A Strategy to Free Political Prisoners in China

Introduction

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has placed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Chinese citizens behind bars as political prisoners. The scale of this brutal practice reveals something about the CCP: there are few things it fears more than its people.

Taking political prisoners is one of the CCP’s core tactics for maintaining power. The United States Department of State estimates that the CCP currently detains thousands of political prisoners, in addition to an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs in political prison camps. The CCP’s practice of extrajudicial imprisonment is uniquely unjust. The party targets anyone it believes does not align with CCP ideals. That means political activists, human rights lawyers, and in particular, religious and ethnic populations that CCP leadership views as a threat to its core interests. Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, and Christians are among the most targeted.

Although there have been notable successes in securing political prisoners’ release from China recently, there remains a need to strengthen the US political prisoner advocacy apparatus. Political prisoner advocacy may seem tangential to US foreign policy objectives. But it is one of the most practical steps the US government can take to offer relief to persecuted populations when Washington cannot easily fix the system that extrajudicially targets these populations, as is certainly the case in China.

As it stands, the US executive branch does not have a centralized system focused on freeing political prisoners. Such a system could help the government craft policies that advance US interests while safeguarding and securing the freedom and human rights of the imprisoned.

Of course, US efforts to free political prisoners are not limited to China. The US rightfully seeks to aid any person extrajudicially imprisoned globally. While the focus of this paper is on China, many of the recommendations in this paper are intended to advance US policy toward freeing political prisoners more generally.

The next Trump administration should prioritize political prisoner advocacy in its overarching policy toward China. To that end:

• Congress should create an office for political prisoner advocacy within the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the Department of State and appoint a special envoy for political prisoner advocacy of ambassador rank who would be responsible for prioritizing political prisoner release.
• Congress and the executive branch should institute a standard process for coordinating political prisoner advocacy and release.
• The executive branch should evaluate tools to punish key nodes of the Chinese government responsible for persecuting political prisoners.
• The executive branch should refine its options for permanently resettling political prisoners who want to come to the US.

Current Political Prisoners in China

It is easy to lose sight of political prisoners’ humanity—and the CCP’s degradation of that humanity—amid the sheer volume of the problem in China. Those imprisoned have languished, in many cases for years, behind bars for no other reason than that they are feared or disfavored by China’s leadership.

To better understand the type of person the CCP arbitrarily detains, one should look at some of the Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Christians, and Tibetans currently detained:

• Gulshan Abbas was extrajudicially detained in September 2018, mere days after her sister Rushan Abbas spoke at Hudson Institute about the plight of the Uyghurs. She faces an unjust sentence of 20 years for false charges of “participating in a terrorist organization,” “aiding terrorist activities,” and “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order.” Abbas is a doctor, mother, and grandmother who poses no threat to the CCP. Nevertheless, the party holds her and an estimated 1.8 million other Uyghurs in political reeducation camps. Abbas’s detention began in a political reeducation camp. The party later transferred her to a prison, a common occurrence among Uyghurs since the CCP’s crackdown on the group in early 2016.
  
  The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined in November 2022 that Abbas was arbitrarily detained. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) adopted her in January 2024 through the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s Defending Freedoms Project. She was featured in the US Department of State’s #WithoutJustCause campaign, and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) considers her a religious prisoner of conscience (RPOC).
• Jimmy Lai is the 77-year-old founder of the once renowned and now shuttered pro-democracy publication Apple Daily. Lai was an outspoken figure in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and did not shy away from speaking out, especially when the CCP made it clear he would face consequences. Lai, a dual citizen of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, could have fled the city-state at any time with his British National (Overseas) passport. But he proved that he was willing to pay the price to stand up for freedom.
  
