Error: Re: [Vision2020] China's Human Rights Violations

[Ted Moffett]

Donovan et. al.

Everyone knows what I meant, but I appear to suggest in my last post with
the subject heading as show in this post (minus the "Error" part), that US
based corporations might be regulated more aggressively to "push for" human
rights violations.  Yikes!

First off, economic pressure can work in some cases to modify behavior in
both the public and private sector!  It is just a matter of applying the
correct kind of economic pressure directly to the players that will
respond.  That's why in the US media personalities or news stories that hurt
the bottom line of advertising revenues are often censored.  If enough
people tell NBC that if they broadcast stories, to invent an example, about
US human rights violations, they won't buy the cars that NBC features in
their advertising, NBC will tone down or eliminate stories about US human
rights violations, to not lose that huge source of advertising revenue.

Economic "sanctions" or pressure of various sorts are employed often in
international affairs to pressure governments and businesses to cooperate
with the interests of various entities, in the private and public sector.  I
won't list examples, for there are numerous examples anyone can easily
find.

You go off the deep end and appear to assume the economic pressure I am
implying would involve blocking all or most trade with China.  But this is
not what I suggested.  I offered an example of regulation of US Internet
corporations, that is now being written buy US Congresspeople, that would
not block them from doing business in China, but would encourage them to not
cooperate with flagrant abuses, such as censoring the truth about Tienanmen
Square in China when Chinese citizens were using Google's search engine in
China.

But let's assume that in the case of China, there are no economic sanctions
or pressure that will work to encourage China to
make substantive improvement in human rights.  OK, fine.  Let US
corporations be complicit in cooperating with human rights violations for
the sake of all the benefits you list that are provided by US corporate
investment in China.

But I wonder, would the citizens of the USA tolerate hundreds of thousands
in forced labor camps, psychiatric torture for dissidents, government
censorship of all media under penalty of beatings and prison for violations,
executions ordered by kangaroo courts, etc. for the sake of jobs and medical
benefits?

I really hope not.

Then why do we appear so willing to accept or tolerate China's human rights
violations, as we do billions in business with China?

US patriot Patrick Henry once said "Give me liberty or give me death."
Donovan appears to not appreciate the firm stand on human rights that is
implied by this statement.

