noted anticipated result of closer engagement with China was a hoped-for,
gradual political liberalization in China going along with China’s greater
involvement in world affairs. The actual result was increasingly seen as a
much stronger Chinese government more capable of societal and economic
Issues of Human Rights in Contemporary US-China Relations
245
management and control that effectively squelched signs of dissent or other
liberalization. 21
CONTEMPORARY HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES AND ISSUES
Early in the twenty-first century, the Chinese government and party leader
Hu Jintao (2002–12) continued efforts to deal with public grievances and
domestic and foreign calls for redress and reform while suppressing activists
who attempted to organize mass protests or create organizations at odds with
CCP rule. The results were some improvements in human rights along with
continued serious abuses. On the one hand, China’s developing legal system
still featured corruption and political interference, but it also provided activists in China with tools with which to promote human rights. Although
generally supportive of the status quo, the urban middle class showed in-
creased willingness to engage in narrowly targeted protests against local
government policies. Their activism added to more widespread social unrest
among wage laborers and rural residents demonstrating against local govern-
ment policies and practices and other conditions. Despite a massive effort by
the Chinese authorities to control and censor information available to the
public, the Internet and other communications technologies made it more
difficult for the government to clamp down on information as fully as before.
On the other hand, the human rights abuses by Chinese authorities included
unlawful killings by security forces, torture, unlawful detention, the exces-
sive use of state security laws to imprison political dissidents, coercive fami-ly planning policies and practices, state control of information, and religious and ethnic persecution. Tibetan, ethnic Uighur Muslims, and Falun Gong
adherents were singled out for especially harsh treatment. 22
The US government duly acknowledged Chinese advances and shortcom-
ings, notably in a series of congressionally supported official reports includ-
ing the State Department’s annual report on human rights conditions in world
countries. US government efforts to promote human rights in China included
formal criticism of the Chinese government’s policies and practices, official
bilateral dialogues, public diplomacy, congressionally sponsored legislation,
hearings, visits, and research. The US government also provided funding for
rule of law, civil society development, participatory government, labor
rights, preserving Tibetan culture, Internet access, and other related programs in China. The US government attention to human rights conditions in China
was backed by more wide-ranging media coverage of human rights condi-
tions in China and issues in US-China relations and by reports and other
publicity from prominent nongovernment groups and individuals in the Unit-
ed States with a strong interest in promoting advancement of human rights
conditions in China. 23
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Chapter 11
American activism and pressure on China regarding human rights issues
were tempered by an ongoing debate on whether human rights conditions in
China were improving or not. On the negative side were US media, congres-
sional, and other commentators who highlighted evidence of increasing Chi-
nese legal restrictions on freedoms and cases of political and religious perse-
cution. The annual State Department reports on human rights conditions in
China were said by some to register no major or overall improvements. On
the positive side were those who emphasized the expansion of economic and
social freedoms in people’s lives. 24
Further complicating the debate were the efforts of the Chinese govern-
ment to become more populist, accountable, and law-based, while rejecting
Western democracy and more far-reaching political reforms. Party leader and
President Hu Jintao and other senior officials showed sympathy with seg-
ments of the population who were left behind in the Chinese economic ad-
vance. The central leadership also acknowledged human rights as a concern
of the state, continued to develop legal institutions, and implemented limited
institutional restraints on the exercise of state power. These steps forward
came amid continuing administrative practices that retained a large degree of
arbitrary power for the ruling authorities. 25
Indeed, the American debate about human rights conditions in China
mirrored a debate among Chinese authorities on where to strike the balance
between efforts to improve governance and reduce sources of social and
political instability through anticorruption campaigns, and the implementa-
tion of political reforms and efforts to check mass pressures for greater
change. Some Chinese leaders expressed fears that China’s small but grow-
ing civil society, combined with foreign government and nongovernment
assistance for advocacy groups in China, could bring about a “color revolu-
tion” in China. With this kind of fear in mind and with continuing determina-
tion to sustain and support CCP rule in China, the Chinese authorities en-
acted legislation aimed at preventing human rights abuses, but without pro-
tecting the activities of human rights activists who were subject to apparently arbitrary arrest and detention; it tolerated protests against official policies, but arrested protest leaders and organizers; public discourse on a wide variety of topics became routine, but politically sensitive issues remained off-limits. 26
