A bipartisan group of U.S. House members has introduced legislation aimed at freeing Americans unjustly detained in China.
The bill, unveiled by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), would enable the U.S. government to utilize diplomatic, legal, and economic tools to bring its citizens back home.
The proposed measures also seek to counter the Chinese regime’s tactic of holding family members of American citizens as hostages to silence critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Smith said in a press release on Sept. 19.
The CCP holds more Americans as prisoners than any other nation in the world, according to Smith, co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a panel created by Congress in 2000 to monitor human rights abuses in the communist country….