Human Rights – China

At the annual United States-China conference in mid-May 2011, the countries talked about everything from economic to military issues.  They also exchanged harsh words about China’s human rights record.

Long criticized for its human rights record, China has been under fire in recent months for its crackdown on dissidents in the aftermath of protests in the Middle East.

China’s actions run contrary to its professed desire to advance human rights.  According to Phelim Kine, a researcher about Asia with Human Rights Watch, the Chinese government unveiled a National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP) in April 2009, creating a set of goals for improving human rights and a timeline for acting on these goals during 2009-2010.  The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China also grants many rights to its citizens, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion.

But the incongruity between China’s verbal commitment to human rights and its mixed actual record raises the question of whether this is a step  -  albeit very small  -  in the right direction, or an effort to deflect criticism from the West.  In particular, I find the most troubling dichotomy is between China’s professed commitment to and actual record on free speech, freedom of the press, and religious freedom.  These fundamental rights are the basis for many other rights.

As Human Rights Watch notes in its 2011 report “Promises Unfulfilled: An Assessment of China’s National Human Rights Action Plan,” deficiencies in the action plan and the government’s failures to adequately implement it have made its commitments mostly a collection of unfulfilled promises.  Human Rights Watch’s report notes that it is vague, lacking benchmarks or details that would allow measurement of progress.  If it is intended to serve a useful role in the future it must be updated and its flaws addressed.

The NHRAP is organized under five broad categories covering rights including but not limited to: economic, social, education and health care, cultural, civil, and political rights.  Human Rights Watch states that creating the NHRAP was an important step for the Chinese government  —  which usually criticizes human rights as an imposition of Western values  —  in the direction of embracing human rights as a national goal to be realized.  But it failed to meet the commitments made in the plan to advance civil and political rights.

It is interesting and perhaps relevant to note that references to timetables for implementation of rights are for the most part limited to economic rights.  Also, while many rights are listed in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee these rights to its citizens.

While Barrett McCormick, head of the political science department at Marquette University and an expert on China, is unfamiliar with the plan, he does not think such plans actually drive policy.  But he agreed with Human Rights Watch that China has actually rolled back civil and political rights and enabled human rights abuses.

“Overall, the strongest claims that can be made for the human rights record of the Chinese government concern economic rights,” he says.  During the 1970s and 1980s, the Chinese economy was transformed from one based on communes and collective agriculture to one based on household contracting.  The change allowed several hundred million people to be lifted out of poverty, and to benefit from generous social services such as basic education and medical care.  But due to regional differences in standards of living, many millions of others still suffered from poverty and other forms of inequality.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Chinese government has prioritized “rights to subsistence and development” over civil and political rights in the past two decades, arguing that developing the economy and improving living conditions are important for greater enjoyment of fundamental freedoms.  Human Rights Watch cites a 2010 report by the United Nations Development Programme, saying that of 135 countries studied, China had the strongest economic growth since 1970, but was only 79^th in improvements in education and health.

McCormick believes that under President Hu Jintao, the central government has made serious attempts to reverse the decline in medical services and education that occurred under his predecessor Jiang Zemin.  He says some reports show there has been some progress.

But China’s record on political and civil rights is still poor.  “There has been some progress in creating a private sphere in which people can live their private life without much state interference,” McCormick says, “but as yet this is more de facto than de jure.”  The regime’s current crackdown on dissidents, more severe than anything seen in many years, makes arguing that things are gradually improving difficult.

Article 35 of the Constitution says citizens “enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration” in Article 35 of its Constitution  —  as well as in the NHRAP  —  it clearly has not delivered on freedom of speech.  According to Amnesty International, there has been a rise in harassment, surveillance, house arrest, and imprisonment of human rights defenders.  In the past few months especially, hundreds of activists have been detained and harassed in an attempt to block anti-government demonstrations like those in the Middle East.  Human rights lawyers have also been detained or put under house arrest or surveillance.

Since the NHRAP was created, Human Rights Watch has also documented severe and widespread abuses of detainee rights involving high-profile dissidents and tens of thousands of ordinary Chinese.  Authorities use arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance as tools of political intimidation.

These practices violate the Chinese Constitution and the NHRAP.  Article 37 of the Chinese Constitution states that “No citizens may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people’s procuratorate or by decision of a people’s court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ.”  It goes on to say that “Unlawful detention or deprivation or restriction of citizens’ freedom of the person by other means is prohibited, and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited.”

