APPENDIX 40
Memorandum submitted by Human Rights in
China
Human Rights in China (HRIC) is pleased that
the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons is conducting
a review of the China policy of the United Kingdom that includes
a significant and necessary focus on human rights, and is happy
to have the opportunity to make this submission on that topic.
I addition to an overview of China's current rights record, we
present to the Committee our analysis of bilateral dialogues on
human rights with China. We believe that it is a very appropriate
time to be having this discussion, since the European Union as
a whole is in the process of reassessing its human rights dialogue
with the People's Republic of China. HRIC's comments will highlight
our assessment of the dialogue, our concerns and recommendations
and a number of questions. We hope that in its review of policy
towards China, the Committee will take our information and suggestions
into account and convey them to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
OVERVIEW OF
CHINA'S
CURRENT HUMAN
RIGHTS SITUATION
While China signed the International Covenant
and Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1998 and 1997
respectively, to date it has failed to ratify either of these
core instruments, and has committed blatant violations of the
rights they contain. These violations include extensive use of
arbitrary detention, imprisonment of political and religious dissidents,
torture and ill-treatment of detainees, deprivation of the rights
to freedom of expression, association and assembly, widespread
failure to enforce laws protecting the rights of workers and women,
suppression of religious freedom and the use of physical and psychological
coercion in the implementation of the population control policy.
Some of these areas of abuse are detailed below. These 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.
Arbitrary detention and imprisonment
The current submission includes a list of documented
cases of individuals who have been detained because of the efforts
to publicize and organize around their political opinions, their
religious beliefs or their promotion of labor rights.
Repression of the China Democracy Party (CDP)
Since CDP leaders publicly announced the creation
of this organization two years ago, scores of CDP members and
sympathizers have been detained across the country, usually for
applying to register the CDP with the authorities as a legal and
independent political party at local or provincial levels. Prominent
CDP leaders whose arrest signalled the launching of the repression
in October 1998 are Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin and Wang Youcai, who
were sentenced to 13, 12 and 11 years respectively. All were convicted
of crimes "endangering state security." In August 1999,
Liu Xianbin, a CDP activist in Sichuan, was sentenced to 13 years
in prison for "conspiracy to endanger state security."
In the same month, CDP members She Wanbao, Zha Jianguo and Gao
Hongming received prison terms of 12, nine and eight years, respectively,
also for subversion. In December 1999, Hunan University Professor
Tong Shidong received a ten-year sentence, also for trying to
set up a CDP section.
In the trials of these and other activists,
the right to present a defense generally ignored, with defendants
often being prevented from making statements, even they had no
defense lawyers; in Lui Xianbin's case, for example, lawyers that
his family sought to hire received threats. In addition, proper
legal procedure was dispensed with, and the judges reproduced
almost verbatim the prosecution indictments as their "verdict,"
HRIC believes that the characterization of these "crimes"
and the sentences to be imposed were decided in advance by the
political authorities. Family members frequently had great difficulty
in attending such trial, or were barred from attending.
Repression of Falun Gong
The Chinese government continues to step up
its fight against the Falun Gong spiritual movement and to prevent
protests by practitioners reacting to the ongoing wave of abuses
against Falun Gong members. Tens of thousands of followers are
reported to have been arbitrarily detained, while thousands have
administratively sentenced to labor camps without trial. Some
practitioners have been sent to psychiatric hospitals for "education"
aimed at ending their belief in Falun Gong, while many others
have been detained for long periods. Large numbers of those detained
have reported brutal beatings and other forms of torture in custody,
and Falun Gong members have reported that more that 20 have died
occurred as a result of such maltreatment.
Repression against Falun Gong began in July
1999 when some 70 leaders were detained after the group was banned
as an "illegal organization." In April 1999, more than
10,000 Falun Gong members has staged a peaceful demonstration
in Beijing to demand official recognition. Some of the sentences
meted out to Falun Gong practitioners are the harshest known to
have been handed down to people for peaceful exercise of their
basic rights since the prosecution of 1989 demonstrators: 18 years
in the case of Li Chang, an official in the Public Security Ministry,
and 16 years in the case of Wang Zhiwen, both condemned after
a secret trial held on December 26, 1999; 17 years in the case
of 74 year old Yu Changxin, tried in January 2000.
