Human Rights in China
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
HUMAN RIGHTS INCHINA HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JUNE 26, 1998 Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 50-50 CC WASHINGTON : 1998 For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Wishington, DC 20402 ISBN 0-16-057469-2 - I- I COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania LEE HAMILTON, Indiana JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois TOM LANTOS, California DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska HOWARD BERMAN, California CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey GARY ACKERMAN, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana EN F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American ELTON GALLEGLY, California Samoa ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey DANA ROHRABACHER, California ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey EDWARD R. ROYCE, California SHERROD BROWN, Ohio PETER T. KING, New York CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia JAY KIM, California ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio PAT DANNER, Missouri MARSHALL "MARK" SANFORD, South EARL HILLIARD, Alabama Carolina BRAD SHERMAN, California MATT SALMON, Arizona ROBERT WEXLER, Florida AMO HOUGHTON, New York STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey TOM CAMPBELL, California BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee JON FOX, Pennsylvania BILL LUTHER, Minnesota JOHN McHUGH, New York JIM DAVIS, Florida LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina LOIS CAPPS, California ROY BLUNT, Missouri KEVIN BRADY, Texas RICHARD BURR, North Carolina RICHiARD J. GARoN, Chief of Staff MICHIAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATiONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania TOM LANTOS, California HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American PETER T. KING, New York Samoa MATT SALMON, Arizona DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey LINDSEY 0. GRAHAM, South Carolina EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROBERT WEXLER, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California GROVER JOSEPH REES, Subcommittee Staff Director and Chief Counsel ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Professional Staff Member DOUGLAS C. ANDERSON, Counsel CATHERINE DuBols, Staff Associate CONTENTS WITNESSES Page Mr. Steven Rickard, Director, Washington Office, Amnesty International ........ 4 Mr. Mike Jendrzcjczyk, Washington Director, DC Office, Amnesty .................. 8 Ms. Nina Shea, Director of Religious Programs, Freedom House ....................... 15 Mr. Xiao Qiang, Executive Director, Human Rights in China ............................ 21 Mr. Phil Fishman, Assistant Director for International Affairs/Asia Region, A F L -C IO ............................................................................................................... 26 APPENDIX Prepared statements: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from New Jersey and Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations and H u m an R igh ts ............................................................................................... 39 Hon. Peter T. King, a Representative in Congress from New York ............. 42 M r. Steven R ickard ......................................................................................... 43 M r. M ike Jendrzejczyk .................................................................................... 51 M s. N ina S h ea ................................................................................................. 73 M r. X iao Q iang ................................................................................................. 8 1 M r. Ph il F ish m an ............................................................................................. 96 (II) HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1998 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Smith (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee will come to order. In a few hours, the President of the United States will be in Tiananmen Square standing shoulder to shoulder with the men who ordered the mas- sacre of June 4th, 1989, with the same men who deny that anybody died in Tiananmen Square that day. It is therefore appropriate that we begin today by hearing from five witnesses who can be re- lied upon to tell the truth about what the Chinese Government does to its people. The President has come a long way since the 1992 campaign when he accused his opponent of coddling dictators and promised he would deny Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to China "as long as they keep locking people up." I just note parenthetically, Mr. Clinton, according to press accounts, is disturbed by some of the reports, the new reports that dissidents have been rounded up, his trip being the proximate cause. So people are still being locked up. A series of articles in The Washington Post this week purports to tell the inside story of how the President changed his mind. In the words of one anonymous Administration official, the President finally realized that China was more than just "a theme park for human rights activists." This realization had dramatic con- sequences. The second Post article ends with a vignette in which the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations tells his Chinese coun- terpart that he wants to take a trip to China to talk about human rights, then breaks out into a big grin to let the Chinese Ambas- sador know that he was only joking. According to the Post, the two Ambassadors shared a good laugh about that one. The Post also reports that in the summer of 1994, a few months after President Clinton delinked MFN from progress on human rights, there was a meeting at the White House to assess the ef- fects of the Administration's new China policy. At the meeting, President Clinton announced, and I quote, "I hate our China policy. I wish I was running against our China policy. I mean, we give (1) them MFN and change our commercial policy and what has changed?" The central purpose for this hearing 4 years later is to ask that question again. Do the Chinese people enjoy greater freedom of speech, of association, of religion as a result of the policies of the last 5 years? Is there more or less forced labor, more or fewer forced abortions and sterilizations, more or less pressure on the identity and culture of the people of Tibet and of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region? And would the people of China be bet- ter off or worse off today if President Clinton had stuck to his origi- nal human rights policies, the ones he did not hate? I hope our witnesses today will address these questions. I hope that they will also share their reflections on another question that continues to puzzle me. When big business interests here in the United States really want to change Beijing's conduct, for instance, when they want to get the Chinese Government to respect inter- national copyrights on software and videotapes, intellectual prop- erty rights, why don't they adopt the same strategy they advocate for bringing human rights to China? Why don't they counsel pa- tience, understanding that China has a different system than we do, and resign themselves to a few years of constructive engage- ment so that, sooner or later, Beijing will come around? Instead, they demand economic sanctions, the very same sanctions they say would be counterproductive as a means of promoting political and religious freedom in China. But if sanctions work to stop software piracy, then why won't they work to stop torture and other terrible human rights abuses? Perhaps there is an explanation-for instance, maybe Chinese offi- cials are simply more attached to torture than they are to soft- ware-but I have never detected that the Administration or busi- ness feels any sense of obligation to explain why they want to be tougher on software piracy than on torture. Why won't they work to stop torture, religious persecution, forced labor, forced abortion or any other gruesome things that the Chinese Communists rou- tinely due to human beings? Of course, nobody wants to isolate the Chinese people or even the Chinese Government. Of course, we should engage them, but as former Chinese political prisoner Harry Wu puts it, don't engage with money, engage with American principle. It makes an enor- mous difference whether our engagement with China is truly con- structive or whether it is just another word for appeasement. At a recent hearing of the Subcommittee on International Oper- ations and Human Rights, I asked Wei Jingsheng what practical effects MFN and other concessions to the Chinese Government have had for prisoners of conscience in China. He said that the tor- turers are usually more cautious in their treatment of prisoners at times when the United States is withholding some benefit. But then, as soon as there is "a turn for the better in the Sino-Amer- ican relationship"-last year specifically when the United States declared its intention to establish this strategic collaborative part- nership with China, "immediately the prisoners