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Today, Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party member Rep. Jim Banks introduced the Breaking Beijing’s Hold on Campus Act to condition student visas for students of covered nations on those students not engaging in transnational repression, such as reporting on one’s fellow students to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for their exercise of free speech. The legislation would similarly condition diplomatic visas on diplomats of covered nations not engaging in transnational repression and trying to surveil and repress students on campus. You can read the full bill text here.

Said Rep. Jim Banks: “In the freest country on earth, students should not have to worry about their classmates reporting them to the Chinese Communist Party. This bill ensures that acting on behalf of or in coordination with the CCP on American college campuses will get you a one-way ticket home.”

The bill is endorsed by Georgetown law student Jinrui Zhang who testified at the Select Committee on the CCP’s December 13th hearing about the CCP’s efforts to surveil and control Chinese national students on campus.

Said Jinrui Zhang: “I believe this bill will be immensely beneficial to American democracy on university campuses. International students contribute valuable skills and perspectives to their schools, but some students bring with them quasi-legal practices of authoritarian countries, such as the intimidation and repression of dissidents, and the corresponding values, such as the intolerance for different perspectives. These repressive actions should not be welcome on U.S. soil, where true constitutional guarantees exist for free speech. Therefore, I endorse this bill—If intolerance is tolerated, cherished liberties will suffer.”

Find a transcript of Rep. Banks exchange with Jinrui Zhang below and read Mr. Zhang’s witness testimony here:

Mr. Banks. Mr. Zhang, you faced this type of harassment and these threats to report you from your fellow students. Would you agree that the U.S. Government needs some way to deter students from reporting on their fellow students to the Chinese Communist Party? And how do we do that?

Mr. Zhang. I definitely agree that we should do more to deter this kind of behavior, because they, effectively, by doing this, they are helping the repression that is being carried out by the Chinese Government.

Mr. Banks. If the United States conditioned student visas in some way on the visa holder not reporting their fellow students to hostile foreign governments, would that help fix the problem?

Mr. Zhang. Yes, I think that would be a very good idea. And also maybe having some kind of mechanism in place to maybe cancel the student visa of people who are trying to be the agents of foreign governments that are hostile to the United States, that would be helpful as well.

Mr. Banks. Yeah. How would that be taken by other Chinese national students who come to the United States? Would they feel threatened from that or would that be a measure that might feel them more protected when they are here?

Mr. Zhang. I feel like the Chinese students who are having dissenting opinions from the Chinese Government would really appreciate that kind of legislation.

Mr. Banks. Very interesting. Over the last several years we've seen evidence of Chinese diplomats funding and coordinating the disruption of anti-Communist Party events and the surveillance and punishment of dissident students, as we've been talking about. Should the United States revoke the visas of foreign diplomats who surveil and threaten students on U.S. campuses or who engage in other kinds of transnational repression?

Mr. Zhang. I think if they are helping with the atrocities that are being committed by the Chinese Government, then yes.