House of Commons - Foreign Affairs

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Tenth Report

HUMAN RIGHTS

19. We turn now to the British Government's objective of promoting positive change in human rights. There have indeed been some positive changes since our predecessor committee reported in 1994. Nor could anyone deny that there have been major advances in standards of living and in economic and social opportunities for the great mass of the Chinese people. Nevertheless, it is unfortunately not possible to record steady progress on human rights in China. Indeed, many of our witnesses echoed the Government's own evidence that "over the last two years there has been a marked deterioration in respect of key civil and political rights including the freedoms of expression, assembly, association, conscience and religion."[37] It was put more starkly by the organisation Human Rights in China (HRIC). They told us that "human rights abuses have reached such alarming proportions since late 1998 that HRIC believes that the Government of China is currently conducting the most ruthless suppression of dissent since the crackdown on the 1989 demonstrations."[38] We return later to an analysis of why the recent crackdown has occurred.[39]

20. We describe below the principal areas of human rights concerns and we then turn to arguments that China is progressing in the right direction or that its position means that it should be regarded as a special case. Next we look at the response of the British Government and the EU to human rights concerns. We address an old dilemma: has the Government got the balance right between a desire to promote good relations in the political, economic and commercial fields, and the commitment we expect to absolute standards of human rights? What more could it do? What could it do differently? First we describe the difficulties which we ourselves faced in trying to pursue a human rights agenda during our visit to China.

Chinese restrictions upon the Committee

21. When we pay visits abroad it is our normal practice to meet those who support and those who oppose the government of the country concerned. We were therefore anxious to have an opportunity to meet those in China who are opposed to the current regime, or who hold views on human rights, including political, religious and environmental rights, which are at odds with those of the Chinese Government. Our wish was made known to the FCO in April. FCO officials outlined a number of problems to the Committee Clerk, but our intention remained firm. We were therefore delighted when the Foreign Secretary (giving evidence in public on 7 June before the Feira European Council) told us that the FCO would "certainly seek to do all we can to assist" us in holding meetings with human rights activists—though he did warn that "in the nature of China, we cannot guarantee we will succeed."[40]

22. Various plans were formulated. On Friday 16 June, two days before we were due to leave for China, we were told that the Chinese Government had become aware of our intentions and found them unacceptable. This was explained in more detail at a meeting to which our Ambassador in Beijing was summoned late in the afternoon of Sunday 18 June at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Deputy Director of the West European Department of the Ministry, Wu Hongbo, conveyed the Chinese Government's "serious concern" at our "inappropriate demand" to meet human rights activists, and at the Foreign Secretary's response to our wish. Wu warned of the negative consequences for the bilateral relationship, and told our Ambassador that his Government neither welcomed nor allowed activities of this kind. He told the Ambassador that the Chinese Government "would definitely not allow" a meeting with human rights activists to take place. Quite properly, our Ambassador responded by stressing the independence of British parliamentary committees from the Executive, and queried the legal basis for preventing Committee Members meeting Chinese citizens.

23. In the event, we reluctantly decided not to hold the meetings which we had planned because of advice we received that there would be considerable personal dangers for any Chinese national who might have the audacity to criticise the Chinese Government to us or generally to discuss human rights. (In a similar way, the Foreign Secretary told us that if he mentioned any political activist to us by name, that person would be liable to arrest the following day.)[41] We challenged Vice Minister Ma Canrong on his Government's stance. He told us that we should respect the wishes of our hosts (our formal host was the National People's Congress), and not do what our hosts disliked. In his view, dissidents were hostile to the Chinese Government, and friendship would be prejudiced if the Committee met such people. China welcomed criticism based on goodwill, he told us, but establishing relations with people who were hostile to the Chinese Government was not a way of fostering goodwill. We found this explanation chilling. We conclude that the way we were prevented from meeting human rights activists during our visit was a graphic illustration for us personally of the absence of human rights in China.

Human rights concerns

24. The FCO notes that "the Government has placed human rights at the centre of its foreign policy."[42] It is therefore appropriate that human rights should affect the United Kingdom's relations with other states. We address here the many areas where respect for human rights in China falls well below international norms, and China's response to criticisms of its record.

SUPPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS

25. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to freedom of expression and association. China signed the Covenant in October 1998, but has yet to ratify it. However, only hours after the China Democratic Party was founded in July of that year, a process of arresting its members began. According to Amnesty International, this "started a chain of protests by other dissidents, many of whom were themselves subsequently harassed, questioned or detained."[43] According to the FCO, "the handing down of excessive sentences to democracy activists.... has become a regular feature" of the last two years in China, "with extensive arrests and heavy sentences designed to inhibit any attempts to form alternative political parties."[44] The Foreign Secretary spoke of "a very determined effort to round up dissidents".[45] Detailed evidence about individual activists sentenced to long terms of imprisonment by what were, effectively, kangaroo courts was produced by HRIC.[46] For example, Xu Wenli was convicted in December 1998 of "endangering state security" in connection with his efforts to establish the China Democratic Party. He was sentenced to 13 years after a one-day trial, and is being denied medical treatment for his hepatitis. In May 1999, a journalist Yu Dongyue threw paint at the portrait of Mao in Tiananmen Square. He was sentenced to 20 years, and has been savagely beaten and confined to an isolation cell. Nick Rufford of The Sunday Times drew our attention to the case of Jiang Qisheng, held incommunicado for 14 months in a detention centre in Beijing charged with conspiracy to overthrow the state for having written an essay advocating social reform. The maximum penalty he faces is death.[47] We conclude that Chinese actions against democracy activists are entirely out of keeping with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, with its guarantees of freedom of opinion and expression, and of the right to take part in public affairs through free elections.

SUPPRESSION OF WORKERS' RIGHTS

26. Of the seven "core labour standards" Conventions of the International Labour Organisation, China has ratified only Convention No. 100 on Equal Remuneration, and Convention No. 138 on Minimum Age. According to the FCO, China plans to consider ratification of Convention No. 111 (Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)) after changes to domestic legislation. There are no moves to ratify Conventions Nos. 29 (Forced Labour), 105 (Abolition of Forced Labour), 87 (Freedom of Association), or 98 (Right to Organise/Collective Bargaining). According to the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, there has been "rampant violation" of Conventions Nos. 87 and 98 in China, with long prison terms being imposed on organisers of peaceful labour protest actions.[48] According to the FCO, "the Chinese Government have said that prevailing economic and social considerations in China have militated against consideration of the ratification" of the core conventions not so far ratified.[49]

27. Amnesty International also told us that independent trade unions were illegal, and that "activists who attempted to organise independent labour action continued to be detained, imprisoned or subjected to 're-education through labour'."[50] This action against workers' representatives comes at a time when there is evidence of growing labour unrest, probably exacerbated by increasing disparities in wealth and the move towards a market economy without the guarantees of full employment of the state-controlled system.[51] We discuss below[52] some of the economic conditions which are contributing to this unrest. Labour activists whom we met suggested that there was considerable unrest among workers in China who were faced with unemployment: one case cited was of miners told they were to be made redundant and offered only $1,300 compensation for 30 years' employment. They had gone on strike, but their leaders had been arrested and were expected to be charged with endangering state security. We conclude that the Chinese suppression of workers' rights is not in keeping with the rights under Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to freedom of association and to form and join trade unions.

SUPPRESSION OF SUPPORT FOR NATIONAL MINORITIES' RIGHTS

28. More than 90 per cent of the population of China are Han Chinese, but there are over 50 recognised minority nationalities, and 159 national autonomous areas. In three national minorities areas there has been particular resistance to rule from Beijing. We deal with each of these below.

Tibet

29. There is a long-standing and well organised campaign in the United Kingdom and internationally to support Tibetan claims to independence,[53] and we received evidence from the Tibet Information Network, the Free Tibet Campaign, the Tibet Society and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet as well as from individuals. Essentially their argument was that the human rights failings which we list in this report as occurring throughout China occur in an intensified form in Tibet, where an indigenous people is being subjected to foreign occupation and the suppression of its traditional culture and religion. Vivid evidence was presented of the stifling of any pro-independence sentiments in Tibet, or of support for the Dalai Lama. There was also clear evidence of the movement of Han Chinese into Tibet, so reducing the proportion of the indigenous Tibetan people in Tibet. Many individual cases of abuse were cited to us, such as the deaths of at least ten prisoners following peaceful protests in Drapchi prison in May 1998,[54] or the continued detention of the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who has not been seen for five years and, at ten years old, is one of the world's youngest political prisoners,[55] if indeed he is alive.

