From the evidence I’d seen and heard it seems clear to me that the Chinese government is in the habit of denying it’s citizens basic human rights. There are others who seem to disagree. Here’s a small list of rights I think China violates.
Freedom of Religion: In China one is only allowed to belong to state approved religions. If you join a group that isn’t approved then you run the risk of being arrested and sent to hard labor for reeducation.
China Guy you told me that you could be Catholic in China but you couldn’t have any alligence to the Pope. How can a Catholic practice his or her religion in the state sponored Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association? He can’t be Catholic and belong to that organization. Well I suppose he could belong but he’d have to go to some sort of secret church.
Freedom of Association: All independent political groups must be registered with the government. 20 members of the China Democratic Party were arrested when they attempted to register their group in 1998. Independent trade unions are illegal and those who attempt to create one are subjected to prison or reeducation through labor. Phuntsog Legmon is a Tibetian monk who was sentenced to three years in prison for plotting or acting to split the country or undermine national unity. His crime was shouting slogans such as Free Tibet at the Tibetian capitol of Lhasa.
So what is it folks? Is the Chinese government in the habit of violating human rights? http://www.89-64.com/english/indexen.html
I took the first step you asked of me and created this thread in the GD. In the OP I gave some examples of how the government in China violates basic human rights. I’m not exactly sure what definitions you want?
The Chinese government is evil, nasty, and malicious, and thinks nothing against abusing its own people for political gain.
On the other hand, every other government on the face of this planet is also evil, nasty, and malicious, and thinks nothing against abusing their own people for political gain.
Thanks Wring, I was waiting for someone else to post that point as I’d probably be accused of being an apologist for the Butchers in Beijing if I did. That said, this OP is about China. I do think to have a meaningful discussion, that the OP needs to focus on something specific rather than human rights in general. I think the way the UN human rights are defined are almost too broad to be meaningful.
I am trying to provide some context here to keep in mind during the debates or when formulating international policy. I agree that China violates human rights. However, I would say that their record has been improving dramatically over the past 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. Although these improvements are dramatic, China still has a long ways to go. IMHO, many people in the US/west tend to criticize China for the current level of human rights instead of congratulating China for the advances made thus far and encouraging further gains. A very concrete and current example is that the Chinese government argues they should host the Beijing Olympics for their gains, while human rights activists would say that China shouldn’t get the Olympics because the domestic human rights situation is appalling.
China does have a unique situation in that there are at least 1.3 billion people in an area roughly the size of the US. IMHO you simply can not from a logistic/governing point of view alone it is simply not practical to have the same level of individual rights as you do in a country such as the US. In addition, China has been historically a “collective” society rather than one based on individualism. (Look at the number of debates and rants here on the SDMB about some group or individual that has gone “too far.”) The whole concept of individual rights in China has always been viewed as subservient to the group.
4 June 1999 was a terrible moment. This incident was much nastier and widespread than ever reported in the popular world press. I know both reporters and people that protested in Beijing. IMHO a reasonably balanced view that does a good job of putting in prospective is the Gate of Heavenly Peace documentary by Hinton. It focuses exclusively on Beijing and not the events in China as a whole. Why do I bring this up? CNN and other news agencies continually broadcast these images on a routine basis (IIRC CNN has an image of the lone protestor standing down the tank image in it’s intro for international news). Broadcasting it now reinforces a view of China that is 12 years old. For a lot of people in the US, the 4 June image is still the filter by which they judge China today. This is IMHO and I make no value judgements.
Economic advances has also provided increases in freedom. The Chinese economy has more than doubled in the past 10 years. One thing that rarely makes the press is that there is now between 100-200 million migrant workers in China who have left the country side. There is a very real trickle down effect of hard cash being remitted into the Chinese countryside. This is unparalleled in all of Chinese recorded history. These migrant laborers are the ones that produce cheap products destined for international markets. The money they earn makes a material improvement in the life in the countryside. Another thing it allows is that these peasants have the money to also obtain justice. Previously, Chinese peasants were tied to the land and subject to abuse from local cadres with limited or no right of appeal. Now, owing to this migrant labor and the economic freedom, the peasants can take on cadres at least some of the time and get justice through the Chinese court system.
