Human Rights in PRC

Progress and Monitor

Worst Period

• Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1976)– political persecution and humiliation– widespread torture– suppression of religions– restriction on cultural freedom– very low living standard

Reform Era

• Main human rights issues:– political dissidents & prisoners– religious freedom– cultural rights of minority nationalities– crackdown on Falun Gong since 1999

Dissidents

• Four waves of suppressing political dissidents– late 1970s: ``democracy wall”– late 1980s: Tian’anmen Square– late 1990s: ``Democracy Party”– late 2000s: ``Charter '08"

Religions

• growth of religions– over 100 million believers– 139,000 sites of religious activities

• A 2007 national survey of 7,021 adults– less than 15% true atheists– 18% believe in Buddhism– 3.2% believe in Christianity– Protestants 10 times more than Catholics

Religions

• official churches and religious organizations

• restriction of religious activities independent of state

Tibet

• religious issues– Dalai Lama– religious leader or separatist

leader?

• cultural heritage• economic development• tourism

Falun Gong

• Li started Falun Gong in early 1990s

• mixture of Qigong meditation, Buddhism, and Li’s own ideas

• hierarchy throughout China– 39 general instruction centers– 1900 instruction stations – 28000 practice sites

Falun Gong

• Practitioners besieged news agencies, publishing houses, and government organizations who criticized Falun Gong

• Practitioners besieged Zhongnanhai in 1999, one day after Li’s visit to Beijing

• Crackdown on the ``cult” started 3 months after the siege

International Monitor

• Bilateral (informal & ad hoc)– dialogue with U.S. and E.U.– political & economic sanctions

• Multilateral (institutional)– United Nations Commission on

Human Rights

Government Responses

• Insists that state sovereignty supercedes human rights

• Insists that the reform era has seen greatest improvement in human right in Chinese history

• Insists that subsistence & development are the most fundamental human rights

Government White Papers

• White Papers on human rights almost every year since 1991: e.g.– Progress in China's Human Rights

Cause in 2003– Fifty Years of Progress in China’s

Human Rights– China’s Social Security and Its Policy– Human Rights Record of the U.S.

International Standards

• China acceded to UN Convention Against Torture in 1988

• China signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1997

• China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1998

UN Commission

• The United Nations Commission on Human Rights– composed of 53 States (including PRC

since 1982)– meets each year in regular session in

March/April for six weeks in Geneva– Over 3,000 delegates from member

and observer States and from NGOs participate

In USA-PRC Relations

• Pre-1989, automatic annual renewal of Most Favored Nation (MFN) status

• 1989, political & economic sanctions• 1994, MFN and human rights de-linked• 1998, Permanent Normal Trade

Relationship (PNTR)• 1999, USA-PRC agreement on China's

entry into the World Trade Organization