30. China has not responded to many individual cases raised by international organisations. For example, despite pressure from the British Government and others,[56] it has failed to give international access to the Panchen Lama. On the general issue, the official Chinese line is that Tibet has been a part of China since the thirteenth century, and that the national rights and interests of the Tibetan people and their freedom of religious belief are protected by the Chinese Constitution. The Dalai Lama is accused of promoting independence for Tibet and of the cardinal sin of "splittism". It was also argued to us by Chinese officials that the pre-Chinese administration of Tibet was feudal, and that enormous political and economic progress has occurred as a result of Chinese rule, though, as Alison Reynolds of the Free Tibet Campaign pointed out, it cannot be said that Tibet would not have made economic and political progress if it had not been under Chinese rule.[57]

Xinjiang

31. Over seven million Turkic speaking, mainly Islamic Uighurs live in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. The area is booming economically following industrial development, and the exploitation of oil and gas deposits and mineral resources. There are autonomist movements in the area, and, according to Dr Michael Dillon of Durham University, these have strengthened since 1990.[58] Dr Dillon provided us with a most useful memorandum specifically on the problems of the autochthonous peoples of Xinjiang, and the history of savage repression by the Beijing authorities. Separatists have responded violently, and have claimed responsibility for terrorist bomb attacks in Beijing and in the regional capital, Urumqi. An explosion which killed at least 60 and injured over 300 in Urumqi on 8 September 2000 was (at least initially) blamed on separatists.[59] It is, of course, perfectly proper for the Chinese to respond vigorously to terrorism, but alleged terrorists have been dealt with harshly, with executions earlier in the summer of a number of men linked to a "reactionary Muslim organisation" involved in bomb-making. There was also a report that Abduhelil Abdulmejit, who had led insurrection campaigns, had been tortured to death in October 2000.[60]

32. Not only those involved in violence have been badly treated: the FCO referred to "infringement of religious freedom, arbitrary detention of ethnic minority activists and an increasing number of executions", and told us that Ministers had raised the case of Rebiya Kadeer, sentenced to eight years for "passing state intelligence abroad"—her crime having been to send newspaper clippings to her husband in the USA.[61] Mrs Kadeer was detained while on her way to meet a delegation from the US Congressional Research Service.[62] Amnesty International's evidence described "appalling repression" of national minorities and "gross violations of human rights" in Xinjiang, including arbitrary and summary executions, cruel methods of torture and unfair trials. They told us that "many Uighurs were arbitrarily detained for their suspected views, associations or peaceful activities."[63] Dr Dillon described the "harsh censorship and repression" in Xinjiang and pointed out that "there is no political route available for the peaceful expression of Uyghur[64] aspirations to independence or autonomy," but that such expressions are seen as "a manifestation of separatism and therefore as acts of treason."[65] He also told us that Beijing had made common cause with neighbouring Central Asian Governments concerned about Islamist movements in their own territories.

Inner Mongolia

33. More Mongols live in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China than in Mongolia itself, and we were told that a nationalist movement is developing there, which has again given rise to human rights violations.[66] Two individual cases—Hada and Tegexi—were cited to us by HRIC. These are men sentenced to long periods of imprisonment for involvement with the peaceful Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance.[67] Accusations against them included "conspiring to subvert the government", "spying", "splitting the country" and "organising a counter-revolutionary group." We received a confidential report from a person who did not wish to be publicly identified, but who has considerable knowledge of Mongolia.[68] According to this report, Inner Mongolia is now more tightly controlled politically than at any time during the 1990s; Mongol pastoralists have been losing land to Han Chinese, and Mongols have been evicted from traditional lands without compensation for what are said to be environmental reasons; Mongolian Buddhist organisations are more heavily repressed than their Tibetan counterparts; it is said that Mongols do not have access to law, and Mongolian history and sense of identity are systematically distorted and denigrated. The fact that the author of this report did not wish to be identified and did not wish its sources to be identifiable is itself indicative of the level of fear in Inner Mongolia. We conclude that Chinese practices in respect of national minorities are not fully in keeping with the spirit of Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under which persons belonging to national minorities "shall not be denied the right.... to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion or to use their own language."

SUPPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF BELIEF

34. The problems described in the previous section have an important religious element: Tibetan Buddhism and Islam among the Uighurs are important manifestations of national identity, and evidence from Human Rights Watch gave clear examples of suppression of Tibetan Buddhism and of Islam in Xinjiang.[69] More generally, China appears to regard free expression of religion or other belief as a threat, despite the guarantees in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed if not ratified. According to Dr Dillon, post revolutionary China has always been "an atheist state which has formally guaranteed freedom of religious expressions while ruthlessly suppressing any religious organisations which it was not able to neutralise or control."[70] In January 1999 a campaign to promote atheism was launched.[71] State sponsored bodies represent Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Daoism and Islam, but there is no tolerance of house churches, Catholics who are loyal to Rome, millenarian Daoist sects, Moslem Sufi organisations and new belief systems such as Falun Gong and Zhonggong. We understand that the Pope has not been allowed to conduct a pastoral visit to Hong Kong, a matter to which the Foreign Secretary took exception.[72] According to the China Forum of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (whose evidence was not related to Christianity alone) "the predominant pattern tends towards a policy giving relative freedom to the recognised and registered bodies and harsh oppression to those that refuse to come under its administrative supervision."[73] Similarly, Human Rights Watch wrote that "religious activity has continued to be strictly controlled along lines dictated by political calculation."[74]

35. We received particularly striking evidence on the repression of Christian churches (including house churches and the Roman Catholic Church) from Christian Solidarity Worldwide,[75] and a large number of individual British Christians wrote to us asking us to take up this issue in our inquiry. We also received a number of documents originating from official Chinese sources which showed how the state has mobilised against evangelical church movements with petty acts of vengeance and discrimination against those who adhere to unofficial religious groups. Two individual cases are indicative of the wholly unacceptable behaviour of the Chinese authorities. Pastor Li Dexian is an evangelical pastor in Guangdong Province. His fellowship meetings have been disrupted repeatedly and he has been arrested many times as well as being abused in custody. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, in April 2000 his wrists were chained to his ankles for five days and he was given no access to lavatory facilities.[76] Human Rights Watch corroborated the "repeated detention and ill-treatment" of Li. Archbishop Yang Shudao of Fuzhou in Fujijan Province, who is 81, was arrested by 150 police officers at midnight on 10 February 2000. According to Human Rights Watch, his whereabouts "remain undisclosed". Christian Solidarity Worldwide said that he had been released—unlike a number of his priests who have "disappeared" or have been killed.[77]

36. The practice of Falun Gong has also occasioned repressive measures by the Chinese authorities. It appears that the Chinese were particularly rattled by a peaceful demonstration by 10,000 Falun adherents outside the government compound in Beijing in April 1999—a demonstration of which the Chinese Government had no prior intelligence. Again in Tiananmen Square on 1 October 2000 demonstrators were, in the words of the FCO, "roughly rounded up".[78] We received evidence from the Falun Gong Association of Great Britain[79] that Falun Gong is essentially a peaceful method of self-development, based on ancient Chinese thought. It would attract no attention from the authorities of any state which truly respected human rights. Instead, as James Harding of the Financial Times put it, the way the movement has been treated "has been a remarkable illustration both of the anxieties of the Chinese leadership but also its willingness to use force to suppress anything that resembles a gathering of Chinese people that is not organised by the authorities."[80] According to Amnesty International,[81] "thousands of members of the.... movement were arbitrarily detained and put under pressure to renounce their beliefs. Some were reportedly tortured or ill-treated, resulting in at least one death." Examples of the treatment meted out to Falun Gong practitioners include an 18 year sentence given to Li Chang, an official of the Public Security Ministry, who participated in the April demonstration.[82] We conclude that Chinese practices in relation to religions and belief systems are not in keeping with Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the rights to hold any religion or belief and to manifest it.

FAIR LEGAL SYSTEM

37. China cannot be described as a law-governed society. This is because the Party has great influence in the judicial system and there is no separation of powers in the way classically understood in the West. We heard several times from Chinese officials about the importance of "rule by law" as distinct from the "rule of law", with the implication that law applies to the governed but not to those who govern. According to the FCO[83] there are

"serious concerns about the right to fair treatment in the legal process, including the right to a fair trial and freedom from arbitrary detention and about the use of 'Re-education through labour'. There is widespread abuse of the system of administrative detention, through which the police hold thousands of individuals without judicial assessment of the validity of the 'crime' or any right to challenge the detention."

