Highlighting the one-year anniversary of Hong Kong’s controversial national security law (NSL) and also focusing on mainland China’s far-western autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, chairmen of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), asked U.N. Secretary General António Guterres for "immediate measures to closely monitor and assess China’s behaviour." "Letters and appeals to [Guterres], as opposed to ambassadorial diplomacy, are more about public position-taking and signaling than they are about actual results," says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science. "The bipartisan CECC thus signals a unified position on the part of the U.S. that the human rights situation in China remains a key area of concern, even if Beijing wants to dismiss it," he says. Read more in the South China Morning Post article, "US agency urges UN to move on investigation of alleged human rights abuses in China."