What human rights legacy for the Beijing Olympic Games?

China and Human Rights

How the World’s Largest One Party State Believes it can Go it Alone - and the Chances of it Succeeding

[China and Human Rights 1 of 3]

Over the last three decades, China has changed radically. It has opened up to the rest of the world, reformed its economy, and become, at least on the coastal provinces, prosperous and fast-developing.

In the last 15 years, the government of the People’s Republic of China has also engaged in debate about the state of human rights in China. At times this has been a hard, combative dialogue, either between China and the United States, or China and the European Union. The Chinese government has signed but, crucially, not ratified the United Nation’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; it also signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Officials have shown a sophisticated understanding of human rights issues but their fundamental position on them has remained largely unchanged. Even when Beijing was awarded the Olympics in 2001, and its then-mayor was famously quoted as saying this would help China in its development of human rights, China continues to argue that its position on human rights is fundamentally different to developed countries, and it has to take its own path in developing and raising people’s living standards, and what the central government calls `improving the quality of the people’ (tigao renkou de sushi) before allowing them what it believes are further, more developed rights.

The Chinese government simply states that it places economic rights above other rights, and that by delivering almost 200 million people from poverty and creating a stable, peaceful environment for its people after a century (1850-1949) of conflict and instability, it has done more than enough to provide basic rights for its people. In Australia-based academic Mobo Gao’s recent book The Battle for China’s Past on the importance of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to the development of recent Chinese history, he argues against the “Mao-bashers”. He points out that in fact, even the Mao period from 1949 to 1976 with its lack of legal processes and widespread abuses and conflict, can be seen as part of a process to bring new rights and prosperity to the people. The average life expectancy in China in 1949 was 35. When Mao died in 1976, it was 65. It now stands in the late 70s for men and women. This, Gao, argues is tangible proof that for the most crucial things, the Chinese government is delivering right where it matters.

China and Human Rights is by Kerry Brown. This is the first of three instalments.

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[China and Human Rights 2 of 3]

China has been very successful at promoting the idea of itself as a special case where human rights considerations have to be applied differently. Dialogue with China about human rights has not been made easier by how the subject has become highly politicised, drawn into issues like fears of China’s rising political influence in Asia and Africa, and of the sharp rise in its military expenditure. The fact that China is the only one of the world’s top ten largest economies that is not a multi-party democracy, has made things more complicated, with issues of other countries ganging up on it and using human rights criticisms as a cover for other, less `pure’ intentions.

Despite this, there are plenty of Chinese with a clear understanding that their `human rights’ are the same as those of anyone else. This has been linked, at least since the Democracy Wall protests of the late 1970s, with the issue of China’s democratisation. It has also been part of the attempts to shift China away from power structures which, in current parlance, assert the rule of law over the rule of man. Many Chinese intellectuals have been using concepts of humanism from Confucius and other classical philosophers to give more understanding to the Chinese notion of human rights. At the last Party Congress in October 2007 there was clear talk, for the first time, of the government being there to serve “people’s welfare”. The Chinese are more willing to pursue grievances with the government, both local and national, over eviction from their property or environmental issues, or, more sensitively, complaints about corruption in the government, even taking some cases to court. They are also more willing to petition the central and provincial government. This is especially so in environmentalism where many non-governmental organisations were created in the last decade, and who have become increasingly active, and critical of the government. The idea that the Chinese are somehow `different to people in the developed world’ and need to have different, more limited rights is wearing a bit thin now. It was highly symbolic that the Tibetan monks protesting in March this year were demanding “human rights” – not independence or even greater autonomy - when they met journalists.

China should be introspected what  they have done repressively to their prominent peoples: Activist, Protesters  etc are the leaders candidate of the Chines government future. They have to respect the human right.

Guys at Amnesty International and People,
While I appreciate your efforts on behalf of human rights and the oppression of peoples, your vision and agenda is incomplete. Human rights start with freedom, and there are many freedoms I don’t see you people recognizing or championing, freedoms like the right of consumption, as basic a human right as there is, and the denial of which, for example, is the primary reason the U.S.A. imprisons more of its citizens than any other country, and freedoms like those that compose property sovereignty.
The people of every nation on earth are living under oppression, but it is all about to change! All oppressors and all leaders on earth are about to fall in the revolution I am about to ignite and lead, and that includes that tyrannical regime in China, which will be among the first, if not the first, to go down.
My revolution will be multi-faceted–political, spiritual, intellectual, economic, cultural, etc.–and all-encompassing, with an uncompromising stance on freedom for all peoples.  Politically, I am launching a political party, the Freedom Party, and personally, my campaign for the presidency. As part of the revolution, I am calling for a complete boycott of all business with China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Egypt and others. Our doing business with them, including buying their stuff, makes us complicit in these countries’ people’s oppression.
The academic, Gao, you cite says life expectancy and standard of living as measured in terms of survival and material welfare is the most crucial thing to consider when evaluating China’s (or other countries’) state, but it isn’t. The most crucial thing is freedom, not the material, and one of the key things I will accomplish is to change the people’s value hierarchy to the higher standard, and the boycotts will help serve that purpose, as the people will come together on behalf of others’ liberty.
I invite you all to read my call to world revolution/declaration/plan/book, entitled “What Freedom?!!?”, which can be read in its entirety at Lulu.com self-publishing, then help launch the boycotts and the revolution.
Robert Farrior,     Browns Mills, New Jersey,USA

