement savings and investment plan for federal employees and members of the uniformed services.

To learn more go to divestchinanow.org

Background:

Since 2017, the Chinese Communist Party has detained an estimated 1.8 million Turkic Muslims, mostly Uyghurs, in internment camps without due process. Detained Uyghurs are tortured, coerced to disavow their religious beliefs and cultural practices, compelled to work in forced labor programs, and, in some cases, raped, subjected to involuntary sterilization, and forced organ harvesting.

As a direct result of the CCP’s targeted population control campaign against Uyghurs, the birthrate of the Uyghur population in the XUAR plummeted by 24% from 2017 to 2018, with birthrates in the Uyghur majority regions of Hotan and Kashgar decreasing by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018. In 2018, 80 percent of all net added IUD placements in China (calculated as placements minus removals) were performed in Xinjiang, despite the fact that the region only makes up 1.8 percent of the nation’s population.

Nearly half a million Muslim children in Xinjiang have been forcibly removed from their families, placed in state-run boarding schools, and subjected to indoctrination and inhumane treatment. Between 2017 and 2019, an estimated 80,000 Uyghurs were forcibly transferred out of the XUAR to work in factories across China which has raised concerns of forced labor being used in global supply chains.

Rick Manning Presses His Case with Trump

Fairfax, Va. – Americans for Limited Government president Rick Manning is urging President Trump to take action on two of the group’s top policy priorities, divesting U.S. taxpayer dollars from China and reforming the federal workforce.

Manning, a former Department of Labor appointee under President George W. Bush, is pushing for reforms that would halt all taxpayer pensions from being invested in Chinese companies.

Manning is calling for the Labor Department to immediately impose transparency rules on private pensions and investments. In addition, he is calling on the Labor Department to divest all funds in non-transparent investments under the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a federally chartered corporation designed to encourage voluntary private defined benefit pension plans .Third, Manning is pushing for federal employee defined benefit plans to divest from non-transparent assets as well.

Currently, Americans have an estimated $2.8 billion of PBGC assets in the MSCI Emerging Markets index, which includes about $800 million in China.

In a letter to President Trump this week, Manning wrote, “No President in our lifetimes has been tougher on China than you have been. Your administration has courageously and steadfastly taken on China’s many trade abuses, threats to national security and human rights abuses.”

Manning is also urging the White House to reform the federal civil service, a bloated bureaucracy that has allowed unproductive, incompetent, and outright lazy workers to stay on the government payroll for decades.

“Right now, it can take years just to terminate an employee with cause. In a modern workplace, that is simply ludicrous,” Manning said.

“With the federal government still working from home to a large extent, this is the perfect time to reevaluate the current structure of the civil service with an eye to modernization, flexibility and increasing efficiency,” he concluded.

For more:

Daily Torch, Sept. 16, Catherine Mortensen, Trump needs to clean house in a second term

Daily Torch, Oct. 1, Rick Manning, Advancing Liberty by Divesting from China

Fairfax, Va. – Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, issued the following statement in reaction to Joe Biden releasing of his tax returns:

“This is nothing more than a debate diversion. Joe Biden doesn’t want to talk about the real issue, how his failed policies have hurt the tax returns of hard-working Americans in the past and will hurt them again if he’s elected president.

“Biden desperately wants to avoid talking about his almost half-century in American politics. He has a spent his career in Washington outsourcing American jobs abroad and hollowing out our nation’s manufacturing base.  Joe doesn’t want to talk about his vote for the disastrous NAFTA trade deal that set off the giant sucking sound of U.S. manufacturing jobs leaving our country.

“Biden doesn’t want to talk about his vote to give China ‘most favored nation’ trade status twenty years ago. This gave China the lowest tariff rate on the card and encouraged U.S. manufacturers to relocate to China. He certainly doesn’t want to talk about how he negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding that allowed Chinese companies to be part of the U.S. stock exchanges without meeting basic transparency and open books standards that U.S. companies must meet.  This single decision created billions of dollars in capital for China while putting U.S. investors at extraordinary risk.

“Instead, Biden wants to talk about tax returns.  One thing we know about President Trump’s tax return is that it won’t show a penny earned from the U.S. taxpayer. Trump has chosen to donate his salary to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for farmer outreach programs in the first quarter, and health related federal programs in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2019.

“Meanwhile 2019 is only the third year in almost half a century that Biden has not received a salary from the taxpayers, setting aside his very generous federal government retirement pension.

“No one cares about Joe Biden or Donald Trump’s tax returns. They care about their own tax returns. Under a Biden administration one thing is certain, more than 60% of Americans will see their taxes go up if he keeps his promise to repeal the Trump tax cuts.

“Americans will see their job prospects plummet as Biden puts the federal government boot on our energy and manufacturing sectors. His energy policies will end the energy production jobs that have revitalized Pennsylvania and Ohio among other states. Biden’s energy schemes make us dependent on middle eastern oil producers who don’t like us very much.

“When Biden talks about his tax returns, ask yourself what his green new deal, Paris Climate Accord, increased income taxes, and increased regulatory agenda will do to yours?”

Feb. 9, 2016, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the Pentagon’s order that climate change must be incorporated into virtually everything they do:

“The Pentagon’s prioritization of climate change as a primary military function fundamentally disrupts what our soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors are supposed to be doing – protecting the United States of America.

“Sergeants leading a platoon should not be worried about the environmental sensitivity of a rice paddy that needs to be traversed to achieve their mission, while providing the maximum security for the personnel under their command.  Tank commanders should be afforded all the training they need no matter how much fuel is expended in the process.  And Naval Captains should run their ships at the speeds that are necessitated by the immediate needs of the situation.

“Instead, President Obama would install bureaucratic boards and other second guessers along with real time tactical climate change assessments that would be held over officers’ heads should they choose what was deemed to be a climate change insensitive course of action. Given the tactical level of Obama’s plan, it is reasonable to assume that every platoon will have a political officer assigned to be the climate advocate in this new post-Obama military.

“Our military’s job is to break things and stop bad actors around the world who threaten the United States.  President Obama’s actions turn the military’s mission on its head, making America less safe and the world a more dangerous place.  January 20, 2017 cannot come soon enough.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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