Congrats to Liu Xiaobo on his win of a Nobel Peace Prize (click HERE to read more).  The CCP is not happy with this development, and its spin machine is already cranked up to counter the award.

Given this win coming from a Chinese dissident I thought I would re-run this post I first ran a few years back titled, “Human Rights - Learning To Define the Terms You Use (or Abuse).”  It continues to be my hope that when people use the words “human rights” they know something of which they speak.  If they can at least define these words, they can then truly begin to honor the great men and women of the world that have fought so hard to define and protect them.

Human Rights - Defining the Terms You Use (or Abuse)

[Body of Prior Post]

Too often in non-academic discourse we allow people to use or throw out terms they cannot define or they have not seriously studied.  People’s use of the term “human rights” is one such example.  If you ask the speaker to define that term, he/she rarely can do so.

Below is an excerpt from John Bryan Starr’s book, Understanding China: A Guide To Understanding China’s Economy, History and Political Culture (pp. 211-219) that I sometimes assign as a foundational piece to get people started thinking about this issue.  Starr is a lecturer in political science at Yale.   What I like about his summary is that it nicely captures the main points without taking hundreds of pages to do it. In his excerpt below I have taken the liberty to work in some of my own thoughts and edits, where relevant, as well as some of the comments from my colleagues around the academic globe, to make it more applicable to this course and trip. But I expressly give credit to Mr. Starr — much of the below work, writing and ideas are his work, not mine.

I appreciate that someone with an agenda on either side of the human rights debate can easily go through the below, skewer it, and offer selected example(s) to contradict or support below said statement(s).

Have at it. I have no beef with that, nor do I hold out the below as absolute truths for all people in every situation; but rather, general background commentary that most reasonable, balanced, pragmatic, critically thinking, life experienced, and well-traveled people in the bell curve (not the outliers) would not fight to the death over. Knowing how the Chinese feel about the below items and where they are coming from may also minimize the risk of you embarrassing yourself at your next cocktail party in Shanghai or Shenzhen, independent from the issue of whether you agree or disagree with them.

Here we go:

As a starting point, you might review the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

There are strengths and weaknesses to this Declaration. One problem I have with it is that it is so broad and expansive that when I read over it I am left thinking, “Geez. Is there anything that these do-gooders did not throw in as a ‘right’ of each and every human?” I felt much the same way with how a small number of you defined human rights in the Part I series of these posts — your definition was so broad that it would be difficult to apply to real world situation and/or was there anything you wouldn’t say no to?

If one searches, they can find other declarations and definitions of human rights that are more expansive or more restrictive that the UN Declaration. What I have found to be more helpful in studying this issue is to focus on the categories of human rights that a comprehensive definition of the term is thought to encompass. That is, economic, social, political and civil categories or rights.

Economic rights protect the individual’s access to sustenance and participation in the workforce.

Social rights guarantee access to goods and services provided by the state, such as education, social security and health care.

Political rights guarantee the individual’s ability to participate in the political process.

Civil rights protect the individual from illegitimate interference by other individuals or by the state.

An assessment of the level of human rights in all four of these categories reveals both positive and negative results in both China. Ironically, in China, economic reforms and development have expanded human rights in some areas, but restricted them in others.

Economic Rights

With respect to economic rights, China points with pride to its accomplishments of the state in extending the right of sustenance to the entire population. With the exception of the period following the Great Leap Forward, when many Chinese starved to death and hunger was widespread, China has managed to avoid the devastating famines of the past. Food output has increased, their distribution systems have improved, and public-works-projects have reduced the destructive effects of natural disasters. There have been considerable advances in emergency relief in China — the Yangtze river regularly floods in the spring, and China frequently deals with Katrina-level disasters with a startling amount of efficiency and care for human lives. Clearly, Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up policies have made a positive difference for many Chinese. Studies differ but the numbers range from 200 million to 400 million (this latter number is more than the entire US population) who have been lifted out of abject poverty in China due to these reforms.

