[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON RIGHTS ADVOCATES: PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
AND PERSPECTIVES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 8, 2014
__________
Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Senate
House
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey,
CARL LEVIN, Michigan Cochairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California FRANK WOLF, Virginia
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
TIM WALZ, Minnesota
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Department of State
Lawrence T. Liu, Staff Director
Paul B. Protic, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
CO N T E N T S
----------
Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Sherrod Brown, a U.S. Senator from
Ohio; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.... 1
Pittenger, Hon. Robert, a U.S. Representative from North
Carolina; Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.. 2
Ilham, Jewher, Daughter of detained Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti... 3
Teng Biao, Human Rights Lawyer and Scholar....................... 5
Clarke, Donald, David A. Weaver Research Professor of Law, George
Washington University School of Law............................ 6
Richardson, Sophie, China Director, Human Rights Watch........... 8
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Ilham, Jewher.................................................... 24
Teng Biao........................................................ 25
Clarke, Donald................................................... 27
Richardson, Sophie............................................... 30
Brown, Hon. Sherrod.............................................. 35
Smith, Christopher............................................... 36
UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON RIGHTS ADVOCATES: PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
AND PERSPECTIVES
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 3:38 p.m.,
in room 418 Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Sherrod
Brown, Chairman, presiding.
Present: Representatives Robert Pittenger and Tim Walz.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
OHIO; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chairman Brown. Thank you all for joining us. To all four
witnesses, thank you especially for speaking out, and for your
courage.
On February 21, 2014, nine members of this Commission,
Democrats and Republicans from both the House and the Senate--
and you will see that generally in the work of this Commission.
It is bicameral, it is bipartisan. There is perhaps more
agreement on this Commission than almost any committee in the
Congress.
We sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping urging him
to end the crackdown on rights advocates in China. Among the
cases we highlighted was that of Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti,
and his daughter joins us today. Mr. Tohti is a thoughtful and
peaceful advocate of the rights of the Uyghur minority who has
sought to build bridges among ethnic groups. We are grateful
that his daughter joined us today. Thank you again, Ms. Ilham.
We are grateful that the prominent human rights lawyer Teng
Biao could join us via Skype. Teng Biao has provided legal
assistance in human rights cases at great risk to himself. Our
staff has made every effort to ensure the security of this feed
and we hope there will be no disruption.
We are grateful, too, that Mr. Clarke and Ms. Richardson
could take time out of their busy schedules to be here. Ms.
Richardson is a respected expert on human rights. Mr. Clarke
has done considerable research into understanding China's legal
reform and rule-of-law development.
The hearing comes at an important time. President Xi
Jinping has been in power more than a year. As we'll learn more
today, he has presided over a worrisome crackdown that is
estimated to have swept away more than 150 activists and
lawyers and journalists and intellectuals.
President Xi spoke of respecting the constitution and rule
of law when he entered office. He has talked tough on
corruption. His government has pledged to protect ethnic
minorities. But when his own citizens, including the father of
our witness today, sought to hold the Chinese Government
accountable they were punished.
They include the legal advocate Xu Zhiyong, who has sought
to promote educational opportunity and transparency of
officials' finances. He is now serving a four-year sentence for
``disturbing social order.'' They include the activist Cao
Shunli, who sought to participate in the drafting of China's
human rights report to be presented to the UN Human Rights
Council. She died last month after being detained and denied
medical treatment.
They include the four lawyers trying to defend Falun Gong
members held in illegal detention centers known as black jails.
The lawyers have been detained and beaten. During President
Xi's first year in office, we have learned that independent
voices, even those that echo the government's concerns and try
to uphold the law, will not be tolerated.
These actions are not befitting a country that every day
claims to want, and is seeking in fact, greater international
legitimacy. We urge the government of the People's Republic of
China to respect the fundamental rights of every one of its
citizens to freedom of expression and press and association and
religion.
We do so not simply because this is China's obligation
under international law, but because China will be better and
stronger if it gives citizens a voice and a stake in the
system.
By listening to and respecting the rights of citizens like
Ilham Tohti and Xu Zhiyong, China can involve all its people in
dealing with the most important problems of the day,
corruption, ethnic tensions, and income equality. But first,
President Xi and China's leaders must view these citizens not
as threats, but as people who want what is best for their
country.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses.
Congressman Pittenger, your comments?
[The prepared statement of Senator Brown appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT PITTENGER, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NORTH CAROLINA; MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON
CHINA
Representative Pittenger. Thank you, Chairman Brown, for
calling this important hearing and for allowing me to make an
opening statement.
First, I want to thank the witnesses who are appearing
before us today, especially Ms. Ilham, who is showing extreme
courage coming before us to tell her father's story.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution affords
American citizens the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of
the press, and freedom to peacefully assemble. These rights are
the foundation of what have made our democracy work. These
rights are what have allowed for America to continually grow
and advance. America must continue to advocate for these rights
to be afforded to every person around the world.
Last year, this Commission heard from young women whose
fathers had been arrested as political prisoners simply for
exercising these rights. Today, we will hear from another young
woman who has seen firsthand the repressive tactics of the
Chinese Government.
Our job as Commissioners, as Members of Congress, as those
who hold the lamp of liberty, must be to continue to bring to
light these stories and call for China to end its continued
persecution of those law-abiding citizens simply for speaking
out on behalf of the oppressed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing the
testimony of the witnesses.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. Pittenger, for joining us.
Mr. Walz, thank you for joining us today and your
dedication to these causes and these policies that we work on
in this Commission, and your involvement in the Commission.
It is my pleasure to introduce the three witnesses. We will
hear from each of them, starting with Ms. Ilham. She is the
daughter of detained Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti. Mr. Tohti is a
peaceful advocate for the Uyghur community who was arrested in
February on charges of separatism. He is a respected economist
and writer based at Minzu University in Beijing who was
supposed to take up a visiting scholar position at Indiana
University last fall. His daughter, Jewher, is now studying
English at Indiana University. Welcome. Thank you for being
here.
Dr. Teng Biao is a human rights lawyer and scholar. He is a
lecturer at China University of Political Science and Law in
Beijing. He is now a visiting scholar at the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. He has provided counsel on numerous human rights
cases and is a co-initiator of the New Citizens' Movement. He
is joining us via Skype. Dr. Teng Biao, welcome. Thank you for
being here. Apparently it's working.
Donald Clarke is the David Weaver Research Professor of Law
at George Washington University Law School. He specializes in
modern Chinese law, focusing on corporate governance, Chinese
legal institutions, and the legal issues presented by China's
economic reforms.
Dr. Sophie Richardson is the China Director of Human Rights
Watch. She is the author of numerous articles on domestic
Chinese political reform, democratization, and human rights in
China, and other countries in Asia. Ms. Richardson, welcome.
Ms. Ilham, welcome. If you would begin your testimony.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JEWHER ILHAM, DAUGHTER OF DETAINED UYGHUR SCHOLAR
ILHAM TOHTI
Ms. Ilham. Hello. My name is Jewher Ilham and I am a
student at Indiana University. I'm grateful for this
opportunity to appear here and speak about the suppression of
dissent in the People's Republic of China as I have personally
experienced it.
Over a year ago, I set out to accompany my father, Ilham
Tohti, to the United States, where he was to be a visiting
scholar at Indiana University. I was to stay for a month. On
February 2, 2013, preparing to depart China, my father and I
were detained. Due to a police error, I was allowed to leave.
My father was held, beaten, and forbidden from leaving China,
all for writing about abuses of civil and religious rights. My
father, Ilham Tohti, is a well-known economist and writer based
at Central Minzu University in Beijing and an advocate for the
human rights of the Uyghur people.
I'm not an academic expert on Xinjiang nor on China's
politics, but I have observed the impact of repressive Chinese
policies on my own family. 2013 was not the first time my
father had been detained and his family harassed. After serious
clashes in Xinjiang in 2009 left many people dead and a
significant number ``disappeared,'' my father worked to get
their names and cast a spotlight on China's repression of
Uyghur grievances.
As a result, my family was removed from their residence and
moved around for one month. Our phones and computers were
confiscated. In April 2011, my father and grandmother were
forcibly sent to Guangzhou for a week.
In December 2011, I returned home from school one day to
find an empty home. My stepmother, my father, and my brothers
had been sent to Hainan for two weeks. In 2012, the authorities
blocked my brother from registering for school or having a
passport. The university also canceled my father's class for
one semester. His Web site was sometimes shut down.
In the fall of 2013, state security personnel rammed my
father's car and told him they would kill everyone in our
family. But the worst happened after January 15 of this year. A
large group of police took my father away without any due
process. We had no information about him. His lawyer was denied
contact with him. On January 25, the government announced
accusations against him, including inciting separatism and
hatred of the country, and praising terrorists.
Anyone who knows my father realizes how false these charges
are. My father never speaks about separatism. By arresting my
father, China has driven Uyghurs to understand that their
justified grievances cannot get any sort of hearing. Today, my
father is in the Urumchi Municipal Prison, but no one can visit
him.
The Chinese state often metes out collective punishment to
a prisoner's family. My stepmother has no access to family
funds in my father's bank account. She and my young brothers
are monitored 24 hours a day. Police sleep outside their door
at night and keep watch there during the day.
Phone calls to my stepmother are monitored, making it
difficult for her to communicate with me. She may lose her
employment due to my father's political imprisonment. My oldest
brother has become withdrawn and introverted. Having witnessed
our father being taken away, he now has nightmares.
Finally, there are some students of my father who have been
arrested and imprisoned too, with very little known as to their
whereabouts. China has imprisoned a dissident intellectual
whose sole crime was advocating human rights and equitable
treatment for the Uyghur people.
I am heartened that the Congressional-Executive Commission
on China has taken an interest in my father's case and is
seeking to learn more about the facts of his imprisonment.
Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you very much, Ms. Ilham. We really
do appreciate your comments and your joining us.
Dr. Teng Biao will join us via Skype from Hong Kong. Dr.
