settle down and they talked about the case and discussed the case immediately. each time the lawyer got these people, they reminded him that his mother actually also was helping people while she herself was in difficult conditions. >> ms. li? [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: so the lawyer has done so many good things in china and actually he still faced severe persecution and even my family suffered a lot from it and my daughter had to take the bus to go to school in the class. the police sit behind her and almost 24-hour surveillance for her. when we arrived in the united states, the first thing my daughter didn't choose to go to the school. she chose to go to the hospital because she suffered mentally. [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: my children and i support the lawyer whole heartedly because what he did is right and we believe in righteous power in the world. >> translator: thank you.

>> i think for my husband, firstly. we are a christian family. the key words in the bible, love. i think it's not just a feeling, but it's a commitment. for my husband, he thinks he needs to help the poor people to have a voice. so he did that. after the first persecution and for him and he started to think, why they can treat him like this? it's because the only one party. he started thinking over this matter.

>> without the division of power and without checks and balances -- >> they can do everything they want. they start to post democracy in china. and every time when i see him in prison, he always told me i'm not wrong. actually if he promised, he will not continue to write when he gets out. maybe the government will release him faster, but he always said no. i'm not wrong. >> thank you. out of love is based on a faith-based conviction which is an enormous motivator. thank you for sharing that. even people with faith that powered him to fight for

solidarity in poll ant and we know throughout china people of faith are being paid a significant price. i thank you for giving an insight as to why. i want to ask a couple of questions before yielding to my friend and mr. wolf, in your testimony, you made the statement that it's no small irony that while you are speaking here on capitol hill, chinese vice president is just on pennsylvania meeting with president obama at the white house. you did point out your disappointment that you believe that your husband's plight has been downplayed by the white house and i would say for the record, i want this clear. i have been in congress 32 years. mr. wolf and i have been. we have never saw human rights issue as partisan issues.

george bush was dropping the ball as we thought he was doing especially in the run up to the olympics with regard to human rights in china and spoke out very, very loudly and went before the olympics to raise individual cases and set up a meeting with the white house with six dissidents before bush went there including harry wu and others to ensure the human rights focus never left. i have been concerned and i say this and i know it is shared by many others that the administration has been indifferent to a large extent, relying on lower level dialogues and conversations and i would respectfully submit that quiet diplomacy is another name for indifference. this needs to be raised and said in my opening, there wasn't one public expression by president obama about human rights and there he was meeting with the captor and the jailor who got

the nobel peace prize and president obama got it one year before. the wives may want to speak to this, but maybe the other distinguished leaders here. i think ms. li, you made a very profound insight where you said without u.s. leadership on human rights, few in beijing will be listening. un certainly has not raised its voice in any reasonable or powerful way. the u.s. needs to be the to do it and you said only the united states can make this case to china. if either of the two gentlemen or the two wives might want to speak to that. how would you rate how we are doing and how the white house is doing? it seems this is on a back burner if even that.

>> i will begin by saying i am expressing disappointment. it's unfortunate that the vice president didn't meet any human rights victims or their family. while we are grateful that the secretary of the state department has been repeatedly and persuasively relentless himself, the only way we will see movement is by having the highest level government officials engage with the chinese government. i would submit that we have here today in the audience someone who i represented for five years and who congressman smith and wolf. >> can he stand to be recognized? we all know him. >> congress men smith and wolf. president bush raised the case

twice and secretary de vries raised it twice and secretary powell raised it once. the u.s. government had to be relentless. without that direct engagement, we won't see the release of people. what i would say is i am all for quiet diplomacy if it worked. i don't feel the need to speak out in the same way. if it's not working, we need to change our strategy. >> i agree with mr. chairman on your overall assessment and the past three weeks. the indifference on the diplomacy. obviously this administration took the human rights and especially religious freedom on the back seat from day one. after two years, there was not,

the ambassador at large was not even appointed. the first official visit was not met with the courtesy of assistance and the chinese government and i suspect this department or the white house. i think they have done anything to protest this insult. by refusing a presidential appointee and ambassador to visit her counterpart in china. almost a self humiliating

attitude certainly emboldened the dictator's persecution and indirectly and increasing and action against the human rights abuses in china. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> for the past few years, the position of my husband is getting worse and worse. i strongly request high level leaders in the united states government and i feel it's very important because this case is critical and critical for breaking through the current situations because like last year, china arrested many human rights lawyers and actually they told them and you probably know him, but so what. you know her? she probably went to a warehouse there. so what. we can still -- they can disappear and we have enough money.

