[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
2010 ANNUAL REPORT: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF
LAW IN CHINA
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ROUNDTABLE
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 20, 2010
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CO N T E N T S
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Page
Opening statement of Charlotte Oldham-Moore, Staff Director,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 1
Liu, Lawrence, Senior Counsel, Congressional-Executive Commission
on China....................................................... 2
Abramson, Kara, Advocacy Director, Congressional-Executive
Commission on China............................................ 5
Marshall, Steve, Senior Advisor and Prisoner Database Program
Director, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.......... 7
2010 ANNUAL REPORT: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF
LAW IN CHINA
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2010
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:02
p.m., in room 628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Charlotte
Oldham-Moore, Staff Director, presiding.
Also present: Douglas Grob, Cochairman's Senior Staff
Member; Lawrence Liu, Senior Counsel; Anna Brettell, Senior
Advisor; Steve Marshall, Senior Advisor and Prisoner Database
Program Director; Kara Abramson, Advocacy Director; Abigail
Story, Research Associate and Manager of Special Projects;
Jesse Heatley, Research Associate; and Kiel Downey, Project
Assistant.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHARLOTTE OLDHAM-MOORE, STAFF DIRECTOR,
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Good afternoon. Thank you for making it
through the rain to join us this afternoon. We're grateful you
are here. On behalf of Chairman Byron Dorgan, I want to welcome
you to this briefing on the occasion of the Commission's
release of its 2010 Annual Report. I'm joined by Cochairman
Representative Sander Levin's Senior Staff Member, Doug Grob.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Commission's
work, I'm just going to do a quick recap of what we do because
it's pretty unique on the Hill. Established in 2000, the
Commission, by law, has 23 Commissioners, 9 from the Senate, 9
from the House, and 5 Executive Branch members appointed by the
President.
The Commission closely monitors developments in China using
primary sites, for example, Chinese language Web sites, and
publishes frequent analysis on developments in China, which can
be found on its Web site. The Commission holds briefings,
roundtables, and hearings, and publishes a flagship
publication, an annual overview and analysis of rule of law and
human rights developments in China. It is perhaps the most
comprehensive, publicly available review of its kind published
by the U.S. Government.
The Commission also, by legislative mandate, maintains a
database of information on political prisoners in China. I
encourage you to visit the Web site, www.cecc.gov. There's an
extraordinary wealth of information that's been built up over
the years and the political prisoner database, which has
undergone a major upgrade, makes it very user friendly.
We have area specialists, each one who has considerable
depth, experience, and expertise in Chinese research and
analysis. I'm going to introduce them to you now. First, is
Jesse Heatley. He is our expert on criminal justice and access
to justice issues in China; Anna Brettell, who handles
democratic governance, climate change, and environment; and
Kiel Downey, who handles freedom of religion. Abbey Story is
our expert on public health, women's issues, as well as
trafficking in China.
Three staff members in particular will provide a quick
snapshot of findings in their areas of expertise, and then
we'll turn to a question and answer period for members of the
audience to ask questions on the range of issues the Commission
reports on. The first one is Lawrence Liu, our Senior Counsel.
He will discuss key developments this past year in the area of
freedom of expression and the Internet.
I am also joined by Kara Abramson. She is our Advocacy
Director and our resident expert on Xinjiang and ethnic
minorities, and she'll talk about developments in that far
western region of China.
Steve Marshall, who runs our political prisoner database
and is our resident expert on the Tibetan areas of China, will
also discuss recent developments there over the past year.
While these are different sectors in China, there are a
number of cross-cutting trends among them. I'm just going to
highlight two. One concerns freedom of expression. Over this
past year, Chinese authorities continued to maintain a wide
range of restrictions that deny Chinese citizens the right to
freedom of speech, which is guaranteed under the Chinese
Constitution. This can be seen in the growing ranks of
political prisoners who were penalized for expression over the
past year, whether it be Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo or Uyghur
and Tibetan webmasters and bloggers.
We've also seen the nexus between human rights and
commercial rule of law become more evident. I think it's
something our business community in China is even beginning to
talk more openly about.
Developments over the past year have shown how business
disputes and commercial issues can have real human rights
implications when the Party perceives its rights are
threatened. This was certainly evident in the Google case,
which Lawrence Liu will discuss, and of course the recent trial
and sentencing of American geologist Xue Feng, who was
sentenced to eight years in jail.
So I'm going to turn, first, to Lawrence to begin our
discussion. Lawrence will make a brief presentation, followed
by Kara Abramson, and then by Steve Marshall. Then we'll open
it up to the audience to ask your questions of Commission
staff. Thanks.
PRESENTATION OF LAWRENCE LIU, SENIOR COUNSEL, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Mr. Liu. Thanks, Charlotte. I wanted to begin this
discussion by--Charlotte mentioned highlighting a few of our
Annual Report findings with respect to freedom of expression,
but I'm focusing my remarks right now on the Internet.
