Human Rights Shouldn’t Take Back Seat in Trump–Xi Talks, Rallygoers Urge

WASHINGTON—Hundreds of human rights activists gathered on Sept. 24 for a rally blocks away from the White House, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with President Donald Trump on Sept. 24.

At the U.S. Navy Memorial Plaza, the protesters urged Trump to keep human rights as part of the dialogue with Xi.

Activists, scholars, and current and former officials who spoke at the rally emphasized the importance of putting human rights and religious freedom front and center in foreign policy.

David Trimble, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, said religious freedom, part of the First Amendment, is often overshadowed by concerns of economic stability and national security.

“[It] stands as an anchor to stability, as an anchor of international relations, and as an anchor of national security,” he said.

The day marked the first day of talks between Trump and Xi, as well as much pomp and ceremony at the White House.

Trump, who met with Xi for the second time this year, said the two countries have been working to bring about a more balanced trade relationship.

The White House didn’t release much information about the outcome of the talks, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the two sides had agreed to extend by two months a trade agreement that ended last year’s trade war and was due to expire in November.

Xi told Trump that he hopes the United States could oppose Taiwan independence, according to Chinese state media Xinhua. A Chinese state broadcaster reported that Xi encouraged U.S.–Iran talks.

Meanwhile, at the human rights rally, Congressman Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) said that it was a “disgrace” to welcome Xi with a red carpet when his own constituents “have had their literal bodies mutilated and ripped apart as part of this systemic practice of organ harvesting.”

In 2019, the independent China Tribunal in London concluded that forced organ harvesting had occurred in China “on a significant scale” for years, targeting prisoners of conscience.

Ryan called Xi “the number one villain around the world of religious oppression and [the] anti-freedom agenda.”

For Maryland accountant Alisa Zhou, the persecution hit close to home.

In April, Zhou’s mother, Wang Youmei, was one of 17 arrested in the Chinese city of Wuhan over her practice of Falun Gong, which features meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

The detention of her mother “doesn’t have any grounds,” because faith is “not a crime,” Zhou told The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the summit, a group of lawmakers sent a letter to Trump urging the president to champion the release of China’s political prisoners.

“We request that you continue keeping those persecuted for their faith in China, including ethnic and religious minority groups such as Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners, top of mind in conversations with President Xi,” the lawmakers wrote.

Pressure can make an impact, Zhou said. After various lawmakers and the U.S. State Department spoke up about her mother’s case, she was finally able to see her attorney, Zhou said. During that meeting, her mother told the lawyer that she was grateful for the international advocacy and that she believed there would be positive results from it, Zhou said.

The prosecutor has sent her mother’s case back to the local police station, the Changjiang Bureau of Public Police, citing a lack of evidence, a move that Zhou believes was made possible by the international publicity.

He said that after his father was arrested, the CCP denied his father’s right to meet with an attorney. He said such failure to follow the law is telling.

“If the CCP cannot obey its own law, how do you expect it to obey the international law?” Zhou You said.

“[The Chinese communists] don’t believe in freedom,” he said during the rally. “They believe in the Party.

“The CCP is a cancer. The CCP is a parasite, you know, and a parasite sucks the life out of everything,” he said later in an interview.

Robert Destro, a State Department official focused on human rights during the first Trump administration, said Washington needs to be clear-eyed about who it is dealing with.

Destro thinks businesses dealing with the CCP also should not allow themselves to be misled. They should be clear about the terrible crimes the CCP is capable of, he said.

“If you’re sitting across from a person who will sell your liver to the highest bidder, then are you going to trust them with your business?” he asked.

The demonstrators here “​​know what terror looks like,” Destro said. He said he hopes others can also understand it.

Dave Wallace, a Republican candidate running to represent Maryland’s Fifth Congressional District, agreed that it’s important to expose such crimes.

“The light is the greatest disinfectant,” he told The Epoch Times.