During Providence‘s Christianity & National Security Conference in 2022, Olivia Enos discusses Christian persecution in Hong Kong, North Korea, and the persecution of the Uyghurs in China. The following is a transcript of the lecture.

Christianity & National Security Conference 2022 – Olivia Enos Transcript 

Well, thank you everyone for having me here today. I’m delighted to be here, particularly to speak with so many college students. As Mark referenced, I spent the last 10 years working at the Heritage Foundation, and only recently—this is actually the end of my first month on the job—I’ve been working at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong. I’m here specifically to speak about human rights issues in Asia and what inspired that advocacy. My interest in these issues started in my junior year of college at Patrick Henry College. I know how formative these years can be because, for me, I took a course on the negative impacts of communism worldwide. A fascinating course. It’s a little unusual to be offered on college campuses these days, perhaps.

They had us read this fabulous book called The Black Book of Communism, and the book went through every region of the world, documenting the ways in which communism was eroding freedom and liberty, and the tactics that governments used to do that. Asia stood out prominently in that study. Obviously, the Soviet Union was covered, and many different issues, but China featured prominently—Vietnam, Cambodia.

The one that stood out the most to me was North Korea. I was shocked because I had made it all the way to my junior year in college without knowing that there were people in political prison camps. I thought political prison camps were something relegated to the history books. I found out they weren’t. This was shocking to me because I’d spent a lot of my formative years—when I was in third grade, I first read Anne Frank: Story of a Young Girl, and everything that happened to the Jews during the Holocaust had always stood out, always arrested me. I was shocked to find out that was continuing to exist today.

I remember thinking, shouldn’t these issues, political prison camps in particular, be relegated to the history books? If they’re not relegated to the history books, shouldn’t conservatives, or more importantly Christians, have an answer to these and other human rights challenges? The answer is yes. These thoughts, these formative books, articles, studies I was exposed to, and even since my time in college, the many incredible people I’ve been exposed to, have really inspired the work I do and made me want to counter authoritarianism. It’s given me a desire to be a voice for the voiceless and to apply my talents in service of people who can’t be up here on this stage speaking for themselves.

It left me asking questions as I neared the end of college: Where does the call to defend human rights come from when looking at Scripture? I think it’s all over Scripture; it’s hard to ignore. There are three things I want to highlight in particular. A call in Scripture to defend the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant is abundantly clear, whether you’re reading through the Psalms or Isaiah, or even in Jesus’s ministry Himself.

Secondly, there’s a clear call to safeguard the spaces for religious practice that exist. Even more than safeguarding religious practice, we as Christians should expect to face persecution for our faith and shouldn’t be shocked when we see other Christians across the globe facing persecution for their faith, which then calls us to act in their defense. The clearest call in Scripture actually comes straight out of Genesis 1, where you have a clear elucidation of what it means to be human: that we’re all made in the image of God. When governments and individuals seek to destroy the image of God in man, it should feel impossible for us to stay silent and feel as though we can just sit out of this one because we share in that Imago Dei. We share it as image bearers of God in that inheritance. These days, we see many governments amazingly ignoring the image of God in man, at times even seeking to destroy it in the name of power and gain.

I could have chosen many different regions of the world to work in. We see many governments outside of Asia—Russia and Ukraine come to mind right now, and the way in which they’re violating human rights—but for the remainder of our time together, I want to highlight three situations in Asia that I think really merit and demand our attention.

The first is in the Chinese context, and I want to cover two particular people groups in China. One, the Uyghurs, who many of you may be familiar with, and second, the Hong Kong people—the Hong Kongers. The third subject I want to cover is North Korea. Then I want us to spend the remainder of the time talking about not just what governments can do to alleviate the plight of people in both China and North Korea but also what we as believers can do in our own lives to seek to alleviate their plight.

First, I want to give an overview of why the Chinese government engages in the human rights violations we see today. I would argue that some of the most severe human rights violations of the 21st Century are being committed in China today. I’m shocked at how little awareness there is about the severity of the crisis. I think the reason the Chinese Communist Party engages in these behaviors is that they feel they have to violate human rights to achieve their core objectives as a government.

