Last week, the UN Human Rights Council reviewed China’s human rights record for the first time. After China submitted the record for review at the UN, developing countries praised it for its economic development and efforts to eliminate poverty.
Western countries, however, were more concerned with issues such as Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as civil and political rights.
China says it is preparing its first-ever National Human Rights Action Plan. In response, international human rights groups said that 20 years after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, China continues to persecute political dissidents, undermine press freedom and mistreat Falun Gong practitioners, Uighurs and Tibetans.
China says one thing and does another. Early in December, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) was arrested for proposing changes to China’s Constitution that included an independent judiciary, the protection of human rights, the nationalization of the military and more freedom of association for Chinese.
Despite many international calls for his release, the Chinese government, which claims to uphold a ban on torture and ensure fair trials, plans to charge Liu with a crime and his case has not yet entered the regular judicial process.
Especially worthy of attention are recent reports that human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng (高智晟) has been tortured, beaten, electrocuted and had his nose and eyes burned with cigarettes while in prison. No wonder that exiled Chinese democracy activist Wang Dan (王丹) has criticized China’s statements at the UN’s Human Rights Council as a “load of rubbish,” while writer Dai Qing (戴晴) has said the report they submitted was “official speak” that cannot be trusted.
China’s saying one thing and doing another is legendary. Before last year’s Olympic Games, it had promised to improve its human rights record and relax media restrictions. However, human rights groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, recently said that China failed to deliver on those promises. They have stated that China has made no improvements in human rights and press freedom and that last year, China clamped down even harder on the media, including Internet-based media, thus keeping its record as the country arresting the most journalists in the world. China’s failure to treat its citizens properly makes its socioeconomic problems even more likely to cause disaster during this time of global economic crisis.
The Dalai Lama warned a few days ago that the situation in Tibet was very tense and that riots could occur. The total disregard for human rights by one-party dictagorship makes it very hard for China to establish a harmonious and civilized society and to become a respected great power.
We cannot afford to ignore the state of China’s human rights and democracy. The old Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) used to talk of “peaceful transformation” and helping Chinese democracy activists financially, as did the Democratic Progressive Party government.
However, the new KMT has remained silent at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) mistreatment of its citizens. More importantly, freedom and human rights in Taiwan have decayed following President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) accession to power and closer cooperation between the KMT and the CCP.
We must be mindful of the closer relations between Taiwan’s quasi-one-party state and China and the implications this has for Taiwan. As the saying goes: “One can be judged by the company one keeps.”
Lu Shih-hsiang is an adviser to the Taipei Times.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS