Human rights and wrongs overlooked in business dealings with China
February 10, 2010 by Andrew McLeod · 4 Comments
It may be time for “the West” to start reassessing its rather fawning relationship with China – but don’t hold your breath. Human rights issues certainly play a part in how some of us view China but big business tends to get in the way when we want to do something about it.
On Tuesday Chinese activist Tan Zuoren, 55, was handed a five-year prison sentence, ostensibly for writing online articles critical of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. His lawyer, however, says the real motive behind Tan’s prosecution was his investigation into the collapse of school buildings in the devastating Sichuan earthquake of 2008 in which around 80,000 people died.
Families of 10,000 children killed in the quake (according to NGOs; government figures are half that) blame the government for their deaths, claiming corner-cutting in the construction of schools in Sichuan made the buildings death traps.
Tan was the first person in a decade to be sentenced for actions related to the Tiananmen massacre, according to Tan’s lawyer, Pu Zhiquiang. In an attempt to hide the true motive behind his prosecution, Tan’s earthquake investigations were not included in the case, Pu claims.
Tan’s trial in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, had been adjourned without a verdict in August last year.
“The Chinese authorities cannot continue to claim that they are dealing with human rights defenders according to the law when they violate so many of their own legal procedures in cases like this,” said Roseanne Rife of Amnesty International. “By silencing human rights defenders the Chinese authorities are denying society an open and transparent debate and rejecting the concept of accountability. The calls for justice will only become louder as more human rights activists are sentenced.”
Meanwhile, we in the West are treated to TV tours of, say, the booming capitalist mega-city of Shanghai by the likes of journo/celebs like Piers Morgan, where we get to rub shoulders with the Chinese – mainly the mega-rich.
It makes one wonder why Cuba gets such a bad press: perhaps it will be a different story once the winds of capitalism are blowing free through the streets of Havana as they do in Shanghai.
Or perhaps I’m wrong, and some people are beginning to take stock of what is happening in China. Douglas Paal, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a former Reagan aide and CIA analyst, predicts “a difficult year ahead” with tensions in relations between the United States and China.
There are, says Paal, “a vast array of issues going down the road to 2012 – the departure of China’s current president, Hu Jintao, from office, the effort by Mr Obama to get himself reelected that year, and the elections in Taiwan. The United States and China will need to keep working together, get through emotions, and deal with reality”.
But what reality is that? “Trade imbalance” takes a high priority in Paal’s assessment, as do “Taiwan arms sales” and “climate change”, even “Google”, but not, I’m afraid, human rights.
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Interesting piece – but why pick on poor wee China? Britain trades with most despotic regimes across the Globe – poison gas to Iraq one day, Wilkinson’s swords to Saudi Arabai the next, phosphorous to Israel, guns tanks and warplanes to anyone with a fat enough wallet.
I think it all relates to what’s called – “ethical foreign policy”????
Slainte Mhor
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While the official narrative is Tan was jailed over his quake investigation, the court documents seems to suggest otherwise.
Large portion of Tan’s verdict seems to be dedicated to the fact Tan was working with “Sound of Hope” (a Falun Gong propaganda outlet) at the behest of Wang Dan.
Correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t Falun Gong an illegal organization under Chinese law? They have a stated goal to overthrow the Chinese government.
Why nobody is talking about this?
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this article’s laughable premise is that the UK or US governments don’t commit human rights violations themselves. just look at yesterday’s news on mass rendition and torture.
never mind UK/US government relations with dozens of other despotic governments in the world which they have little problems with, e.g. Saudi arabia, libya, israel, pakistan, etc.
take india for example, which is simplistically called “the world’s largest democracy”. Over there they have huge numbers of extrajudicial killings and police brutality, far more than in China. Government corruption in India is also far worse and more pernicious than in China.
I’m afraid Western governments like the US or UK are in no position to lecture the Chinese on “human rights”.
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I don’t think any nation is in a position to present itself as a role-model for human rights. The USA was built on the military conquest of the native people who were here first. Most americans have no problems buying chinese made goods simply because they are cheap. They dont care about buying goods produced by reputable companies. No one cares about human rights protection when money is part of the question.
The thing I find funny about this article is that the chinese are destroying very old dwellings in the Xinjiang province under the ruling that they arent safe in the event of an earthquake, when really the houses are being demolished in order to reduce Uyghur ethnic identity. Will the replacement homes really be any safer? Probably not. They certainly won’t be as pretty. Will the Uyghurs be out of a home despite the lack of an earthquake? Definitely, yes.
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