These show trial and the stringent punishments
imposed are the inevitable product of a Decision passed by the
National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee on October
30, 1999. The resolution did not create any new legal standards
to pursue the government's anti-Falun Gong campaign, but called
for a political campaign reminiscent of the methods of the past
using the tools already available in the Criminal Code's provisions
allowing for the prosecution of those who use "secret societies
and heretical religious groups" to "disturb social order."
The NPC Decision was a political order to the country's entire
law enforcement apparatus to give priority to "smashing"
the Falun Gong and other "heretical" organizations.
Legal reform and basic rights
This NPC Decision demonstrates how the agenda
of China's judiciary continues to be set by the political priorities
of the ruling Party, rather than the exigencies of the law or
of social reality, a fact that HRIC believes calls into question
the direction of legal reform. The campaign against Falun Gong
is part of a wider effort to restrict freedom of association by
ensuring that all "legal" groups are strictly monitored
to make sure their activities conform with the leadership's objectives
and concerns and by ruthlessly suppressing any efforts to organize
independently, whether around issues of religion, politics, human
rights, or protecting workers. For more information about the
1998 regulations affecting freedom of association, passed in the
same month as China signed the ICCPR, see HRIC's report: "China:
Freedom of Association Regulated Away."
HRIC has documented the use of the Criminal
Law, particularly laws on state security and secrets, to imprison
people who have merely engaged in peaceful exercise of their basic
rights. HRIC believes that the Chinese government's suppression
of dissent has borne out concerns we and others have previously
expressed about how incorporating the term "state security"
into Chinese law actually served to broaden the state's capacity
to curtail fundamental rights. On this issue, see the joint HRIC/HRW
report: "Whose Security? 'State Security' in China's New
Criminal Code." The way this "legal reform" has
been used in the past few years to justify violations of basic
rights, including peaceful acts of freedom of expression, association
and assembly, is very clear.
Administrative Detention
The system of administrative detention, which
is totally outside the realm of the judicial supervision, remains
prevalent in China. Under this system, detainees are deprived
of their freedom and of their right to due process, including
a fair trial. We also believe that the lack of safeguards for
persons in administrative detention creates conditions in which
torture and ill-treatment are virtually endemic.
Reeducation through Labor (RTL) is still being
widely used despite the recommendations of the UN Working Group
on Arbitrary Detention and the Committee Against Torture that
it be abolished and the long campaign by Chinese legal scholars
and human rights groups to eliminate it. According to China's
official figures, a yearly total of over 200,000 people are currently
held under RTL, as compared to around 150,000 in the early 1990s.
RTL is applied by the public security departments alone, without
any judicial review, to people who have committed acts "too
minor" to merit formal prosecution. Those sentenced to RTL
are deprived of their rights to counsel, to a fair hearing and
to have the lawfulness of their detention reviewed by a judicial
authority. Although its maximum duration is three years, it can
be renewed for up to one more year if the detainee is considered
to have performed badly in his of her "reform." It is
frequently used to detain people who have peacefully exercised
their rights to freedom of thought, religion, expression and association,
and around 50 such people are known to have been sent to labor
camps in this way during the past year.
Another lesser known administrative measure
is "Custody and Repatriation" (C&R). C&R allows
for the arbitrary detention of people considered undesirable by
urban authorities whose household registration is nor located
in the city where they are living or working. Targets include
beggars, the homeless, street children, prostitutes and the mentally
ill, as well as migrant workers in low status occupations. C&R
affects upwards of two million people annually, with some five
to 20 percent of these being children, most of whom are detained
together with adults. Although generally imposed for up to ten
days, C&R essentially allows the police to detain anyone for
any reason virtually indefinitely. HRIC is concerned about the
lack of due process in this system of detention, which is frequently
used by police as a way of avoiding the procedural safeguards
recently incorporated into the criminal law. For more information
about C&R, HRIC refers the Committee to its report. "Not
Welcome at the Party: Behind the 'Clean-up' of China's Cities:
Administrative Detention under 'Custody and Repatriation'."