Teng Biao, welcome.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ilham appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF TENG BIAO, HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER AND SCHOLAR (via
Skype)
Mr. Teng. Thank you. Just before the First Lady Michelle
Obama gave a talk at the Peking University, I tweeted to draw
her attention to the plight of two remarkable Peking University
alumni--Cao Shunli and Xu Zhiyong. For the past 10 years, Dr.
Xu Zhiyong has become one of the most prominent figures in the
human rights movement.
The last time I was in contact with him was a few days
before he was arrested. He sent a record of his conversation
with the secret police. The government gave him several
opportunities to compromise. If he agreed to abandon the New
Citizens' Movement, he would not be put into prison. But Dr. Xu
refused to compromise; he was sentenced to four years.
This past year at least 200 human rights defenders have
been arrested, including one of my best friends, Ilham Tohti.
It is confirmed that many activists have been tortured. Many of
these people are connected to the New Citizens' Movement. Its
earlier incarnation was an NGO founded by Dr. Xu Zhiyong and me
in 2003, focusing on freedom of speech, religious freedom, and
other constitutional rights.
The New Citizens' Movement encourages people to fight for
civil rights and unite rights defenders around the country.
These activities include promoting educational equality,
pressing officials to disclose their assets, and arranging
same-city dinner gatherings. By using online mobilization,
street speeches, and peaceful protests, the New Citizens'
Movement has brought the Rights Defense Movement to a new
height.
Why is the Chinese Government savagely suppressing rights
defenders? For the past 10 years, the Rights Defense Movement
has made great progress. Thanks to our struggles and sacrifice,
we have seen several changes. First, the movement is growing
from individual cases to street activities; second, from online
activities into real-world activities; third, from legal
appeals toward political appeals; fourth, from individual to
organized activism.
Then the authorities sense an obvious threat. However, the
rulers of China refuse to engage in dialogue with civil society
and brutally punish anyone who dared to threaten their rule.
Nonetheless, more and more people are standing up to demand
rights and democracy. For example, recently in Jiansanjiang,
several lawyers were detained for investigating a ``legal
education center''--or ``brainwashing'' classes. Why did they
stand up to disclose ``brainwashing'' classes? Because they are
the concentration camps of today. Countless Falun Gong
practitioners have been sent to these ``brainwashing'' classes.
At least 3,000 have been tortured to death.
As a result of fighting for freedom, many lose their own
freedom. I recall the time in 2011 when Beijing's secret police
picked me up and put me in solitary confinement for 70 days.
While the secret police used violence against me, they
declared, ``Don't talk about law, no one can help you.'' But I
never gave up hope.
My longing for justice and freedom gave me strength. I
believe that our struggle is meaningful and we are becoming
more powerful. I also firmly believe that in the United States,
in Europe, and in every corner of the world where the light of
freedom shines, while the struggle of human dignity continues,
we will not be forgotten.
I greatly admire the U.S. Congress and the government for
your efforts in advocating freedom and human rights. However,
the international pressure on violators of human rights is far
from adequate. The Chinese Government not only manipulates the
international human rights system, it also makes use of its
influence in order to blackmail democratic nations.
How much economic benefit can we sacrifice for freedom?
When people make this calculation, they are already on the
wrong track. The oppressors of freedom are becoming more
powerful by taking advantage of the head-in-the-sand policies
of democratic countries and ``the silence of the good.''
Oppressors will not respect national boundaries. By the time
the free world feels it needs to protect freedom, I fear it may
be too late.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Brown. Thank you very much, Dr. Teng. We will
begin questions in a moment.
Mr. Clarke, thank you for joining us.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Teng appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF DONALD CLARKE, DAVID A. WEAVER RESEARCH PROFESSOR
OF LAW, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
Mr. Clarke. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the
Commission, in my testimony today I want to look at two recent
detentions in China and discuss their significance for the rule
of law in China, and these detentions are those of Xu Zhiyong
and Ilham Tohti.
I believe that the main significance of these detentions
lies not in the substance of the charges against them--it's not
new that China seeks to repress those whom it sees as its
enemies--but rather in the process that accompanied the
detentions.
Xu Zhiyong's current troubles began when he was placed
under an informal kind of house arrest on April 12, 2013; his
formal detention did not begin until July 16. After formal
detention, the police can stretch out to 30 days the time limit
for requesting approval of the next stage, which is the formal
stage of arrest. The procuracy, which is the body in charge of
prosecutions that approves the arrest, has seven days in which
to decide to approve or disapprove the arrest.
In Xu's case, the indictment says he was formally
arrested--again, he was already in custody at the time--on
August 22, which is exactly 30 days plus 7 days following his
formal detention, so apparently someone was keeping a very
close eye on the calendar. But to call this arrest lawful we
would have to be satisfied that the term during which he was
under house arrest prior to his formal detention was lawful.
Now, what about that? The closest thing Chinese law has to
house arrest--this term is often used in media descriptions,
and indeed one can call it house arrest, but the important
thing to understand is that Chinese law does not have really a
term they call house arrest--it is an institution called
supervised residence, but that has a number of conditions set
forth for it in Chinese law, one of which is that in order to
put someone under supervised residence, which is essentially
house arrest, it must be that the conditions for arrest--that
is, this later formal stage--are already deemed satisfied.
So in that case it's impossible to justify Xu's subsequent
37 days in formal detention while they were allegedly deciding
whether or not the conditions for arrest were satisfied,
because logically they must have already made that decision in
order to put him under supervised residence.
Once a suspect is arrested, the authorities have basically
up to five months--there are all kinds of ways to extend it up
to five months--to keep him in custody while they investigate.
Even this five-month limit can be extended indefinitely by
action at a very high level. That's the Standing Committee of
the National People's Congress, which presumably is very
troublesome. Xu was not put on trial until January 22, 2014,
exactly five months to the day after his formal arrest.
So again, this suggests that the generous time limits
afforded by the Criminal Procedure Law were used to the
fullest, something that really shouldn't have been necessary
given that the Foreign Ministry has insisted that Xu Zhiyong's
case was simply an ordinary criminal case, no politics about it
at all.
The trial itself was marred by a number of violations of
the letter and spirit of Chinese law. First, it was not in any
real sense open, despite the lack of any grounds under Chinese
law for closing it. Second, the defense was not permitted to
cross-examine any witnesses for the prosecution, despite the
rule calling for cross-examination, or at least some way to
challenge evidence, in the Criminal Procedure Law. Third, he
was not permitted to call his own witnesses. To protest these
and other problems, Xu and his counsel elected to remain silent
during the hearing. At the end he attempted to make a statement
but was cut off by the judge.
Moving on to Professor Tohti: Ilham Tohti was detained on
January 15, 2014, and apparently formally arrested on February
20 on a charge of separatism. This period of time between
detention and arrest could fit within that allowed under
Chinese law if his case is deemed complex. So far, the time
between arrest and trial has not been exceeded.
Nevertheless, the state has deprived him of his rights
under Chinese law in other ways. On March 4, his lawyer, Li
Fangping, stated that he was no longer allowed to communicate
with Tohti, apparently the reason given being that state
secrets were involved. This is an excuse the Chinese Government
has used so often in circumstances where it is highly
implausible that it really no longer carries any credibility.
Ms. Ilham has already detailed other problems such as
cutting off funds to his wife's bank account and, previous to
his detention, of course, taking him on various tours around
China paid for by the state that he may not have wanted to
take.
So there are two lessons here. First, following legal
procedures is of course better than not following legal
procedures, but it doesn't necessarily produce justice. We have
to ask what the laws say, how they were produced, and who gets
to interpret them.
May I have another 30 seconds?
Chairman Brown. Proceed.
Mr. Clarke. The second lesson is that the Chinese
Government retains its ambivalent attitude toward the values of
the rule of law. In many cases it wishes to claim the mantle of
fidelity to law. It does so sometimes by making the law vague
and flexible enough to achieve its purposes, sometimes simply
by falsely claiming to be following law, but at other times it
doesn't seem to be trying even to appear to be offering fair
proceedings, or at least proceedings that follow its own rules.
Sometimes authoritarian states try to turn political issues
into legal issues in an attempt to neutralize them. The Chinese
state sometimes seem to go out of its way to demonstrate that
ostensibly legal issues are really political issues.
So I would end just by saying it's really not clear whether
it's reasonable to expect at least a slow movement toward the
values of rule of law, especially a process-oriented rule of
law.
Thanks for the opportunity to testify. I am sorry for going
over.
Chairman Brown. No problem. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Clarke.
Mr. Clarke. I would appreciate any questions.
Chairman Brown. Thank you.
Dr. Richardson?
[The prepared statement of Mr. Clarke appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF SOPHIE RICHARDSON, CHINA DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH
Ms. Richardson. Thanks very much for the opportunity to
testify and for your ongoing leadership. Thanks also to your
excellent staff and the work they do.
My written remarks summarize some of the background that
we've written about the crackdown on Chinese human rights
defenders, but here I simply want to stress that even if one
isn't concerned about human rights issues, which obviously we
think people should be, I think the current crackdown is bad
news for reform generally in China.
By that I mean that Xi Jinping has already shown himself to
be a hardline and conservative leader in ways that deeply
undercut the kind of popular support he is going to need if he
wishes to advance the kind of tough, complex reform agenda
against deeply vested interests and bureaucratic intransigence.
I raise that simply to make the point that, now more than ever,
respect by the Chinese Government--or lack thereof--is a
bellwether we think for political, economic, and legal reform
going forward.
I was asked to focus on three specific issues today. One,
about similarities and differences in the current crackdown
from past ones. I think the similarities are that these things
tend to happen at times of political uncertainty.
At the moment, that really is about the fate of Xi
Jinping's reform agenda and about the investigations of
individuals like Zhou Yongkang, senior political figures who
are now being investigated presumably on corruption charges. I
think the other similarity is that the prospects for
accountability for the crackdown itself remain quite low. It
will be difficult to imagine prosecutions for the people who
have abused Xu Zhiyong and Ilham Tohti and who are responsible
for Cao Shunli's death.
I think there are a couple of important differences right
now. The first one is that I think the current crackdown
appears to be considerably more strategic, proactive, and
aggressive on the government's part. It's not simply reacting
to external events like Liu Xiaobo's 2010 Nobel Prize win. I
think we're seeing authorities targeting people who are part of
initiatives like the New Citizens' Movement, or going after
professors and their students, as has also been the case for
Professor Tohti's--some of his students.