On the down side, while economic reform has both advanced the access to sustenance by enhancing productivity, it has also jeopardized its future by failing to limit population growth and reduced the amount of land under cultivation in China. Further, prior to China’s economic reforms, started several decades ago, most people had employment for life (I used to think this was a good thing until I ran my own business, became involved in management and I witnessed how this motivates (or not) performance). As China shifted to a “socialist market economy” the days of the “Iron Rice Bowl” and guaranteed lifetime employment are over. As the collectives have died, so have the medical and social protections essential to everyday living. Further, property seizures by the government for eminent domain purposes have been on the rise the past decade. Also, unknown to many Americans (and Chinese) is the roughly 18,000 annual documented social uprisings to protest a variety of government activities. All of this will be pivotal and get more attention as the Internet spreads and 3-G becomes available in China.

Social Rights

With respect to social rights, the achievements of the Chinese Communist government were impressive during its first 50 years in power. For example, in 1949, less than 50 percent of China’s elementary school age children were in school. Fifty years later, this figure rose to 97 percent, although the quality of said education, with one can argue that its emphasis on memorization, is suspect. The early numbers for college education have gone from 2-3 percent (mostly boys) to 40 and 50 percent — this is an impressive accomplishment. In 1949, there was one doctor for every 1,500 people and one hospital bed for every 7,000 people. By 1999, these figures had increased to one doctor for every 650 people and one hospital bed for every 380 people. But again, the quality of said medical care is hit and miss (as is access due the fact that a number of hospitals in China now require you to pay up front for their services; but this is also becoming a problem in the US — see this WSJ article, Cash Before Chemo; US Hospitals Get Tough). Similarly, 1n 1999 about one of every five members or the workforce had access to some form of state-provided retirement plan. The economic reforms noted above have had mixed effects on the state’s ability to guarantee these social rights, particularly to rural citizens. The household responsibility system in China has also led to an increase in the number of children leaving school before graduation, since the system’s incentives encourages parents to make their children work in the fields or local factories as soon as they are old enough. As for social security, clearly, in recent years the shrinking state sector has reduced the number proportion of workers with access to state funded pensions.

Political Rights

China’s record for political rights is somewhat different. While the right to participate in the political process is widespread, that participation is generally devoid of significance. Elections are regularly held for executive and legislative posts, but, until recently, usually never with more than a single candidate for each post, a candidate selected and vetted by the CCP. Since the 1980s, a democratization of politics as we (the West) generally view it has occurred at the local levels, where several candidates run for office, and it is by no means the CCP endorsed candidate who wins (however per recent press reports I have read more and more non-CCP members are being tapped for top posts in the government) . (By the way, the Chinese will counter that our former state department (i.e., Condi Rice and crew) was a politically controlled police agency, our judicial branch controlled by the ruling party, and that our former president was elected on the basis of a conservative Supreme Court who themselves became “judicial activists” to determine the election — folks, don’t shoot the messenger.)

Important note: for a recent CCTV segment I watched that peels off deeper and different layers of the above statement re: the import of these local elections for political rights and the development of Western style democarcy, click HERE [if you can access this piece, great; it not it's not fatal] to watch this very interesting and thoughtful 17 minute CCTV segment, where the China Law Blog’s lawyer Steve Dickinson appears. CCTV is considered by most to be the English speaking mouthpiece for the CCP, but in this segment, I did not see that this was much of an issue. While this segment does hold the excitement of the finale of Survivor or Desperate Housewives, it is really quite good. Steve does an excellent job offering a thoughtful analysis, he holds his ground against the other fellow and show’s moderator, and, he conducts himself with professionalism and like a gentleman.