Torture and ill-treatment
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. According to HRIC's in-depth analysis of the legal framework
and of individual cases, torture and ill-treatment have not declined
despite various revisions made to the relevant laws and regulations.
A number of factors account for the persistence of the practice
of torture in China, in spite of the 1996 revisions to the Criminal
Procedure Law, defendants and suspects continue to be deprived
of their right to due process, including access to legal counsel,
the right to remain silent and the right against self-incrimination;
and coerced statements and evidence are still not excluded from
admission at trial. Despite the repeated efforts of Chinese legal
scholars to suggest further revisions to the law to better combat
torture and ill-treatment, the Chinese government has consistently
ignored their recommendations. For more information, see "Impunity
for Torturers Continues despite Changes in the Law," a report
by HRIC which was submitted to the UN Committee Against Torture
in May 2000.
IS DIALOGUE
APPROPRIATE TO
IMPROVE CHINA'S
HUMAN RIGHTS
SITUATION?
In its current form, the dialogue on human rights
between the European Union and China includes three aspects: a
political dialogue once during each EU presidency; technical seminars
between experts; and cooperation and training programs, about
which virtually no information has been made public. We refer
the members of the Committee to HRIC's report, "From Principle
to Pragmatism: can 'Dialogue' improve China's Human Rights Situation?"
Although this report does not contain a specific chapter on the
United Kingdom, it does include a section on Sweden which, like
the United Kingdom, has had its own human rights dialogue with
China, parallel to that of the EU. We consider that the analysis
ad conclusions contained in our report remain valid and hope that
the Committee will address some of the most pressing issues and
recommendations.
Human Rights in China (HRIC) is not opposed
to bilateral dialogue on human rights, or to cooperation or aid
programs aimed at achieving improvements in human rights through
such measures as funding legal aid programs and legal education,
or providing human rights training to officials involved in law
enforcement. It is clear that ending abuses of human rights in
China and creating effective protections for rights requires addressing
the fact that ignorance and lack of capacity are among the causes
of such abuses.
However, exclusive reliance on such approaches
fails to acknowledge the fact that another major cause of abuses
is intentional deprivation of rights, including officially-sanctioned,
legally-mandated restrictions on internationally-recognized rights
and freedoms. In addition to our reservations concerning the dialogue
process in itself—in particular its lack of transparency—HRIC
questions the wisdom of ignoring this reality, as is evidenced
by the complete substitution of quiet diplomacy for multilateral
and public pressure since the concentration on dialogue began.
We believe different approaches to promoting human rights should
mutually enhancing rather than exclusive.
In addition, the dialogue entirely excludes
many of those most actively engaged in promoting human rights
inside China. Achieving respect for human rights in the PRC depends
on the long-term process of heightening awareness of human rights
among the general population and the development of the domestic
human rights movement. We believe that public pressure, through
multilateral mechanisms in particular, provides crucial moral
support for those struggling to develop such a movement in very
difficult circumstances.
PRINCIPAL RECOMMENDATIONS
REGARDING THE
DIALOGUE AND
ITS RELATION
TO THE
OVERALL AIM
OF PROMOTING
HUMAN RIGHTS
PROGRESS
Human Rights in China's recommendations regarding
the form and substance of the dialogue and its relation to the
broader objectives of improving the human rights situation in
the PRC can be summarized under six main areas, which are outlined
below.
1. A CLEAR, SUBSTANTIVE
AGENDA
A clear agenda for substantive discussions should
be prepared in advance of each dialogue event, in consultation
with NGOs and experts involved in monitoring the human rights
situation in China. The agenda should thus be determined in part
by recent events in the PRC, and should be a way of highlighting
specific human rights abuses and seeking action to end them. The
focus should be on achieving specific objectives, such as pushing
for medical parole for dissidents with serious health problems,
raising concern about the use of "state security" as
a rationale for suppressing dissent emphasizing that the widespread
use of administrative detention is not in conformity with international
human rights standards, improving prison conditions, getting China
to ratify UN treaties and gaining full access to China for UN
human rights working groups and special rapporteurs and the International
Committee of the Red Cross.
In terms of objectives, dialogue should concentrate
on achieving tangible results, such as gaining the release of
human rights activists and other prisoners of conscience, further
revisions of the criminal law to bring it into conformity with
human rights norms and the abolition of Reeducation Through Labor
and other forms of administrative detention. Another focus should
be persuading Beijing to accede quickly to treaties to which China
is still not a party, particularly those which are included in
the International Bill of Human Rights, without entering any reservations.
Primary focus should be placed on implementing the provisions
of these, and of the treaties China has already ratified.
2. TRANSPARENT
AND ACCOUNTABLE
PROCESS
Transparency and accountability should be fundamental
principles for all participants in dialogue and cooperation programs.
The United Kingdom should be encouraged to make public the schedule
and content of the dialogue ahead of each session, and report
regularly on the achievements of the dialogue in particular.
All programs associated with the dialogue should
be established on a basis of transparency and accountability,
with cooperation programs carefully designed so that they address
the real causes of human rights violations. Training and cooperation
programs should be publicly and thoroughly described: goals and
means, stage of implementation, budget, participants, timeframe
and results; regular, independent evaluation of programs should
be undertaken based on established benchmarks, so as to ensure
that they continue to work towards such objectives.
In addition, the United Kingdom should make
public the content of its political and technical exchanges with
the PRC. The virtually complete blackout on reporting back regarding
responses (if any) to individual cases and situations raised in
the political dialogue means that there is no possibility of follow-up
on such matters, and thus raising them becomes a singularly pointless
exercise.
Transparancy should also be the rule in financial
matters. We believe in particular that funding of independent
human rights organizations working on China should not be discarded
in the name of preserving the dialogue with China. If this were
the case, effectively the UK would be excluding funding for human
rights monitoring and advocacy from its China programme. Thus
HRIC particularly welcomes the approval by the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office Human Rights Project Fund of its grant proposal for research
and advocacy on internal migration. Additionally, we encourage
the Committee to conduct an investigation into how the budget
earmarked for the dialogue in the UK is spent, and to compare
this amount with that given in grants to international NGOs working
on China's human rights situation.
3. INDEPENDENT
PARTICIPATION
A more pluralistic dialogue, which involves
actors independent of governments, would better serve the cause
of human rights. Truly constructive dialogue can only occur when
China allows for the participation of independent social groups,
scholars and lawyers and other individuals. As well as inviting
independent international human rights organizations to participate
in the dialogue, the United Kingdom should encourage the Chinese
government to engage in dialogue domestically, rather than only
internationally.
For the first time ever in the history of the
EU-China dialogue, at the May 1998 round, when the United Kingdom
held the EU presidency, NGOs were involved. Amnesty International
and the Council of Churches for Great Britain and Ireland participated
in the meeting with the Chinese delegates. The Free Tibet Campaign
and the June Fourth Support Group were on the NGO list submitted
by the British government to the Chinese delegation, who refused
to meet representatives of these two groups. The meeting was not
public, and none of the participants have disclosed any information
about it. Other NGOs were subsequently involved in the October
1998 dialogue session. Since then, most of them have decided,
for their own reasons, to drop out of this process. Nevertheless,
the question remains open. Participation of international, independent
human rights organizations obviously gives rise to a problem of
legitimacy: in the absence of independent human rights NGOs in
China, who would be their counterparts? The United Kingdom, and
the EU as a whole, should draw more systematically on the expertise
that could be provided by China scholars and human rights organizations.