Second, the government appears to be trying to break down
the interdependent relationships between social media activists
and mass media that we think are often critical to actually
advancing some kind of change, for example, the push against
``Big Vs'' last year, against certain kinds of Internet users.
Arguably, of greatest concern, this crackdown is targeting
incredibly moderate middle-of-the-road activists and issues.
These are people who are pushing for public asset disclosure,
for access to education, access to UN human rights mechanisms.
These are not particularly incendiary calls for regime change,
these are issues that would at best wind up in the B section of
most American newspapers. The fact that even those issues are
considered off limits is of real concern.
I was asked to say a few words about how Tibetan and Uyghur
human rights defenders are faring. Obviously we have talked
today about the disastrous and politically motivated
prosecution of Ilham Tohti. I am compelled to note that
yesterday marked the 12th anniversary in prison of Tenzen Delek
Rinpoche. These are communities that are extremely vulnerable.
Alongside the national crackdown, I think the tightening in
both of those regions following self-immolations, following the
Chinese Government's efforts to paint Uyghurs without providing
any credible evidence as responsible for attacks on civilians
in Beijing and Kunming, puts those communities at even greater
risk and actually lowers the standard of what kind of behavior
is considered problematic.
We're keeping a close eye on the case of Abduweli Ayup, who
is a Uyghur who was arrested in July 2013 for raising money for
schools. He was detained, along with two other men. Nine months
later, we still don't even know what the charges against him
are and that's a real concern to us.
I want to spend at least a minute talking about what we
think the United States should be doing. Despite, I think, the
often Herculean efforts of people who spend all day within the
U.S. Government trying to defend human rights issues, we think
that senior levels of the Administration remain deeply
ambivalent about whether human rights issues in China are ones
simply to be managed primarily for a domestic constituency or
whether they are ones that the United States should be making
an effort to try to solve. Those are two very different things.
We all know that change is largely going to come from
inside China, but I think there is a role for external
pressure, as Professor Teng has noted, and that largely through
reputational pressure there should be a price levied against
the senior Chinese leadership for these kinds of abuses.
I'm going to try to exercise the same privilege that
Professor Clarke did, if you don't mind.
I think helping solve the problem actually requires
elevating abuses and individual cases consistently to the
senior-most discussions, from the President on through members
of the Cabinet, above and beyond the State Department and the
usual suspects who are tasked with raising human rights abuses.
They should all be prepared to raise an individual case, just
one--it's not a big ask, just one--and be prepared to talk
about that case when they meet with their Chinese counterparts.
Ask why that person has been detained. Ask why they've been
charged with what they've been charged with. Be politely
prosecutorial and ask for an explanation. Often Chinese
interlocutors aren't going to have an answer on the spot, but
certainly the fact that an unusual suspect asked the question
will certainly be made note of.
For anybody in the U.S. Government who thinks that human
rights issues in China are somehow beyond their bailiwick, I
would commend them to Susan Rice's December 2013 speech which
made very clear that these issues cut across the bilateral
relationship.
I think solving the problem also means using things like
the 2011 Executive Order allowing for visa bans. I think
solving the problem means the United States, which has
generally been good on refuge issues from China, stepping up to
counter pressure on Nepal, for example, to forcibly return
Tibetans, and on southeast Asian countries to forcibly return
Uyghurs.
Last but not least, I think helping solve the problem
entails speaking to, for, and about these activists who are
running extraordinary risks and paying incredibly high prices
for their work. Now, these are the people who are doing what
the United States says it wants to see inside China, and I
think recognizing that kind of work and credentialling those
kinds of people is pivotal to bringing at least a little bit of
an end to some of these kinds of problems. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Richardson appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Dr. Richardson.
Ms. Ilham, thank you again for your testimony. You had said
that no one can visit your father. Do you know how he's doing,
and do you have thoughts on what we can do to help him?
Ms. Ilham. Until now I didn't get any news about how he is
doing because nobody can visit him. And I'm really grateful for
what you have been doing about this during these days, and
especially for supporting my father's full rights and
expressing concern for his current situation. I think I would
ask the United States and everyone to continue to press China
for his release and not to forget his case. I hope that all
efforts can be continued. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. What is your sense, Ms. Ilham, of the
growing violence in Xinjiang?
Ms. Ilham. I'm sorry?
Chairman Brown. What is your sense of the growing violence
in Xinjiang?
Ms. Ilham. Well, I'm not an expert, an academic expert on
Xinjiang, but I think I, my father, and most of the Uyghur
people, I think nobody really wants violence and nobody wants
to hurt innocent people. So some people, a few Uyghur people,
now use violence but that doesn't mean that everybody wants to
do like that. Also, it doesn't mean that my father supports
this violence.
Chairman Brown. Okay. Okay.
Ms. Ilham. That's what he struggles for, to let people
change their mind.
Chairman Brown. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Ilham.
Dr. Teng, can you describe the New Citizens' Movement in
more detail and why should we in the United States be paying
attention to the New Citizens' Movement?
Mr. Teng. Yes. The New Citizens' Movement began formally in
2012, and there are hundreds or thousands of Chinese citizens
involved in this movement. So we try to unite all citizens with
the ideas of the rule of law or liberal democracy, and come
together to discuss public affairs.
Since 2003, Dr. Xu and many other human rights lawyers
promoted the Rights Defense Movement, and he also initiated the
New Citizens' Movement. This movement brought the Rights
Defense Movement to a new level. Many human rights activists
who are promoters of the New Citizens' Movement are now
detained, and it's reported that some of them have been
tortured in detention, so I hope the international society can
pay more attention to political prisoners and the New Citizens'
Movement.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Dr. Teng.
Professor Clarke, you followed and have been involved and
observed up close China's legal development. Where is it going
in the next 5 to 10 years, and what impact and how do we have
impact as a Nation in encouraging development of the rule of
law in China?
Mr. Clarke. Well, I think it's not--maybe I could say where
it's not going. I don't see it going significantly in the
direction of political liberalization. In the Decision of the
Third Plenum of the Central Committee which was recently held,
there were some legal reforms mentioned that might have some
kind of a positive effect, I think, in bringing greater
regularity to the court system.
But that would be regularity in enforcing whatever laws
happen to be there, so maybe less room for arbitrary discretion
by local political leaders and having local courts do what they
want, but no limitations, no further limitations on the
ability, for example, of the central leadership to, in effect,
persecute those that they are interested in persecuting, such
as people like Xu Zhiyong and Ilham Tohti. So to sum up, I
guess I would say there may be some modest institutional
changes that would be consistent with greater protection of
human rights but wouldn't necessarily have that content.
Chairman Brown. Dr. Richardson, what, in light of Professor
Clarke's comments about any impact we could have, are our
points of leverage to encourage China to improve its human
rights behavior, if you will, and to move more toward rule of
law?
Ms. Richardson. Well, I think it's at a couple of different
levels. The first obviously is really at a diplomatic public/
political level. I think that unless the senior leadership
knows that they are going to have to answer questions in every
single meeting they have with senior American counterparts,
then you might get a little bit better behavior.
There are obviously much more systemic problems
particularly in the legal system, and especially as long as the
CCP [Chinese Communist Party] retains as much control over the
legal system as it does. That said, I think there's enormous
room to providing support to, for example, innovative lawyers
who are trying to either improve particular laws or access to
justice, essentially.
Chairman Brown. But what are Chinese officials saying when
we bring that up? Do they accuse us of compromising on voting
rights or do they accuse us of checkered racial policies in
this country, or do they deny, or do they do all of the above?
Ms. Richardson. It varies a little bit on what the setting
is. For example, when the Chinese Government publishes its
annual report on the United States' human rights record, that
tends to largely be about crime and about racism and certain
kinds of systemic discrimination in the United States and it's
their way of saying, you know, you have these problems too so
stop talking about ours.
Typically what happens if an individual case is raised is
that there will sort of be--typically there won't be much of a
reply at all, or you'll get a reply to say, you know, this case
is--it's a common criminal. This is somebody who has violated
Chinese law.
Chairman Brown. Do you both agree, Professor Clarke and Dr.
Richardson, that U.S. Government officials bringing up Ilham's
father's case is meaningful and helpful?
Mr. Clarke. Yes, I would agree. I think that the experience
of dissidents in Eastern Europe, for example, as people like
Vaclav Havel have testified, is that knowing that the attention
of the world was on them was extremely helpful and kept them
going.
I think that on the level of the government, too, there's
sort of a natural reluctance on a human basis to raise
embarrassing, uncomfortable topics. But I don't think it does
any harm to do so and I think it may do some good, again, by
letting the Chinese Government know that people have not
forgotten these issues.
Chairman Brown. It does not result in more retribution?
Mr. Clarke. I don't think so.
Chairman Brown. I'm sorry, that's Dr. Richardson. Either
way. Okay.
Ms. Richardson. I agree entirely with what Professor Clarke
just said. Typically what happens in especially high-profile
political cases is that prison authorities then know that a
particular individual is being asked about, and in fact they
tend to be treated better.
Chairman Brown. Okay. Okay.
Mr. Pittenger, your comments please. Your questions. Thank
you.
Representative Pittenger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Ilham, your father made it clear that he is committed
to peaceful dialogue between different ethnic groups in China.
Why do you think Chinese officials are so fearful of him that
they would lock him up and charge him with such a serious crime
as separatism?
Ms. Ilham. Excuse me. I have a problem for understanding.
Can I ask for translation?
Representative Pittenger. Sure.
Ms. Ilham. First of all, ethnicity has been a very
sensitive topic since a long time ago, and my father is a very
outspoken person. He has been speaking about the Uyghur
situation in front of the public for a long time. He has been
very honestly talking about the situation, the Uyghur situation
in China.
Of course they have a good point and they have bad points
made. I think in my view, I think Chinese cannot accept that my
father is telling the truth. But when my father--he just wants
people to know the truth and to get more--like, Uyghur people
can have equal human rights like the general Chinese citizen.