Civil Rights

Civil rights, the area where most Americans focus, is a debate that is difficult for the Chinese to understand. Asked whether their lives are subject to more or less government interference than they were fifteen years ago, the majority of Chinese would likely respond that they are significantly more free (you can verify this when we go to English Corner). Today they can speak freely and critically about political issues, and they are able to hear a reasonably broad range of information and opinions, and make decisions about their places of residence, careers and leisure that were formerly made for them. But this expansion of civil rights is less the intended consequence of CCP policy than the unintended consequence of the weakening of the party and government influence in recent years and the intervention of technology (e.g., fax machines, satellite dish, cell phones, the Internet, etc.).

While Chinese can speak freely and critically about a broad range of political issues, there is little dispute that they must be careful how and when they do so when said speech is coupled with what we label in the U.S. Constitution as freedom of association – e.g., a group or people meeting in person or on-line, and any kind of a celebration on campuses or bulletin boards critical of governmental policies are shut down. It is not uncommon for the CCP to take heavy handed action against group activity and group speech when it’s political power is being challenged by the discussion and activity. Part of this societal trepidation toward the threat that groups can pose, particularly by the older generation in China, can also be traced back to the days of the Cultural Revolution, where a number of these individuals found themselves attacked and/or under suspicion from the infamous Red Guards that roamed the cities and countryside of China persecuting scores of people. As an example, the father-in-law of one of my China based colleagues spent six years in a re-education camp because he had been an officer of Mao’s and therefore had been given too much privilege and needed to be “reformed.” Also keep in mind that part of the desire for cohesion and stability in China is driven by its past often violent history and the identity of some of its neighbors. Think of the countries that border China who might be classified as threats — Japan, the Koreas, Russia, India, the various Muslim “stans” countries that border China on its western border, Vietnam (who China recently fought a war with and lost), Taiwan, etc. (now, compare and contrast the US — do you feel any threat from Canada, Mexico or Cuba? Right now, our closest geographic military threat may be Venezuela via Mr. Chavez).

Contrary to the assumption of most Westerners, the Chinese are free to practice their religion if said religion or church is a registered and sanctioned one (meaning Catholicism, Protestant, Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam) and/or its spiritual leaders are favored by Beijing and not Rome in the case of Catholicism (or the Dali Lama). Some point out that if anything, the past few years has seen a resurgence in China of the government’s tolerance of religion because many recognized organized religions tend to preach respect for authority (i.e., the government) and this now plays into to hands of the CCPs’ current strategy of “maintaining harmony in society”. See, e.g., this NY Times Op-Ed piece, How China Got Religion and this recent NY Times video report (Christianity in China) by China hand and famed journalist, Nicholas Kristoff; see also this excellent April 12-13, 2008 Wall Street Journal article that elaborates on the above, In Search of … Something: A Growing Number of Chinese, Ummoored by Rapid Change, are Finding Answers in Religion.

Others contend that the situation is much more bleak on the religion front. For example, they point out that underground churches are routinely destroyed and/or non-state supported religions attacked. See, e.g., this Times Online article on how China “outlaws” reincarnation.

Further, schools have been instructed and taught to identify and remove missionaries posing as English teachers. Note that it is not uncommon for certain churches to send missionaries to China under the guise that they will be “teaching English” when the true primary aim is to proselytize (see, e.g., there was a SLO New Times article a few years ago about a group of our local citizens who went on just such a mission to the PRC - but I can no longer access the article online to plug in here for you to read; see also this Wall Street Journal article on this very point: Christian Groups Step Delicately in Sichuan). Some Chinese will point out, with heavy sarcasm, that Jesus would not have entered China under false pretenses(again, don’t shoot the messenger). For more on the religion issue in China, see this glass is half-full MSNBCarticle, Exuberance at one of Beijing’s State Sponsored Churches, and this glass is half-empty BBC video(the religion report starts a minute or so into the video).