  Lai has been detained since 2020 on several politically motivated charges. Some, under the 2020 national security law, carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Lai finds great solace in his Catholic faith and has made religious art while imprisoned. He was sponsored as a political prisoner by Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) in 2024 and is an RPOC according to the USCIRF.
• Wang Yi served as a Christian pastor at Early Rain Covenant Church until the CCP detained him in December 2019. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, fined, and stripped of his political rights for three years on trumped-up charges of “illegal business activity” and “inciting subversion of state power.” Pastor Wang was previously a prominent intellectual and a lawyer. But when he converted to Christianity, he redirected his intellectual energy toward religious ends. Pastor Wang’s congregation, Early Rain Covenant Church, is an underground church in China. An ordained Presbyterian minister, Pastor Wang is known for his “95 Theses,” a document that pays homage to Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, the text that sparked the Protestant Reformation. Pastor Wang was originally detained along with 100 other congregants of Early Rain Covenant Church. While all the congregants were released, Pastor Wang remains behind bars. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) adopted his cause upon the retirement of Representative Vicky Hartzler (R-MO).
• Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Panchen Lama, was abducted along with his family on May 17, 1995, just days after his sixth birthday. Two days prior to his disappearance, the Dalai Lama recognized Gedhun as the eleventh Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama is the second most well-known figure in Tibetan Buddhism and plays a role in the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. The CCP violated a core tenant of Tibetan Buddhism by appointing a false Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu. The Tibetan people do not accept Gyaltsen as the genuine Panchen Lama, but the CCP prevents them from practicing their religion faithfully.
  
  It has been 29 years since the CCP abducted Gedhun, the true Panchen Lama. At the time he was abducted, he was the youngest political prisoner the party had ever held. Since his forced disappearance, the CCP has provided no evidence of his or his family’s whereabouts, including proof of life. The US government has repeatedly called for his release and pressed the CCP for details on his condition and where he and his family are held. The Panchen Lama is adopted by Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA). He is also currently listed as an RPOC by the USCIRF, although it is not clear whether a USCIRF commissioner has adopted him.

While the CCP justifies each of these political prisoners’ detentions differently, its central motivation remains the same. The CCP views Gulshan Abbas, Jimmy Lai, Wang Yi, and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as threats to the party’s authority and therefore worthy of detention. The CCP’s motivation for taking political prisoners is the same as that of most regimes: to silence opposition, eliminate dissent, and solidify power.

That is what makes political prisoner advocacy so essential. It is a means and mechanism of offering support when the party violates their rights. This advocacy is also a means of undermining one of the most brutal tools that the CCP uses to maintain power. Not only is defending political prisoners the right thing to do—it also advances US interests.

The Political Prisoner Advocacy Apparatus

As it stands, there are three groups in the US that are key to freeing political prisoners in China: (1) Congress, (2) the executive branch, and (3) civil society. Each has its own role in securing political prisoner release, but there is little coordination to ensure sustained advocacy.

Congress

Congress arguably has the most robust infrastructure for securing political prisoner release. The Defending Freedoms Project and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s Political Prisoner Database form the backbone for many of the legislative branch’s efforts to secure the release of political prisoners in China.

The Defending Freedom Project

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission runs the Defending Freedoms Project, a joint effort between civil society and government to promote the adoption of political prisoners by members of Congress. A member who adopts a political prisoner has a range of options to advocate for his or her release. This includes liaising with and pressuring the executive branch to act, hosting hearings, press conferences, and events to raise awareness about the case, and negotiating directly with the government that extrajudicially imprisons the individual.

One of the most effective actions members can take is to hold hearings with high-ranking administration officials to ask about the specific steps they have taken to secure a political prisoner’s release. Members involved in the project have successfully secured the release or conditional release of at least 14 political prisoners in China, in part due to congressional advocacy, according to the Defending Freedoms Project. There are still individuals in China and elsewhere who are not yet adopted and are actively looking for congressional advocates.

The CECC Political Prisoner Database

An additional tool in the congressional toolbox is the Political Prisoner Database run by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC). The Political Prisoner Database identified nearly 1,600 Chinese political prisoners as of October 2019. That number has likely increased substantially since then. The database is a valuable resource for members of Congress and civil society organizations to recognize both the scope and scale of the political prisoner crisis in China. The database also helps members of Congress identify detained individuals to adopt.

The Executive Branch

The executive branch’s mechanisms for securing political prisoner release are less robust than Congress’s. The White House’s past successes have occurred in large part due to the symbiotic relationship between the legislative and executive branches. Unfortunately, the executive branch has no centralized mechanism devoted to political prisoner release. Political prisoners in Asia are reliant on the political will of State Department officials in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and the East Asia and Pacific Bureau. Results have been mixed.