Thank you.
Representative Pittenger. He is a very courageous man.
Chinese authorities, Ms. Ilham, have frozen your father's
bank accounts. You've spoken about how your two younger
brothers have been affected by his arrest.
Ms. Ilham. Yes.
Representative Pittenger. Could you talk more about the
impact of your father's arrest on your family?
Ms. Ilham. Well, since January 15, my family has been under
house arrest. They have been so for fully 24 hours a day. The
police sleep in front of the doors and so the neighbors have
really--they have complained and they don't--now they've
stopped talking to my family.
Of course, my brothers, their personality has been really
affected. They were really extroverted and now they've become
introverted. They stopped talking, especially the elder one, my
7-year-old brother, because he saw how my father was beaten and
taken away by the police, so he knows what is going on, so now
he has--every time when we Skype he tells me he really misses
our father and he wants to see me soon.
Also, my brothers--basically, my brothers--like, their
school work also has been affected. Until now I didn't see my
family for more than one year. I had never left my parents
before. Because my elementary school, my middle school, are all
very close to my home. This is my first time not seeing my
family for such a long time.
Representative Pittenger. Thank you. We stand with you,
certainly.
Ms. Ilham. Thank you.
Representative Pittenger. Dr. Teng Biao?
Mr. Teng. Yes.
Representative Pittenger. Thank you, sir, for your
testimony. One of your goals is to combat China's serious
corruption problem with the Chinese Government also seems to be
trying to address, possibly for political reasons. What do you
think needs to happen in order for the Chinese Government to
meaningfully address the issue of systemic corruption?
Mr. Teng. We have seen top Chinese leaders also crack down
on corruption, even higher level leaders. But we have seen that
Dr. Xu Zhiyong and many other human rights activists who
demanded disclosure of official assets have been detained and
put into prison. They are oppressing other activists who are
against corruption.
It is obvious that without meaningful political or judicial
reform, without separation of powers and judicial independence,
there is no hope to get rid of political corruption. Xi Jinping
and the Communist Party is using its power to crack down on
civil society and they will not change the political system.
Representative Pittenger. Dr. Teng Biao, what will it take
for the Chinese Government to view the New Citizens' Movement,
human rights lawyers, and people like yourself not as threats
but rather as well-intentioned citizens who want to help China?
Mr. Teng. I beg your pardon?
Representative Pittenger. Well, you have spoken previously
about the New Citizens' Movement. What I am trying to find out
is do they see you as a threat today. What will it take for
them to view you differently, to see you as one who is well-
intentioned for the best interests of China?
Mr. Teng. I have been kidnapped and detained several times
and since I'm a visiting scholar in Hong Kong, they cannot
arrest me. Someone told me that I'm also on that list, so if I
go back to China, it's highly possible that I will be arrested.
But many other human rights defenders and lawyers are still
continuing their human rights activities even today, and I will
go back to China because it's my responsibility to fight for
human rights and freedom in China.
Representative Pittenger. Thank you, sir.
Last night I had dinner with a major banker with the Ex-Im
Bank in China. I discussed with him those who stand for human
rights, particularly those who have freedoms of conscious
issues and religious freedoms, and particularly Christian
people in this country.
My statement to him was that those people of faith were
people who would be good citizens because they, as followers of
Jesus, would in large measure be honest people and people that
would be good for the culture and good for business.
I think that is what I'm trying to understand. You have
well-intentioned objectives for the good of China in your
movement with the New Citizens' Movement and my hope is at some
point that the Chinese Government will see that people like
yourself are good for the culture and good for the society.
Mr. Chairman, do I have time for one more?
Chairman Brown. If you want to ask each of the other two
witnesses.
Representative Pittenger. Yes, I do.
Chairman Brown. You may proceed.
Representative Pittenger. Thank you.
Dr. Richardson, thank you for your testimony. I'm working
with a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations on a
separate issue but I'm interested in your perception of how the
United Nations is dealing with these issues.
How would you describe China's participation in the United
Nations, particularly on the UN Human Rights Council, the
universal periodic reviews of each country's human rights
record conducted by the UN Human Rights Council, and is the
United Nations an effective forum for dealing with China or
does it help legitimatize China's abuses?
Ms. Richardson. How much time have I got, sir?
[Laughter].
Ms. Richardson. Let me see if I can organize this. I think
in light of the extraordinarily uncooperative performance the
Chinese Government turned in around the final phase of its own
review under the universal periodic review mechanism, including
largely around Cao Shunli's death and the efforts to postpone
that session, the efforts to hold it when the translators would
have gone home, the extraordinary decision to try, instead of
for once objecting to people speaking to staying silent when a
number of NGOs wanted to use their speaking opportunities to
have a moment of silence to remember Cao Shunli.
I think it shows you not only how the process of many
issues at the United Nations essentially becomes the substance
for the Chinese delegation in question, but also the lengths
that they'll go to to really, I think, prevent scrutiny of
particular issues inside the country.
If we're talking about votes on Syria and Libya and how
they may or may not react to the proposal of, for example, an
ICC [International Criminal Court] referral for North Korea
based on the Commission of Inquiry report that was just
completed, which is an extraordinary piece of work, I think
it's pretty clear that we can expect uncooperative behavior
there.
There are a number of different levels we can try to talk
about this on, but I think what's most important for defenders
inside China--and I obviously welcome other people's views on
this--is that the UN's system presents them with a number of
mechanisms to at least discuss the country's human rights
record. I think in that sense it's important. The government, I
think, will continue to pour extraordinary resources into
limiting that discussion.
Representative Pittenger. I thank each of you for your
responses and for the opportunity to visit with you. Thank you
particularly, Ms. Ilham.
That concludes my questions.
Chairman Brown. Mr. Pittenger, thank you for your
questions.
Mr. Walz, welcome.
Representative Walz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my
fellow Commissioners and the staff, thank you all for being
here.
Ms. Ilham, I noticed and I think your father's about my age
and I've got a young daughter. I could only hope that she would
be as courageous in a similar situation as you have shown
because I think all of us in this room certainly understand
what your courage means to you and your family. So with that
I'm grateful to you, and I think to each of you.
Dr. Richardson, you've summed this up and you've done a
wonderful job, all of you have, of pointing this out. I very
much appreciate where you were hitting on. This isn't just an
academic exercise. It feels like many of us have been here for
so long. Unfortunately, there will be another young lady
sitting where Ms. Ilham is with a similar story.
The question that I want to ask each of you, and my
colleagues have asked on this, is how do we get at the heart of
making that difference? And I get it. You know, this response
that you have things you need to work on, heck yeah, we do. But
we're not going to cover them up and we're certainly going to
discuss them and we're certainly going to move in a direction
to try and address those.
So that doesn't get you off the hook. My question is, do
any of you feel, and each of my colleagues have asked wonderful
questions of where that point of leverage is or whatever, I
think many of us still keep coming back to is, do we have the
courage on the leverage? Because it's going to come back to
economic issues on that. That's going to make the leverage and
that's going to hurt if we choose to do so.
Do any of you have confidence that there are those things
that are going to make a difference? There's ways that we can
go and ways that we can influence that, because I think we've
all struggled with this for many years. We've struggled with it
prior to most favored nation and decoupling and everything
else, and we've struggled since then.
But I, for one, want to know what the path is to move that
back in because I am deeply concerned that now the statements
you've all made, that we're just not even going to listen to
what you say. I think this troubled me, Mr. Clarke, but I think
you're right. We're not even making an attempt to say we're
doing it anymore at times, we're just going to do it, and
that's very challenging.
So I'd just like to hear from each of you. I know this is
very broad, but I'm at the point where, what can we do? It
sometimes feels very lonely that it's this room, and I'm glad
you're here because I know there are others thinking of this
and the folks that are here. But what can we do? How do we make
a difference?
Ms. Richardson. There are a lot of people out there to
support. This is a big and messy answer to a big, broad
question. I think there's much to be said for feeding into a
sense, particularly on the Chinese Government's part, about
needing to compete for a sense of legitimacy. It drives me
nuts--nuts--that the United States fails every single time
there's a leadership transition to point out that this is not
an elected government. Every single time. It's 800 million
people who once again got denied the right to vote. The United
States comments on transitions and elections all over the world
all the time. It treats China differently and it forgets that
this is not a government that was elected. There is a real
discussion domestically.
Representative Walz. Why does it forget if it's not
economics? Why do you get the pass?
Ms. Richardson. It's inconvenient, it's embarrassing. Who
has to do it? There's protocol. I mean, the list of reasons I
have for not doing it that I've been given by U.S. Government
officials over the years is long.
But look, I mean, Teng Biao is part of an incredible
movement of people who are trying. It's a question you
precisely asked a few minutes ago about, what does it take for
that government to realize that this movement is constructive,
that it's meant to better the country, not to threaten it?
So I think really what has to be at the center of efforts
is putting the CCP on the back foot to have to answer for its
behavior, but also to do the best the United States and other
governments can do to recognize people and movements that are
actually trying to act legitimately in the interests of larger
numbers of people inside China.
It's a big, messy question that doesn't necessarily follow
to obvious policy implications. But the United States has to do
a much better job in remembering that it's people like Teng
Biao who speak a lot more legitimately for people inside China
than any of the officials who wind up in meetings day after day
after day with U.S. Government officials.
Representative Walz. Well, if I could follow up, and I
appreciate that. Teng Biao, ni hao. Good morning. I know it is
4:30. I want to see that sunrise over the harbor that you're
going to see. I'm grateful for you. And you heard Dr.
Richardson. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? Because I
guess for us this is a group here that cares about this. The
Senator has been here for years and moving this ball forward.
What can we do to help? What can we constructively do to help?
Mr. Teng. Yes. Thank you. It seems that Chinese leaders
never listen to the outside world but the fact is that you, the
United States, and the whole world who are fighting for human
rights have made a difference. Without your support, we human
rights defenders in China will face more difficulty, and we
have made a difference, too, in China.