There’s a fabulous book called China’s Search for Security by Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell. I read it in grad school at Georgetown. I commend it to everyone. They argue in this book that China’s core objectives—the CCP’s core objectives—are one, to maintain internal security or stability, and two, to safeguard their sovereignty. The regime views the violation of human rights as a means to an end to ensuring domestic stability and making sure the Chinese vision of sovereignty is ultimately carried out.

This is why you’ve seen such severe targeting of the Uyghurs, the first group of people I want to touch on today. For general awareness, there are over one million people inside political re-education camps in China. Some people think it may be as many as three million people inside these camps. The scale and scope of this are absolutely massive. They are not just interning people inside these concentration-like camps. Adrian Zen is a fabulous researcher.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has documented that in certain regions of Xinjiang, where most Uyghurs reside, they have a specific goal of forcibly sterilizing between 80 to 90 percent of Uyghur women of childbearing age. Imagine if they successfully carry that out—eliminating the next generation of Uyghurs. That’s future genocide in the most tangible terms possible. Beyond this, we see the Chinese Communist Party subjecting not only Uyghurs but also Tibetans and others to forced labor, both inside the camps and outside the camps through forced labor transfer programs. There are estimates suggesting that several hundred thousand people are subjected to forced labor on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the U.S. government has taken some action to counter this through the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was incredibly important legislation. Still, many goods risk entering U.S. markets or, at the very least, global markets that may be produced with Uyghur forced labor, and name-brand companies are still using Uyghur forced labor.

The CCP has attempted to tear families apart limb by limb. They do this by, for example, sending children to live in kindergartens, separating them from their parents at a very early age. People are separated from their parents because their parents are sent outside Xinjiang to other parts of China, where they’re subjected to forced labor. As I mentioned, many adults, although there have been some kids too, have been sent to these camps. They’re trying to tear apart the Uyghur family unit because they see the family as potentially a threat to the CCP, which is truly horrifying. To give a vivid example of this, I have a dear friend, Zeba Morat, who is Uyghur American. She has a young daughter about four years old. Zeba’s mother, Gulshan Abbas, has been held in these camps for the past three or four years. She has never been able to hug her granddaughter, Sabina. She has never met her in person. Even here, this is affecting U.S. citizens who are Uyghur and are separated from their family by the borders, all because of the Chinese Communist Party interning them.

The U.S. government made the right decision when, on the last day of the Trump Administration, they determined that what Uyghurs are facing constitutes ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity. It absolutely is, and it’s important that people understand what the definition of genocide actually means. Genocide means intent to destroy in whole or in part an entire people group. Intent to destroy. The intent to destroy is so obvious, not just from the camps but, as I mentioned, by trying to destroy future generations of Uyghurs. When you have intent to destroy a whole people group, you have intent to destroy the image of God in man. That calls us to action.

We’ve covered the Uyghurs. I’ll transition to talking about the Hong Kongers, or the people of Hong Kong. We all watched on our TV screens as millions of people took to the streets in Hong Kong in defense of their liberty. We saw those millions of people taking to the streets because there was legislation proposed by the Legislative Council in Hong Kong that would permit the extradition of Hong Kong citizens back to Beijing. The Hong Kongers saw the early warning signs—the writing on the wall—that the CCP intended to interfere in Hong Kong’s once-enjoyed autonomy through the introduction of that extradition law.

Unfortunately, they were right, because in 2020, in response to the so-called unrest, these protests were by and large peaceful. The CCP introduced something called the National Security Law, which had a chilling effect not only on civil and political liberties in Hong Kong but on the business community’s operating environment there and led to the mass exodus of several Hong Kongers, many of whom have had to flee to the United Kingdom and other capitals across the globe.

While Hong Kong might not be a genocide like we’re seeing against the Uyghurs, it might not have that same visceral response you have when you see what the CCP is doing to subjugate Uyghurs. It represents the destruction of freedom, and it represents what happens when the U.S. chooses to focus less on human rights issues in its policy, thinking we can wait to address the human rights issues after we have other security or economic concerns under control, failing to realize that all of those issues are interconnected. Today, over 1,100 people are currently serving time in jail on politically motivated charges in Hong Kong.