Whatever the current state of affairs re: religion, it is important to note that most inside China agree that said religious activity must ‘render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s and not challenge the CCP or its authority. This is perhaps where where Falun Gong went wrong — they did not help their cause when several thousand of them showed up right outside Chinese government offices in Beijing to publicly protest their persecution. Falun Gong is an interesting phenomenon. What originally started as a non-political association that was little more than a practice of a form of tai qi, became political as it amassed a huge following and began representing a threat to the CCP because of its rapidly growing organization, the development of a sophisticated network, and the charisma of its leader. (By the way, few people in/from China have much respect for Falun Gong. See this related NY Times article that reports a number of Chinese walked out of a show at Radio City Music Hall in New York due to its not to subtle Falun Gong outreach attempt).

As a comparative benchmark, it would be a mistake for Americans to assume that no tension and/or persecution exists in the US between the government and organized religion. For example, in recent years the U.S. Supreme Court has routinely taken, heard and decided cases on the issue of church-state separation that did not side with the church. As a further compare and contrast point, today’s churches who run afoul of ‘rendering unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s’ are sometimes seen as running more of a business rather than a charity, and the IRS has responded accordingly (see, e.g., this Wall Street Journal article, A Taxing Issue: What to Render Unto Whom?). Also, if, in the US, a preacher or church endorses or promotes a political candidates from the pulpit, and they violate the ‘render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’ maxim noted above that China also takes quite seriously, they too are in serious danger of losing their tax exempt status as a non-profit (see this Wall Street Journal article re: the Obama camp and his outspoken pastor). Thus, while some would say this is not a direct frontal assault from the government, these are examples of where a church will be hit with a consequence that will effectively put them and their congregation out of the religion business overnight because they will now have to pay taxes on income like everybody else and the vast majority of churches cannot withstand such a financial blow.

It is also interesting to note that with respect to the civil rights component that makes up human rights, the Chinese do not talk just about ‘rights’, but also ‘responsibilities’. In Imperial China, the concept of individual rights did not exist. Confucian ideology emphasized social relationships that created duties, not right. Examples of such expected responsibilities include the priority of family, society and nation, over the individual.

How often do you hear of people in the West speak of their responsibilities? In fact, we often see the contrary and as an example I remember a 2008 SLO Tribune article that I can no longer access on line that advocated for an “outdoor children’s bill of rights” (man, are you kidding me — people have an inalienable “right” to nice, outdoor playgrounds?)  and my previous blog post on Millennials).

Relatedly, if you follow China regularly you will hear much use of the word “harmony,” as in creating a “harmonized China” where multiple ethnic groups and others are able to exist in one, unified China. China has 56 different ethnic groups (that is not a typo) that are able to live in China in relative piece, and these different ethnic groups suffer none of the express or hidden prejudice seen in the US and the treatment of native peoples and long-standing ethnic minorities (German, Irish, Japanese, Chinese, French, and others). While in the US we often talk about civil rights for minorities in the US for women, African-Americans, Native Americans, gays, etc.; most that have lived in the US and China agree that in China these 56 minorities enjoy a freedom and equality in China that rivals what is available in the US.

American human rights groups and the U.S. Congress have been interested less in the rapid expansion of civil rights for the majority of Chinese people than in the very serious violation of a small minority of civil rights, the individuals who have been imprisoned or sentenced to reform through labor for their dissident political or religious views. In China, a country of 1.3 billion plus people, approximately 1.5 million people are behind bars. A significant number are also believe to be in labor reform camps. It is very difficult to find reliable estimates of the fraction who are imprisoned for political crimes. Note that as of 2006, in the United States, with its 330 million plus people, roughly 7 million people are behind bars, on probation or on parole; and of this total, roughly 2.2 million are incarcerated. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with African Americans comprising a grossly disproportionate percentage of this number. China is second. Russia comes in third with 870,000 incarcerated people.

The Chinese government says that it is holding two thousand political prisoners, but that number does not include those in labor reform camps. Those who survive their stay in labor reform camps often report that they conditions were severe and that they were treated harshly (the Chinese will counter with Guantanamo and Iraq). Harry Wu, the famous Chinese political activist and dissident who was imprisoned in a Chinese labor camp for a number of years, argues that the number of people held in labor camps is much larger than the government number, but his numbers in this regard have been questioned in recent years (the Chinese will also argue how gullible we are by pointing out that the war with Iraq was initially and primarily based on the crack-pot claim of weapons of mass destruction).