Again, I think that to have a meaningful debate, the OP will have to get more specific. For example, religious freedom in China is too broad. Again, need a generally acceptable working definition of what constitutes minimum or basic religious freedom. In the Chinese government context, they can not accept a "subversive"religious group. Few governments anywhere allow openly subversive groups to exist, although I grant that the Chinese gvt definition of subversive is narrower than most. In addition, the Chinese gvt does not accept religions that owe alliegence to a foreign power. This would be why Chinese catholic churches are acceptable, but catholic churches with ties to the Vatican are not.
The Tibet issue is intimately entwined with historic rivalries, interference, difering view on independence, religious differences, territory, etc. that it could easily encompass multiple OP. Because Tibet is so complex, it would be difficult to include it at least initially in the Chinese religious freedom debate. Ditto for the Uigher muslims, which is a different debate than the religious freedom of the Hui muslims.
Another context that most people don’t realize is the one regarding “foreign interference in purely Chinese domestic affairs.” Always remember that there was an English and Portugese colony on Chinese soil up until 4 and 2 years ago, respectively. Is that a valid excuse for China’s own territorial/colonial expansion? Probably not. Is it a valid excuse for rejecting all criticism of Chinese domestic issues? Probably not. However, it is extremely important for some context when debating some of these Chinese questions. If you can’t at least acknowledge and understand some of the context that makes the Chinese government act like they do, then we will never have much of a Great Debate.
How do you explain Tienanmen Square? That’s right up there with Kent State.
Or the “Great Leap Forward”? That’s up there with the Holocaust.
Every country has a horrific violation of human rights on it’s record. It just seems like China has incorporated all of them and then attempted to justify them as a cultural thing.
That’s what I object to, and I’d imagine that that’s the basis for everyone else’s objections.
Not trying to justify these events. They happened. But Tiananmen was 12 years ago, the great leap forward more than 40. China has changed immensely, and IMHO for the better, since both of those events. My point is that these decades PAST events are at the forefront of many American’s consciousness when they view Chinese human rights TODAY.
I personally wouldn’t compare Kent State and Tiananmen, but this OP is about China.
So the Chinese government is the same as the Canadian government, the German government, or the Dutch government? Of course not. Anyone who thinks they are isn’t paying attention.
I gave specific examples of how I thought China violated human rights. MEBuckner then provided a working link to the UN Declaration of Human Rights as well as excerpts from the link which were applicable to my examples.
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I think you’ve got a pretty good idea of where I’m coming from on this one.
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Then we’re in agreement and there’s no debate here.
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More excuses. I guess we could argue that the holocaust in Europe was simply the culimination of centuries of their hatred for the jews. I suppose we could argue that the genocide in Africa is also a result of cultural history. None of these thigns excuses or justifies their actions. Culture is not an excuse.
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And the whole concept of individual rights isn’t exactly something that always existed in the western world.
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Well I gave you more recent examples of how China violates human rights.
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Yes they have. And hopefully they will increase the freedom and prosperity of China and the People’s Republic will cease being a one party institution rife with corruption.
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The OP did give specifics. Even specific examples of how religious freedoms were violated.
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That was provided with the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
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Then in the Chinese governments context they are violating the right of individuals to join whatever religion they want. I don’t know if you’re Catholic or not but it is quite impossible to have a Catholic church that is not connected to the Vatican. Those “catholic” churches the Chinese government opened are not catholic at all.
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Yeah, because Tibet is so complex we’ll just ignore all the human rights violations going on there as well.
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Yes, we can ignore those as well since it is so complex.
Then there’s no debate here. We both agree that the Chinese government is currently involved in the gross violations of human rights of their own citizens. You think it might be possible that some of us understand the context of Chinese history and still don’t think that’s an excuse for their governments behavior?
In the way you have framed this debate, yep you won. BFD (self censored a long sarcastic rant that belongs in the pit)
If you want to have a GD about China, pick a specific debatable topic and we can go at it. Please include a working definition that we don’t have to actually agree on but that we can agree to use. As I pointed out earlier, the UN definition is too broad to be meaningful. Another way of stating it, one can make the case that all countries fall short of the UN definitions. I’m talking basic human rights rather than developed nation ideals. I have offered some suggestions on framing something so you can make a case.