Illustrations of an unfair legal system in many individual cases were given by all the human rights organisations in their written evidence. The Tibet Information Network gave illustrations of the skewed criminal law system, and also described how laws on subversion or national security—which every state has—are used in ways which suppress dissent.[84] As the journalist John Gittings put it[85]: "any overt political challenge to the ruling party is very likely to result in a prison sentence, often after a manifestly unfair trial, or in 'administrative detention' (which requires no judicial process at all)." HRIC also gave us details of the extrajudicial systems of administrative detention, "re-education through labour" and "custody and repatriation", all of which, according to the HRIC, cumulatively result in the detention in miserable conditions of hundreds of thousands of people.[86] The Foreign Secretary referred to his concerns about the "sharp rise" in the use of administrative detention on a number of occasions.[87] We conclude that the system of criminal justice in China is not in keeping with Articles 9 or 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, with their guarantees against arbitrary arrest or detention, and their guarantee of fair trials.

DETENTION CONDITIONS AND TORTURE

38. Conditions in many Chinese prisons and detention centres are reported to be extremely poor, and exacerbated by unacceptable practices such as torture, beatings or other abuse. According to Amnesty International, there is also a serious problem of routine denial of medical treatment or of family visits.[88] Many individual cases were cited to us. For example, Zhang Lin, a pro-democracy and labour rights activist held in Guangzhou, has reportedly been repeatedly beaten and tortured on at least six occasions. He has also been abused by other prisoners, acting on the orders of the prison guards. Unsurprisingly, his health is poor, but he is still required to work 14 hours a day. He has twice attempted suicide.[89]

39. Amnesty International has reported that torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects is common in China, with "kicking, beating, electric shocks, hanging by the arms, shackling in painful positions, and sleep and food deprivation" among the methods used.[90] According to HRIC, "torture remains a systemic problem in China that potentially affects all individuals deprived of their liberty, from common criminal suspects to political prisoners and street children."[91] We conclude that there is prima facie evidence that China has not complied with the provisions of the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, notwithstanding the fact that China has both signed and ratified this Convention.

DEATH PENALTY

40. The FCO wrote that "China continues to carry out more judicial executions than all other countries combined."[92] According to Amnesty International, there were 27,120 death sentences and 18,000 executions officially recorded in the 1980s, though these "were believed to be only a fraction of the true figures."[93] Amnesty also told us that appeals were rarely successful; that sentences were often carried out within hours, and that mass executions occurred before public holidays, when death was sometimes imposed for "relatively minor crimes which would not attract such a sentence at other times of the year." The FCO told us that the Chinese had told HMG that "they wish to work towards" abolition of capital punishment,[94] but there seems little sign of this as yet. In addition to judicial executions, there are large numbers of reports of extra-judicial execution of dissidents and others.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

41. We received evidence from the Independent Tibet Network on China's birth control programme. The allegation is, essentially, that a policy of population limitation is enforced coercively, with compulsory and forced insertion of inter-uterine devices, compulsory sterilisation of couples with more than two children, and sterilisation of those deemed to suffer from mental disabilities.[95] There have been instances, according to Amnesty International,[96] of people being detained so that pressure is put on pregnant relatives to terminate their pregnancy. From discussions we held with Zhu Dongmei of the All-China Women's Federation, we were led to believe that the one-child policy is interpreted strictly in urban areas, but more laxly in rural China. It does not apply to minorities. Zhu glossed over the compulsory aspects and stressed the need for education and persuasion. However, she did acknowledge that there were financial penalties for exceeding the quota—for example, no free health care or education for second or subsequent children. A story picked up from the People's Daily by the international press in September 2000 gave a glimpse of the level of abuse which can occur: Ji Qingzhen of Caidian, who was pregnant with her fourth child, was reported to have been forcibly injected with a saline solution when eight months pregnant to induce an abortion. Instead she gave birth to a living child. Allegedly, the child was removed from his parents and drowned by family planning officials.[97] Of course, the fact that the story appeared in the People's Daily may indicate that central government believed that the local officials were acting improperly, though the system may encourage officials in rural areas to act in this way. We conclude that the restrictions on reproductive rights in China are not in keeping with Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which give men and women the right to found a family.