The main thing that we observed over the past year was
heightened concern by Chinese officials over their ability to
maintain control over the Internet. To just give a backdrop to
this, I wanted to throw out some figures in terms of the
growing influence of the Internet in China.
Officials now estimate that there are 420 million Internet
users in China, the most of any country in the world. There are
220 million bloggers and approximately 800 million cell phone
users. Those numbers have risen and will continue to rise. The
Internet and cell phones, text messaging, electronic
technology, basically, used for communication has created a
very vibrant and somewhat less restrictive space for
expression.
For example, earlier this summer worker strikes in China
got a lot of media attention over here, and a lot of those
strikes were organized and documented by Chinese citizens using
the Internet and cell phones. That's just one example of the
growing influence and the power of these technologies to be
able to organize dissent and to criticize the government. So
they are a growing influence, the numbers.
But far from trying to contain this growth, the government
is actually encouraging this. In a white paper that they
released in April, they talked about increasing the number of
Internet users as a proportion of the population from the
current figure of about 29 percent to 45 percent in five years.
So why is that? Why is the government encouraging the
growth of information technologies that arguably pose a
challenge to the government's ability to control information?
There are a couple of reasons. One, is it helps spur economic
development. The Internet has been a key driver of economic
development over the last few years, 10 years.
The other reason is that it is a good platform for
government propaganda and the government's message. Their
reason is that the Internet has been a source for measuring
public opinion for officials, so if they see problems being
discussed on the Internet, it gives them sort of a heads up.
But they're still trying to obviously maintain control, and
that is, again, back to the major observation from the past
year. There are a number of measures in a variety of areas. I
want to focus on two areas right now.
One is tightening entry requirements, which is basically
the ability of Chinese citizens, companies, and groups to gain
a presence on the Internet. Some of you may know, China imposes
a fairly strict licensing regime over Internet content, so if
you want to host a Web site, for example, apply for a domain
name, you have to go through the government.
What we observed this past year was that individuals were
facing increasing control over the ability to register their
Web sites, as well as to post comments anonymously on Chinese
Web sites. The government acknowledged that they were pursuing
a policy of requiring more people to use their real names and
IDs when they post comments on news Web sites, for example.
The second thing I wanted to discuss is the increasing
pressure on private companies to censor. We observed a
crackdown on blogging sites earlier this year and we observed a
couple of new laws, one being the state secrets law, and
another the tort liability law, which included new provisions
aimed at Internet companies which could, in the future,
increase the pressure on them to censor political content.
Which brings me to the Google case and discussion of
private companies and the obstacles they face in the Chinese
market with respect to censorship. Just as a little background,
if you're not familiar with the case, in January, Google
announced that it was reconsidering its offering of search
services through their Google.cn site, which they created for
the Chinese market back in 2006, because, as they put it, they
had been the victim of a cyber attack originating from China,
as well as increasing censorship from Chinese officials over
the past year. It really put Google on a collision course with
the Chinese Government.
Now, the way the case unfolded really highlighted a couple
of issues regarding China's censorship and licensing
requirements. The first, was the most obvious problem of the
content prohibitions, basically, the requirement that all
Internet service providers in China must censor political
content based on standards that are vague and orders that are
not delivered in a very transparent way. The Google case really
highlighted that.
The Google case also highlighted this nexus between trade
and human rights, the issue being that those unwilling to
censor, or to censor as vigorously as the Chinese officials
like them to, risk market access and market share. I don't know
if you've seen the news from today, but analysts are now
reporting that Google's share of the Chinese market has
declined even further this past quarter, and it's seen a steady
decline throughout the whole year.
The third issue that the Google case highlights is the free
flow of information for Chinese citizens. So this is not just
about a
private company trying to gain access to the Chinese market,
it's about Chinese citizens potentially losing what they
perceive to be, and what by some accounts is true, a less
censored source of information compared to domestic
alternatives like Baidu. So this
presented a free flow of information problem for Chinese
citizens, particularly academics and more educated Chinese who
really saw Google as a primary source of information.
The last issue is this licensing issue that I mentioned
earlier. Google, just like any other company that needs to
operate in China, wants to operate in China, was required to
get a license. This controversy arose. Google's solution was to
automatically redirect users to their Hong Kong site, which
they didn't have to censor because it was in Hong Kong.
But then Google's licensing renewal in China came up, and
so they backtracked from that position and instead of
automatically redirecting users to their Hong Kong site, they
created a link on the Chinese site that would allow users to
voluntarily opt to go to the Hong Kong site. So that's just an
example of how the licensing requirement forces companies to
consider whether or not what they're doing could potentially
jeopardize the ability to get their license renewed or to keep
their license.
I just wanted to mention briefly the Liu Xiaobo case,
because that's come up a lot because of the Nobel Peace Prize.
That case was also an example of this heightened concern over
the Internet because the court opinion really emphasized the
writings that Liu Xiaobo was associated with, including Charter
08, which was this manifesto supporting political reform and
human rights, as well as the essays that Liu had written, were
posted on the Internet, had been viewed a certain number of
times, and the opinion included some really interesting
language about the sort of dangerous effects of the Internet
and how quickly information can be spread over the Internet. So
it definitely highlighted how concerned officials were over
their ability to control the free flow of information on the
Internet.