Still, any effort to centralize political prisoner advocacy should seek to maintain the executive branch’s agility and flexibility. For example, working-level staff can make recommendations with relative ease to principals about which political prisoners’ cases to raise in high-level meetings with Chinese counterparts. This lack of a formal structure enables executive branch staff to raise the issue of political prisoners under more varied categories of diplomatic engagement. This includes discussions explicitly focused on political prisoners as well as related causes like the CCP’s ongoing transnational repression and threats to religious freedom. Such flexibility has enabled executive branch officials to raise awareness about the cases of more political prisoners with their Chinese counterparts.

Nevertheless, the lack of a central advocate or infrastructure for prioritizing political prisoner release has often pushed political prisoner release lower on the list of diplomatic priorities.

Civil Society

Civil society, particularly nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights advocacy groups, have played a critical role in raising awareness of the plights of political prisoners. Organizations working directly with the Defending Freedoms Project, like USCIRF, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Freedom Now, Scholars at Risk, PEN America, and Reporters without Borders, are especially impactful.

USCIRF

USCIRF is a quasi-nongovernmental organization that complements US government efforts to safeguard freedom of religious belief around the globe. The group produces an annual report that surveys country-by-country trends in religious freedom. This report recommends to the State Department which countries it should classify as countries of particular concern (CPCs) in the department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report.

USCIRF can also designate individuals as religious prisoners of conscience. RPOCs are prisoners in countries that USCIRF considers a CPC or adds to its Special Watch List. USCIRF also applies the RPOC designation to individuals targeted by nonstate actors the commission considers entities of particular concern. As of October 2024, USCIRF identified nine RPOCs; of that number, four are political prisoners in China.

The purpose of the RPOC project, according to USCIRF, is to “raise public awareness of these prisoners, reduce the overall number of prisoners in captivity, and highlight religious freedom conditions in their country of imprisonment.” In addition to labeling imprisoned individuals as RPOCs, USCIRF commissioners can adopt RPOCs. Many political prisoners have been released due to these commissioners’ advocacy, including political prisoners from China.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

The US is not the only actor securing and advocating for political prisoner release. The United Nations, and especially the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, plays a key role in elevating the plight of political prisoners. These groups raise critical awareness around cases and determine whether individuals are arbitrarily detained. This designation further elevates a political prisoner’s case and enables the UN to pressure the government responsible for detaining him or her.

Understanding the current state of US and international advocacy for political prisoners will help Washington craft stronger policies that make full use of the existing apparatus and fill important gaps.

Current Options for Refugee and Asylum Relief

One such gap that policymakers should examine is the lack of pathways through which America can offer asylum and refugee relief to political prisoners once their release has been secured.

The US government has two common mechanisms to do so: humanitarian parole and Priority 1 refugee status. Both options have shortcomings that hamper the speed and agility of resettlement and access to long-term residence in the US. Still, they are useful tools in emergency situations.

Humanitarian Parole

The most common pathway for political prisoners to come to the US is humanitarian parole. The US government decides to offer this temporary parole on a “case-by-case basis” for a period that generally does not exceed one year, although country-specific programs have been extended to two years. According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), eligibility for parole is contingent on whether “there are urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons for the beneficiary to be in the United States; and the beneficiary merits a favorable exercise of discretion.” In practice, USCIS grants humanitarian parole for various reasons, including the need to receive urgent short-term medical care, participate in time-bound court proceedings, or attend a funeral, in addition to a range of other justifications. A recipient of humanitarian parole may be inadmissible to the US through other means.

An internal government referral for humanitarian parole (known as significant public benefit parole or SPBP) is the most common method for bringing political prisoners to the US due to its promptness. Because of increased use of the parole program in recent years, the average processing time can be more than six months for an SPBP. But in expedited cases, it has been done in as little as two weeks. In emergencies, parole can be processed at the port of entry, although this is rare. Though it is markedly faster than other routes to come to the US, humanitarian parole does not confer any immigration status to recipients or guarantee a work permit. Additionally, there are no standard pathways to permanent residency for those the US admits under humanitarian parole. Those who desire permanent residency must request an adjustment of status and enter the severely backlogged US asylum system. That means political prisoners admitted through humanitarian parole face a potentially lengthy process before they receive certainty about their status in the US. In fact, the program has come under fire because humanitarian parole applicants sometimes fail to adjust their status in time and reside in the US illegally, risking deportation.

These risks and obstacles often discourage political prisoners from seeking humanitarian parole in the US.

