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Friday 6 March 2009
Human rights: Beijing gives Washington as good as it gets
Once again, hours after Washington issued a report condemning China’s human rights record, Beijing retaliated by issuing one deploring the situation in the United States.
Human rights: Beijing gives Washington as good as it gets
By FRANK CHING 6 March 2009
Once again, hours after Washington issued a report condemning China’s human rights record, Beijing retaliated by issuing one deploring the situation in the United States.
This is the 10th year that China has issued a report on the human rights situation in the US. This situation appears likely to continue for some time. The US government is required by law to produce human rights reports annually on virtually all countries in the world, and Congress is unlikely to change this. And, as long as Washington criticises China, Beijing will issue one in reprisal.
However, Beijing has made it clear that it is simply giving tit for tat. It never issues its report first but holds it in abeyance until the US makes the first move. No doubt if, for some reason the US should not release a report on China, the Chinese will also withhold their fire.
Historically speaking, the US Congress began by asking the administration for reports on the human rights situation in countries that received military assistance from Washington and has expanded the practice until, today, the reports cover virtually all countries - except, of course, the United States itself.
Thus, it appears to the rest of the world as if the US is sitting in judgment of them while not subjecting itself to the same treatment. But, as one American official explained, this is because ‘we do not receive foreign military assistance from ourselves’.
While many countries are unhappy to be subjected to such annual scrutiny, China is the only country that has responded by fighting fire with fire, giving the US a dose of its own medicine.
But the attitude of the two countries towards each other’s human rights reports is quite different. China sees it as a hostile act and wants the US to stop doing it. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, characterised the American reports as ‘interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights’, and urged the United States ‘to stop interfering in others’ internal affairs by issuing such human rights reports’.
The US, however, has not accused China of interfering in its internal affairs. Scott Carpenter, then deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labour, said in April 2003, when referring to China’s report on the United States: ‘I invite you to read it and make your own determinations.’
The two countries’ positions on internal affairs today are very different from what they were in the early 1970s. As Henry Kissinger relates in his memoirs, The White House Years, he tried to stop Premier Zhou Enlai from telling him about the Cultural Revolution, saying that ‘this was China’s internal affair’, but Zhou insisted, explaining that if the two countries were to deal with each other, ‘an understanding of this drama was critical’.
While the annual issuing of reports has taken on a ritualistic appearance, there is some value to them. For one thing, it puts certain countries on notice that what they do to their citizens will be made known to the outside world. There have also been numerous reports that victims of abuse derive some solace from the knowledge that someone somewhere cares about them.
This year’s US report declared that the Chinese government’s ‘human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas’. It said that the government ‘increased its severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, increased detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners, and maintained tight controls on freedom of speech and the Internet’.
China says the American reports are not balanced and do not mention progress made over the years. There is truth to this observation because there have been improvements over the last 30 years, which are largely ignored by the United States.
The Chinese report by and large does not make accusations against the US government. Instead, it tends to cite social conditions in the country, such as the prevalence of violent crime, including 17,000 murders, 37.3 million people living in poverty, one out of every nine black men aged between 20-34 in prison, and the lack of personal security.
The two countries, in other words, focus on each other’s weak points: political rights in the case of China, and social conditions in that of the United States.
China, it is clear, sees no reason why it should not behave as though it were the equal of the United States.
The writer is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator
1 comment:
Human rights: Beijing gives Washington as good as it gets
By FRANK CHING
6 March 2009
Once again, hours after Washington issued a report condemning China’s human rights record, Beijing retaliated by issuing one deploring the situation in the United States.
This is the 10th year that China has issued a report on the human rights situation in the US. This situation appears likely to continue for some time. The US government is required by law to produce human rights reports annually on virtually all countries in the world, and Congress is unlikely to change this. And, as long as Washington criticises China, Beijing will issue one in reprisal.
However, Beijing has made it clear that it is simply giving tit for tat. It never issues its report first but holds it in abeyance until the US makes the first move. No doubt if, for some reason the US should not release a report on China, the Chinese will also withhold their fire.
Historically speaking, the US Congress began by asking the administration for reports on the human rights situation in countries that received military assistance from Washington and has expanded the practice until, today, the reports cover virtually all countries - except, of course, the United States itself.
Thus, it appears to the rest of the world as if the US is sitting in judgment of them while not subjecting itself to the same treatment. But, as one American official explained, this is because ‘we do not receive foreign military assistance from ourselves’.
While many countries are unhappy to be subjected to such annual scrutiny, China is the only country that has responded by fighting fire with fire, giving the US a dose of its own medicine.
But the attitude of the two countries towards each other’s human rights reports is quite different. China sees it as a hostile act and wants the US to stop doing it. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, characterised the American reports as ‘interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights’, and urged the United States ‘to stop interfering in others’ internal affairs by issuing such human rights reports’.
The US, however, has not accused China of interfering in its internal affairs. Scott Carpenter, then deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labour, said in April 2003, when referring to China’s report on the United States: ‘I invite you to read it and make your own determinations.’
The two countries’ positions on internal affairs today are very different from what they were in the early 1970s. As Henry Kissinger relates in his memoirs, The White House Years, he tried to stop Premier Zhou Enlai from telling him about the Cultural Revolution, saying that ‘this was China’s internal affair’, but Zhou insisted, explaining that if the two countries were to deal with each other, ‘an understanding of this drama was critical’.
While the annual issuing of reports has taken on a ritualistic appearance, there is some value to them. For one thing, it puts certain countries on notice that what they do to their citizens will be made known to the outside world. There have also been numerous reports that victims of abuse derive some solace from the knowledge that someone somewhere cares about them.
This year’s US report declared that the Chinese government’s ‘human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas’. It said that the government ‘increased its severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, increased detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners, and maintained tight controls on freedom of speech and the Internet’.
China says the American reports are not balanced and do not mention progress made over the years. There is truth to this observation because there have been improvements over the last 30 years, which are largely ignored by the United States.
The Chinese report by and large does not make accusations against the US government. Instead, it tends to cite social conditions in the country, such as the prevalence of violent crime, including 17,000 murders, 37.3 million people living in poverty, one out of every nine black men aged between 20-34 in prison, and the lack of personal security.
The two countries, in other words, focus on each other’s weak points: political rights in the case of China, and social conditions in that of the United States.
China, it is clear, sees no reason why it should not behave as though it were the equal of the United States.
The writer is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator
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