One more interesting point about how all of this translated
into how Chinese officials were responding to attacks from
people about censorship, claims that China was censoring
information. The Google case really kind of put them on a PR
defensive. In response, what they did was to, not start, but
continue arguing that what they're doing is actually in line
with international law.
In June, they issued a white paper in which they said that
China guarantees freedom of speech on the Internet, that their
model is consistent with international practices. They
acknowledged, in a speech given by a high-level official in
April, that they were engaged in a sort of diplomatic or PR
campaign to convince other countries and to gain the
international community's acceptance of their model of the
Internet and acknowledged that they had engaged in dialogue and
exchanges with more than 70 countries and international
organizations to get that message out. So it's turned into an
interesting response in terms of Chinese officials arguing that
what they're doing is simply what other countries are doing.
Now, has there been push-back within China? Definitely,
there has been. I just wanted to point out that most recently
some of you may have heard of the open letter that had been
issued by a group of retired Communist Party officials. One of
the points that they had argued in that letter was that they
wanted the Internet regulated to stop arbitrary deletion of
online comments and to do away with the restrictions on anti-
censorship technologies. So the issue is definitely a hot one
within China. You can see it in terms of blog postings and
other ways that Chinese citizens are using to try to get around
the censorship.
In the Freedom of Expression section of the Annual Report
we also discuss the issue of press freedom and the abuse of
criminal law to punish free expression, and I would be happy to
address any of those issues in the Q&A.
But I'll turn it over now to Kara Abramson, who will talk
about developments in Xinjiang, where Internet access was also
severely curtailed this past year.
PRESENTATION BY KARA ABRAMSON, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR,
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Ms. Abramson. Thanks, Lawrence. I will indeed return to the
subject of freedom of expression in just a moment, as it
relates to conditions in Xinjiang.
Turning to this topic, simply put, human rights conditions
in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region worsened during the
Commission's 2010 reporting year. This reporting year came on
the heels of a suppressed demonstration by Uyghurs and multi-
ethnic riots in the region in July 2009.
Following these July 2009 events, authorities instituted
unprecedented levels of control over the free flow of
information, imposing a full and then partial block on Internet
access, for example, that extended into May 2010. In many ways,
this information block set the tone for the past year and
exemplifies the worsening conditions that we've seen.
In the past year, authorities also strengthened security
measures in the region and, as in the past, authorities
continued to politicize security concerns, targeting peaceful
human rights activity and political dissent, for example, as
threats to the region's security.
Authorities singled out Uyghurs in security campaigns and
the whereabouts of some Uyghurs detained in the aftermath of
the July 2009 demonstrations and riots, including Uyghurs who
were detained in broad security sweeps, remain unknown.
As the government tightened security campaigns, it used the
specter of religious extremism to tighten control over
religion, and over Islam in particular. We also saw new steps
to bring Muslim women religious figures under government
control, campaigns against women who wear head scarves, and
detentions of Muslims who gathered in organizations independent
of government control.
A number of trials took place in the past year that were
connected to the July 2009 demonstrations and riots, and they
have been marked by a lack of transparency and violations of
due process, both as defined in Chinese and international law.
We have only limited details on all of the trials that took
place, but we have seen evidence of curbs on legal defense, and
judges chosen for their political reliability.
The Chinese Government has publicized trials connected to
violent crimes that took place in July 2009, but we have also
seen reports of people tried and imprisoned for political
reasons. Among them are Uyghur Web site workers whose Web sites
posted announcements for a peaceful demonstration on July 5,
2009, or whose Web sites posted critical articles. Among them
is also a journalist who gave a foreign media interview that
was critical of some aspects of government policy in Xinjiang.
In April, Zhang Chunxian replaced Wang Lequan as Xinjiang
Party secretary, and while Zhang is seen as a softer and more
media-friendly figure than his predecessor, after his taking
his post he continued to reiterate official calls to place
``stability above all else'' and to ``strike hard with maximum
pressure'' against the ``three forces'' of terrorism,
separatism, and religious extremism.
Also notable from the past year, in May, central government
and Party authorities convened a meeting on Xinjiang policy.
Authorities at the meeting defined ``development by leaps and
bounds'' and upholding stability as twin goals for the region,
and they announced a series of initiatives to spur economic
development. It
remains an open question, however, to what extent local
communities, and especially Uyghurs and other non-Han groups,
will benefit from potentially positive aspects of these
initiatives.
At the same time, other initiatives, such as promoting
schooling in Mandarin Chinese at the expense of Uyghur,
resettling herders, and bolstering state-defined ethnic unity
campaigns, raise serious questions and concerns for the rights
of Uyghurs and other non-Han groups to preserve their language,
culture, and heritage.
Also in the past year, China's influence in neighboring
countries and its disregard for international refugee law
continued to have serious implications for Uyghurs. This was
starkly illustrated in December when the Cambodian Government
deported 20 Uyghur asylum seekers to China following Chinese
Government intervention.