Even just this past week, we saw two very well-known and prominent Catholics, as well as pro-democracy advocates—Jimmy Lai, who is the founder of Apple Daily, a renowned news source in Hong Kong, and Cardinal Zen—being put on trial this week and facing yet another conviction. In Jimmy Lai’s case, at least another conviction. We also saw many pro-democracy leaders like Joshua Wong, who is also a Christian, being put on trial. He has been spending time behind bars. It’s important to circle back to the point I made at the beginning: the Chinese Communist Party did this because they wanted to maintain sovereignty and stability. They saw the 2019 protest as a threat to both objectives, which is why you had one million people in the streets.

What stands out when it comes to Hong Kong is that the human heart, no matter where we live or what corners of the Earth we’re from, really beats for freedom. Hong Kong is a reminder that freedom on Earth isn’t always permanent. This causes us to long for eternal freedom, where freedom is secured. This is one of the reasons why the Hong Kong cause has resonated with so many here in the U.S. and across the globe. It’s also a reminder of the consequences, as I mentioned before, of de-emphasizing human rights when we’re trying to craft foreign policy as professionals.

The third subject I want to cover is North Korea. There’s so much to cover in China. I probably could have spent the whole speech just talking about that, but I wanted to start the section on North Korea with a brief story. There was a North Korean woman who tried to escape North Korea on four separate occasions. Her name is Ms. Hyana Ji. On one occasion, she was sent back by Chinese authorities to North Korea because they engaged in the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees. She was discovered to be pregnant. When her pregnancy was discovered, she was sent to a police station where she was forced to have an abortion without any anesthesia at all.

Ms. Ji had tried to flee North Korea on four separate occasions and was finally successful on the fourth occasion, but she had tried to flee in part because she was a Christian and was facing persecution under the Kim regime. There are few regimes that are more clearly anti-Christian than the Chinese one or the North Korean one, but in her case, being able to operate as a Christian was next to impossible and forced her to do unspeakable things. The Kim regime sees Christianity as a direct threat to their rule and reign, and some of this has to do with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the fall of communism.

After the Soviet Union, many of the protest movements that led to the eventual falls of, say, Ceaușescu in Romania, for example, were incredibly peaceful, and they were faith-driven movements. Kim Jong-Un rightly recognizes that faith could pose a threat to his rule and reign. The systematic policies the regime puts in place to abuse and exploit their people they view as, if not on par with, pretty close to equally important as the possession of their nuclear program and their weapons program because they view the human rights violations they carry out as necessary to maintain their grip on power.

To give a couple of examples, the regime has a brutal policy called the three generations policy, where if one individual in the family is found guilty of a so-called political crime, which could be as simple as not having dusted the portrait of Kim Jong-Un that’s mandatory on every person’s wall, then not just that individual but three generations of that individual’s family can be sent to the political prison camps. This is insane. It’s crazy. But it’s happening today. They further strengthen their reign by engaging in public executions. In fact, I was watching a video today of a North Korean refugee who had recently escaped, and he said he saw his first public execution at the age of nine. You can imagine how shocking this would be at nine years old to see somebody publicly executed for a political crime the regime deemed unsafe. This is horrifying.

This can result in the purging of leadership. It can result in someone being publicly executed for a political crime, but we’ve also heard reports of people being executed for the mere possession of a Bible. That’s how threatening the regime views Christianity to its reign. The regime goes even further by attempting to replace God with Kim Jong-Un. It’s part of the reason everybody has to have a portrait on their wall that deifies him within their home. There was even a Netflix documentary—I’ve forgotten the name of it—where doctors provided cataract removal surgery. Every single person who received the surgery, as soon as they could see, went up to the portraits on the wall and thanked Kim Jong-Un for the surgery. These people actually do believe, at a certain level, that Kim Jong-Un is a deity who provides for them because they’ve been so indoctrinated by the Kim regime. That’s their goal.

