Last night, in a Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-3) asked expert witnesses for their thoughts on protecting people against retaliation from the Chinese government within the United States.

The hearing, entitled, "CCP Transnational Repression: The Party's Effort to Silence and Coerce Critics Overseas," featured Ms. Anna Kwok, the executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council; Mr. Jinrui Zhang, a law student at Georgetown University Law Center; and Dr. Sophie Richardson, an expert on human rights in China.

Watch the full clip HERE.

Rep Luetkemeyer: “We’ve talked about, a little bit here, protecting you even when you’re here. Would each of you like to give me some ideas of ways you could feel more protected? Is there a way we could do something here as a committee? As a country?”

Mr. Jinrui Zhang: “For informal transnational repression, I would say imposing some kind of consequence on that kind of behavior on American soil is very important.”

Background: Transnational repression refers to tactics of an authoritarian government to silence the voices of its citizens (or non-citizens connected to the country), source information from them, or coerce them to return home. The Chinese Communist Party has actively attacked and harassed people in the United States, issuing bounties, threatening family members, and stalking individuals to damped pro-democracy beliefs of individuals born in China.