In our report, we also detail a number of other measures
that have fueled worsening human rights conditions in the
region, especially for Uyghurs. These include rampant job
discrimination, new controls over internal Uyghur migrants
within Xinjiang, and continued work to raze the old city
section of Kashgar, thereby undermining Uyghurs rights to
preserve their cultural heritage and
undercutting property protections. I'm happy to pick up on any
of these issues during the question and answer period. Thank
you.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you, Kara.
Now we turn to Steve Marshall, who will discuss
developments in Tibetan areas.
PRESENTATION OF STEVE MARSHALL, SENIOR ADVISOR AND PRISONER
DATABASE PROGRAM DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION
ON CHINA
Mr. Marshall. All right. Thank you, Charlotte. These
remarks, for the sake of the briefing, will just touch on five
key areas, not the full spectrum of subjects of interest and
concern with Tibetan areas. Those subjects are: the Dalai Lama;
the Communist Party; religion; economic development; and law
and punishment.
The first of those five: the Dalai Lama. Over the past
year, the Chinese Government continued to press what it calls
its core interest policy. The core interests are issues that
the Chinese Government identifies as involving sovereignty and
national unity. On those issues, the Chinese Government expects
other countries to follow its policy recommendations in the
interests of trying to maintain ``harmonious relations'' with
China.
The purpose of that policy, internationally, is to try to
isolate the Dalai Lama and diminish or end his international
influence. A domestic policy that the Chinese Government
continued to pursue in tandem with the international policy
seeks to isolate Tibetans domestically from the Dalai Lama and
his influence.
The combination of these two policies could result in an
increase of human rights abuses of Tibetans and, importantly,
in a decrease in the ability of the international community to
detect and respond to these abuses.
With respect to the Communist Party, in January the
Standing Committee of the Communist Party Politburo, the
absolute top of the power organization of the Communist Party,
held what is known as the Fifth Tibet Work Forum to outline a
series of policy initiatives that, over the next 10 years, up
to 2020, would seek to achieve sweeping economic, cultural, and
development changes across the entire Tibetan area.
One of the most important initiatives that this forum
introduced was to expand the area of influence and coordination
from the Tibet Autonomous Region [TAR] to include 10 Tibetan
Autonomous Prefectures that are located in neighboring
provinces, namely Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan.
The effect of that is that the coordinated policy area--
which is contiguous--will roughly double the number of Tibetans
affected by the policy and it nearly doubles the size of the
policy area being coordinated by the central government and the
central Communist Party structure.
The third topic: religion. The situation for Tibetan
Buddhism continued to deteriorate over the last year. One of
the more important undertakings under way, which has not been
widely reported, is a central government-directed re-
registration of what the government refers to as ``religious
professionals.'' This would be monks, nuns, and teachers of
Tibetan Buddhism. In the TAR, that was slated to be completed
by the end of 2010.
Part of this process is that religious authorities would
review, basically, the patriotic position of monks and nuns and
determine whether or not their registrations are valid. Were
this policy to be applied in a manner that sought to weed out
monks and nuns that were not sufficiently patriotic or did not
adhere to what the government considers to be legal forms of
religion, that could result in serious losses for the Tibetan
monastic community. We don't have any information on that yet.
A word on what's legal. Two of the things that the
government official does not treat as legal is devotion to the
Dalai Lama, and also Tibetan support or acceptance of the
Panchen Lama identified by the Dalai Lama in 1995. His name is
Gedun Choekyi Nyima. Both issues are very important to
Tibetans, and the government seeks to prevent or discourage
both of them.
On economic development, Hu Jintao, the President of China
and also the General Secretary of the Communist Party, at the
Fifth Forum, outlined 10-year objectives that included
increasing major infrastructure projects, increasing natural
resource exploitation, and pushing forward with the policy to
settle nomadic herders and re-settle farmers into larger and
better-organized, fixed communities.
During the year, one official gave a figure for the Tibet
Autonomous Region--this was just the TAR--that by the end of
2009, the government had settled 1.3 million nomadic herders
and farmers into these communities. To put that into
perspective, that would be roughly half of the population of
the TAR that had been settled or re-settled by the end of 2009.
Another very interesting figure: An official said that by
the end of 2020, the TAR--this is not the whole area of the
plateau, just the TAR--would increase the mining share of GDP
from 3 percent currently to between 30 and 50 percent by 2020.
This would be an increase of, say, 10 to 16 times in mining GDP
by the end of this decade.
Connected to this increase in mining, if anybody's been
following the news, you've seen that over the past year there
have been some Tibetan protests, rather heated protests, in a
number of areas inside the TAR, and also in Sichuan and Gansu
Provinces, by Tibetans who are unhappy with new and continuing
mining initiatives.
On law and imprisonment, a key process over the last year
was increasing official use of the laws on splittism and what's
known as ``leaking state secrets'' to imprison Tibetans for
lengthy periods of time. Splittism, basically, can be when a
Tibetan criticizes government policy on one issue or another
and officials equate it with separatism--even if the subject
doesn't have anything to do with ``independence.''