4. COORDINATION
BETWEEN DIALOGUE
PARTNERS
The profusion of existing bilateral dialogues,
including in Europe alone, has considerably weakened the multilateral
approach, such as addressing China's egregious violations of human
rights at the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR). International
coordination is therefore essential. Countries that are engaging
in human rights dialogues with China should coordinate among themselves,
so as to use the opportunities most effectively and to prevent
duplication and waste of resources. It is particularly urgent
that coordination improve between China's dialogue partners within
the European Union, so as to prevent the dialogue being used to
split countries seeking improvements in China's human rights practices,
as has been the case for the European Union in 1997 in regard
to action at the CHR. The United Kingdom should also join efforts
with Eastern European countries as, most recently, Hungary also
initiated its own bilateral dialogue on human rights with China.
Wherever possible, countries should seek to use multilateral approaches
to dealing with human rights violations in China. The United Kingdom
should make it one of its priorities to coordinate with China's
other dialogue partners, and with the European Union. In this
respect, it would be useful to know how countries are coordinating
and sharing information regarding dialogues at national level
and the EU dialogue as well.
5. COOPERATION
WITH UN HUMAN
RIGHTS MECHANISMS
The United Nations and its human rights mechanisms
have a global mandate to monitor and promote human rights, and
have a unique legitimacy in doing so. The prestige of the United
Nations in China remains high. Cooperating with the UN human rights
mechanisms is crucial so that all countries engaged in a human
rights dialogue with China build on and reinforce positive results
generated by the work of UN procedures. For example, in May 2000,
the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) recommended that China
eliminate all forms of administrative detention. This is a recommendation
that should be taken up in every dialogue.
However. China's dialogue partners should not
confuse pro forma and genuine cooperation. Both the 1997 visit
of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and China's invitation
to the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nigel Rodley, have been
much touted as "achievements" of the bilateral human
rights dialogues in pushing the Chinese government towards "cooperation"
with the UN human rights machinery. Although the former went ahead,
it only did so under such circumstances as to make the utility
of the trip highly questionable, while because Rodley has refused
to be treated in a similar way, the Chinese authorities have stalled
preparations for his visit.
At the last EU-China dialogue sessions in February,
Chinese representatives told their European counterparts that
Rodley's visit would take place in June 2000. Yet during the Commission
on Human Rights in April, Rodley announced that the visit would
have to be postponed indefinitely. The obstacle was the Chinese
government's refusal to accept the UN human rights experts "terms
of reference" for fact-finding missions, which Rodley insisted
should provide guidelines for his mission. These guidelines, which
have been officially adopted after discussions among UN experts,
are designed to ensure the independence, impartiality and safety
of visits by UN special rapporteurs and representatives to the
field. They are based on the ICRC's methods of work, and include
freedom of movement, access to all prisons and places of detention,
the confidentiality of interviews with detainees and the "assurance
by the Government that no persons, official or private individuals,
who have been in contact with the Special Rapporteur/Representative
in relation to the mandate will for this reason suffer threats,
harassment or punishment or be subjected to judicial proceedings."
The visit to China by the Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention in October 1997 was a textbook example of why such guidelines
are needed. Although it generated some constructive recommendations—the
Working Group recommended that the Chinese government "define
the crime of 'endangering national security' in precise terms,"
for example—it also set worrying precedents: the Working
Group stopped considering all cases of alleged arbitrary detention
involving people in the PRC submitted to it for a year and a half
prior to the visit. Thus, a fundamental part of the Group's mandate
was effectively halted was a quid pro quo for the visit. Despite
such a major concession and a preparatory trip, the Working Group's
program in China was entirely set by Beijing. Under such conditions,
the Working Group's much-praised permission to conduct unsupervised
interviews with detainees in some of the facilities it visited
was rendered virtually meaningless. Additionally, inmates in Drapchi
Prison in Lhasa who had staged a demonstrated during the visit
had their sentences extended for doing so.