What is going on in North Korea is incredibly severe. I could go into many more details, but when a commission of inquiry report was conducted by the United Nations in 2014, they determined that what North Koreans are facing constitutes atrocity crimes at the level of crimes against humanity. There are so many issues I debated raising, but I felt like the two situations in China and North Korea were emblematic of the immense needs of people in Asia who demand not just our attention but also our prayers.

In Q&A, I’m happy to address some other issues. At Heritage, I worked very broadly, so I also worked on Burma, Cambodia, religious freedom, refugee issues, democracy, and governance, which I’m happy to touch on. But I think it’s really hard to hear about all of this suffering if we don’t feel like we’re equipped with answers or potential responses that might help alleviate their plight.

For the next section, which should be brief, I want to touch on what governments, particularly the U.S. government, can do to address their plight. Then I want to end on what we can do as Christians to keep these folks in our thoughts. First, we should engage in severe and systematic sanctions, targeted sanctions, ideally against those responsible for undermining human rights in Asia. We have tools that can be used. One, in particular, is the Global Magnitsky Act, which is very powerful. It enables us to target both individuals and entities engaging in severe human rights violations. These sanctions are very helpful, not just as a signaling mechanism but as a means for financially holding accountable perpetrators of ongoing violations, which is critical.

Second, we should look for routes to provide refugee relief and assistance to people who have the ability to leave these countries. One tool, in particular, is Priority 2 Refugee Status, which enables people to bypass referral from UNHCR, NGOs, and embassies to enter directly into the U.S. refugee system to be considered and determine whether their claim is meritorious, allowing them to be resettled in the U.S. This could apply to Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, and arguably North Koreans as well.

Third, and I mentioned this in the context of Uyghurs, one of the most powerful things the U.S. government has done over the last several years was to say that there is ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs. It’s critical, but we don’t have a similar determination for North Korea. While the UN said that crimes against humanity are happening, we need to have the U.S. government look into whether it’s not just crimes against humanity, but is it also genocide that North Korean people are facing? The reason for this is that the atrocity determination for Uyghurs generated a lot of follow-on action. We saw this in the form of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and otherwise. I think a similar atrocity determination could build the momentum we need against North Korea and its officials.

Fourth, we must continue tackling forced labor. That means making full use of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, ensuring it’s actually enforced, and enforcing the rebuttable presumption that exists against North Korea to ensure that not a single good produced with forced labor in North Korea or China makes its way into U.S. markets, where you and I could inadvertently be supporting the regime.

Fifth and finally, and I would say this one should go in tandem, we should press for the release of every single political prisoner. There should not be a single meeting with Chinese counterparts or any diplomacy with North Korean counterparts where U.S. officials are not raising these issues directly, raising individual political prisoners by name, and demanding they be released. We often stop at pressing for the release of political prisoners, but we should look for ways to achieve not just the release of the prisoners but the eventual closure of these political prison camps and political re-education camps. Anytime we engage in diplomacy, we should think about what the Chinese government wants, what the North Korean government wants, that wouldn’t compromise U.S. policy but could result in the closure of these camps, which are honestly carrying out pure evil.

That’s the end of the government part. Now, what can you do about this? What are some things Christians can do? I have three here. One: pray. When you read an article that really touches your heart or convicts you, you should listen to that. Don’t just say, “Wow, that’s really awful, what’s happening,” but pause for a minute and pray. People feel remembered in prayer. You don’t know the extent and the power of prayer. I think it’s become cliché to say, “Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers,” especially after gun violence or other things. But as believers, we know the power of prayer. We know that God is at work in these corners of the world. So, go to the Lord in prayer, asking for Him to change situations, to change hearts and minds, even to pray for Kim Jong-Un and Xi Jinping, that they would have a change of heart, that we would see differences, and that He would raise up generations of believers that can facilitate change in these countries.

