Congress of the United States
Washington, DC 20515
September 11, 2020
Mr. Bob Chapek
Chief Executive Officer
The Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521-4873
Dear Mr. Chapek:
- We are writing to inquire about The Walt Disney Company's cooperation with elements of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region's (XUAR) security and propaganda authorities in the production of Mulan. Disney's apparent cooperation with officials of the People's Republic of China (PRC) who are most responsible for committing atrocities—or for covering up those crimes—is profoundly disturbing.
- The closing credits of Mulan extend thanks to the "Turpan Municipal Bureau of Public Security" and the "Publicity Department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee" as well as other local level XUAR propaganda elements. In October 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security added the Turpan Municipal Bureau of Public Security to its Entity List for "human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the XUAR." The XUAR Publicity (or Propaganda) Department—which is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—has denied, distorted, and otherwise covered up these crimes against humanity that also include forced labor and a campaign of mass sterilization, forced abortions, and birth suppression against Uyghurs.
- Publicly available information prior to the filming of Mulan showed the existence of mass internment camps for the detention of Uyghurs. By July 1, 2018, major news outlets in the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong all had reported that Beijing had interned hundreds of thousands, if not more than one million, Uyghurs and minorities in the XUAR. The decision to film parts of Mulan in the XUAR, in cooperation with local security and propaganda elements, offers tacit legitimacy to these perpetrators of crimes that may warrant the designation of genocide.
- As such, we request the following information.
- (1) Please describe, in detail, The Walt Disney Company's cooperation with the "Publicity Department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee" and the "Turpan Municipal Bureau of Public Security" as well as any other cooperation involving official PRC and CCP entities in the XUAR during the filming of Mulan.