Priority 1 Refugee Status

The other route to resettle a political prisoner in the US is Priority 1 (P-1) refugee status. P-1 processing allows embassies, NGOs, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to refer applicants. It is typically reserved for people with “compelling protection needs.” Political prisoners often enter the process through embassy referrals, typically with the support of staff in the Department of State or Homeland Security. P-1 referral usually takes longer than humanitarian parole—around one to two months if expedited and, on average, one to two years through regular processing. So P-1 status does not work in a situation where a political prisoner is being released imminently.

But unlike with humanitarian parole, an individual entering the US under P-1 status would be considered a refugee and therefore would have a clearer pathway to citizenship, immediate access to social support in the US, and work authorization.

Guiding Principles for Future US Policy on Political Prisoner Advocacy

As the Trump administration and Congress develop policy toward political prisoners, there are a few guiding principles they should bear in mind:

1. A more centralized apparatus could be more effective. At present, there is no centralized apparatus for securing political prisoner release. The lack of a centralized authority has arguably stymied efforts to prioritize political prisoner advocacy. In contrast, the executive branch’s hostage recovery apparatus is far more robust. In recent years, the US has successfully secured a notable number of Americans, though this may be in part because the hostage recovery program works primarily to secure the release of Americans or dual citizens. Nevertheless, the US hostage response apparatus may be a valuable model for the US government’s political prisoner advocacy.Instituting a special envoy and a dedicated office for political prisoner release could elevate political prisoner advocacy as an important aspect of US diplomacy and strategy.
2. Language matters and should honor the preferences of political prisoners. The wishes of political prisoners and their families should be paramount in any effort to provide relief. But their desires are not homogenous. As such, mechanisms to serve political prisoners should account for diverse interests at the most basic level: in the language used to advocate for their case. For example, some Americans who are wrongfully detained abroad meet the definition of hostage but reject the label. They are not hostages, but people who took political stands. Therefore, the label arbitrarily detained may more accurately reflect their condition.
   
   A political prisoner’s choice to reject the wrongfully detained label affects which tools the US government has at its disposal to advocate for his or her release. The entire hostage release apparatus is unavailable to those who consider themselves arbitrarily rather than wrongfully detained. But this is not a problem with the political prisoner. The problem lies with the US government’s insufficient tools to aid political prisoners.
   
   Political prisoners also have differing aims for their futures once released. While some desire to flee the country where they were imprisoned, others want to stay and facilitate change from within. Others yet desire temporary safe haven in the US as they figure out how to restart their lives after imprisonment. And many seek permanent resettlement in the US. Policymakers should reform the current system to standardize new mechanisms or find more creative uses of existing mechanisms to meet these urgent and varied needs.
3. Refugee and asylum routes should be quick and flexible. Current pathways for resettlement are flawed and often fail to meet political prisoners’ diverse needs. As discussed previously, the most common tool, humanitarian parole, does not offer a permanent pathway for resettlement in the US. And P-1 status is often too slow to resettle time-sensitive cases. Congress and the administration need to find the political will to address these inadequacies and give the US refugee and asylum systems better options.

Recommendations

To enact these principles and establish a more centralized, coordinated, and agile political prisoner release and resettlement apparatus, the US government should:

• Create an Office for Political Prisoner Advocacy (OPPA) in the State Department. The office could be placed under the authority of the under secretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights (the J Bureau), or under the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. It should be tasked with coordinating and managing US efforts to secure political prisoner release globally. Its priority would be to advocate for the release of political prisoners relevant to US national security. Congress should require the office to release an annual report identifying key political prisoners and what the office, civil society, and Congress have done or can do to secure their release.
• Create and appoint a special envoy for political prisoner advocacy. The special envoy would lead the OPPA. The envoy should be Senate confirmed and of ambassador rank, and he or she could serve as a liaison between the executive branch, Congress, and civil society. This would centralize the processes for securing political prisoner release, updating families on the status of political prisoners, and coordinating government and civil society responses to extrajudicial imprisonment. To streamline the process, the envoy could coordinate with other key nodes tasked with political prisoner advocacy in the State Department. This includes the special coordinator for Tibetan issues, the Office of Religious Freedom, and the East Asia-Pacific and the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureaus. Additionally, the special envoy could work with the Department of the Treasury and other relevant agencies like the National Security Council to identify individuals who could be sanctioned for facilitating arbitrary detentions.
• Create a designation of arbitrarily detained for political prisoners. The US has a robust apparatus for securing hostage release for individuals the State Department labels wrongfully detained. While the definition of wrongfully detained can apply to political prisoners, it usually denotes that someone is a hostage. The department generally uses the informal term arbitrarily detained to refer to political prisoners. The special envoy and the OPPA should have the power to officially label political prisoners as arbitrarily detained, publish a list of these individuals in its annual report, and exercise authorities similar to those of the hostage release apparatus to obtain the freedom of these individuals.
• Strengthen the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s Defending Freedoms Project. The Defending Freedoms Project is an invaluable resource for political prisoner adoption. But despite the Lantos commission’s excellent efforts, the process for connecting family members of political prisoners with members of Congress remains opaque. The commission should disseminate more resources on how citizens with family members or friends who may be eligible for adoption can best apply to the program to secure high-level advocacy from members of Congress.
• Coordinate efforts to press for the release of all political prisoners in China. The special envoy should standardize a process to coordinate advocacy for the release of Chinese political prisoners. This should include holding regular meetings between congressional and executive branch staff to provide updates about political prisoners’ well-being, share steps taken to secure their release, and make plans for future advocacy. The OPPA should also require members of Congress who adopted political prisoners to submit regular updates to the relevant bureaus and offices at the State Department. These updates should be included in the newly created OPPA’s annual report on political prisoners. 
• Raise the cases of key political prisoners in China at every diplomatic meeting between US officials and Chinese counterparts. Each meeting between US and Chinese officials presents an opportunity to press for the release of political prisoners. US officials’ requests should be strong and specific—not only for information or for proof of life, but for the prisoners’ release. The US should also be prepared to offer asylum in the US or coordinate with partner countries to resettle prisoners who desire refuge beyond China’s borders.
• Form an international political prisoner advocacy task force with allies and partners. The task force could identify key diplomatic opportunities for political prisoner advocacy, help determine whether the US or another country is best suited to apply pressure, and provide options for long-term resettlement. Political prisoners with dual nationalities may wish to be resettled in a certain country for personal or cultural reasons. Many Hong Kongers, for example, have British National Overseas status. International cooperation to respect the wishes of political prisoners and their families could strengthen the US and its partners’ efforts to free political prisoners. Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are all worthy of consideration for inclusion in this task force.
• Issue sanctions to punish key nodes of the CCP’s political imprisonment apparatus. The US should make full use of preexisting financial sanctions authorities under the Global Magnitsky Act, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, and other legislation to target CCP officials responsible for human rights violations in China. The Treasury Department should issue specific tranches of sanctions at key diplomatic moments to advocate for release. The Department of State should also make full use of its new authorities pursuant to Section 212(a)(3)(C) that place visa restrictions on individuals responsible for wrongful and abusive or unjust detentions of both American citizens and foreign nationals.
• Consider priority asylum and refugee processing for certain groups in China. The US government should determine whether Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Hong Kongers are eligible for priority processing for asylum and refugee cases. Members of these groups face permanent persecution, and the lives of former political prisoners who have escaped the country would be endangered upon return to China. Long wait times expose asylees to human rights violations and other atrocities. Many Uyghurs have waited more than 10 years for their asylum hearings in the US, an unconscionable amount of time to live with uncertainty about one’s future safety. Countless others, like the 50 Uyghurs currently detained in Thailand, should be considered for priority processing, maybe under P-1 status. Congress or the administration should also consider extending expedited and permanent resettlement by designating Uyghurs and Hong Kongers as groups of special humanitarian concern under the Priority 2 (P-2) refugee program. P-2 refugees are vetted by the US government as stringently as every other refugee entering the US, and this designation would allow them to enter directly into the US system.
• Consider reforming humanitarian parole to offer permanent pathways for resettlement in the US. Because humanitarian parole is the most expeditious route for resettling political prisoners, US officials should strategically use it to provide them temporary safe haven. But the program’s lack of a clear permanent pathway to resettlement (besides extending asylum) is problematic. Policymakers should research how and whether humanitarian parole can be reformed to better protect freed political prisoners from further persecution. And at minimum, Washington should expand humanitarian pathways for permanent legal status in the United States and fund nongovernmental and civil society organizations that provide services for political prisoners.