Another much cited achievement has been China's
signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights. This is of course a welcome and long-overdue step. However,
China has given no timetable for ratification of the covenants,
and has continued to engage in egregious violation of the standards
they contain.
And the visit of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights Mary Robinson to Beijing in September 1998 has failed to
yield any substantive program of cooperation. Following the signing
of a Memorandum of Intent regarding a program of cooperation between
her office and the Chinese government at that time, in March 1999
a UN Needs Assessment Mission went to China. As a result of their
discussions with Chinese government agencies, a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) was drawn up. Robinson's second visit to Beijing
in early March for the Asia-Pacific Workshop for the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights was supposed to be an opportunity
to finalize any details and sign the MOU. But she left empty-handed
with no indication of when such agreement could be reached.
In addition, in recent years China has submitted
reports to various UN treaty bodies that monitor instruments to
which it is a party, including the Committee on the Elimination
of Discrimination Against Women in February and the Committee
Against Torture in May 2000. Useful as these hearings were, it
is disappointing to note that no NGOs from inside mainland China
were allowed to attend the hearings, let alone present shadow
reports, and the domestic media remained entirely silent on the
fact that the government's reports were under review at the United
Nations. There were no reports on the comments and recommendations
of the committees, and the Chinese translations of these documents
have not been circulated, even to people directly involved in
organizations and work related to these two areas.
Thus in practice, China's much-vaunted cooperation
with the UN human rights mechanisms is all too often more words
then substance. Of course, the precedent set by such cooperation
is part of an important shift towards Beijing slowly acknowledging
the legitimacy of international monitoring of its human rights
practices. In reality the methodology and effects of such interventions
leave much to be desired. A great deal is made of the fact that
they happened at all, but there is little attention to what, if
any, results were achieved in terms of improving the human rights
situation.
HRIC recommends that, in the context of its
dialogue with China, the United Kingdom continues to promote cooperation
between the Chinese government and the UN human rights system,
while also taking into account the real nature of that cooperation.
6. AN INTEGRATED
STRATEGY: NO
COMPROMISES ON
HUMAN RIGHTS
STANDARDS
Human rights should remain a core element of
foreign policy relating to the PRC, with dialogue forming part
of an integrated strategy. Dialogue should be among a package
of measures, and must be backed up with significant pressure,
such as raising rights violations in the UN Commission on Human
Rights and speaking out on specific instances of rights abuse.
Dialogue without pressure is nothing but appeasement and will
merely serve to degrade the authority of international human rights
standards.
Policies on the human rights situation in China
should be part of a consistent, impartial approach in which all
countries are subject to the same international human rights standards,
regardless of factors as their status in the United Nations or
their potential as markets. Dialogue should not be continued at
all costs. Both Sir Leon Brittan and Chris Patten have recently
made statements endorsing such a view. We believe that if there
is no progress in eliminating the root causes of human rights
abuses and establishing protections for rights, dialogues should
be suspended. If there is no means of addressing a particular
human rights issue through the dialogue process, other avenues,
such as multilateral action and public pressure, should be pursued.
We were particularly disappointed by the attitude
of the United Kingdom and the European Union at the last session
of the Commission on Human Rights. In 1998-99, China's human rights
situation clearly deteriorated, to an extent that made support
for a resolution a crucial necessity. Although we welcomed the
critical statements on the human rights situation in China issued
by the European Union before and during the sessions, what will
be remembered is the EU's decision not to support the resolution
on China. The draft and the strategy of the United States may
not have been the most helpful in terms of achieving passage of
the resolution. But the EU failed to propose changes to the resolution
or present its own draft as an alternative. The EU should have
returned to its pre-1997 position and becomes the prime sponsor
of the resolution on China. Such action was all the more justified
since, this year, as public pressure has died down, China did
not even bother to make any of the "positive signs"
often seen around this time in the past, such as the release of
prominent prisoners. On the contrary, Rebiya Kadeer was sentenced
to eight years' imprisonment two weeks before the session and
in early March the Chinese government failed to sign a MOU with
the Office of the High Commissioner.