We can see that even though the crackdown never stops, we
have seen more and more Chinese people standing up for human
rights and freedom, the Internet, civil society, NGOs, the
human rights lawyers group, and we have made great progress in
civil society. So my idea is don't stop the support for human
rights in China; it's always meaningful. So we hope to have
more media reports, more statements, more hearings, and
mentioning more names, and more support for NGOs. That's very
good and we really appreciate it.
Representative Walz. My time is about up. Maybe Dr. Clarke,
or if we come back around on a second.
Chairman Brown. You'll be presiding so you can do that.
Representative Walz. Okay. We'll wait until we come back
around, Dr. Clarke, on a second one.
Chairman Brown. Thank you. I was called to vote. I'd like
to ask one more question, then turn it over to Congressman Walz
to preside. Mr. Pittenger, if you want to stay, certainly.
I was intrigued by the last line of questions on Mr.
Pittenger's insight and then Mr. Walz's discussion. Dr. Teng
said that ``countries like the United States often sacrifice
human rights for trade with China.'' That seemed to be accurate
back in 1999-2000 when Congress passed PNTR [permanent normal
trade relations]. I remember a friend of mine said there were
more corporate jets at National Airport lobbying for PNTR than
he had ever seen.
CEOs who normally didn't bother with rank-and-file House
Members in the majority or the minority walked the halls of the
Cannon, the Rayburn, and the Longworth Building, imploring
individual Senators or individual Congress men and women to
support PNTR. Their effort in the Senate was easier in those
days.
Talk that through. I mean, U.S. corporations send jobs to
China, seem not to be on the side of human rights far too often
in the workplace. U.S. policymakers seem to turn their heads
oftentimes. Ms. Richardson speaks out that we treat China
differently. I think this President has been more aggressive in
trade enforcement than his three predecessors, but I think he
has still fallen short.
The SED talks, the Strategic Economic Dialogue, never puts
currency quite as front-and-center as I know a lot of us would
like him to do. Or like our diplomats, our trade people, our
finance, our treasury people to do--I'll read again Mr. Teng's
comment that ``countries like the United States often sacrifice
human rights for trade with China.'' I will ask Dr. Richardson
and Professor Clarke what they think of Mr. Teng's belief.
Mr. Clarke. I think that in some cases that's true. I think
the United States--for example, we recently heard that in
Belgium during Xi Jinping's visit, and this also happened in
London during Xi Jinping's visit, the police took extraordinary
measures subsequently ruled illegal in the courts of that
country to prevent Mr. Xi from the unpleasant site of Tibetan
protests.
I think the United States is in the fortunate position of
not having to make those compromises, and so if indeed U.S.
trade officials or U.S. officials concerned with human rights
are playing down their concerns for the benefits of trade with
China, I think that's probably not necessary. I think China
still needs the United States more than the United States needs
China.
Chairman Brown. Dr. Richardson?
Ms. Richardson. I would agree with that. I do think that
sometimes specific decisions or interventions are shelved as a
result of trade, currency, or other economic issues, but I
think human rights issues get subordinated for lots of
different reasons, whether it's military, whether it's
diplomatic, whether it's something at the Security Council.
I think one of the mistakes that gets made, partly because
I think it is hard to do well, is to really integrate human
rights issues across a much broader spectrum of different
aspects of the bilateral relationship, but there is a lot of
room and that's what Rice's remarks, I think, there quite good
at in saying to different parts of the U.S. Government, this
relationship is not going to fall apart if you raise this
issue. You are actually in an unusually good position to press
for a particular kind of change or a particular mistake.
I mean, if the larger question is about the relationship
between China opening up economically and whether PNTR was a
mistake, clearly raising income levels in China has been
extremely beneficial in many ways. Obviously nobody is arguing
against that. I think it's about both relating human rights
issues to other issues in the bilateral relationship and not
letting them fall victim, especially when they underpin them.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Dr. Richardson. Thanks.
Thank you again to Mr. Liu and the staff for their good
work on this. I will turn it over to Congressman Walz and
Congressman Pittenger to continue. Thanks to all four of you
witnesses. We thank you very, very much.
Representative Walz. Well, thank you. I just had a couple
of follow-ups and then we'll see if Mr. Pittenger has anything
on this. My question to each of you, and maybe our experts
about this--about this a long time, as the United States re-
sets its strategic position, if you will, we keep hearing about
the re-set to the Pacific as the situations in the Middle East
start to change and this re-set to the Pacific is both
military, economic, supposedly much more geopolitical as we
look at it.
How does this have an impact on this relationship? Does it
change that? Does it bring more leverage or does it heighten
the situation, because quite honestly, I think as we all know,
there's going to be much more activity in the Pacific than
there has been. So if anyone wants to try and grab that one.
Mr. Clarke. Well, I guess China, or the Chinese Government,
almost no matter what the United States does, is going to
believe that the U.S. Government's speaking out about Chinese
human rights is linked solely to U.S. strategic concerns,
security concerns, and does not stem from a genuine concern on
human rights, because they are going to look at their own
report on human rights in the United States, which of course
does not stem from concern about human rights in the United
States but is simply a ``so is your mother'' response to the
U.S. report on human rights in China.
So I think it's possible that the pivot to Asia could make
China even more suspicious. It's certainly not going to make
China less suspicious. It's probably going to make it more, but
it's already at a very high level of suspicion and distrust
about U.S. Government motives in this. So I think possibly for
that reason it's important for the U.S. Government to support
non-governmental initiatives in this area.
I think also--can I go back and answer your earlier
question? I think it's important to realize there really are
limits to what not just the United States, but anybody, can do.
China is like a giant aircraft carrier and there are little
rowboats tugging at it, trying to move the human rights
situation in one way or the other. But what really is going to
change the direction of that aircraft carrier is what is going
on with the crew inside, and that's where real change is going
to come from.
But as Dr. Richardson points out, legitimacy is very
important. If you'll recall back when the Helsinki Accords were
concluded, a lot of people thought, well, this is just giving
the USSR the legitimacy it wants for its borders. And what did
we get in return? A pig in a poke, this kind of commitment to
human rights standards. But it turned out that that was very
important. That sent an important signal to the internal
dissident community in Russia and Eastern Europe.
So China is always going to act in its perceived interests,
so if China thinks it's in its interests to cooperate with the
United States over North Korean denuclearization, they're not
going to stop doing it and go off in a hissy fit because some
U.S. officials start raising human rights issues.
We often hear, ``Oh, you know, the Chinese Government never
responds to pressure.'' That's what the Chinese Government
would like you to think, but of course it's nonsense. Why would
anyone ever change the status quo until it starts getting
unpleasant? So one has to make the status quo start getting
unpleasant if one is going to have any hope of getting the
Chinese Government to change its policies.
Ms. Richardson. I'll just add a little bit of a different
concern about the pivot Asia-wide. I can't improve on what
Professor Clarke has just said, but simply to point out that
the pivot does not appear to involve a commensurately greater
effort on human rights issues in Asia.
In fact, it has been of serious concern to us that the
pivot appears to have driven for, example, a desire to have
much closer relations, for example, with countries like
Vietnam, partly as a result of increased Chinese assertiveness
or unproductive response to an increased U.S. presence. Vietnam
has an appalling human rights record. It has led the United
States to perhaps engage more in Indonesia, particularly with
the military, than we think may be entirely appropriate. So
it's hard to see the human rights dimension of the pivot
itself.
Representative Walz. Well, I'm fascinated by what--and all
of you have said this, that we're looking--certainly trying
to--you know, there is no magic bullet here and it's deep and
it runs deep. But I think of these cultural changes.
I can still remember back to my China times in the 1980s
and how shocked I was when I went into the social studies
classroom and there was a picture of General Stillwell on the
wall, that there was a group of Chinese who grew up in that
time that saw things differently, and I guess maybe trying to
cling to the hope that there's going to be cultural change and
an understanding that we're in this together, as Dr. Teng
pointed out, as constructively trying to get there, that we are
proudly Chinese but we are also looking for some basic human
rights issues.
I understand it's those deep-seated cultural changes that
are the only things that are going to get at this. I'm trying
to see, how do we foster those, whether it's--like what you're
saying, is that pivot had better come with some other things
than just forward bases in Guam, or whatever it ends up being.
Ms. Richardson. Sorry, just one other quick point I'll add
is that I don't know if we're using the word ``culture'' in the
same way. I think it's about political power and who has access
to it, and who has what rights and whether they're respected.
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ms. Richardson. But I think one other important dimension
of the pivot and the New Citizens' Movement and sort of where
we are at this time in history is to know that a number of the
people, including those who are going to be tried or whose
appeals are going to be heard this week, like Xu Zhiyong's, or
people who I think sort of came of age politically in China in
and around Tiananmen.
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ms. Richardson. We're bumping up against the 25th
anniversary of that in a few months.
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ms. Richardson. It's extraordinary to think how little
ground the Chinese Government has been willing to give on some
of the same kinds of rights or freedoms that people were asking
for in those circumstances. It's now the world's second-largest
economy, it has an active space exploration program, and yet--
and yet--25 years later Ding Zilin and the Tiananmen Mothers
still can't get----
Representative Walz. Yes, I think it's very insightful.
Many of us mark time from that.
Ms. Richardson. I do.
Representative Walz. Yes, me too. Twenty years ago on June
4 I married my wife. There was no doubt I would remember that
date. So, it's oddly enough how that works out.
But Mr. Pittenger, if you have any follow-up.
Representative Pittenger. Thank you, Congressman Walz.
At the outset, Chairman Brown lamented that this is
bipartisan or bicameral. I mean, we are all here and a large
group of our congressional body, House and Senate, are truly
committed to these concerns. Congressman Walz expressed his
concerns as well.
I think I am reminded that 20 years ago I went to the
former Soviet Union with Congressman Wolf--it was during
Perestroika and Glasnost--and made our case for 119 dissidents
imprisoned. We spent a week there. It was through an
organization called Christian Solidarity but we were able to
get these dissidents released from prison and have 3 million
Bibles distributed because of the courage of a congressman and
the courage of a member of Parliament, David Amess, who joined
us on the trip.
I just wonder, I've been disappointed in the lack of
commitment and voice by many administrations to speak to this
issue when they had opportunity to do so, but what can we do as
a Congress to speak out--and I don't know where this will take
us, but I think we need to be more focused and clear and really
think strategically on how this body can awaken this issue and
bring it to the forefront. So thank you so much.