Leaking state secrets, under the law, means that someone
provides information that could be politically sensitive to
individuals or organizations outside of China. In this case,
this would be Tibetans inside of China trying to let Tibetans
or Tibetan organizations outside of China know about incidents
of repression. These contacts have been resulting in prison.
Another key trend that has existed before but has become
more prominent over the last year, is the imprisoning of
secular civic leaders, intellectuals, writers, Tibetans who
host Tibetan language Web sites, for reasons that sometimes
involve political charges but other times can involve other
charges. There appears to be an effort on the part of the
government to remove some influential secular figures from
society by putting them in prison. Thank you. And please ask
questions about any of the topics on our report.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you, Steve.
Now we turn to the Q&A portion of this proceeding. We only
have about a half hour, so I would encourage those of you in
the audience to please ask questions of all our staff.
Before you stand up and say your name, and ask a question I
just want you to be mindful of two things. We always invite
members or representatives from the Chinese Embassy to attend
all of our events and we know our friends are here today, and
that's welcomed. We hope that they will participate in this
discussion.
The second item is, we have a lot of press in the room.
This proceeding is on the record, so if you have any privacy
concerns, I want you to be mindful, if you ask questions, that
they will be recorded.
Audience Participant. My name is Matthew [inaudible] I
didn't understand the reason for that.
Mr. Marshall. It's a relatively new development, so there
hasn't been a lot of discussion of it so far. All I can do is
theorize and suggest what appears to be the case. There has
been, for the past 20 years or so, fairly strong government
pressure on the monastic community and that has been where a
lot of the political push-back has come from in Tibetan
society. Secular society has been relatively more quiet.
But as the government has implemented policies on
education, on economic development, the movement of population,
re-settlement of farmers and nomads--policies that affect the
secular part of society rather than the monastic part of
society--this has contributed to Tibetan resentment.
Also, Tibetans have taken to the Web, as my colleague
Lawrence was describing, with real zeal. They've set up a lot
of Tibetan language Web sites and they really like exchanging
and circulating views and commenting on events and
developments. That promotes a lot of discussion.
Audience Participant. Anti-government discussion?
Mr. Marshall. Generally speaking, they're very careful in
their language. But anything that falls short of endorsing the
government can be treated as suspicious, and particularly if
they discuss the consequences of the 2008 protests, which
involved a lot of deaths, a lot of long sentences. Tibetans
feel that it's very important for them to share and circulate
that information. The government will step in and stop that as
well.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you.
Dr. Wan Yanhai?
Dr. Wan. My question--[inaudible].
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Can I recap what you just said very
briefly and let them respond? Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
cut you off.
Dr. Wan. [Inaudible.]
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Right. Research in this area. Right.
Dr. Wan. There is discrimination against Uyghurs and
Tibetans in Beijing and other cities outside of Xinjiang and
Tibet. Uyghur and Tibetan migrants in those areas also face
unique health challenges. Your report just focuses on Xinjiang
and Tibet. My recommendation is that you also should report on
conditions for Uyghurs and Tibetans outside these areas.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Okay. Dr. Wan made a very good point,
which is the report may not address in the detail that it might
the challenges facing Uyghurs and Tibetans who migrant to
eastern cities, who migrate out of Xinjiang and Tibetan areas,
and the challenges they face in their daily lives--getting into
hotels, getting residency permits, etc.
He mentioned the example of Uyghurs who, as Muslims, try to
meet together collectively. Those groups are broken up by the
police in some eastern cities and the Uyghurs have to sleep on
the streets. He recommended that the Commission should
recommend support of funding for research on the socio-economic
effects of this kind of migration and the impact. I hope I got
that right, Dr. Wan.
Dr. Wan. Yes.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Okay. Yes, please.
Ms. Abramson. Thank you for your comments. It certainly is
an issue of concern that we have been following. We have noted
reports, especially around the time of the Olympics, of curbs
on hotel access for Tibetans and Uyghurs in other cities.
Certainly that is an issue of concern.
Because of the way our report is divided, in some cases we
have dealt with cases of Uyghurs or Tibetans elsewhere in China
in sections of the report on freedom of residence, for example,
or other sections. We mention this year, for example, a Uyghur
scholar in Beijing who has had trouble leaving the country, and
it's not in the Xinjiang section but in the freedom of
residence section. Because of the way our report is divided up,
the information may be spread throughout the report. It is an
issue we will continue to follow.
Of note, we have, as you know, a political prisoner
database and we have put in a number of cases recently that
highlight the challenges that Uyghurs face in cities outside of
Xinjiang. These include a number of cases recently of Uyghurs
who were rounded up as they were petitioning in Beijing and the
case of a Uyghur who didn't have an ID card and was sent back
to Xinjiang. So a number of cases in our database, which is
publicly accessible from our Web site, detail some of these
challenges that Uyghurs outside of Xinjiang face.