Second, and this one is pretty tangible too: befriend local refugees and survivors of authoritarian regimes. I almost feel selfish in saying this because I’ve personally benefited so much from the friendships I have. I mentioned Zeba and her story earlier, and Zeba is one of those dear friends I think I will know for the rest of my life. I don’t think she benefits as much from my friendship as I have benefited from hers. But I’m telling you, there are so many people, particularly in the D.C. area, who have resettled here and are looking for friends. I met Zeba during the middle of the pandemic. She had recently moved to the D.C. area from Florida, and she told me, “I talk to people, and I brief people all the time, but actual friendship has been really hard to come by.” Just remember that friendship is one of those ways you can meaningfully change somebody’s life. That’s really just the application of being a good neighbor to those whom the Lord has put in your path.

The third way you can facilitate change is to think of ways to give your time, talent, and treasure to the cause of human rights. One thing would be to identify the organizations you can donate to financially when you’re in jobs in the future that you can support, which are doing good work on these issues. But for some people in the audience today, they might not just want to donate their finances. They might want to donate their talent. I would encourage you to look for ways to be active, even in your future jobs that aren’t immediately related to human rights issues. I was surprised to find out when I first started doing human rights work that, for example, in the State Department, it’s not considered the most prestigious job to work on human rights issues. Typically, economic or security issues are a little more prominent, so many students in undergrad, grad, and master’s programs are pushed in that direction. But that means there is a demand for good talent that is devoted to thinking creatively about how we can apply the incredible power of the U.S. government to help people who otherwise don’t have voices, who can’t speak for themselves.

I’ll end it there. I’m happy to answer any questions about the subjects I covered and talk about career-related questions you all have. But thank you for having me today. It’s really a joy for me to be here.

Q&A

Question: Foreign University, I just wanted to ask—you mentioned in just those five items that governments can do, sanctions being one of the main things, but since we’re at a National Security Conference and we’ve talked about how America’s power should be used to preserve global order, cause justice to be done, and protect the innocent, is there a certain point at which sanctions disarm, and we have to use force?

Answer: That’s a great question. I would say, in most of the contexts I’ve worked with, force hasn’t become necessary in the North Korea context. If you were to have an attack or you thought there was an imminent attack, force would be necessary. This is one of the realms where I think there is actually an overlap or a need for more attention in military planning. What if you have the collapse of North Korea, not necessarily by external force, but you have something happen that leads to instability on the Korean peninsula? In that instance, our military needs plans to rescue people from the political prison camps. During Nazi Germany, the Germans wanted to bomb the camps to destroy the evidence. You also have to think about the ingrained perceptions people have of both South Koreans and Americans.

I’ve heard from North Korean friends and other experts that, for example, students in elementary schools are taught how to learn math by saying, “What happens if we kill X number of American troops or X number of South Korean troops? What’s the answer to this equation?” People have it ingrained in them that South Korea doesn’t care about the North Korean people, that the U.S. doesn’t care about them. In a collapse scenario, where the first responders would be South Koreans and Americans, you have to have information that’s already gone into North Korea, so your average person can understand and say, “Okay, they do have my best interests at heart,” and not try and fight.

There are a lot of military plans that are short of force. The other example would be—some of the speakers may have addressed issues related to China, and a lot of people are worried about Taiwan. If there were to be a military takeover in that instance, you would need to engage. It’s a difficult situation, but there are some specific regulations that would prompt the U.S. to engage in those cases. I would say that would be in defense of democracy, which is a pretty human rights-forward type of conflict. In general, I wouldn’t say it would be good to do a preemptive strike, for example, to liberate Uyghurs from the camps or something along those lines. As wonderful as it sounds to let all the captives free, I think the costs are quite high for a conflict like that. Great question. Thank you.

Question: Hi, Jonathan Dean Francis. Thank you for the work you do. It’s good to hear some of it. I’m curious. You’ve talked a lot about Chinese press policies and their focus on security and sovereignty. I’m curious how that functions in recent Chinese history, whether that’s a long-term goal they’ve had. I’m thinking of how, through the Premiership of Deng Xiaoping up through there was a real emphasis on economic prosperity, which caused a sort of liberalization—that’s probably not the right word. We’ve seen that sort of top bolt in as Xi Jinping’s career so far, especially this month where WHO’s faction was forcibly removed. I saw The New York Times reported that there was a real emphasis on security just this month specifically. So, in your opinion, do you think that’s a bit of security long-term goal, or are we seeing a sort of change in their approach to international politics right now?

