Julia Famularo
The Diplomat
April 22, 2014
China is bound to act in its national interest. Upholding human rights is one of those interests.
What will it take for the Chinese government to view the New Citizens Movement and human rights lawyers not as threats, but rather as well-intentioned citizens who want to help China? This question, posed by U.S. Congressman Robert Pittenger (R-NC), lay at the heart of a recent congressional hearing on human rights defenders in China.
Expert witness Dr. Sophie Richardson criticized Beijing for justifying human rights abuses in the pursuit of “social stability.” The Human Rights Watch China Director highlighted the role of “civil society groups and advocates,” who “continue to slowly expand their work despite their precarious status,” as well as the “informal but resilient network of activists,” which “monitors and documents human rights cases as a loose national weiquan (rights defense) movement. These activists endure police monitoring, detention, arrest, enforced disappearance, and torture.”
International observers are concerned that the regime increasingly accuses dissidents—particularly ethno-religious minorities—of supporting the “three evil forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Authorities arrest them on charges of Endangering State Security (ESS) without due process of law. In a country that lacks transparency and an independent judiciary, it is subsequently difficult to ascertain whether the accused are actually guilty of any crime.
Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti was formally arrested on February 20, charged with separatism, and denied access to his attorney. The moderate and pragmatic scholar conducted research on various aspects of Uyghur society and founded the website “Uyghurs Online” in 2005, envisioning it as a platform for cultural and social exchange between the Han and Uyghur peoples. According to Ilham Tohti, we “should not fear disputes and disagreements, but rather the silence and suspicion that exist within hatred.” During the hearing, his daughter, Jewher Ilham, lamented that “China has imprisoned a dissident intellectual whose sole ‘crime’… was simply advocating human rights and equitable treatment for the Uyghur people.”
Panelists raised a number of other prominent cases. Xu Zhiyong co-founded the New Citizens Movement to create partnerships between ordinary citizens and human rights defenders in the peaceful pursuit of civil and legal rights. He was sentenced to four years in prison on January 26. Civil society activist Cao Shunli pressured Beijing to engage with domestic human rights defenders during its UN periodic human rights review process. When she attempted to fly to Geneva on October 22, authorities detained her at the airport. Her health deteriorated during her detention, and she died shortly after her release on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo remains incarcerated, and his wife Liu Xia faces deteriorating physical and mental health under house arrest in Beijing.
As China gains political and economic clout abroad, it is less tolerant of what it perceives as profoundly unequal exchanges with established powers. At a recent talk in Washington, Dui Hua Foundation founder John Kamm noted that the Chinese government has begun to rebuff prisoner lists during bilateral human rights dialogues. It may also insist in the coming years to work fully within the United Nations framework to address human rights, rather than engage individual nations on the sidelines. Dr. Teng Biao, the famed human rights lawyer and co-founder of the New Citizens Movement, admonished China for taking advantage of “flawed international institutions” to deflect attention from its human rights record and thus subvert the interests of Chinese citizens.
The United States and its democratic partners need to think more creatively about how to best promote and protect human rights as well as achieve the release of political prisoners. U.S. leaders must continue to speak out publicly and privately in meetings with their Chinese counterparts to make U.S. principles and aspirations clear. However, America should also increase the number of academic exchanges and Track II dialogues to constructively engage China at all levels of society. Through measures designed to build trust, enhance transparency, and share best practices, the United States can make it clear to China that we have mutual interests in elevating human rights. For example, legal and judicial exchanges have already provided China with the resources and knowledge it needs to make positive legal reforms to its criminal code.
China acts—and will continue to act—in its own national interests. The U.S. must convince China that a sustained focus on human rights does not constitute diplomatic containment. On the contrary, the United States welcomes a stable, peaceful China that treats its citizens, neighbors, and other nations around the globe with respect and dignity.
Dr. Teng stated his firm belief that in places like the United States, Europe, “and in every corner of the world where the light of freedom shines, while the struggle for human dignity continues, we [the Chinese people] will not be forgotten.” The United States must work in concert with its global partners—as well as the leadership in Beijing—to raise the profile of human rights defenders under threat, so that they don’t befall the same fate as Cao Shunli.
