A bipartisan consortium of 42 senators signed off on a tersely worded letter to China's U.S.-based ambassador, warning of "grave consequences" in the future if Beijing opts for violence against its own citizen protesters in China.
Friday's Senate letter to Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang pledged that the lawmakers would be closely monitoring the peaceful protests in China — which have been dubbed the White Paper Revolution.
The senators also stated they didn't want a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre, circa 1989.
"We are following the current peaceful protests in China over your government's policies very carefully. We are also closely watching the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) reaction to them," wrote the senators.
The letter — which featured signatories: Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — concluded with the following:
"In 1989, the Chinese Communist Party and People's Liberation Army undertook a violent crackdown on peacefully protesting Chinese students, killing hundreds, if not thousands.
"We caution the CCP in the strongest possible terms not to once again undertake a violent crackdown on peaceful Chinese protesters who simply want more freedom. If that happens, we believe there will be grave consequences for the US-China relationship, causing extraordinary damage to it," the letter reads.
As a reaction to China's zero-COVID lockdown policies, Chinese citizens throughout the vast country have taken to peaceful protests, demanding freedom from what they view as their own government's tyranny.
The White Paper Revolution protest might also have been a response to reports of 10 people dying from an apartment fire in Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, with the stringent lockdowns being attributed to the deaths.
According to The Associated Press, Chinese authorities have used pepper spray to disperse hundreds of protesters. The Chinese government has also reportedly censored social media posts and video connected to the protests.
On Friday, Newsmax chronicled a joint poll from Rasmussen Reports and Human Events, which revealed that 76% of likely voters in the U.S. approved of the citizen protests in China.
Also, 12% stated they disapproved of the China protests.
On Friday, John Kirby, the National Security spokesperson, said the Biden administration has discussed "how seriously we take the right of free assembly and freedom of expression and peaceful protests, and we're going to continue to do that, whether it's in China or Iran or anywhere else."
Kirby added: "We don't believe and we've said this, too, that any government — be that government a democracy or an autocracy — should coerce, intimidate, hurt or hinder the ability for people to peacefully protest."