Answer: In the book China’s Search for Security, they identify it as a fairly long-term goal. Obviously, this book was written in the context of Xi Jinping and his reign, but I would argue that any attempts to strengthen China’s economic prosperity are still internally focused. We see China, especially during the Deng Xiaoping era, engaging externally, but they were engaging externally in trade for their own enrichment and growth. This is an interesting comment that has come up.

Earlier this year, when I was still at Heritage, my boss and I traveled to Europe, and we were talking to Europeans about the risks to their supply chain of continuing to engage with China. They’re heavily leveraged in the Chinese space, particularly in the auto industry. One of the comments that kept coming up was that, whether or not we’re thinking about decoupling—and that’s a much longer conversation—the Chinese already are. For the Europeans, this is particularly dire because they are over-leveraged in this space. Whether we’re choosing to disengage or not, they may already have plans in place to do so. To me, that proves that the CCP is out for its own goals, its own aims.

The CCP may have different methods than other governments, but most governments are acting in their own interests. My realism is showing here, but most governments are acting in their own interest. I don’t think it’s surprising how they allocate resources and the ways in which they act. This comes up also in the context of North Korea because a lot of people will say, “Oh, well, isn’t Kim Jong-Un just crazy?” No, he wants to maintain his own power, and that’s the aim of most leaders. He just has really brutal ways of doing it. That’s the concern. Thank you for your question. I saw you had one as well.

Question: Hi, my name is Sage. I’m from Baylor University. Thank you for your clear statement on the governmental side of this issue and what we can do on the governmental side. You can tell me if this is correct, but the impression I have is that a lot of the problem is that American businesses and businesses in general are not willing to or able to extract themselves and their business from China. How do you see this? What hope do you have or not? To what extent are we relying on a change in that area?

Answer: That’s a great question. I’ve been surprised at how, and maybe I shouldn’t be—maybe I should have woken up to the realization that business, for good or for bad, is motivated by profit. A lot of the decisions they make are rooted in that. I’ve been surprised at how little a lot of especially large multinational companies, but also global multinational companies, have been willing to condemn Uyghur forced labor. Some have taken important steps, and a lot of those have been prompted by the shifting of risk as a result of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

Sometimes it requires government intervention for companies to realize that the behavior they’re engaging in is fundamentally illegal. It is illegal, and it absolutely should be illegal in every corner of the world to enslave people and exploit other people for profit. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has already started to do that. I have some concerns, especially given the Biden Administration’s somewhat wishy-washiness and its commitment to countering China, that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act will be enforced to the full measure of the law and that there are enough resources to do so. The Biden Administration, in particular, has a competing interest in cooperating with China on climate.

I’m sure that beam has come up from other speakers, but at the end of the day, we as advocates and private citizens should be continuing to press, no matter whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat, that the law is enforced. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was proof positive that, unfortunately, we couldn’t wait on the business community to make the right decision. That’s why government action was necessitated. There are other situations where businesses hopefully will make a different decision, but one other sad anecdote related to the business community—and I’ll end here for this question—is that there’s an upcoming financial conference in Hong Kong next week. It’s being hosted by the chief executive, the equivalent of the president in Hong Kong, and the leaders of almost every top American bank are going to that conference. Our group, the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, put out an ad today in The Harvard Crimson and lit up projections on Wall Street, listing the names of the executives attending this conference. Given the deterioration we’ve seen in liberty in Hong Kong, to pretend that it’s just business as usual is pretty frustrating. Historically, America, through its foreign policy, has sought to defend freedom and liberty where it’s under threat. Hopefully, business executives will wake up, and if they don’t, China’s economy isn’t doing so well. Maybe they will decide that, as things deteriorate there, they have more than one reason to disentangle a little bit.