Getting the right balance of flexibility and coercion seemed especially
important as increasing economic and social changes fostered tensions along
with growing rights consciousness and social activism. Many efforts by citi-
zens to express grievances and demand redress, having been met by govern-
ment inaction or opposition, erupted into large-scale public protests. 27
The mixed picture of positives and negatives in Chinese human rights
policies and behavior was well illustrated in the annual State Department
reports on conditions in China, which tended to focus on infractions and
Issues of Human Rights in Contemporary US-China Relations
247
other negative developments, and assessments by Chinese and foreign spe-
cialists highlighting various positive Chinese reforms and advances. Thus,
the State Department reports in this period noted episodes of unlawful or
politically motivated killings, including people who died in detention be-
cause of torture. Torture seemed to be used commonly against Falun Gong
adherents, Tibetans, Uighur Muslims, and other prisoners of conscience as
well as criminal suspects. The Re-Education through Labor system, in which
individuals were held in administrative detention for antisocial activity, without formal charges or trial, for a period up to four years, remained a central
feature of social and political control in China. Unlawful detention and house
arrest remained widespread, particularly agai
nst human rights activists, law-
yers, and journalists sympathetic to their cause, and leaders of unofficial
Christian churches. Thousands of persons were viewed by the State Depart-
ment as political prisoners, serving jail time for “endangering state security”
or the former political crime of “counterrevolution.” China’s “one-child poli-
cy” continued with fewer reports of occurrences that were more common in
earlier decades28 of coercive abortions, forced sterilization, and other unlawful government actions against individuals.
This list of infractions and violations of human rights from the perspec-
tive of the American government was balanced by positive developments
assisting greater freedom and helping ensure human rights. NGOs were often
encouraged by the authorities to remain active in order to improve govern-
ance and to allow people to give vent to their frustrations in ways that do not directly oppose one-party rule. Some representatives from these organizations and others outside the CCP-controlled system became more involved in
advising with regard to government policies and behavior on a variety of
topics. Media freedom was expanded in order to target corruption and other
abuses of power. Freedom of worship within the range of government-ap-
proved religious organizations and churches remained strong; freedom of
movement was enhanced by government policies that tried to accommodate
the more than 10 percent of Chinese citizens who left their rural homesteads
to pursue opportunities in the wealthier urban areas. 29
The purpose and scope of NGOs grew substantially in this period. At this
time early in the twenty-first century. there are more than three hundred
thousand registered NGOs in China and more than one million in total,
including more than two hundred international organizations. Environmental
groups were at the forefront of NGO development in China. Other areas of
NGO activity included poverty alleviation, rural development, public health,
education, and legal aid. The Chinese government from time to time tight-
ened restrictions on NGOs and voiced opposition to foreign support for
groups pushing reforms not favored by the Chinese authorities, but the over-
all scope and activism of the NGOs continued to grow. 30
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Chapter 11
Another area of positive development was the human rights legislation
and reforms enacted by the Chinese government. In 2006 the government
enacted prohibitions of specific acts of torture and requirements that interro-
gations of suspects of major crimes be recorded. Use of the death penalty,
still egregiously high by international standards, declined markedly under
instituted review by the Supreme People’s Court. A new Labor Contract Law
went into effect in 2008, prompting increases in dispute arbitration cases and
lawsuits over wages and benefits. Farmers were provided with new measures
in 2008 that allowed them more easily to lease, transfer, and sell rights to
property allocated to them by the state. Government measures took effect in
2008 to require government institutions, especially local government admin-
istrations seen as more prone to corruption than other government bodies, to
reveal financial accounts related to land seizures in rural areas. Responding
to international criticism of organ transplants for profit from executed prisoners, the government enacted new regulations stipulating that the donation of
organs for transplant must be free and voluntary. 31
The advent of party and government leader Xi Jinping (2012– ) has seen
much greater emphasis on Communist Party control and the dangers posed
by liberalizing forces inside China that are supported from abroad. There has
been particularly strong concern over the activities of NGOs potentially chal-
lenging authoritarian rule. There has been a resurgence of official state-
sponsored Chinese propaganda focused on the United States and other so-
called hostile foreign forces as threats to China’s stability and well-being.
