China Human Rights Report 2018》

臺灣民主基金會 Taiwan Foundation for Democracy 本出版品係由財團法人臺灣民主基金會負責出版。臺灣民主基金會是一個獨立、非營利的機構，其宗旨在促進臺灣以及全球民主、人權的研究與發展。臺灣民主基金會成立於二○○三年，是亞洲第一個國家級民主基金會，未來基金會志在與其他民主國家合作，促進全球新一波的民主化。 This is a publication of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD). The TFD is an independent, non-proﬁt foundation dedicated to the study and promotion of democracy and human rights in Taiwan and abroad. Founded in 2003, the TFD is the ﬁrst democracy assistance foundation established in Asia. The Foundation is committed to the vision of working together with other democracies, to advance a new wave of democratization worldwide. 本報告由臺灣民主基金會負責出版，報告內容不代表本會意見。版權所有，非經本會事先書面同意，不得翻印、轉載及翻譯。 This report has been published by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Statements of fact or opinion appearing in this report do not imply endorsement by the publisher. All rights reserved. No portion of the contents may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. 臺灣民主基金會 Taiwan Foundation for Democracy 臺灣民主基金會 Taiwan Foundation for Democracy 《China Human Rights Report 2018》 Contents Foreword..................................................................................................... i Preface........................................................................................................ 1 Human Rights Dialogue and Confrontation between China and the West— The China Model Marches through the Global Values System ............13 Political Human Rights ............................................................................ 45 Human Rights in the Chinese Administration of Justice ....................... 83 Social Human Rights ............................................................................. 113 Economic and Environmental Human Rights ........................................ 161 Observations on Religious and Ethnic Minority Human Rights— Who Drew the Red Line? ................................................................. 201 Gender Human Rights ............................................................................ 259 Observations on the Human Rights of Taiwanese People in Mainland China ................................................................................. 291 Observations on Scientific and Technological Human Rights................ 329 Foreword i Preface The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy(TFD) started publishing the China Human Rights Report in 2004, the second year of the foundation’s establishment. This annual tome is now in its 15th incarnation. Under the guidance of the board of directors, a group of scholars has endeavored to keep us abreast of human rights status in China, and to reaffirm Taiwan society’s commitment to democracy and human rights. As laid out in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economical, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the term “human rights” encompasses numerous aspects. For consistency and coherence, this Report has gauged human rights status in China using ICCPR and ICESCR as the benchmark. Carrying on that tradition, the current slate of authors scoured through China’s official documents, media reports and internet information on a wide range of topics to offer insight presented in this China Human Rights Report 2018. This Report has also evolved to reflect current issues in a timely and comprehensive manner. Besides core accounts on political, judicial, social, economic and environmental human rights, as well as those for Taiwanese in Mainland China, we added three chapters in 2017 on dialogue and confrontation between China and the West, gender human rights, as well as religious and ethnic minority human rights. In the Report, we add one more dimension to analyze how Chinese authorities – with the help of technologies in communication and big-data analysis – collect intelligence from people’s on-line chatters and seek to manipulate their off-line activities. Under the direction of Professor Li-wen Tung, the Report project team met every other month to share new findings and coordinate on narrative approaches. The TFD wishes to extend the utmost gratitude to all researchers and research assistants involved for 2018 by Taiwan Foundation for Democracy ii China Human Rights Report 2018 their contribution and dedication. After a quick browse of the Report, one may come to conclude that, the human rights status has hit a new low in political, judicial, economic and environmental human rights, and freedom of religion and ethnic minority; while it was one step forward but two steps backwards in social, gender human rights and Taiwanese’s human rights in Mainland China. As to the impact of technological progress on human rights, Chinese regime is using technology to tighten the grip under the pretense of combatting crime and maintaining social order. Yet, suppression of human rights happens not only within China. Through the Belt and Road Initiative and international collaborative projects, China asserts its position in global human rights governance to leverage China’s political, economy, military, social and cultural clouts in an attempt to alter global notion and norms about human rights. In terms of political human rights, the status in 2018 was worse than in the previous year in two aspects: the right to liberty and the right of political participation. Breaches of the former were of prolonged, extensive, aggravated and new sorts. Abuses of the latter were of prolonged and aggravated types. The corresponding chapter in the Report expounded on transgressions of freedom, including continued ban at the Two Sessions in the name of “maintaining stability,” also in long-term oppressing Gui Minhai, Zhai Jiehong, and Qin Yongmin; extensive impacts by shutting down Neihan Duanzi (a Chinese language reddit-like community); and new violations in cracking down on the Jasic union and the Hong Kong National Party. Aggravated assaults on rights to freedom were seen at the two veteran demonstrations in Zhengjiang and Pingdu where blood was shed in the brawl; an unprecedented phenomenon indicating the size of veteran protests has grown to a magnitude to potentially undermine the regime’s stability. Infarctions of political human rights included: continued persecution of Zhou Ting and Liu Xiaoli, two female activists in Hong Kong, and one aggravated breach by removing presidential term limits from the Constitution. The future of political human rights looks grim for Chinese people. In the area of judicial human rights, China’s judiciary has transformed in the direction to deepen Communist Party’s dominance in judicial policy and operations, rather than improving checks and balances on authorities’ abuse of power. During 2018 by Taiwan Foundation for Democracy Foreword iii 2018, a new Committee to“rule the nation in accordance with the law” (yifa zhiguo) was set up in the Party with Xi Jinping as the director that reiterated the notion to “follow the Party’s guidance.” Escalated violations of judicial human rights transpired under the tricky idea to “rule the nation in accordance with the law”: illegal arbitrary detention and torture, harassing dissidents beyond Chinese border, newly launched National Supervisory Commission operating without due process protection for people investigated, judicial process becoming a tool to silence dissent voices, and constricting lawyers’ practice. China’s judicial reform may have helped to improve judges’ professional expertise and people’s access to justice, but it lacks the political will to overhaul the systemic flaws that have long harmed people’s judicial human rights. In the area of social human rights, China has been pushing through social welfare and social security policies. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017 proclaimed health care, social security and poverty alleviation as policy thrusts, charting a clear route to upholding social human rights. The motives could have been to buttress the regime’s legitimacy by solving social problems and providing social services. People’s living condition and quality of life have indeed improved. However, high profile events during the year – inability to regulate drug prices, shady business of Hongmao medicinal liquor, Changshen’s substandard vaccines, and schools concealing tuberculosis outbreaks – seem to indicate insurmountable hurdles to safeguard people’s social human rights. Such hurdles come from many sources: disparate reform paces among welfare and service systems, bureaucratic issues (blunders, negligence, delay and corruption), the one-party state curbing people’s rights to know and to participate in politics. Ultimately, the author argued, the root cause lies in misplaced objectives of social services: to bolster the regime rather than to recognize and respect human rights values. On the front of economic and environmental human rights, 2018 was rife with authorities’ premature but zealous attempts at governance, and rising social unrest. 2018 by Taiwan Foundation for Democracy iv China Human Rights Report 2018 There were five emerging trends. (1) Same-trade workers formed horizontal telecom- driven alliances (not quite trade unions) to organize wide-range strikes beyond provincial borders and to share struggle experience and aspiration. (2) Workers’ protests at Shenzhen Jasic Technology highlighted the deficiency of the All-Chinese Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the state-sponsored umbrella organization for all

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