Xiao Banfa
10th April 2008, 01:34
HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA AND AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Bill Willmott
Amnesty International has been fearless and effective in bringing world attention to individual victims of human rights abuse in many countries, a form of campaign for which it was founded and which involved thousands of people in personal action. More recently, it has moved into generic campaigns against governments it defines as delinquent. On the question of Amnesty's campaign on human rights in China, I would like to make some comments that I hope will be helpful. I am active in the NZ China Friendship Society, some of whose members are also members of Amnesty.When judging human rights in China, I think it's important for us to keep in mind four points that Amnesty does not mention.
1. While the human rights situation in China is not good by our standards, it is better today than it has ever been throughout Chinese history. This is not a situation like Uganda, Zimbabwe, or Burma, where human rights that previously were protected have now been destroyed. In other words, the situation in China is not deteriorating, it is improving year by year. For example, the most recent meeting of the National People's Congress (China’s parliament) passed a series of labour laws that are remarkably liberal–despite heavy-handed lobbying by major trans-national companies like Wallmart and Phillips–and there is a growing legal culture and institutions to enforce them. If we wish to comment on human rights in China, I think it behoves us to recognise the progress that has been made as well as the serious shortcomings that still exist.
2. China is a developing country, and its "industrial revolution" has taken place only in the last thirty years. At a comparable time in England's history, say 1840, there was no universal suffrage (only male property owners could vote), people were hanged for steeling a sheep and transported for far less. Slavery had only recently been abolished. So when we chastise China for its human rights record, we are comparing it with a Western ideal, an ideal with a centuries-long history of development through struggle. And I think we need to be a bit careful to recognise that even in the West, there are places where these ideals are not realised. The current erosion of civil rights in America by the Patriot Act and intelligence agencies and comparable anti-rights moves in Australia and Britain are cases in point.
3. We in the West tend to think of human rights solely in political terms: human liberty, suffrage, rule of law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes social and economic rights as well as political rights. As a developing country, the primary human rights that get priority in China are social and economic ones: rising standard of living, health, education, livelihood. On these matters, China has made dramatic progress and continues to do so. Comparisons with India indicate that the Chinese government has greatly advanced social and economic rights despite still being a very poor country by world standards.
4. For 100 years (1840-1940), the countries now criticising China were mercilessly exploiting her with no concern whatsoever for the miserable consequences of their actions, let alone for the human rights of the Chinese people. Chinese are very aware of their own history, and some of them feel the condemnation by Western countries, especially Britain and the USA, is hypocritical in not acknowledging that their own record in China was dismal.
For these reasons, I hope that we will be able to communicate our human rights concerns to the Chinese in ways that do not sound arrogant or uninformed to them. In my opinion, working through friendship rather than confrontation is a far more effective way to get our criticisms across. Having a sister city is an excellent open door and one that should be nutured, not closed with a bang.
Bill Willmott
Amnesty International has been fearless and effective in bringing world attention to individual victims of human rights abuse in many countries, a form of campaign for which it was founded and which involved thousands of people in personal action. More recently, it has moved into generic campaigns against governments it defines as delinquent. On the question of Amnesty's campaign on human rights in China, I would like to make some comments that I hope will be helpful. I am active in the NZ China Friendship Society, some of whose members are also members of Amnesty.When judging human rights in China, I think it's important for us to keep in mind four points that Amnesty does not mention.
1. While the human rights situation in China is not good by our standards, it is better today than it has ever been throughout Chinese history. This is not a situation like Uganda, Zimbabwe, or Burma, where human rights that previously were protected have now been destroyed. In other words, the situation in China is not deteriorating, it is improving year by year. For example, the most recent meeting of the National People's Congress (China’s parliament) passed a series of labour laws that are remarkably liberal–despite heavy-handed lobbying by major trans-national companies like Wallmart and Phillips–and there is a growing legal culture and institutions to enforce them. If we wish to comment on human rights in China, I think it behoves us to recognise the progress that has been made as well as the serious shortcomings that still exist.
2. China is a developing country, and its "industrial revolution" has taken place only in the last thirty years. At a comparable time in England's history, say 1840, there was no universal suffrage (only male property owners could vote), people were hanged for steeling a sheep and transported for far less. Slavery had only recently been abolished. So when we chastise China for its human rights record, we are comparing it with a Western ideal, an ideal with a centuries-long history of development through struggle. And I think we need to be a bit careful to recognise that even in the West, there are places where these ideals are not realised. The current erosion of civil rights in America by the Patriot Act and intelligence agencies and comparable anti-rights moves in Australia and Britain are cases in point.
3. We in the West tend to think of human rights solely in political terms: human liberty, suffrage, rule of law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes social and economic rights as well as political rights. As a developing country, the primary human rights that get priority in China are social and economic ones: rising standard of living, health, education, livelihood. On these matters, China has made dramatic progress and continues to do so. Comparisons with India indicate that the Chinese government has greatly advanced social and economic rights despite still being a very poor country by world standards.
4. For 100 years (1840-1940), the countries now criticising China were mercilessly exploiting her with no concern whatsoever for the miserable consequences of their actions, let alone for the human rights of the Chinese people. Chinese are very aware of their own history, and some of them feel the condemnation by Western countries, especially Britain and the USA, is hypocritical in not acknowledging that their own record in China was dismal.
For these reasons, I hope that we will be able to communicate our human rights concerns to the Chinese in ways that do not sound arrogant or uninformed to them. In my opinion, working through friendship rather than confrontation is a far more effective way to get our criticisms across. Having a sister city is an excellent open door and one that should be nutured, not closed with a bang.