that's what they told the human rights lawyer being arrested. [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: right now it's difficult to get any lawyers to help even if we are willing to pay. no lawyers can take the case. [ spoking foreign language ] >> translator: nowadays the lawyer in china pay close attention to the case because they know if this case can have any improvement, the situation may be different. [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: i really wish i can have an appointment with the leaders in the united states so that we can move this case forward. >> you have tried and they have not gotten back to you, including vice president biden? [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: yes, we tried to contact their lawyers, but no response yet. >> let me chairify we did hear from the state department with it secretary clinton and offered a meeting with secretary posener and we have been offered a meeting which we will be happy to take, but we got no response from the white house. we sent in a response to the scheduler and numerous staff and the vice president's office several times and got no response, not even a sorry, we can't meet you. >> disappointing to say the least. when you juxtapose with the vice president's statement in china when talking about the horrific one-child per couple policy and the reliance on forced abortion and he said i'm not going to second-guess the policy and then sent an e-mail to a group that he is not really for the policy and the damage was done.

those words do matter and meeting with individuals and getting fully informed about the plight of the wives and their husbands, that should have been a meeting that was sought after by the vice president and the president's office, not declined. i would like to yield to chairman frank wolf. >> thank you, mr. smith. i think this administration has been a total failure and quite frankly, i think the groups around this country should know this and not pretend it is not true. christians in egypt should know this administration failed them. iraqy and syrians should know this administration failed them. the vietnamese in vietnam, both buddhists and catholics ought to know this administration failed them.

the catholic bishops in china and the house church leader in china should know this administration failed them. the dalai lama ought to know this administration failed them. buddhist monks and nuns set themselves a name. i want to bring it back to this and i did not know you had made a request. i would like to ask both of the wives if they would say publicly, i see the media here looking, but what would you say because there is still an opportunity to meet after the vice president from china leaves. what would you say if you had an opportunity to meet with president obama and shame on them both if they do not meet. shame on them both if they do not meet! you know that president reagan would have met with you and you

know president clinton would have met with you. you know president bush would have met with you. you know president jimmy carter would have met with you. shame on them if they do. maybe they won't. this may be the only opportunity. what would both of the wives want to say if they were talking to president obama and vice president bush? [ speaking foreign language ] . >> if i had an opportunity to meet president obama and vice president biden, i would say my husband is a good people and always did good deeds. what he had done in china is abide with the world and stand

up for international standards. why in china he has to be persecute and why he had to be suffering for all kinds of torture. please help release him immediately. >> if i had an opportunity to talk to president obama, i wanted to say my husband is innocent. because of the love, he did some things, but it's the way to show how he love this is country. so please help. >> thank you.

>> thank you. let me ask our witnesses if there is anything further. do you want to perhaps touch on what the un is doing or not doing? the u.s. does play the lead, but certainly the european parliament and other parliaments and lawmakers and leaders ought to be raising their voices on behalf of the disappeared and the persecuted leaders of the human rights movement in china. >> let me say briefly that the un is not gauging on a few cases. the high commission is trying to go to china and seems unlikely it will happen. clearly she should go and needs to raise her voice. she has to her credit raised her voice loudly, but the un frankly needs to do a lot more. her case got a lot of attention internationally and raised the case in the parliament all-around the world. lots of different contexts. there is a lot of support.

but i want to underscore that her children live in the united states now. they have protection from the united states. this give this is case in particular a special connection to our country. we have given them asylum status and they have residual status based on family status. if we can reappear him and he is willing to go, he can be free and live his with his family. we need the united states to recognize the special responsibility that we have taken on to our great credit as a country to him and his family and raise the case on the highest levels. my biggest fear about the president and vice president or secretary of state not meeting him and his wife is not exclusively about the optics of that meeting taking place and the message it sends to the chinese government. my biggest fear is that the

chinese government repeatedly and publicly lied about what is going on and the united states and other countries have not publicly responded by saying you are lying. you are not telling the truth. we have to speak truth to power and tell the world what is really happening with this person's situation. >> i was -- i was glad to hear that he had made some very