Reflection

There are several points worth reflecting on as we consider what Americans can or should to do bring about an improvement in our read and interpretation of China’s human-rights record.

The first has to do with our assumption about the universality of our views on human rights, our notion that they are appropriate standards for all societies to adopt, regardless of their possible disjunction with other traditions and cultures. Related to this point is the following story passed along by one of my China based colleagues:

I recently had a discussion with a fellow alumnus from my university and who is also a PRC citizen about voting. This young Chinese man is a believer in the Republic of China (Sun Yat Sen, the founder of modern day China’s, organization), and wants to see the republic restored. This Chinese fellow is progressive and radical by Chinese standards and might even be in danger were he to voice his ideas in the PRC. He is a believer in democracy. However, we had a long and serious discussion about the creation of a voting test to be used in China. Naturally, I talked with him about Jim Crow and the serious problems Americans have with this idea, and he insisted that it would be quite a natural and responsible thing to do in China. This is because people would happily agree to a voting test to ensure that only reasonably educated, informed individuals were voting. They would have no interest in having something similar to the disputed 2000 US election occur in their country, nor are they interested in granting power to a large body of individuals who cannot make informed decisions about the country’s political development. He compared his system to the ancient Greek democracies, where only a small and capable group of leaders were able to democratically elect leaders. And I then realized that that the PRC fellow was probably right: Chinese citizens would probably prefer to have a voting test to ensure that a demagogue with the ability to manipulate the hundreds of millions of relatively uneducated peasants would not be able to take power. This conversation drove home to me that historical precedents radically inform our understanding of “universal human rights.” US citizens see voting test and think about Jim Crow; PRC citizens see a voting test and think of the Confucian values of examinations that demonstrate political acumen.

The second point relates to Chinese rejoinders to American complaints about their human-rights violations. In looking at conditions in another country, Americans often measure real conditions abroad from an idealized vision of conditions at home, and thus seem blind to violations of human rights in their own society at the same time they ferret out evidence of violations elsewhere.

While PRC citizens often have difficult access to balanced world news (e.g., one of my China based colleague’s notes that his Chinese students famously had no idea that Pope John Paul had died), many Americans with an education remain willfully stupid of world events (e.g., how many Americans did you run into that did not know that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated or who she was?).

A third point to keep in mind is that in asking China’s leaders to allow dissidents freedom of movement and expression, we are asking them to do the very thing they are least likely now to do willingly. China’s leaders understand the Party’s weaknesses and are well aware of the many sources of dissatisfaction within Chinese society. And they often say, political instability threatens the nation’s continued economic development; more, it threatens the leaders’ own power, position and perks. Under these circumstances, they would regard giving free rights to dissidents as an act of national betrayal and political suicide. Note that there are number of Sinologists who believe that China does not need to democratize to continue to grow as it is growing. E.g., click HERE.

The fourth point relates to the issue of sovereignty. Rightly or wrongly the Chinese interpret the history of their interaction with the outside world during the nineteenth century as a long series of painful episodes of national humiliation in which foreign powers constantly trampled on China’s sovereignty. “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up,” were the words that Chairman Mao chose to market the founding of the PRC in 1949. Their position in this regard may not be irrational. Imagine the reaction of the American government were the Chinese to make continued American investment in joint ventures in China contingent on the U.S. Congress’ strengthening of affirmative action programs or complete, full and market rate reparations for Native Americans or African-Americans, for example.

The fifth point has to do with tactics. Americans are often not aware that when dealing with Chinese officialdom we need to consider doing so in a way that minimizes the potential for losing this thing called “face” which is a really, really, really big deal in China.  This is problematic, for very often US government actions are effective in the American political context only if they are carried out in a high-profile and public manner. Open up the paper and you can see daily examples of this on both sides of the political aisle. Further, think of how American politicians often seek to link Chinese access to the American market to human rights (e.g., Most Favored Nation trading status, Chinese entry into the WTO, getting the Olympics, etc.). Yet, there was fierce debate whether using trade sanctions (or boycotting the Olympic Opening Ceremony) to promote greater attention to human rights in China was counter productive.