Mr. Marshall. Dr. Wan, I agree with all of your points and
all of those are important issues to cover. One thing that I
think would help, is for everybody to understand that each of
these annual reports is not a report on the entire spectrum of
human rights issues every single year. The annual reports are
based on events and trends over the past year.
So, we don't necessarily have an identical focus every year
because different things happen in different years. For
example, with the Tibet section in past years, I've had
sections on job opportunities, employment, education, and
literacy. I think, in 2008-2009, the report addressed the issue
of registering in hotels that you mentioned--residency permits.
That has been in the Annual Report. If anyone read five years'
worth of the reports, there is a lot more information
available.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you.
Yes, sir?
Audience Participant. Can you say anything that happened
this year about the difficulties Uyghurs and Tibetans were
having [inaudible] using their languages in the schools?
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Kara?
Ms. Abramson. Yes. Thank you. That's a hugely important
issue that we've been covering extensively in several reports.
In Xinjiang, the issue is that the government has been
promoting what it calls bilingual education. It's been doing
this on a trial basis since the 1990s, but it really went into
full gear starting in the mid-2000s.
It's called bilingual education, but the model that the
government has chosen to implement most widely in Xinjiang is
essentially school instruction in Mandarin Chinese, with Uyghur
largely relegated to a language arts class, or sometimes
completely eliminated from the school. So the way shifts in
language use have been playing out in Xinjiang have largely
taken place in schools, where this bilingual education program
has been implemented.
As I mentioned, it's been growing each year since the mid-
2000s, but notably, in May, central government and Party
authorities met to hold a meeting on Xinjiang's future
development. At this meeting, they pledged that by 2020, all
students would have proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. So this is
a pretty big development because, although the Chinese
Government has been promoting bilingual education for many
years, it's easier said than done, and it has not yet been
fully implemented. It still requires a lot of skilled teaching
staff.
Up until now, the government has made steady, but slow,
progress to some extent. I think with this renewed desire
following this high-level meeting in Beijing, we are seeing
more resources, more money, and more teachers being poured into
this project. This can have serious implications for the future
of the Uyghur language and for Xinjiang schools. There are some
new limited efforts and limited pilot programs that we've seen
to have Uyghur instruction in some schools along with Mandarin
Chinese instruction, but the real thrust of educational policy
in Xinjiang is to make Mandarin the medium of instruction by
2020, and we now see an even greater push behind that from the
government.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Just briefly, and then I want to get some
questions on criminal justice and environment.
Mr. Marshall. If anybody's been looking at the news
yesterday and today, you'll have seen a very important story
that has emerged from one of the capitals of one of the Tibetan
autonomous prefectures. This story is on Qinghai Province and
involves protests by between a thousand and several thousand
students from five different schools and their teachers. They
were very orderly, teachers and students peacefully and quietly
protesting on the street, and it's about this very subject: the
role of Tibetan language and studies.
The government had announced that they were going to
transfer more of the teaching curriculum from Tibetan language
to Chinese language--the announcement put both students and
teachers in the street. This is an ongoing topic which we are
watching very closely. It's an agonizing balancing act for
Uyghurs and Tibetans.
On the one hand, they need very much to learn Chinese
language so they can find employment in a very competitive job
market, and on the other hand they need to maintain their
language in order to maintain their culture. This is a very
important story and we'll be watching it for years.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Great. Thank you.
Can I have questions on the environment, criminal justice
concerns, religion? Is anybody asking questions on those
matters? Sir, you? Thank you.
Mr. Shaw. My name is Zachary Shaw. I work at the U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission. Many Chinese media
commentary regarding Liu Xiaobo claim he made statements
alluding to, China should be colonized by the West. Have you
heard of these statements and did he actually say them? What is
the difference between Chinese perceptions of dissidents and
Chinese media perceptions versus the perception in the West?
Mr. Liu. Unfortunately, I don't know. I can't answer the
question of whether or not he said those things. I've seen some
of the articles that you've mentioned. My sense is that, I
mean, he's apparently written hundreds of essays, upward of
800, the majority of them written since 2005. He's written on
all kinds of topics relating to political reform. Certainly
there's a lot of material to potentially work with, if you
wanted to find something that you could use to either--I don't
know.
I don't know the context, but some of the stuff is out
online. If you wanted to look for it, I'm sure you could find
it. In terms of our work, we don't get into sort of parsing
what the significance or interpreting what the sort of
substantive meaning of what they said is.
What we focus on is, was the trial fair and in terms of
what the court cited as the reasons for punishing him, whether
or not those were legitimate reasons under international human
rights law. Now, whether or not he deserved the Nobel Peace
Prize, that's a separate issue for the rest of you guys to
consider.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you.
Yes, sir. In the back, with the yellow tie.
Mr. Lee. I'm Nun Lee from [inaudible] and I have a
question. In the past year, I've seen a lot of Chinese citizens
mobilize themselves to defend their human rights, and in some
cases they were successful [inaudible] they were able to
[inaudible]. One of these cases was the case of [inaudible],
and even [inaudible] played a very important role in that case.
