“What the Chinese communists are doing is trying to eliminate a whole people,” says Commissioner Gary Bauer of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The U.S. government, in the last full day of the Trump presidency, determined that the People’s Republic of China, under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, is committing genocide against the Uyghur people. Beyond mass imprisonment and forced sterilizations of Uyghurs, the Chinese regime is persecuting Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, and Christians for their religious beliefs. In churches, artistic renderings of Jesus are being replaced with images of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. And the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to expand its repressive model abroad. It may soon be able to “create an authoritarian bloc around the world, a group of countries depending on Chinese technology, Chinese financial assistance, perhaps Chinese military help,” says Commissioner Bauer. “That authoritarian bloc of dictators, despots, and countries like communist China…could become a major rival to the Western democracies,” he added. In this episode, we sit down with Commissioners Gary Bauer and James Carr of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. This is American Thought Leaders, and I’m Jan Jekielek.