Ted Moffett




On 3/12/06, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Ted,
>
>
> "Some on this list seem to think that business with China should not be
> linked to substantive demands (with teeth, in other words, US based
> corporations who do business in China would be more aggressively regulated
> by the US government to push for, and/or not cooperate with, human rights
> violations) to improve China's human rights conduct."
>
> I have never met a soul that defended the human rights record of China.
> Most people agree that something should be done. However, boycotting ONE
> store that buys junk from China while visiting another store instead for
> selling the same junk from China seems ludicrous; almost as ludicrous as the
> notion of an economic boycott working to improve the human rights record
> China.
>
> Economic sanctions, unlike military sanctions, do not work, unless of
> course your goal is to punish the citizens of that country that are not part
> of the decision making process. Did economic sanctions work in Cuba? How
> about Iraq? How much suffering did the Iraqi and Cuban people endure as
> opposed to that of Saddam and Castro? Some children in Cuba are so
> malnourished that if they fall down their bones crumble. Did that teach
> Castro? Did that improve things for Cuba and the world? No, it did not, it
> only served to solidify the power and control of Castro for another 50
> years. And we all know the horror stories of economic sanctions on Iraq and
> how it hurt those people.
>
> If the US actually enforced human rights agreements with China through
> economic sanctions it would damage the citizens of China, the US economy,
> and the world economy more than do anything to curve human rights violations
> or hurt the leaders of Chinese Communist Party.
>
> Image if you would, ending trade with China. What a nightmare. Millions of
> Chinese and American workers would be out of work. Chinese workers would
> have to give up their 35 cent an hour manufacturing jobs in the city and
> return to the rice fields for 9 cents an hour, giving up their medical,
> housing, and ability to send money to their family members. US citizens
> would lose their jobs. First, would be the people that work at the ports and
> shipping yards. Then would be all the people that make goods to be exported.
> Then would be bankers and private investors that have invested in all the
> capital to make these goods. Next would be the stock market. That is not to
> mention that the price of goods would soar not being able to be manufactured
> in China or any place that violated US standards for human rights.
>
> I agree we need to fix this problem, but unenforceable economic sanctions
> that punish the wrong people is not the solution.
>
> _DJA
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> All:
>
> Some on this list seem to think that business with China should not be
> linked to substantive demands (with teeth, in other words, US based
> corporations who do business in China would be more aggressively regulated
> by the US government to push for, and/or not cooperate with, human rights
> violations) to improve China's human rights conduct.
>
> I think if we are going to follow this "free market engagement" approach,
> we should know explicitly and in detail what human rights violations the US
> is, in effect (not officially, of course), condoning in China.  I find it
> odd in the extreme that we often find high minded moral posturing defending
> the US invasion of Iraq, based on the human rights violations that were
> occurring in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, yet many in the US seem to be rather
> bored with the mention of the large scale and horrific human rights abuses
> in China.  Much less do we often hear anyone insisting that with haste the
> US should begin rescuing the Chinese people from the totalitarian abuses of
> the Chinese Communist Party.  Why is Saddam Hussein such a reviled and hated
> person, yet the premier of China, leader of a government connected
> to horrific human rights abuses that now owns a huge chunk of the US debt,
> cannot even be named by most US citizens?
>
> Toppling the Chinese Communist government would be a military nightmare,
> even more insane than our current Iraq debacle to democratize Iraq.  But how
> did the USA approach the "evil empire" of the Communist Soviet Union, to
> quote Ronald Reagan?  By warm and fuzzy "economic engagement?"  No, the
> US fought wars, many of them "proxie" wars, but wars nonetheless, to
> undermine the military and economic power of the Soviet Union.  We weren't
> handing the Soviet Union the advantages of our economic and technological
> developments on a silver platter, like we are doing with China.  When it
> comes to totalitarian Communist China, the multinational business sector
> appears to have the US government, and even our media (why can't US citizens
> name the premier of China?), dancing to their tune to allow them access to
> China's "captive" labor markets, downplaying the US and free world security
> risks and large scale human rights abuses, that China presents.  Given the
> military threat China may pose in the future, I think a good argument could
> be made that in the long run, China's WMDs, among them nuclear
> weapons coupled with sophistication missile technology, present more of
> threat to the stability and security of the "free world," than Iraq's WMDs
> ever did.  Of course, Iraq never had, nor was ever close to, having
> a nuclear weapon.
>
> The US State Dept. provides a summery of human rights abuses in China
> in the"Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" that should illuminate
> some of the moral concerns involved in US corporations doing business in
> China:
>
> http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27768.htm
>
> Do you think horror of the Tiananmen slaughter by China's government is a
> relic of the "old" China, before the improvements in human rights some say
> have been occurring due in part to US "engagement?"  Then why are thousands
> still imprisoned in China over actions during that democratic movement?
>
> "Credible sources estimated that as many as 2,000 persons remained in
> prison at year's end for their activities during the June 1989 Tiananmen
> demonstrations."
>
> What about the "gulags" in China, labor camps that echo the tactics of
> Stalin in the Soviet Union?  Those are on the way out, given the progress of
> US "engagement" in improving China's human rights, correct?  No!
>
> "Over 250,000 persons were serving sentences, not subject to judicial
> review, in "reeducation-through-labor" camps. In April, inmate Zhang Bin was