MEDIA FREEDOM

42. The Chinese media remain subject to heavy control. Lorna Ball of the BBC World Service described the Chinese media as "very lively and competitive", but still controlled.[98] For the journalist Graham Hutchings, press freedom was "virtually non-existent."[99] The authorities have also tried to restrict open access to the internet though it is possible to access Chinese language sites from Hong Kong, Taiwan or elsewhere through proxy servers. The BBC World Service argued that the Chinese were "faced with a difficult dilemma: if they wish to use the capacity of the internet to fuel economic growth, it will be difficult for them to continue censoring its use."[100] James Harding of the Financial Times drew our attention to the "untenable" State Council Directive that the only news which can be published on the internet is news which has already appeared in the print media.[101] He suggested that the Chinese leadership were terrified by the fact that they simply could not control the internet.[102] Lord Powell regarded the attempt to restrict internet access as nonsensical, absurd and ineffective,[103] and pointed out that "you cannot conduct modern business without access to the internet."[104] Since we received this evidence, there have been further attempts by the Chinese Government to crack down on attempts to use the internet to "hurt China's reputation", to "harm ethnic unity" or "advocate cults." There has been an attempt to restrict access to non-approved news sites and to curb the use of chat rooms. Foreign investment has also been restricted.[105] We conclude that restrictions on the media (including the electronic media) are not in keeping with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, with its guarantees of free expression and of the right to seek, receive and impart ideas of all kinds regardless of frontiers and through any medium.

CONCLUSION

43. It is apparent that human rights abuses in China are not one-off incidents, but result from the nature of the Chinese political system—a one-party Communist dictatorship, which rather than deriving its legitimacy from popular support, is fearful of the people, and therefore attempts to suppress dissent and prevent the development of power centres independent of the party. As Graham Hutchings told us, "civil, political and individual freedoms of the kind that we most value in the West have occurred in China by default, always by default. They are the result of indecision among the leadership about how to deal with a certain protest. They are the result of an inability of the leadership to physically suppress at any given time a certain problem."[106] We identify below some signs of pluralism developing in party and state structures, but dissent outside these structures, which might lead to a challenge to the Communist Party, is ruthlessly crushed.

44. China has long endured cycles of political liberalisation and repression. We have earlier mentioned the view that there has been a crackdown over the last two years.[107] When we asked the Foreign Secretary why this had occurred, he initially told us that he did not know. When pressed he explained that the Government had not asked the Chinese about their motivation because to do so might invite them to excuse what they had done. He did, however, advance a number of possible reasons for the recent deterioration in respect for human rights. He told us that Chinese leaders had been concerned by political upsets in other countries, and particularly in the former Soviet Union.[108] He also suggested that the Chinese were attempting to conduct an almost impossible balancing act of encouraging economic modernisation while preventing political change. As he told us, they would be "mistaken in imagining that you can proceed with a programme of economic modernisation... without that setting off in train a process of political change and demand for political pluralisation."[109] As we analyse elsewhere,[110] the limited liberalisation of the Chinese economy and the resulting unemployment and social unrest have also threatened the stability so important to the Chinese leadership, as have the attempts to create democratic parties in the wake of the Chinese signature of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to exercise freedom of belief by organisations like Falun Gong. A beleaguered leadership in Beijing, anxious to hold on to power, has seen itself over the last two years as having no alternative but to suppress any movement which threatens, even marginally, its position. It is equally plausible to argue that another factor which has caused the crackdown is a Chinese feeling that the international balance has tipped in their favour, with other countries less willing to criticise Chinese human rights abuses because of the market opportunities which they believe exist in an economically liberalised China.

45. China signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1997, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1998. It has not yet ratified either Covenant. (We return later to discuss how pressure may be put on China to ratify the Conventions.[111]) Of the other core United Nations Human Rights Instruments, China has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. By signing or ratifying these Treaties, China has accepted world standards of human rights, and it is entirely right that it should be judged by those world standards.[112] By the international standards which China has itself accepted, we must conclude that China is guilty of persistent and major abuse of human rights.

37 Ev. p. 105. Back

38 Ev. p. 243, Appendix 40. Back

39 See paras. 43ff. Back

40 Q203 (HC 68-ii, Minutes of Evidence on Feira European Council, 7 June 2000). Back

41 Q259. Back

42 FCO Annual Report 2000, Cm 4609, p. 65. Back

43 Ev. p. 78. Back

44 Ev. pp. 105 and 106. Back

45 Q232. Back

46 Ev. pp. 249ff, Appendix 40. Back

47 Ev. p. 260, Appendix 46. Back

48 Ev. p. 237, Appendix 35. Back