straight forward effort to pursue the whereabouts when he was missing. on the other hand i hope that the united states embassy or consulate can send a diplomat if not the ambassador himself to go to the prison and to verify and ask the chinese government to accept a representative for the international red cross. the problem is we don't know whether he's ark live or not. the policy cannot work anymore. i remembered in 2 thousa005 whef

the pastors was about to be sentenced to 15 years in prison for printing bibles, according to the lawyers we had the knowledge with the court. it was when that news came out and i communicated with the n e way to visit bush beijing. on his stop he made a pointed speech and specificall and attorney was one of the pastor's attorneys at that time. he was especially,

with the president has said, when he visited china, that one morning, i received a phone call from some lawyers and they said they heard the president is withouting to meet with them. so they were waiting outside the embassy compound. so i was on the phone with consulate general or deputy general consulate in the u.s. embassy and coordinating and the they asked me to just wait and call back. and i was waiting for half an hour later, instead of the u.s. consulate or coming out to visit them, a group of lawyers,

including the attorney that was later kidnapped and tortured and they were met by over 200 chinese military police and they were rounded up and the and i was told by the consulate that later, because there's no guarantee for the president'sot these lawyers outside of the compound of the u.s. embassy. y to these chinese dictators. i think that certainly ir record worse. >> i will point out, the signals of indifference and, really, being uninformed about how powe i the leverage and the voice of the president and vice president and secretary of state, could actually be in getting out of prison who are

suffering unjustly and i remember when the secretary of state was in route to beijing or china for her first visit and she said, i'm not going to allow human rights to interfere with pedaling u.s. debt and global climate change. that through the dissidents under the bus and any repairive statements they were made certainously doesn't undo the damage in terms of what's in the heart. my hope springs eternal that this administration will see that they are doing the cause of democracy and the individuals who suffer for it, a grave injustice by its indifference and wrong signals. and i would ask the question, how will china ever matriculate from dictatorship to democracy if all the lawyers like this and others, who might go that route but it does have a chilling effect on what they might do if they know that you're going to be meeting with torture and disappearance and the same with

mrs. lee and her husband. the intellectuals, the professors, knowing that they, too -- we need to stand in solidarity with the oppressed not with the oppressor and regretfully, we're doing opposite. chairman wolf, any final comments? >> i'll ask our distinguished witnesss if you have any final comments? the final words to our two distinguished wives that are here, very, very strong and brave women and we thank them, especially, for their testimony. pastor fu, anything? >> i think real change will depend on two factors. the most important factor is, of course, from inside china. i think, despite of the increasing persecution and, perhaps, the worst in two decades, than last year, we still are hopeful. we're still seeing some signs.

it's not because of the -- any relaxation. the totalitarian regime, but i think because the growing rice awareness and consciousness by the chinese people. look at what had happened to the village in the province and 50,000 people, when they were united and they were able to win the fight, at least temporarily, they were allowed to have their first freely and democratically election and elect their own he'ders in that 50,000-people village. it's a small staff, a baby staff, but it shows the people's power. i think thousands of -- or hundreds of thousands of chinese petitioners, in spite of the jails and imprisonment,

arbitrary arrests and torture, they are still organized and they went to the chinese leadership compound in beijing and hundreds of house church members like the beijing house church, in the past, almost ten months, since april of last year, every sunday, every sunday in the capital city of beijing, their arrest from 20 to over 100 member of this church were arrested for simply going outdoors for worship. and all the leaders including the senior pastor and all their five elders had been under house arrest without any freedom of movement. but the members are still going there every sunday, knowing that they're going to be arrested. i think these are the hopeful signs we should count on. of course, i think that the

secondary -- the contribution for china's democracy and freedom is outside. it's externally. i think we need the external aid. i think the persecuted people will be greatly encouraged and their moral would be greatly boosted if they hear from the president of the united states of america and tell the chinese dictators that clearly, and unwaivering, we're with you. we're with the persecuted instead of the persecutors. >> i just want to make three brief closing comments. the first is to emphasize the point mr. chairman you made earlier. it needs to be emphasized. this is not a partisan issue. this is something that there's bipartisan smort to skeep pressure on the chinese government to improve the human rights