Ms. Ilham, I have four children, three of whom are
daughters. You are a lovely lady, about the age of my daughters
as well. I applaud you for your commitment, your love for your
father, your commitment to him, your commitment to the freedom
of other concerned like-minded people in China and your
willingness to come forth today and to be with us. We are
grateful for you and for your family.
Ms. Ilham. Thank you so much.
Representative Pittenger. God bless you.
Representative Walz. Thanks, Mr. Pittenger.
I'd like to ask unanimous consent to submit Cochairman
Representative Smith's statement for the record. No objection,
so ordered.
I want to thank you all. We are grateful. We'll stay on
this. You were right, Ms. Richardson, this is the best staff
you could ever hope for. These are committed folks to getting
it right. They're certainly a candle in the darkness at times
and I appreciate that.
I think it's appropriate--before we adjourn, Ms. Ilham, you
have earned the right to have the final word if you would like
it.
Ms. Ilham. Thank you so much for asking me to come here
today to testify for my father, and thank you so much for all
you have done for my father. Thank you so much.
Representative Walz. With that, this Commission hearing is
adjourned.
[The prepared statement of Representative Smith appears in
the appendix.]
[Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Jewher Ilham
APRIL 8, 2014
My name is Jewher Ilham and I am grateful to the Congressional-
Executive Commission on China for giving me this opportunity to appear
here and to speak to this committee about the suppression of dissent in
the People's Republic of China as I have personally experienced it. I
am currently enrolled as a student in the Intensive English Program at
Indiana University and hope to matriculate into a degree program when I
finish. This was not what I expected would happen to me over a year ago
when I first set out to accompany my father, Ilham Tohti, to the U.S.
where he was to take up a position as a visiting scholar at Indiana
University in February, 2013. I was to stay for a month, helping my
father set up his living arrangements; my father was to stay for a
year.
My father, Ilham Tohti, is a well-known economist and writer based
at Central Minzu University in Beijing, and an advocate for the human
rights of the Uyghur people. Although I am Uyghur, I am not an academic
expert on Xinjiang, nor an expert on Chinese politics. But I have been
able to observe the impact and results of repressive Chinese policies
as they have been applied to my father, his work, his students, and his
family.
On February 2, 2013, after we arrived at the airport in Beijing and
were checking in for our flight to the U.S., we were pulled out of line
and taken away. When a bureaucratic error led to my being given the
choice of continuing the boarding process and flying to the U.S. My
father insisted that I continue the trip alone. He was detained,
beaten, questioned and forbidden from leaving China. What were his
crimes? On his website, Uyghur Online, and via other social media, he
had written widely, about the abuses of basic human rights that are
visited on the Uyghur people and that abridge their intellectual and
religious freedoms. These policies, at their most egregious, leave them
feeling like a people under occupation.
2013 was not the first time my father had been detained by the
authorities, nor the first time that he and other members of our family
had been subjected to harassment. The government was particularly
enraged at the work my father did after serious clashes in Xinjiang in
2009 left many people dead and a significant number ``disappeared.'' My
father worked to get the names of these people out and to cast a
spotlight on the lack of due process that was a large part of China's
method of repressing Uyghur grievances. As a result of this work my
family was removed from their residence and moved around for one month,
our phones and computers confiscated.
This became familiar. In April 2011, my father and grandmother were
sent to Guangzhou for a week. I stayed in Beijing with my mother (my
parents are divorced). In December, I returned home from school one day
and without forewarning found an empty home: my stepmother, my father
and my brothers had been sent to Hainan for two weeks. On my own I made
my way to my mother's home.
In 2012 the authorities the confiscated my five-year-old brother's
residence book, thus blocking him from registering for school or having
a passport. The university authorities also cancelled my father's
classes for one semester without any explicit cause. Over the years
too, Uyghur Online has been periodically shut down by the government.
In the fall of 2013 State Security personnel rammed my father's car
when he was en route to the airport to pick up his mother, who was
flying to Beijing from Urumqi. When he got out of his car the State
Security people told him they would kill everyone in our family.
But the worst was what happened on and after January 15 of this
year, the last day that any of our family saw my father. On that day 30
or 40 police from different offices came to our house and took my
father away, confiscating documents, telephones, computers, and even
our family safe. All this was done without any due process or requisite
formalities. For days we had no information about his whereabouts; his
lawyer was not allowed any contact with him. Then, on January 25, the
Urumqi Public Security Bureau announced a slew of accusations against
him, including inciting separatism and hatred of the country, as well
as praising terrorists. Anyone who knows my father realizes how utterly
false these charges are. One prominent Chinese intellectual has noted
that my father is one of the few Uyghurs intellectuals and dissidents
who, to his knowledge, does not favor separatism. My father never
speaks about separatism; in fact he is exactly the sort of person a
rational Chinese political structure would seek to engage with in order
to address the conditions of the Uyghur people. Instead, by arresting
my father and threatening him with charges that carry the severest of
penalties it has driven many Uyghurs to a point at which they can't
even imagine that their wholly justified grievances can get any sort of
a hearing under Chinese rule. Today, we know that my father is being
held in the Urumqi Municipal Prison. But no one can visit him.
The punishment of this honest, outspoken dissident doesn't stop
here. The Chinese state doesn't just punish (justly or unjustly) an
individual political prisoner. It often metes out a collective
punishment to the prisoner's family. My stepmother has no access to
family funds that legally belong to her because my father's bank
account has been frozen. He has been the primary breadwinner for the
family. She and my young brothers (ages 4 and 7) are monitored 24 hours
a day by anywhere from 2-8 people; police sleep outside their door at
night and keep watch there during the day.
Phone calls to my stepmother are monitored, making it difficult for
her to communicate with me and with other people. In addition, the
position that my stepmother has at Minzu University was always renewed
periodically. But now we are seriously worried that when her current
contract expires in May she may well lose her position due to my
father's political imprisonment.
My brothers are also suffering gravely from this. The oldest, who
is more aware than his brother as to what has happened, has become
withdrawn and introverted. Having witnessed our father being taken
away, he now has nightmares.
Finally, there are some students of my father. I am proud to say
that my father was widely admired by his students, many of whom saw his
work as vital and necessary. And now several of them too have been
arrested and imprisoned, with very little known as to their
whereabouts.
I mention these last facts to give you an idea of the kind of
collective punishment that the arrest of dissidents entails. But the
core matter here is that China has imprisoned a dissident intellectual
whose sole ``crime,'' in spite of the trumped up charges that are being
thrown around, was simply advocating human rights and equitable
treatment for the Uyghur people. I am heartened that the Congressional-
Executive Commission on China has taken an interest in my father's case
and is seeking to learn more about the facts of his imprisonment.
I thank you for allowing me to speak to you today.
______
Prepared Statement of Teng Biao
APRIL 8, 2014
I am a human rights lawyer from China. My name is Teng Biao.
In March, just before First Lady Michelle Obama gave a talk at the
prestigious Peking University during her visit to China, I tweeted to
draw her attention to the plight of two remarkable Peking University
alumni: Cao Shunli and Xu Zhiyong.
On March 14, human rights activist Cao Shunli died in detention
after being tortured and then denied medical treatment.
The last time I saw Ms. Cao was in Hong Kong at an international
human rights workshop in early 2013. She had been released for the
second time from detention in a laojiaosuo, a Reeducation Through Labor
camp, and had immediately jumped back into the fray of defending human
rights. In September last year the authorities at the Beijing
International Airport where she was en route to Geneva to participate
in the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review prevented Cao
Shunli from leaving China. She was then abducted and detained for the
third time, but this time, she did not come out alive.
For the past ten years, Dr. Xu Zhiyong has been one of the most
prominent figures in the Chinese civil rights movement.
The last time I was in contact with him was a few days before he
was formally arrested. He sent me a record of his conversation with the
secret police. The government gave him several opportunities to
compromise: if he agreed to abandon the New Citizens Movement he would
be spared from incarceration. Dr. Xu refused outright to compromise.
He said, if fighting for citizen's rights and freedom is a crime,
he was willing to pay the price. He prayed to God with these words: ``I
love mankind, and for this love I am willing to face death.''
Dr. Xu was sentenced to four years in jail. He was charged with
``disturbing public order'' while publicly campaigning for equal rights
of the children of migrant labours in cities, and demanding officials
disclose assets in order to combat corruption. Several dozen supporters
of Xu Zhiyong and the New Citizens Movement have been arrested and will
soon be put on trial.
Incomplete statistics reveal that since March 31 last year, at
least 200 rights advocates have been arrested, including human rights
activists like Guo Feixiong, Zhang Lin, and Zhao Changqing who have
been imprisoned numerous times for political reasons since 1989; rights
lawyers like Ding Jiaxi; Zhang Shaojie, a pastor at a Christian Church
in Henan province, and Ilham Tohti, a Uighur scholar who has been a
long-time advocate of peaceful dialogue between Uighurs and Han
Chinese.
It can be confirmed that during this crackdown, many human rights
activists have been subjected to inhumane torture while incarcerated.
People now released who were tortured include Ding Hongfen, Shen Jun,
Song Ze; while Li Biyun, Huang Wenxun, Yuan Fengchu, Yuan Xiaohua, Liu
Ping. Wei Zhongping, Li Sihua and others continue to be detained. All
of these people were incarcerated for participating in peaceful and
legal human rights activities. Five days after Cao Xunli died, the 43-
year-old Tibetan political prisoner Goshul Lobsang was tortured to
death in Kanlho.
To exacerbate the atmosphere of fear the authorities are targeting
the family and friends of rights defenders: Liu Xia, the wife of Nobel
Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo has been under house arrest for many
years; the families of many Tibetan self-immolators have been
imprisoned, like 31 year-old Kunchok Wangmo of Ngaba (Chinese: Aba)
Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, whose husband was
framed for a crime and sentenced to death.