(As an aside, one of my China based colleagues has worked with Olympic athletes and he raised the following point that I had not thought about — have you given thought to the destruction of careers and lives that accompany the boycotting of an Olympics such as the Beijing Olympics should countries decide not to attend? The toll on the athlete who has trained his/her entire life for that one shot at greatness? Is human rights the burden of the athletically gifted, and if so, why?)

For example, trade sanctions cannot be crafted in such a way as to hurt those in the CCP for the violation of the civil rights of dissidents and cannot avoid penalizing the very sectors of Chinese society that are most receptive to the very ideas we may want to promote. Sanctions can also reduce contact with the outside world, through which some Chinese have begun to become familiar with the rights of citizens in other countries, and, armed with this new knowledge, to press their own government to guarantee them the same rights. Some argue that constraining that contact may reverse that process and the political liberalization that is already under way that has significantly expanded the freedoms enjoyed by the majority of Chinese citizens. Further, some NGOs (e.g., Heartland) openly require the “democratic proliferation of ideas” as a condition of funding for human rights initiatives. People often ignore or underplay the enormity of the reforms China is pursing as part of its attempt to modernize. See, e.g., Randall Perenbooms’ China Modernizes.

As an aside, when CNOOC (Chinese state owned firm) made a bid for Unocal (American owned energy firm) several years back, but their bid was beaten back by American politics, protectionism and xenophobia, Yang Hua, CNOOC’s chief financial officer said the use of political prejudice to deny access to the energy it needed amounted to a violation of human rights. “What are human rights?” he asked at a news conference in Hong Kong. “I’ll tell you what it means. For us it means guaranteed access to the energy we need to become a modernized country.” You can agree or disagree with this fellow, but the interesting point is that some Chinese see access to energy as a human rights issue.

The sixth point is that for better or worse, rightly or wrongly, a few years back your own United States government dropped China from its list of “worst” human rights violators. See the NY Times article by clicking HERE. On the other hand, moving from “worst” to “bad” is not a terribly effective marketing pitch.

Seventh, re: T1b*t (hereinafter “T”), which is currently a hot, emotional topic that I suspect some will raise and focus on. I am no T expert. None of us on this campus are. The only thing I can conclude in my own mind is that it’s a crazy mess (which statisticians call an outlier). The best I can offer to help deepen your understanding of the T issue is to refer you to what I consider the be the best piece I have ever read on T that helped me better understand what has happened and what is happening there. It was a three part series by Peter Hessler that appeared several years ago in The Atlantic.

Peter Hessler is, in my view, one of the best writers I know, and he sees things about China that others can only dream of noticing. He is also the famed author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze and Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present. (River Town is without question one of my favorite books on China.)

Click below to read Hessler’s take on T. Are the Han Chinese in T ideological missionaries of progress who are to be commended for their work, or, are they agents of cultural imperialism? He argues, they are inescapably both.

Part I, Part II, Part III. See also this related NY Times, article, Chinese Students in U.S. Fight View of Their Home.

Finally, in life, you will encounter many ‘business bashers” and/or people that thrive on either of the extreme side of the business and human rights debate. My hope in making these posts is that you now better understand and appreciate the human rights issue, how it relates to business, and how complex it can be if you study it at more than a superficial level.

So has this exercise given you pause to consider the way you define and think about human rights?  And if so, how?

Does the above help you maybe more intelligently and effectively engage someone in or from China who may agree or disagree with you, as you may now have a deeper understanding of where they are coming from?

Would you label yourself a dyed-in-the-wool Panda Hugger, Dragon Slayer or Centrist on these issues, and if so why?

Please respond below in the form of a submitted comment.