APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by Professor Rosemary
Foot, St Antony's College, Oxford
In a recent article published shortly before
Dr Gerald Segal's untimely death, he concluded that China is a
middle range state in economic and military terms, and with little
ability to attract political followers[1].
He also noted that Western countries have tended to lack a sense
of proportion when it has come to the assessment of China's power
and importance. Although for polemical purposes Dr Segal clearly
overstated his case, there is value in reviewing his article,
especially in reference to the major topic of my memorandum, that
is the difficult issue of how best to promote human rights protections
in China[2].
My main aim in this memorandum is to make a
case for a serious appraisal of the UK government's bilateral
dialogue on human rights with China, an evaluation of its legal
and human rights training programmes, and a reconsideration of
its position with respect to co-sponsorship of a draft resolution
condemning the Chinese record at the annual meetings in Geneva
of the UN Commission on Human Rights. With regard to the latter
point, evidence suggests that the UN Commission draft resolution
in the past prompted several positive developments in China's
response to the international human rights regime, thus suggesting
that the UK government should consider re-building the coalition
of states that had been in support of such action.
The first draft resolution of this kind was
introduced in 1990 after the Tiananmen bloodshed had firmly put
the matter of human rights' abuses in China onto the global agenda.
It was reintroduced every year after that, except for 1991 and
1998. In response to these draft resolutions, the Chinese delegation
at the UNCHR has put forward—or in earlier years persuaded
Pakistan to introduce—a procedural "no-action"
resolution to prevent debate on the substantive resolution. In
each year, apart from 1995, this no-action device has been successful.
However, although 1995 represented a victory of sorts for those
sponsoring the draft condemnatory resolution, when the substantive
draft was debated it failed to pass by one vote.
It was partly in response to these voting failures
that, in 1998, the British government, together with its EU partners,
decided not to sponsor such a draft resolution, and to substitute
private diplomacy on human rights questions. Adopting Chinese
language, the UN route came to be described as confrontational,
and the private bilateral dialogues as a more consensual approach.
The EU was joined in this decision not to co-sponsor by the Australians,
the Japanese, and Canadians, among others. The Americans also
did not co-sponsor in 1998, although in the last two years they
have reverted to the earlier policy decision. Even before 1998,
the EU coalition, and Western group more broadly, was clearly
in some disarray over the matter, with the French government in
particular strongly advancing the argument that the annual attempts
to introduce a condemnatory resolution had not borne fruit and
were a waste of time and effort.
Evidence suggests, however, that while the annual
resolution may have frequently been defeated by China's no-action
device, the Western group's decision to co-sponsor a draft resolution
played a significant role over the years in drawing China into
the international human rights regime. Prior to the annual gatherings
in Geneva, China worked hard to make sure that its no-action motion
would gain majority support, and to attempt to break apart the
western coalition, a coalition that was growing in strength over
the course of the 1990s as a result of support from those newly-democratising
countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America that had become
members of the Commission. China engaged in this lobbying behaviour
even though the draft resolution would have no direct material
effects, thus indicating its concern with international image.
Several consequences of these annual UN meetings
can be discerned: they helped prompt Beijing's 1997 and 1998 decisions
to sign the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights,
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
led to frequent reiteration of its commitment to legal reform,
agreement to host visits by the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, and to invite a UN Needs Assessment Mission into the country[3].
Moreover, the State Council produced a number of White Papers
on "the Progress of Human Rights in China" around the
time of the Geneva meetings, White Papers that over time began
to move away from giving primacy of place to "subsistence"
rights towards the need to promote the full range of rights, including
civil and political. These developments have been important not
only in signalling to an international audience China's apparent
acceptance of the core norms of the human rights regime, but also
in providing openings for domestic groups in China keen to advance
legal reform in areas that have a bearing on civil rights. Although
Beijing's actions do not solve the huge problems associated with
implementation of human rights protections, they are important
and essential steps along that road.
It may be that the UK government believes that
more is being achieved through the private bilateral or EU human
rights dialogues with China. The legal and human rights training
programmes for Chinese officials and academics are also often
heralded as important contributions[4].
If that is so, then the case needs to be made, and the training
programmes carefully evaluated. It should be remembered in addition,
however, that China's concerns about international image and domestic
legitimacy have meant that the UN route has been important in
the past in drawing China into public support of the international
human rights regime. Furthermore, at a time when the Chinese state
is dealing particularly harshly with dissent, avoidance of the
Geneva resolution demonstrates an inconsistency in commitment
to human rights on the part of democratic states and a failure
to use all the mechanisms that are available to draw attention
to the unacceptability of Chinese behaviour.
The assumption is that the Chinese government
will exact some form of economic retribution against any state
that publicly criticises its human rights record, or that Beijing
will become less cooperative over other issues (for example, in
areas such as weapons proliferation, diplomacy connected with
Korean developments, and so on). The belief is also held that
China will break off some of the bilateral training agreements
that it has signed with a wide range of governments. Empirical
support for these contentions is slight, however, because in several
of these cases China's own interests are satisfied by the established
agreement or relationship; in other cases its objectives are close
to those of the West. Although human rights cannot be given priority
in every circumstance in the relationship with China, careful
consideration of the occasions when persuasion and leverage can
be exerted should be undertaken. Such leverage will be most effective
when it is undertaken with like-minded others in bodies such as
the UN Commission which have considerable legitimacy in this issue
area.
1 Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 1999 Back
2
I am assuming that others will be submitting memoranda on the
security and economic questions involving China, and thus I shall
not be touching on these topics directly. Back
3
The Chinese government signed a Memorandum of Intent signalling
future commitment to fulfilling some of the recommendations made
by the UN High Commissioner's office, but has yet to sign a Memorandum
of Understanding to give effect to the proposals made by the UN
Needs Assessment Mission. Back
4
One such evaluation sponsored by the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (SIDA) may be of relevance to the UK government's
programme and makes for interesting reading. See Anders Melbourn
and Marina Svensson, Swedish Human Rights Training in China: An
Assessment (February 1999). Back
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