China's slowdown raises human
rights hazards By Benjamin A
Shobert
Several occasions can be counted
on during the year to provoke righteous
indignation in China at criticism levied against
its domestic and international practices. One such
occasion is the annual release of the report by
the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China
(CECC) on human-rights practices. Upon the release
of these reports, China's state media quickly
dispute the findings, and typically point out
America's own rights problems.
This year,
Xinhua quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei
as saying the US was making "groundless remarks"
about China's human-rights practices in the report
released last week.
Usually, China's
pushback against criticism of its rights policies
emphasizes two points:
the country's lack of development, which it
believes should provide it with latitude not
afforded more politically sophisticated countries,
and the emphasis it must place on stability given
its revolutionary history.
Both ideas have
carried weight for much of the past 40 years,
providing China with an important narrative that
while it may come up short of the Western ideal
currently, as the country matures it will be able
to liberalize its practices. The events of the
past three years, however, have led many in
Washington and elsewhere to question this premise,
largely given China's apparent willingness to
clamp down even further at the same time as its
economic gains have continued.
The CECC
report notes that the commission "observed a
deepening disconnect between the growing demands
of the Chinese people and the Chinese government's
ability and desire to meet such demands. In a year
marked by a major internal political scandal and
leadership transition, Chinese officials appeared
more concerned with 'maintaining stability' and
preserving the status quo than with addressing the
grassroots calls for reform taking place all over
China."
In a year that saw more than
90,000 civil disturbances and well over 180,000
mass protests, the CECC's reference to a
"deepening disconnect" is a diplomatic way of
emphasizing the growing frustration Chinese have
toward the practices of their government.
These protests carry with them the hope
for ultimate change, providing China's leaders do
not over-react and militantly stifle dissent.
The question appears to be less whether
the average Chinese citizen agrees with many of
the criticisms made by the CECC than what the
leadership is willing to do to address these
frustrations. Will Xi Jinping's incoming
leadership reflect a willingness to embrace
further reforms that will get to the root cause of
the CECC's and Chinese citizens' criticisms, or
will the fear of the unknown or even fear of the
Communist Party losing its monopoly on power
prevent more meaningful structural changes?
The CECC acknowledges that this tension
remains unresolved, noting that it "observed the
Chinese people, often at great risk, exercising
the basic freedoms to which they are entitled and
demanding recognition of these rights from their
leaders".
Perhaps surprisingly for some,
economic matters are driving many of the Chinese
people's frustrations. The CECC writes: "China's
beleaguered workers continue to strike and
organize for higher wages and better working
conditions in reportedly the most significant
series of demonstrations since the summer of
2010."
The late-September protests in
Taiyuan against a Foxconn-owned factory required
5,000 police to control an estimated 2,000
workers. The China Labour Bulletin, a Hong
Kong-based non-governmental organization that
tracks labor unrest in China, notes that its
September tracking showed the service sector to
have the highest incidence of strikes as workers
in this area push back against increased workloads
and what they believe to be unfair compensation.
In a country that many outsiders have
hoped would ultimately develop its own version of
Western democracy, the CECC report made a hopeful
nod toward similar political reforms. It added:
"Chinese citizens also sought to engage with and
strengthen China's weak political and legal
institutions. Officials continued to wield heavy
control over local people's-congress elections,
but that did not prevent large numbers of
independent candidates from attempting to run in
this past year's elections held across the
country."
The report also notes that
pressure by citizens to require additional
transparency on China's "opaque institutions" has
led many in government to make proposed changes to
laws and regulations available for review before
becoming law.
This is not to say the
trends are all positive. The CECC reports: "On the
much-discussed PRC Criminal Procedure Law, the
government passed major amendments in March that,
while including some improvements, legalized forms
of secret detention that put Chinese citizens at
risk of torture and abuse and have been used
against dissidents in the past." Such practices
are obviously serious deviations from what Western
governments hoped would be willingness on the part
of Beijing to broaden rule of law and ensure that
the legal system is not used as a clever ruse for
stifling internal dissent.
In this spirit,
the CECC report is cutting in its criticism of
China's "arbitrary detention" practices.
"Arbitrary detention of activists remained
commonplace as authorities handed down harsh
sentences for political writings, pro-democracy
activity, and petitioning. In the case of
prominent human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who
had been missing for years, Chinese officials
claimed he violated the conditions of his parole
less than a week before his five-year suspended
sentence was set to expire, meaning he would have
to serve out his original three-year sentence."
China's careful use of oppressive laws may
provide it with an internal justification for its
actions, but these practices do little to make it
seem the maturing global power it so frequently
wishes to be presented as.
To its
criticisms in a report earlier this year about
Beijing's repatriation policies toward North
Koreans, the CECC added last week that China
continued this practice "despite the severe
punishments refugees face once returned". Nowhere
in the report is the tension between fundamental
human-rights issues and geopolitics more obvious
than when the reader is forced to reflect on
China's willingness to sacrifice North Korean
political dissidents in the interests of not
further destabilizing Pyongyang.
Among the
positive changes the CECC reports are those to
national health laws that would "contain
provisions that could constrain officials from
abusing psychiatric detention". In addition, the
report notes that China is attempting to halt
organ harvesting from death-row prisoners.
The CECC makes mention of China's efforts
not to discriminate "against political and
human-rights groups wishing to register for legal
status". The commission notes Premier Wen Jiabao's
"support for political reform", leaving open the
question of what direction his successor will
take, especially if the new leadership is beset by
questions of legitimacy and a weakening economy.
Given China's most recent past, the government's
view on economic and political reform has been to
tighten when it feels threatened. If that still
holds, the Xi Jinping leadership may be found
sorely wanting when the 2013 CECC report reflects
back on the past year.
The CECC offers
five main recommendations designed to improve
China's human-rights practices. First, it should
"ratify and implement in law the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights". This
agreement requires governments to guarantee rights
that China has thus far tightly restricted and, in
some cases, even refused to provide.
Second, Washington should continue to
force the issue of how political prisoners and
rights advocates are being treated. The report
notes the cases of Liu Xiaobo, Ni Yulan, Gao
Zhisheng, Ronggye Adrag, Su Zhimin, Gheyret Niyas,
Chen Wei, Yao Lifa and Ai Weiwei specifically.
Third, Washington needs to push China to
embrace further a rule of law that reflects a more
enlightened view on dissent and individual
liberty.
Fourth, China must review its
policies toward its domestic ethnic minorities.
The CECC makes mention of the multiple fatal
self-immolations by Tibetans, a practice it says
highlights the great injustice Tibet continues to
endure.
Fifth, the early efforts by
China's government to become more transparent must
increase. The Beijing Twitter feed on the city's
pollution is a good example of the small ways
China could become more transparent in the
challenges it must face.
Cumulatively,
China's challenges appear to be reaching critical
mass. In the past, its amazing economic gains made
it difficult for its people to be overly critical
of their government. But against the possibility
of a protracted economic slowdown, the average
Chinese may not be so easily distracted now.
This time, social stability and meaningful
political reform may have to take the front seat
to an economy that is being forced to take a
breather. In the short term, this might make for
increased tensions; yet if properly dealt with, a
more robust Chinese society and a more secure
national government could emerge.
Benjamin A Shobert is the
managing director of Rubicon Strategy Group, a
consulting firm specialized in strategy analysis
for companies looking to enter emerging economies.
He is the author of the upcoming book Blame
China and can be followed at
www.CrossTheRubiconBlog.com.
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