If you don’t want a debate, let’s quit wasting bandwidth. You won already.
I didn’t frame the debate in my favor. I asserted that the Chinese government violates human rights. I gave examples of how they violated human rights. You wanted definitions and they were provided to you from the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I think you’ve had ample opportunity to present your side, which you did.
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To be specific I gave examples of their violation of freedom of association and religion.
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The UN Declaration of Human rights seemed fine to me. You didn’t want to use that one. Nor did you come up with anything else to use.
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Then why couldn’t you provide one that was meaningful?
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This might be shocking but a lot of those things in the UN Declaration of Human Rights are considered to be basic human rights by many people. You certainly have not provided any suggestions on how to frame a discussion about human rights.
I tried. You don’t want to discuss it so I guess that’s the end of that.
Sigh, one last try. It is not 100% black and white. I’ll try to give you an example using only religious freedom.
No country provides 100% religious freedom to all of it’s citizens and residents as defined by the UN. If there is such a country it might even be considered heaven on earth. Agreed or do you know of such a Shangri-la?
Given that, what percentage of people that consider themselves with freedom of religion is “good” or “acceptable” and countries below that mark should be subject to international pressure of some sort. Should it be 99%, 95%, 90%, 50% of the population? I don’t know. A follow on question is can a country’s citizen decide for him or herself if they have freedom of religion or who should be the one that will decide this issue?
I will just pick two arbitrary extremes such as Afganistan on the repressive end and Sweden on the free end. However, that is not to say that there is zero religious freedom in Afganistan and 100% religious freedom in Sweden. In between those two extremes one can rank China and the US. I personally would put the US closer to the free end than China, but you could ask some Branch Davidiians or extreme pro-life radical fringe groups about their feelings on this subject (apologies to any members of these groups, I am only using this as an example of a group of people in the US that MAY feel they do not have religious freedom and/or feel persecuted for their beliefs).
It is a given that in all societies, the right of the individual is less than that of the society as a whole. Socrates argues this much better than I. If you need a concrete example, just because the US constitutions allows citizens the right to bear arms, it does not mean that adult high school students can openly take a loaded firearm to high school. It does not mean that if you don’t wear a seat belt as an expression of your personal freedom, that police will not give you a ticket and a judge will not persecute you for such an offence.
The vast majority of Chinese citizens are atheist by choice. Many are buddhists but of the ‘holiday Christian’ mode. A small proportion of Han Chinese are devout buddhists. The minority hill tribes such as the Zhuang, Miao, Dong, etc. are generally animists. Hui muslims have mosques, wear religious clothing. Daoists have their own temples and holy sites. There are many Christian churches scattered throughout China. All of the above are generally free to practice as they choose. Unfortunately I have no official numbers, and would question the veracity of said numbers, but my own feeling is that somewhere above 90% of all Chinese citizens fall into this category. It could be easily in the high nineties. Feel free to argue these numbers. Mine numbers are based on travelling extensively around China since 1985 and my contact with China for more than 20 years.
Some members of some of the following groups may have difficulty in freely practicing their religion: Tibetan Buddhists, Tibetan Bonpos, Mongolian Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, Chinese Catholics, Chinese Christians, Falungong. This is not a comprehensive list. IMHO I think you would be hard pressed to find 100 million people in the above group. China has 1.3 billion people, so based on my WAG far less than 10% of the population does not have freedom of religion. I make no value judgements on this.
There are plenty of logical holes in the above. No need to pick it apart. My point is that one needs a working definition of human rights, as a suggestion maybe you want to start with religious freedom as a subset to tackle first. One needs a benchmark that shows where a level of freedom is ‘acceptable’ and when it falls short. If there is no one that meets 100% of UN Human Rights criteria, then there has to be some value judgements. For a value judgement, there has to be rationale and criteria. These include definitions.
Either stand smug because no one can counter your sweeping generalization about human rights in China (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) and chalk that up as a victory having convinced no one of your force of arguments or you can step up to the plate and take on the topic. Up to you.
For example, just what does, say, Sweden do which violates any of that? (Note that the UDHR doesn’t mention “separation of church and state”, IMHO the best way to guarantee freedom of religion, but also something which will inherently lead to more gray areas and debatable issues.)