But I have two questions. One question is, do you see the
potential of this [inaudible] approach of human rights
[inaudible] since human rights have been playing an important
role in this case [inaudible] recommendations [inaudible] to
take action [inaudible] more freedom [inaudible].
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you.
Doug, do you want to reply to the question on political
reform?
Mr. Grob. I think this raises the question of how we assess
and measure progress, or, as in the case that you cite,
openness. For example, we do see specific cases that we might
observe as openness. Sometimes you see investigative journalism
allowed to do its work in China. You see this in cases of
wrongful conviction, you see it in some cases of
whistleblowers. You see it sometimes in anti-corruption cases.
So what you called the grassroots, bubble-up
approach can play an anti-corruption role, and some central
authorities see that.
However, I think that as analysts we have to be extra
careful to differentiate between two types of cases, both of
which may at first appear to signify greater openness. We have
to differentiate between cases in which the end result of
openness aligns with central government or party policy and
cases in which it does not. For example, if it is in the
central government's or the central Party leadership's interest
to pursue anti-corruption in a specific locality such that the
activities ``bubbling up'' serve that interest, then we may
observe what will appear to be openness. But it will not be as
significant as, say, central authorities' permitting openness
when it is not in their immediate interests politically to do
so, but they do so nonetheless. If we publicly recognize the
former as a case of the latter, then we are not necessarily
contributing to the promotion of the rule of law. We should
publicly recognize as cases of openness those cases in which
central authorities permit openness when it is difficult
politically for them to do so, but they do so nonetheless. It
is critical that we differentiate these types of cases.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. And in terms of the Internet, we have a
whole section of recommendations for the U.S. Government, so I
would ask that you read this report.
Any other questions? Yes. Madeleine? Please.
Ms. McDougall. Hi. I'd just like to ask a quick question in
regard to religion other than Buddhism and Islam. In regard to
religious groups such as Protestants, Catholics, and ``cult''
organizations, what types of trends have you observed,
particularly in connection with major events, including the
Shanghai Expo and the upcoming Asian Games?
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you, Madeleine. Kiel Downey, who's
our resident expert on Protestantism in China, will speak to
that.
Mr. Downey. Thank you very much for that question. That's a
broad question that covers a number of different groups, but
I'll try to be concise. In the last few months of 2009, we did
see a fairly clear trend in terms of a string of cases where
authorities were targeting particularly large, high-profile,
``house churches,'' which refers to groups of Protestants in
China that are not part of the state-sanctioned religious
community, and that's another issue, but Protestants who are
not part of state-controlled churches, some in Beijing,
Shanghai, and other locations.
There was a fairly clear trend in which authorities,
according to reports that we saw, had pressured landlords to
move house church congregations out of their places of worship,
and then authorities were targeting these groups after they
began meeting in public spaces, such as parks or other public
locations, trying to disperse these congregations. That was
just a string of incidents over one short period of time. In
terms of broad trends, it's difficult to say for sure what we
expect to see in the future.
But one thing I will say, especially in regard to
Protestants, is that I've seen a number of reports over the
past year indicating that the space or scope of activity for
unregistered Protestants in China is expanding. I'd like to
clarify and qualify that statement. From the reports I've seen,
it does appear that the sheer size of the Protestant community
in China is indeed increasing fairly rapidly.
But in terms of whether the space for activity is
increasing, I think it depends on how you look at it, because
certainly by virtue of the fact that the size of the community
is increasing, there is an increase in the amount of activity,
including activity outside of state-sanctioned parameters. But
at the same time, as evidenced by those cases that we saw at
the end of last year and other cases throughout 2010, there are
definitely limits, at least in certain cases, on what
worshipers are permitted to do.
I think you also asked a question about the Shanghai World
Expo and the Asian Games. Is that correct?
Ms. McDougall. Yes.
Mr. Downey. One thing that the Commission has observed
around the period of the Shanghai World Expo is a tightening of
security measures, particularly with reference to Falun Gong
practitioners. A number of local governments in the greater
Shanghai area have issued statements and directives to public
security authorities, asking them to look out for potential
Falun Gong activities surrounding the Shanghai World Expo, such
as petitioning or protests, and to be vigilant about finding
and targeting Falun Gong practitioners during that time.
The same goes for the Asian Games. The Asian Games are
typically held in Guangzhou, and local governments in the area
around Guangzhou have also issued a number of statements to the
public security authorities, instructing them to be vigilant
about any sort of unapproved religious activity surrounding the
time of the Asian Games, any sort of incident that might
contribute to ``instability'' in that area.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you, Kiel.
Anybody else? Ms. Susan Weld? Please.
Ms. Weld. [Inaudible.] Are there any bright spots to report
in relation to environmental protection and information
transparency?
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Yes.
Ms. Weld. [Inaudible.] What about the Open Government
Information regulations, are they being implemented?
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Anna Brettell, could you address that?
Lawrence? Please. On Open Government Information [OGI] and
whether it's being advanced, and how effectively it's being
used.
