Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) joined together last week to sponsor a bipartisan bill that would require the secretary of state to determine whether the People's Republic of China is engaging in genocide against the people of Tibet.

"Communist China is committing genocide in Tibet. There is no way around it," Scott said in a statement about this bill. "The regime in Beijing has engaged in systematic killings, torture, forced sterilization, forced displacement, government sanctioned kidnapping and a myriad of other crimes against humanity in its oppression of the Tibetan people."

"The bloodshed needs to end, and China needs to be held accountable for all of it," said Scott.

Merkley was equally adamant.

"In the face of China's continued assault on Tibetans -- escalating cultural erasure, child separation, surveillance, imprisonment and torture -- America can't stand silent," he said.

If enacted, the "Tibet Atrocities Determination Act" would give the secretary of state a one-year deadline to make "a determination" and file a report with Congress "as to whether acts carried out by officials or agents of the People's Republic of China against Tibetans in Tibet constitute either -- (1) an ongoing genocide against the Tibetan people ... or (2) crimes against humanity."

If the secretary does determine that the PRC is committing genocide in Tibet, this would be the State Department's second determination that this communist regime is engaging in genocide. On Jan. 19, 2021, at the end of the first........

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