In the near future, I intend to introduce a resolution to protest the City of Philadelphia’s troubling decision to celebrate and raise the flag of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 
 
To raise the CCP’s flag on American soil – particularly on public property in one of our great cities – is deeply disturbing to me as an Asian American.  It showcases either a profound lack of awareness of history or amounts to a tacit celebration of repression and authoritarianism.    
The CCP is a regime that is directly responsible for widespread human rights abuses, suppression of religious freedom, censorship of speech and press, systematic persecution of political dissidents, and ongoing threats to American national security. 
 
This resolution makes it clear that Pennsylvania will not remain silent when its largest city chooses to honor a regime that has engaged in persecution against Uyghur Muslims, stripped Hong Kong of its promised freedoms, openly threatens our allies in Taiwan with war, and seeks to undermine U.S. interests at home and abroad.  Raising the CCP’s flag is not a matter of cultural recognition but rather an endorsement of a brutal authoritarian system fundamentally opposed to the principles of the United States and this Commonwealth. 
 
I invite you to join me in cosponsoring this important resolution.