Many prisoners of conscience are connected to the New Citizens
Movement. The earlier incarnation of the New Citizens Movement was a
group called Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative, founded by Xu
Zhiyong and myself in 2003. The Open Constitution Initiative focussed
on issues like freedom of speech, freedom of religious belief,
opposition to torture, and opposition to the unfair household
registration system. It actively joined in a large number of human
rights cases such as those involving Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guangcheng,
as well as producing an investigative report on the 14 March 2008
unrest in Tibet.
The New Citizens Movement advocates ``Freedom, Justice and Love''
to encourage ordinary people to fight for citizens rights and unite
human rights advocates around the country. Its activities include:
promoting educational equality, pressing officials to disclose their
assets, and arranging ``same-city dinner gathering''. By using on-line
mobilisation, open letter writing campaigns, signature campaigns,
leaflet distribution, pro bono litigation, street speeches, and
peaceful protests, The New Citizens Movement has brought the Rights
Defence Movement to new heights.
Why is the Chinese government savagely suppressing the Rights
Defence Movement and individual rights activists?
Since its inception in 2003, the Rights Defence Movement has made
great progress. The earlier ground work of and the sacrifices made by
activists, and the intensification of social conflicts reveal several
trends: 1) Rights activists are coming out from cyberspace activism
into real-world activism. 2) The movement is growing beyond individual
cases to becoming active on the streets. 3) The activists are moving
away from legal appeals towards political appeals. 4) Individual
activists are gradually joining together creating a semblance of
organisation. Examples are: Charter 08, the Chinese Human Rights
Lawyers Group and the New Citizens Movement.
The authorities sense an obvious threat as the rights movement has
progressed towards the New Citizens Movement. However, the rulers of
China are unwilling to engage in dialogue and absolutely refuse to
relinquish their totalitarian privileges. Under the guise of
maintaining stability above all, the authorities brutally punish anyone
who in their mind dares to threaten their legitimacy to rule China.
The government's heavy-handed crackdown will of course frighten
some people, but cannot resolve social problems in Chinese society. On
the contrary, suppression will only intensify conflicts and problems.
Many rules and regulations in China directly violate people's dignity
and freedom. The fissures in our society will become wider and calls
for rights and democracy will become more intense if we do not make
substantial adjustments to the country's legal and political systems.
More and more people are standing up to demand rights and democracy.
For example, a few days ago, thousands of residents in Maoming, in
Guangdong Province in southern China, risked their lives to take to the
streets to protest plans for a paraxylene (PX) project which possess
serious pollution risks.
Also recently, in Jiansanjiang in Heilongjiang Province in northern
China, a number of lawyers were detained by local police for
investigating a ``Legal Education Center,'' informally known as a
``brainwashing class,'' which is used to imprison innocent citizens
without any legal procedure.
Three of these lawyers were roped and hung up while police punched
and beat them with police batons.
Why did lawyers and citizens stand up and take on these
``brainwashing classes''? Because they are modern-day concentration
camps. Countless Falungong practitioners have been sent by the
authorities to ``brainwashing classes'' or Re-education Through Labor
camps. At least 3,000 people have been tortured to death in such places
since 1999.
As a result of fighting for freedom, many human rights activists
lose their own freedom. I recall the time in 2011 when the secret
police in Beijing kidnapped me and held me in a secret location for 70
days, during which time I was subject to tortures including sleep
deprivation, being punched and kicked, and being held in solitary
confinement. While the secret police used violence against me, they
frankly declared, ``Don't talk to us about the law. No one can help you
now.''
But I never for a moment gave up hope. My longing for justice and
freedom gave me strength. Another source of strength was my firm belief
that my friends in jail and on the outside would continue to fight,
because we share the same dream for freedom. I firmly believe that our
numbers will grow and that our calls for freedom will ultimately stun
this savage totalitarian regime to its core.
I also firmly believe that outside China, in the USA, in Europe and
in every corner of the world where the light of freedom shines, while
the struggle for human dignity continues, we will not be forgotten.
I greatly admire the members of Congress and the American
government for your efforts in advocating freedom and human rights.
However, the international pressure on violators of human rights around
the world is far from adequate. The Chinese government not only
manipulates the international human rights system, it also makes use of
its economic, military and political influence in order to blackmail
great democratic nations. It threatens not to purchase Boeing jets if
America criticises the Chinese human rights situation. It threatens not
to purchase Airbuses if European leaders meet with the Dalai Lama. At
many international conferences Chinese human rights has become ``the
elephant in the room''.
How much economic benefit can we sacrifice for the freedom of
humanity? When people make this calculation, they are already on the
wrong track. Oppressors of freedom will not desist, they will not
respect national boundaries, they will not abide by international
principles they have promised to follow.
The oppressors of freedom are becoming more powerful by taking
advantage of the internet and economic globalisation, by taking
advantage of flawed international institutions (the most egregious
violators of human rights have colluded to infiltrate the UN Human
Rights Commission, and non-democratic regimes in the UN are betraying
the interests of their own peoples as well as universal human rights),
by taking advantage of the head-in-the-sand policies of democratic
countries and ``the silence of the good''. By the time the free world
becomes aware of the need to protect freedom, I fear it may well be too
late.
______
Prepared Statement of Donald Clarke*
The Significance of Recent Detentions for the Rule of Law in China
APRIL 8, 2014
Introduction
In my testimony today, I will look at two recent detentions in
China and discuss their significance for the rule of law in China. The
detentions are those of Xu Zhiyong and Ilham Tohti. I believe that the
main significance of these detentions lies not in the substance of the
charges against them or the sentences, but rather in the process that
accompanied the detentions. It is not news that the Chinese government
persecutes those it deems its enemies, so these cases aren't especially
significant in that respect. But unlike in some other cases, in these
cases the Chinese government has for the most part acted in such a way
that it is hard to find clear and unambiguous violations of Chinese
procedural rules. Whether it has done so depends on the interpretation
of vague concepts such as whether a case is ``complex''.
Thus, while the rule of law has no place in the investigation and
prosecution of Bo Xilai and now Zhou Yongkang, both of whom were and
are respectively detained under a Party disciplinary procedure that in
legal terms amounts to the crime of unlawful detention, it seems that
the authorities are paying more attention to following their own rules
in other cases. But those rules are so vague and elastic that even when
followed, they offer little protection to defendants. While ``rule of
law'' is an appealing slogan because it seems to command such broad
adherence, it does so precisely because it does not necessarily dictate
substantively just results. It is better than no rule of law, as Bo
Xilai might now ruefully admit. But it is not synonymous with the
protection of human rights. It is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition.
Xu Zhiyong
Xu Zhiyong's current troubles began when he was placed under an
informal kind of ``house arrest'' on April 12, 2013. This meant that he
was effectively a prisoner in his own home. I call this kind of
detention ``informal'' because while Chinese law has a form of house
arrest called ``residential surveillance,'' it's not clear that that
procedure was specifically invoked.
His formal detention began on July 16, 2013.\1\ That date is
important because itunambiguously started the clock in China's Criminal
Procedure Law (CPL) ticking. Detention (juliu) in China is a different
concept from arrest (daibu); whereas in the United States we use the
term ``arrest'' to refer to any situation in which a suspect is not
free to leave, the same English word in the Chinese context is used to
translate a formal stage of the criminal process that can happen long
after a suspect has been locked up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See China Detains Activist Xu Zhiyong, BBC News, July 17, 2013,
http://bbc.in/1mV3zEA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Detention without arrest is supposed to happen only in a limited
set of essentially emergency circumstances (CPL 61); where those
emergency circumstances are not present, the police are supposed to get
approval for an arrest before physically detaining the suspect. In Xu's
case, it is fair to say that none of those emergency circumstances
existed.
After detention, the police have three days, extendable to seven
days in special circumstances, to request the approval of arrest by the
procuracy, the body in charge of prosecutions. In complex cases
involving, for example, multiple offenses, the period can be as long as
thirty days (CPL 89). The procuracy has seven days in which to decide
to approve or disapprove the arrest. In Xu's case, the indictment says
he was formally arrested on August 22, 2014.\2\ This is exactly thirty
days plus seven days following hisformal detention; apparently someone
in charge was keeping a close eye on the calendar. To call this arrest
lawful, however, we would have to be satisfied that the term during
which he was under house arrest prior to his formal detention was
lawful.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The indictment is available in English translation at Xu
Zhiyong's Indictment http://www.hrichina.org/en/citizens-square/xu-
zhiyongs-indictment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The closest thing China has to house arrest is an institution
called ``supervised residence'' (jianshi juzhu) (CPL 72). This is the
only lawful rubric under which Xu could have been confined to his
residence as he was prior to his formal detention. But supervised
residence requires, among other conditions that arguably were not
present here, that the conditions for arrest already be deemed met. In
that case, it is impossible to justify under Chinese law Xu's
subsequent 37 days in formal detention prior to his arrest, since the
authorities must have decided he was arrestable as early as April
12.David A. Weaver Research Professor of Law, George Washington
University Law School, dclarke@law.gwu.edu. I wish to thank Fu Hualing
and Joshua Rosenzweig for very helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Xu was arrested on a charge of ``gathering crowds to disrupt order
in a public place'' (Criminal Law 291). Once a suspect is arrested, the
authorities have two months--extendable to three with appropriate
permission--to keep him in custody while they investigate (CPL 154).
This time limit can be extended two months by provincial authorities in
complex cases (CPL 156). Even this five-month time limit can be
extended indefinitely by action of the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress (CPL 155).
Thus, he should have been released or put on trial by October 22,
2013, unless certain very unusual circumstances applied to his case.