The NHRAP says that “The State prohibits illegal detention by law enforcement personnel.  Taking a criminal suspect in custody, changing the place of custody or extending the term of detention must be carried out in accordance with the law.  Wrongful or prolonged detention shall be prevented.”

High-profile cases where these tactics have been used against activists include Ai Weiwei, a dissident artist who was finally charged with tax evasion over a month after his arrest.  Ai has been an outspoken critic of the Communist Party, having demanded democracy in China, criticized government corruption for playing a role in the deaths of children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and supported political prisoner and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo.

Liu, a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist, has called for political reform and an end to one-party communist rule in China.  He was tried on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” in 2009 and sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights.

As the Internet is increasingly used to disseminate information and conduct debates, censorship of the media and Internet has risen.  Chinese authorities have restricted news reporting and shut down publications and Internet sites, including those that “slandered the country’s political system” and “distorted the history of the Party,” according to Amnesty International’s 2010 annual report on China.

In April 2004, Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo! e-mail account to send a message to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website.  In the message, he summarized a government order directing media organizations in China to downplay the upcoming 15^th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists.  In response, he was arrested in November 2004 and charged with “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities.”  In 2005 he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Authorities thoroughly monitor citizens’ Internet activity.  According to Amnesty International, all Internet communications pass through government-controlled routers, allowing authorities to block access to many sites, filter content, and delete links or websites considered “dangerous” or “subversive.”  Websites using banned words such as democracy, freedom and human rights are blocked, as are websites of international human rights groups (including Amnesty International) and some foreign news organizations.

In “Promises Unfulfilled,” Human Rights Watch makes the point that controls on freedom of expression and association and media freedom impairs people’s ability to have adequate knowledge of their social and economic rights, and limits their ability to legally challenge government officials and security forces who deny them their rights.  This, the report says, goes against the claim that the Chinese government makes in the NHRAP that all human rights are interdependent and inseparable.

Religious freedom is another area where China’s record is shady.  Both the NHRAP and Constitution grant religious freedom.  The Constitution specifically says that citizens cannot be forced to believe or not to believe in a religion, nor can they be discriminated against because of religion.  The state also protects religious activities that do not disrupt public order, impair others’ health, or interfere with the state’s educational system.

But Yang Jin, who recently studied in the LLM program in international human rights at Northwestern Law and the school’s Center for International Human Rights, says it is hard to say how much people can practice their own religions.  Practicing alone at home is fine, but in general, the government worries about people assembling to practice a religion.  “I think the government cannot accept other well-organized groups existing in the society, which may undermine its governance,” Jin says.

The BBC reports that of China’s 70 million Christians, about 20 million attend government-approved churches.  The rest worship with unregistered groups.  In recent months, dozens of members of “underground” churches have been arrested, including members of the Shouwang church, one of Beijing’s biggest underground churches.  Shouwang worshippers have annoyed authorities in recent weeks by trying to hold services in the open after the lease on their church premises was terminated.

In “Promises Unfulfilled,” Human Rights Watch asks whether creating a human rights action plan is an attempt to deflect internal and external criticism, or really a small step in the right direction.

McCormick says he does not believe the Chinese government is very concerned about criticism from the West.  It sees the United States as a declining power, and China’s economic success has won friends all around the world.  Their main concern is domestic political stability.  “I believe they have an exaggerated fear that something like the Jasmine Revolutions could happen in China,” McCormick says.

Then why go through the motions of creating an action plan and having dialogue with the U.S. about human rights?  Because human rights dialogues have little cost for the Chinese government.

“The Chinese government has generally not felt compelled to make significant concessions during these dialogues,” McCormick says.  Chinese officials get to state their opinion about human rights abuses in the U.S. and highlight what they want to stress about China’s progress on human rights.  The state-controlled Chinese media either spin these talks in a manner favorable to the Chinese government or do not cover them much.  As a result, McCormick says, many human rights advocates have come to see these dialogues as either pointless or even counter-productive.

But Human Rights Watch is probably correct that the Chinese are concerned about silencing internal criticism through their half-hearted efforts to advance human rights.  And perhaps the external criticism they want to avoid is not from the U.S. government, but from potential outside investors in their economy.

Human Rights Watch argues that if the Chinese are truly dedicated to strengthening human rights, they must analyze the gaps between the NHRAP’s objectives and their implementation and create a revised version of the plan with benchmarks, timelines, and regular assessments of its progress.  But maybe what they need to analyze first is their level of commitment to human rights.