Keeping the pressure on: human rights in China - Column

Christian Century, Nov 3, 1993 by Robert F. Drinan

THE WORLD community has protested China's human rights abuses by denying its request to host the Olympic Summer Games in the year 2000. Human Rights Watch and many other nongovernmental groups worked diligently to bring about the 45-to-43 vote that sent the Olympics to Sydney instead of Beijing. But that refusal may make it more difficult to monitor and correct abuses.

In preparing for the September decision on the Olympics the People's Republic of China sought to improve its reputation: it released a few pelitical prisoners and lifted some repressive measures. Now China will probably return to the authoritarianism and denial of human rights that has characterized its government even in the more enlightened years following the cultural revolution.

There will, however, be some checkpoints. In 1995 Beijing will host the fourth World Conference on Women's Rights. This group, which has met every five years since the 1970s, has a high profile and will almost certainly denounce Chinas practice of coercing women to undergo abortions or sterilizations or both. The traumatic ending of independence for Hong Kong at midnight on June 30, 1997, when it reverts to Chinese control, will likely reveal more of Chinas violations of some of the most fundamental human rights guaranteed by international law. And China will again be back in the spotlight in 1998 when it renews its campaign to host the Olympics. But these events may not be enough to pressure the government of this nation of 1.2 billion people almost one-fourth of the worlds population--to repent of its massive and systematic deprivation of human rights.

The United States will be able to exert some influence in June 1994 when the Congress and the president must decide whether to extend mostfavored-nation status to the People's Republic. This privilege allows China to send exports to the U.S. (which now total over $20 billion a year) with virtually no quotas or tariffs. President Bush vetoed a bill that would have curtailed that privilege until or unless China improved its human rights record. This past June President Clinton, with the approval of Congress, extended most-favored-nation status with a warning that it would be revoked in June 1994 unless China complied with basic human rights treaties that are now a part of international law. Congress and the White House will again have to assess Chinas record on human rights before renewing this arrangement, which is enormously beneficial to China. Indeed, the hard currency that China obtains by exporting toys and textiles to the U.S. is one of the principal supports of its booming economy.

Unfortunately, world outrage at China over the massacre in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 has subsided. Many, including those who favored China's hosting of the 2000 Olympics, contend that developed nations must not isolate China. Some also believe that Deng Xiaoping, now in his late 80s, will die soon and so the democracies of the world must assume a large presence in China in order to encourage and direct reform.

There is merit to these contentions. But the grim reality is that China is still a pariah among nations, and it should not be allowed to obtain the economic and cultural benefits of the modern world unless it demonstrates that it will cease its policies of brutal repression and outright inhumanity. The litany of Chinas human rights offenses was vividly related to the world during the debate on Beijing's request for the Olympics. But it is not clear how many heard or comprehended the list of crimes. Even the religious community does not seem as shocked as it should be by the suppression of religious freedom in China.

China is the only nation to have resumed the testing of nuclear weapons. It has massively violated environmental laws that are increasingly recognized as binding on all nations. And at the United Nation's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in June, China and a few other nations with equally offensive human rights records tried unsuccessfully to influence the conference to qualify or compromise the universality of human rights. Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Huaziu defended his government bluntly: "Nobody should put his rights above those of the state. All countries have the right to choose their own systems and values and other countries have no right to interfere."

While it is relatively easy to compile a catalog of human rights offenses, it is much more difficult to suggest a way that the U.S. and the UN could change the attitudes of Beijings ruling elite. There is always, of course, the "mobilization of shame"--a technique strongly advocated by Amnesty International and many other human rights groups around the world. But the leaders of the People's Republic can shield their citizens from such publicity. The exception was the apparent widespread horror felt throughout China over the Tiananmen Square violence. Had China been scheduled to host the Olympics in 2000, concerned organizations would have had countless opportunities to educate, persuade and inspire the government and the people of China.