Ms. Brettell. There were a couple of studies that looked at
the use of OGI in the environment sector, one involving 113
cities. They found some bright spots in that citizens were
asking for information based on the Open Government Information
regulations. They were making requests. The environmental
protection bureaus in some cities were responding and being
quite transparent, while in other cities they were not.
One of the reports indicated that there are a number of
reasons why government officials may not respond to citizen
information requests, including the lack of institutional
capacity, the vagueness of the OGI measures, and the
inconsistency in making officials accountable for failing to
comply with the measures. In some locations, there may be the
lack of political will to be more transparent. There are a
number of different issues, but there have been some bright
spots, yes.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. Lawrence wants
to jump in.
Mr. Liu. I just wanted to highlight an important related
development, which was the amendment of the state secrets law,
which a lot of people viewed in tandem with the OGI regulations
and had hoped that the state secrets law would be amended in a
way that would give greater clarity and definition to what a
state secret is under Chinese law.
The amendment went through, I believe--I can't remember the
month, but it was a recent amendment earlier this year, in
April of this year. It just recently took effect early this
month, which basically leaves intact the vague definition of
state secrets. So as a fundamental barrier to the OGI, that law
hasn't changed.
Mr. Grob. Let me just add as well, if you're interested, in
our report, on page 61, and then again on pages 174-176, we
cover
developments concerning the Open Government Information
Regulation. For those who may not be familiar, the Open
Government Information Regulation was issued by the State
Council a couple of years ago, and it essentially is a records
access regulation. It allows individuals to file applications
for access to government information in China. It was rolled
out as part of a broader anti-corruption initiative, and it
obviously speaks to the twin goals of accountability and
transparency. In terms of promising developments, one of them,
which we go into somewhat in the report, is the application of
the Regulation and the exercise of rights under the Regulation
in areas such as budget transparency and so forth. Another
promising development is the analysis that's going on, both by
public organs, state organs in China, as well as by local
social science academies, which do research for the local
governments, and by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
which is the public policy research arm of the State Council.
In the academic sector as well, there's a great deal of
analysis going on, grappling with key questions in the
implementation of this Regulation.
One question that's on the table that is very interesting
is, are applications for access to government information
themselves considered records that are then subject to the OGI
Regulation? In other words, can someone submit an application
for access to information about the government's handling of a
request for information previously submitted on another matter?
This would provide a way to analyze the effectiveness of
implementation. We can talk further about this afterward if
you'd like.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Okay. One last question.
Ms. Marsden. I am Lani Marsden, a CECC intern. My question
is: This past year the State Administration Foreign Exchange
put out new restrictions on foreign funding to Chinese civil
society organizations. How has this affected public health
organizations in particular?
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Did you catch that, Abbey? Okay. She
asked about foreign funding assistance to public health
organizations in China.
Ms. Story. Thank you for your question. This is definitely
an issue of concern.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Oh. Yes.
Ms. Story. The Commission does not have much recent
information on the direct impact that these regulations have
had on public health advocacy organizations. To give a brief
background, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange issued
a circular in March 2010 requiring that domestic
organizations----
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Receipt of funds from overseas.
Ms. Story [continuing].--receiving donations from abroad
must submit their business licenses, notarized donation
agreements, and certificates of registration of the overseas
donating organizations. The requirements are restrictive, and
authorities could use them to exercise tighter control over the
activities of select organizations they deem to be
``problematic'' for various reasons. It is still early,
however, so many organizations are just sort of waiting and
seeing how the circular will be implemented. We have not yet
heard detailed reports of the impact on specific groups.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you.
I know some of you might get whiplash here because we're
bouncing from topic to topic, but this is great for people who
have no attention span, like myself.
Jesse Heatley. This last question is from Chairman Dorgan,
who's had a great amount of concern about the state of Gao
Zhisheng, who is one of the foremost human rights defenders in
China. Can you give us an update on, where is Gao? Senator
Dorgan wants to know: Where is Gao?
Mr. Heatley. I wish I could. Gao continues to be forcibly
detained. We don't have any updates on his whereabouts. Gao
resurfaced in late March. At that point he contacted a number
of foreign media outlets and told them he was staying near
Wutai Mountain, and he returned to Beijing shortly in April. He
was there and gave a certain number of interviews in April and,
by mid-April, around April 20, April 21, he once again was
forcibly detained or disappeared. At present, we haven't had an
update from any Chinese officials, overseas media, or nonprofit
organizations that are covering the case, so it continues to be
of great concern to our government, and other governments in
Europe as well.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Thank you.
The continued disappearance and lack of knowledge about Gao
Zhisheng is a very sad situation, which hopefully will be
addressed soon by the Chinese Government.
Thank you for coming today. This has been a genuine
pleasure for us to have you here and to share our work with
you. So, thank you very much. And if you want to talk to
individual staff experts, please come on up afterward and
they'll be available. Also, visit our Web site and feel free to
call us at any time. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m. the roundtable was adjourned.]