For every one’s sake, It is better to leave Chinese people to manage how their human rights should be improved.
From what happen in the past, there are many reasons to believe that the so-called concern from the West would bring unrest if they are not rejecteted The human rights statues in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was much worse than China toda, however, the West never cared that much until they found their oil supply were cut off from Kuwaitt. Now Iraq had a system that the West wish China would have, but are the lives and human right of people there improved comparing to the period under Saddam Hussein? Are people happier there under the conern from the West?
People, including Iraque and Chinese people indeed suffer in a certain extend when human right are not respected enough. HOwever, they are suffering more or would suffer more if they have to live under unrests.
They so-called concerns of human right from the West are spreading unrests in China. They typical example is what happen in Lhasa in April this year. The mobs were employed to murder and injured civilians there while the West trying to force Chinese authority giving up their responsibilities to protect them, under an excuse of human right.
It is your freedom to spread out unrest in China by such  malicious concerns or not, but it is freedom of Chinese to accept or reject them. If you really know what you are doing,I am sure you will know how Chinese people would choose.
The report in the West are full of lies on this issues. They are quite successful to fool the ordinary people in the West to pay tax for spreading the unrests, however, it is much difficult to convince Chinese people to help the West pushing China into somewhere like Iraq today, at least in my opinion.
 

Obviously, they’re dangerous. They’re slowly and plottingly making global moves. They know their might and are waiting. In my opinion they’re also evil, they would love to annihilate the rest of humanity.

Nobody really knows how to think perfectly. Generally, the only thing the mind does is to put two or more things into relation. Those relations are only characterised by their effects on the environment. Which are difficult to apprehend. For, some actions may appear good at first, and not so good after a while, and vice-versa.
So, even if each of us has the ability to put some things into relation between each others, no one can appreciate all the effects, that’s impossible, we can only appreciate some immediate effects, and only partially.
So my point is, nobody can’t boast to have better knowledge or understanding than other. We can only do our very best in everything.
And that’s precisely why privileged nation don’t know how to do. How many homeless people die each year in winter in any of our big cities? Some others die from illness because they can’t go and see a doctor. Some others even die of starvation next to luxury restaurants. Even dogs are sometimes treated in more descent way than some powerless human being. And yes, al of that is happening everyday in the so called richer nations of the world that claim louder the principle of human rights.
So the occidental nations may pretend to teach the human rights to people who apparently have not invented them. However, one thing is sure, against that noble abstraction, the Chinese can oppose us thousand of marvellous and concrete inventions that have helped us to erect our civilisation. So, not for the Olympic Games, but for that, our marvellous Chinese friends merit the gold medal.

[China and Human Rights 3 of 3]

For all the positive results that were achieved in the last 30 years, there are still significant areas of concern. China executed more people than the rest of the world put together last year, a figure that was sufficiently worrying enough for the central government to remove authorisation for capital punishment from the provinces. According to Reporters sans frontières , there are 31 Chinese journalists in jail for political reasons. The case of the Internet blogger Hu Jia, sent to jail earlier this year for 3 1/2 years for “crimes against the state”, is representative of the lack of legal protection and transparency in the conviction and punishment of people in China whose only crime, at least to those looking in from the outside, is to express opinions irritating to the state.

With 2,000 magazines and newspapers, 200 million Internet users, and over at least 3,000 NGOs (and maybe many times more), China is a different from the highly regimented society it used to be in the 1970s. The new contract law, in place since 1 January this year, gives Chinese workers rights to a notice period, health care and other essential legal protections. Ironically, the US Chamber of Commerce, on behalf of some of its members, lobbied against this on the grounds that it would increase productions costs in China.

The Olympics gives everyone a chance to examine what China has been doing in the last three decades, and to get a balanced picture. As a middle class continues growing, with more assets and property rights, and as society diversifies, there will be increasing demands for more protection and legal support. In the next decade or so, we will be able to see how far the Chinese government can satisfy this crucial constituency while maintaining its monopoly on power. The best scenario is a gradual, managed transition. The worst would be breakdown and instability. Either way, respect for rights to freedom of assembly, expression and beliefs will be fundamental, and the debate about the development of human rights in China looks set to be key in the relationship between China and the rest of the world in the years ahead.

This discussion is now closed.

This website will be revamped, and will not be updated in the meantime. For more information about Amnesty International's work on China, please visit this link.

Thank you for your support.