> beaten to death in a reeducation-through-labor camp, prompting public debate
> on reeducation through labor and calls to abolish the system."
>
> It seems there is "fairly tale" mentality involved in how US citizens view
> human rights in China.  We tend to think there is steady and real progress
> being made on human rights in China, with the "free market" changes being
> introduced.  After all, the mantra from the US "pro-free trade engagement"
> model to justify not taking a more substantive forceful approach to
> improving China's human rights, is that US engagement with free trade will
> eventually create a climate where China will improve its human rights of its
> own accord.  Really?  Then why does the US State Dept. describe what is
> happening in China on various human rights issues as "backsliding?"
>
> "Although legal reforms continued, there was backsliding on key human
> rights issues during the year, including arrests of individuals discussing
> sensitive subjects on the Internet, health activists, labor protesters,
> defense lawyers, journalists, house church members, and others seeking to
> take advantage of the space created by reforms. Citizens did not have the
> right peacefully to change their government, and many who openly expressed
> dissenting political views were harassed, detained, or imprisoned.
> Authorities were quick to suppress religious, political, and social groups
> that they perceived as threatening to government authority or national
> stability."
>
> The above report from the US State Dept. was released in 2004, based on
> 2003 information.  In case someone thinks in two years substantive positive
> changes have been made in China's human rights, keep reading below, again
> from US State Dept. reports.  At least the Chinese government has
> "officially" removed the requirement that family Bible studies in homes must
> register with the government.
>
> http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2006/Mar/10-815538.html
>  China Increases Censorship of Media, Human-Rights Report SaysState
> Department report also cites increased detention of political activists
>    Washington -- China has increased its controls over political activists
> and the media, according to the State Department's latest *Country Reports
> on Human Rights Practices*.
> "There was a trend towards increased harassment, detention, and
> imprisonment by government and security authorities of those perceived as
> threatening to government authority. The government also adopted measures to
> control more tightly print, broadcast and electronic media, and censored
> online content. Protests by those seeking to redress grievances increased
> significantly and were suppressed, at times violently, by security forces"
> in 2005, according to the report.
> The report presented a long list of human-rights problems in China,
> including:
> � Denial of the right to change the government;
> � Physical abuse resulting in deaths in custody;
> � Torture and coerced confessions of prisoners;
> � Harassment, detention and imprisonment of those perceived as threatening
> to party and government authority;
> � Arbitrary arrest and detention, including nonjudicial administrative
> detention, re-education-through-labor, psychiatric detention and extended or
> incommunicado pretrial detention;
> � Detention of political prisoners, including those convicted of
> disclosing state secrets and subversion, those convicted under the
> now-abolished crime of counterrevolution and those jailed in connection with
> the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations; and
> �  House arrest and other nonjudicially approved surveillance and
> detention of dissidents.
> Even if they manage to avoid imprisonment and related abuses, Chinese
> citizens suffered significant curtailments of personal freedom and privacy.
> The government monitors citizens' mail, telephone and electronic
> communications and uses a coercive birth-limitation policy. In 2005, China
> increased restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, closed newspapers
> and journals, banned politically sensitive books, periodicals and films and
> jammed some broadcast signals, according the report.
> The State Department also found that over the course of the year,
> governmental restrictions continued on freedom of assembly, including
> detention and abuse of demonstrators and petitioners; religious freedom,
> extending to control of religious groups and harassment and detention of
> unregistered religious groups; and freedom to travel, especially for
> politically sensitive and underground religious figures.
> Other abuses listed in the report included:
> � Forcible repatriation of North Koreans and inadequate protection of many
> refugees;
> � Severe government corruption;
> � Increased scrutiny, harassment and restrictions on independent domestic
> and foreign nongovernmental organization (NGO) operations;
> � Trafficking in women and children;
> � Societal discrimination against women, minorities and persons with
> disabilities;
> � Cultural and religious repression of minorities in Tibetan areas and
> Muslim areas of Xinjiang;
> � Restriction of labor rights, including freedom of association, the right
> to organize and bargain collectively and worker health and safety; and
> � Forced labor, including prison labor.
> On the positive side, the government returned authority to approve death
> sentences to the Supreme People's Court, supported local experiments to
> record police interrogation of suspects and limited the administrative
> detention of minors, the elderly, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
> In March 2005, government officials stated that family Bible studies in
> private homes need not be registered with the government and said that the
> law permitted religious education of minors, although problems continued in
> both areas.  The government adopted amendments to the law protecting women's
> rights and interests, including one outlawing sexual harassment, and
> ratified International Labor Organization Convention 111 prohibiting
> discrimination in employment.
> For more information on U.S. policy, see *The United States and China<http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/east_asia_pacific/china.html>
> * and *Human Rights <http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/human_rights.html>*.
> The China section <http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61605.htm> of
> the State Department's *2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices* is
> available on the State Department Web site.
> -----------------
> Ted Moffett
>
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