Question: Hi, Olivia. My name is Joey. I’m from Patrick Henry College. I saw your speech here. Thank you so much for your thoughts. I wanted to hear a little more about the effectiveness of sanctions because whenever I’ve heard about it, it’s always been in the context of posturing, like a political action. Obviously, if there’s something wrong, like a moral humanitarian wrongdoing, then it’s right that the United States takes a stance and says this is wrong. But at the same time, China and North Korea are not necessarily countries we want to provoke, and we’re trying to maintain at least a semblance of a good relationship with them. In your opinion, what is a prudent way to proceed forward at a governmental level to condemn wrongdoing while still having a good relationship?

Answer: I think North Korea and China are both clearly adversaries, so the question of whether or not we want to offend them comes up less frequently when considering sanctions. The thing that does come up is, what if you’re hurting the people more than you’re actually hurting the individuals carrying out the human rights violations? There’s a distinction between the sanctions instituted in our parents’ or grandparents’ generation versus the ones instituted now. The ones instituted now generally target the individual—the bank accounts of the individual you’re trying to hold accountable or the entity you’re trying to hold accountable. Even beyond this, it also restricts them from traveling, particularly to the U.S., but also most transactions in the world are dollar-denominated, especially credit card transactions.

It can substantially hamper their ability to act. The sanctions are important. In the North Korean context, in particular, one of the consequences of the sanctions program has been a lot of unintended consequences, like the fact that the regime has to work quite a bit harder to find the resources to fund its nuclear and missile programs. That makes it powerful to engage in that type of economic warfare, if you will. I don’t worry as much about offending North Korea and China. I think more about how we can hold them accountable.

One other thing I will add is that when Global Magnitsky sanctions first went into effect—this is outside of the Asia region—I attended a meeting where they talked about Global Magnitsky’s effectiveness. They said they levied a sanction against a Peruvian government official, and that official was immediately removed from his post. That’s a powerful consequence of sanctions. I feel like people don’t talk about that enough because it doesn’t always achieve the objectives we think they will, like the full denuclearization of North Korea, for example, has not yet been achieved through sanctions, but the unintended consequences continue to maintain and make a strong case for sanctions. It’s a powerful tool. I think I saw it. Yes, you had a question.

Question: Well, hello. I’m Victoria from Westminster College. Particularly about what you were saying with the Uyghurs and separating the families—that is very sad but interesting. I know in the late 1800s, American missionaries went to China to build up families. Would this be something that would still be helpful to the Chinese people, or are we beyond that being much of a factor?

Answer: That’s a great question. There is amazing work being done in the underground Church in China, in particular, that needs to continue. This work is critical, not only for reaching the souls of people who otherwise might not come in contact with the Gospel but also for providing them with the type of community that has been essential for me and my husband here in D.C. For so many people, Church community gives you a sense of belonging, accountability mechanisms. It is just an incredible go-to place. When they’re suffering, it’s helpful to have missionaries.

That being said, I’ve spoken in the past with people who used to serve as missionaries in the Xinjiang region, and many of them have had to leave because the people they had contact with would automatically be sent to political re-education camps. The way we share the Gospel has to get savvier. In the Christian context, we might need to start thinking about some of the more subversive ways we’ve been engaging in getting the Gospel into North Korea for decades, where it was a much more closed information environment.

I didn’t put this in my list of recommendations, but ensuring continued access to information is an absolutely critical lifeline to people in authoritarian and closed regimes. In the North Korean context, the smuggling in of USBs, especially through informal markets and at the border area, has been critical. A lot of Gospel tracts have been brought in that way, using radio to share the Gospel. Sometimes you can tune into shortwave or medium wave radio broadcasting even in North Korea. It’s very dangerous to do so, but many people will do it because they need the encouragement of the Gospels.

Thinking about ways to do that and making sure we’re staying on the cutting edge—this is something I worry about in Hong Kong too. Right now, it’s fairly open, but even just this past week, we were hearing reports that another Hong Kong organization, the Hong Kong Democracy Council, had their website blocked in Hong Kong. You can only access it through a VPN now, so that’s a closing environment for information. Members of Congress and ingenious private citizens thinking about applying technology in new ways can apply their ingenuity to ensure that even if there are minimal spaces, they stay open for the few people who can actually access them. It’s a great question.