Domestically, the overall message fosters public suspicion of the United
States and of individuals and NGOs in China with ties to the United States,
Japan, or others associated with Western values. Meanwhile, China’s impres-
sive, well-financed and broad-ranging public diplomacy and propaganda ef-
forts abroad feature media distortions, censorship, and defamation of demo-
cratic values. When combined with stepped-up Chinese pressure tactics and
control efforts targeted against individuals and organizations abroad that are
seen as adverse by the CCP regime, the result is a more serious challenge to
American-supported values and norms. 32
When Xi Jinping became general secretary of the CCP in 2012, he began
carrying out a crackdown on dissent and activism that surprised many ob-
servers for its scope and severity; it included the detentions and arrests of
hundreds of government critics, human rights lawyers, well-known bloggers,
investigative journalists, outspoken academics, civil society leaders, and eth-
nic minorities. Indictments for state security crimes, which often are political in nature, rose in 2013 to 1,384 cases, the highest level since the Tibetan
unrest of 2008. The government imposed growing restrictions on Chinese
microblogging and mobile text services, which have become important
sources of news for many Chinese people and platforms for public opinion.
The Chinese government passed or considered new laws that
249
• strengthened the role of the state security apparatus in overseeing a wide
range of social activities, including those of foreign NGOs
• placed additional restrictions on defense lawyers
• authorized greater governmental controls over the Internet 33
Summarizing adverse conditions in 2016, the State Department disclosed
in its annual human rights report that severe repression and coercion was
targeted against organizations and individuals involved in civil and political
rights advocacy; and such severe repression also was targeted against organ-
izations and individuals involved with public interest and ethnic minority
issues. Past hopes that free elections would spread from use in the very
lowest levels of governance were thwarted. Citizens did not have the right to
choose their government. Authorities prevented independent candidates from
running in elections, even on such low levels as selecting delegates to local
people’s congresses. Citizens had limited forms of redress against official
abuse. Other serious human rights abuses included arbitrary or unlawful
deprivation of life; executions without due process; illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities known as “black jails”; torture and coerced confes-
sions of prisoners; and detention and harassment of journalists, lawyers,
writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others whose actions the authorities deemed unacceptable. There was also a lack of due process in judicial
proceedings; political control of courts and judges; closed trials; the use of
administrative detention; failure to protect refugees and asylum seekers; ex-
trajudicial disappearances of citizens; r
estrictions on NGOs; and discrimina-
tion against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities. The govern-
ment imposed a coercive birth-limitation policy that, despite lifting one-
child-per-family restrictions, denied women the right to decide the number of
their children and in some cases resulted in forced abortions (sometimes at
advanced stages of pregnancy). On the work front, severe labor restrictions
continued. 34
Human Rights Issues
A wide range of human rights issues continue to prompt critical attention
from American officials in the Congress and the executive branch of govern-
ment as well as American media, human rights groups, and other groups and
individuals with an interest. Some issues—like the status of student demon-
strators and others arrested during the Tiananmen crackdown and those suf-
fering as a result of widespread abuses in China’s family planning regime—
have subsided with the passage of time and changed circumstances. Others,
like the human rights conditions in Tibet and among Uighur Muslims in
China’s restive Xinjiang region, have become more salient as a result of
violence in both Tibet and Xinjiang in recent years. Still others, like the
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status and prospects of pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, have waned
and then revived as a result of changing circumstances in Hong Kong. Mean-
while, China’s increasingly strong and assertive efforts abroad to manipulate
opinion and squelch dissent and opposition to the Communist government
and its policies and practices have raised a new set of recently prominent
human rights concerns. 35
Persecution of Political Dissent
China’s state security law is used liberally and often arbitrarily against political dissidents. In May 2013 the CCP issued a classified directive (Document
No. 9) identifying seven “false ideological trends, positions, and activities,”
largely aimed at the media and liberal academics. According to the docu-
ment, topics to be avoided in public discussion include universal values,
constitutional democracy, freedom of the press, civil society, civil rights, an independent judiciary, and criticism of the CCP. Universities have been