This attitude demonstrates that, despite official
statements to the contrary, there is a clear conditionally between
public monitoring of China's rights situation and the quiet diplomacy
associated with dialogue. It also shows that, for Beijing, the
dialogue is an end in itself, a way to escape scrutiny of its
human rights situation. HRIC is disturbed to note that all China's
dialogue partners consistently adopt such self-censorship. Thus,
by engaging in dialogues with more and more countries, china reinforces
its immunity against multilateral, concerted monitoring.
A common argument against the tabling of a resolution
is the claim that attempting to hold China accountable at the
Commission has been an ineffective exercise. In fact, it has never
actually been tried, since sponsors have failed to work together
in a concerted lobbying effort to get such a measure passed. And
even though the resolution has never been adopted, it ha provided
a key focus for debate about the status of human rights in the
PRC and has also been an important form of pressure on the Chinese
authorities. The experience of the last several years demonstrates
the Chinese government's extraordinary sensitivity to the prospect
of a debate on its human rights record in the UN's highest human
rights forum, since, among other things, it would mandate some
specific monitoring of china's human rights situation. The record
shows that the kind of pressure resulting from the tabling of
a resolution on China has generally been a successful tactic for
achieving concessions from Beijing, such as occasional releases
of prisoners, promises to sign UN treaties, or steps toward legal
reform. By the same token, when the prospect of a resolution was
abandoned, these concessions dwindled.
When announcing the renewal of its dialogue
with China, the European Union justified its move by listing a
number of similar concessions, presented as indicators that Beijing
was making progress in the field of human rights. In fact, after
China made these few "gestures of good will," it rid
itself of public and multilateral pressure. Without such pressure,
these gestures might not have become "bargaining chips"
in the first place. Now that pressure from the European Union
members has disappeared altogether, dialogue alone does not seem
to give China enough incentive to continue with even such symbolic
concessions, let alone follow through with concrete actions.
Since both sides insist that the dialogue is
not bound by any conditions, this approach to human rights should
not be an alternative to promoting public scrutiny through the
Commission on Human Rights, which is mandated to examine the human
rights situation in every part of the world.
Dialogue partners should not accept any preconditions
which compromise human rights principles or weaken the effectiveness
of international human rights mechanisms. Dialogue should be based
on respect for the existing international human rights standards
and monitoring system. Dialogue and cooperation programs must
not be used to undermine other approaches to achieving improvements
in human rights conditions in China.
International human rights norms apply to all
countries equally, all are responsible for their fair and impartial
enforcement and none should be immune from scrutiny. As a member
of the United Nations bound by its Charter and as a party to a
series of human rights treaties, China has voluntarily accepted
the responsibility of being accountable to the international community
on human rights. Thus it cannot claim special privileges or legitimately
denounce international monitoring as interference in its internal
affairs.
CONCLUSION
HRIC welcomes the House of Commons' decision
to conduct a review of its policy towards China and hopes that
the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons will find
this submission useful. In concluding, we recommend that , in
the course of its review process, the government of the United
Kingdom takes our analysis of China's human rights situation into
account in order to address the issues we underline, both in its
bilateral and multilateral dealings with the People's Republic
of China. In particular, HRIC urges the government of the United
Kingdom to step up its efforts to call on the Chinese government
to a) ratify the ICESCR and the ICCPR without reservations and
to implement their provisions; and b) release unconditionally
all prisoners of conscience and to allow all Chinese citizens
to enjoy fully their rights to freedom of expression, assembly
and association. Furthermore, we call on the government to give
consideration to our recommendations concerning the dialogue process
that are included in this written statement.
Finally, HRIC calls on the members of the Committee
to convey its concerns and recommendations to the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and to make public the results of its review
process.
We remain at your disposal for further information.
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