But Xu was not put on trial until January 22, 2014, exactly five months
after his formal arrest. This suggests that the generous time limits
afforded by Articles 154 and 156 of the CPL were used to the full--
something that should hardly have been necessary, given the Foreign
Ministry's insistence that Xu's was ``an ordinary criminal case.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ See Jerome Cohen, Xu Zhiyong's Trial Makes a Mockery of
Beijing's Pledge to Enforce Rule of Law, South China Morning Post,
Jan. 29, 2014, available at http://bit.ly/MjWYE5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The excessive period of pre-arrest custody was not the only flaw in
the proceedings. The trial itself was marred by numerous violations of
the letter and spirit of Chinese law. First, the trial was not in any
real sense open, despite the lack of any grounds under Chinese law for
closing it. Second, the defense was not permitted to cross-examine any
witnesses for the prosecution, despite the rule providing for cross-
examination or at least some way to challenge evidence in the CPL. It
should be noted that Xu's case is not unique in that regard; the CPL's
rule is honored far more in the breach than in the observance. Third,
Xu was not permitted to call his own witnesses.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ See Andrew Jacobs & Chris Buckley, China Sentences Xu Zhiyong,
Legal Activist, to 4 Years in Prison, N.Y. Times, Jan. 26, 2014,
available at http://nyti.ms/1hQDL98.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To protest these and other problems, Xu and his counsel elected to
remain silent during the hearing. At the end, Xu attempted to make a
statement, but was cut off by the judge.\5\ In the end, he was
sentenced to four years of imprisonment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ See id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ilham Tohti
Ilham Tohti was detained on Jan. 15, 2014.\6\ He was apparently
formally arrested on Feb. 20, 2014 on a charge of separatism (fenlie
guojia).\7\ This period of time between detention and arrest could fit
within that allowed under Chinese law \8\ if his case is complex. So
far, the time between arrest and trial has not been exceeded; the
authorities are well within the permitted time period.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ See China: Uighur Scholar Detained, N.Y. Times, Jan. 16, 2014,
available at http://nyti.ms/PBBXXp.
\7\ See Bei Feng, Yilihamu Tuheti Bei Daibu [Ilham Tohti Arrested],
Feb. 25, 2014, http://canyu.org/n85273c6.aspx. This source reproduces
what purports to be a notice issued to Tohti's spouse. The notice is
dated Feb. 20, 2014.
The crime of separatism is listed in the first paragraph of Art.
103 of the Criminal Law. The second paragraph lists a lesser crime of
``inciting separatism'' (shandong fenlie guojia). Under Art. 113 of the
Criminal Law, separatism, but not inciting separatism, is punishable in
some circumstances by death. The New York Times reported that Tohti was
formally arrested on Feb. 26 and charged with ``inciting separatism,''
see Andrew Jacobs, China Charges Scholar with Inciting Separatism, N.Y.
Times, Feb. 26, 2014, available at http://nyti.ms/1hli1lg, but Bei
Feng, supra, unless the document it purports to cite is spurious,
contradicts this.
\8\ Chinese law allows a 24-hour period of ``summons'' before
formal detention, then up to thirty days before the police must request
an arrest, and then seven days for the procuratorate to make a
decision, for a total of 38 days following actual detention.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nevertheless, the state has deprived Tohti of his rights under
Chinese law in other ways. On March 4, 2014, his lawyer, Li Fangping,
stated that he was no longer allowed to communicate with Tohti.\9\
Apparently the reason given was that state secrets wereinvolved.
Unfortunately, the Chinese government has used this excuse so often in
circumstances where it is highly implausible that it no longer carries
any credibility. Occasionally the police have claimed that conditions
of detention and interrogation are themselves state secrets, but if
this is to constitute a reason for depriving defendants of their right
to communicate with a lawyer, then the right is meaningless for all
suspects in detention.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ See Massoud Hayoun, China, Uyghurs May Have Lost Middle Way in
Mounting Ethnic Tensions, Al Jazeera America, Mar. 4, 2014, http://
alj.am/1ejnipp.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analysis
The point of this detailed history of the Xu and Tohti cases is not
to condemn the Chinese government for violating its own rules. It is to
further our understanding of the significance of these cases for the
rule of law in China.
There are two lessons here. First, following legal procedures is
better than not following legal procedures, but it does not necessarily
produce justice. We have to ask what the laws say and how they were
produced. In Chinese criminal procedure, the rules are heavily weighted
in favor of the state, and there is no neutral process to challenge the
state's interpretation in its own favor of vague and ambiguous
concepts.
The second lesson is that the Chinese government retains its
ambivalent attitude toward the values of the rule of law. As I have
noted, in many cases the government wishes to claim the mantle of
fidelity to law; it does so sometimes by making the law vague and
flexible enough to achieve its purposes, and sometimes simply by
falsely claiming to be following law. One can call this hypocrisy, but
hypocrisy is after all the compliment that vice pays to virtue, and it
reflects an acknowledgment of the value of process protections.
At other times, however, the state does not seem to be trying even
to appear to offer fair proceedings, or at least proceedings that
follow its own rules. This is what we see in the trial proceedings of
Xu Zhiyong and will probably see in Ilham Tohti's trial. While other
authoritarian states often try to turn political issues into legal
issues in an attempt to neutralize them,\10\ the Chinese state
sometimes seems to go out of its way to demonstrate that ostensibly
legal issues are really political issues. Thus, it is really not clear
whether it is reasonable to expect at least a slow movement toward the
values of process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ See generally Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in
Authoritarian Regimes (Tom Ginsburg & Tamir Moustafa eds. 2008).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps equally significant for prospects for a process-oriented
rule of law in China is the fact that the government's indifference to
the values of process seems to be shared by at least some of its
critics. Recently five Chinese legal scholars were brave enough to post
a public analysis of the flaws in the case against Xu Zhiyong.\11\ Yet
their analysisconsisted entirely of a defense of Xu against the
substance of the charges made against him. They argued that he had not
actually created a disturbance of public order, or that the public
spaces in question were special. These kinds of arguments might be
useful in a court before a neutral judge, but since they are basically
expressions of opinion about what the law means or ought to mean, they
lack force. The scholars made no objections to any of the procedural
problems in the case. As I have pointed out, the pre-trial procedural
flaws are not clear-cut. But they are certainly not harder to criticize
than the substantive charges, so it is unfortunate that this critique
ignored procedural problems both before and during the trial.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ See Gan Peizhong Deng Wuwei Faxue Jiaoshou Fabiao Lunzheng Xu
Zhiyong Wuzui de Falu Yijian Shu [Gan Peizhong and Four Other Law
Professors Issue Legal Opinion Arguing that Xu Zhiyong Is Innocent],
Boxun.com, Jan. 27, 2014, http://bit.ly/1kAgVBR (presenting text of
letter issued by Gan Peizhong, Peng Bing, Yao Huanqing, Wang Yong, and
He Haibo).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One advantage of a procedural critique is that the government can
be criticized without ever questioning the validity of its stated laws
and policies. Thus, it is ironic that even the government's critics may
share its view that it is the substance of the law that counts, not
procedure, even though the best way to advance the rule of law in the
current political climate might be to focus on procedure.
* David A. Weaver Research Professor of Law, George Washington
University Law School, dclarke@law.gwu.edu. I wish to thank Fu Hualing
and Joshua Rosenzweig for very helpful comments on an earlier draft.
______
Prepared Statement of Sophie Richardson
APRIL 8, 2014
Rapid socio-economic change in China has been accompanied by
relaxation of some restrictions on basic rights, but the government
remains an authoritarian one-party state. It places arbitrary curbs on
expression, association, assembly, and religion; prohibits independent
labor unions and human rights organizations; and maintains Party
control over all judicial institutions.
The government censors the press, the Internet, print publications,
and academic research, and justifies human rights abuses as necessary
to preserve ``social stability.'' It carries out involuntary population
relocation and rehousing on a massive scale, and enforces highly
repressive policies in ethnic minority areas in Tibet, Xinjiang, and
Inner Mongolia. Though primary school enrollment and basic literacy
rates are high, China's education system discriminates against children
and young people with disabilities. The government obstructs domestic
and international scrutiny of its human rights record, insisting it is
an attempt to destabilize the country.
At the same time, citizens are increasingly prepared to challenge
authorities over volatile livelihood issues, such as land seizures,
forced evictions, environmental degradation, miscarriages of justice,
abuse of power by corrupt cadres, discrimination, and economic
inequality. Official and scholarly statistics, based on law enforcement
reports, suggest there are 300-500 protests each day, with anywhere
from ten to tens of thousands of participants. Despite the risks,
Internet users and reform-oriented media are aggressively pushing
censorship boundaries by advocating for the rule of law and
transparency, exposing official wrongdoing, and calling for political
reforms.
Civil society groups and advocates continue to slowly expand their
work despite their precarious status, and an informal but resilient
network of activists monitors and documents human rights cases as a
loose national ``weiquan'' (rights defense) movement. These activists
endure police monitoring, detention, arrest, enforced disappearance,
and torture.
The Xi Jinping administration formally assumed power in March, and
proposed several reforms to longstanding policies, including abolishing
one form of arbitrary detention, known as re-education through labor
(RTL), and changes to the household registration system. It staged
high-profile corruption investigations, mostly targeting political
rivals. But it also struck a conservative tone, opposing constitutional
rule, press freedom, and ``western-style'' rule of law, and issuing
harsher restrictions on dissent, including through two legal documents
making it easier to bring criminal charges against activists and
Internet critics.
Bo Xilai, once a rising political star, was sentenced to life
imprisonment in September after a show trial that captured public
attention but fell short of fair trial standards and failed to address
widespread abuses of power committed during his tenure in Chongqing.
Human Rights Defenders
China's human rights activists often face imprisonment, detention,
torture, commitment to psychiatric facilities, house arrest, and
intimidation.
One of the most severe crackdowns on these individuals in recent
years occurred in 2013, with more than 50 activists put under criminal
detention between February and October. Human rights defenders are
detained for ill-defined crimes ranging from ``creating disturbances''
to ``inciting subversion'' for organizing and participating in public,
collective actions. In July, authorities detained Xu Zhiyong, who is
considered an intellectual leader of the New Citizens Movement, a loose
network of civil rights activists whose efforts include a nationwide
campaign that calls on public officials to disclose their assets.
In September, Beijing-based activist Cao Shunli was detained after
she was barred from boarding a flight to Geneva ahead of the United
Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) review of China on October 22. Cao
is known for pressing the Chinese government to include independent
civil society input into the drafting of China's report to the HRC
under a mechanism called Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Another
activist, Peng Lanlan, was released in August after she spent one year
in prison for ``obstructing official business'' for her role in the
campaign.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo continues his 11-year jail term
in northern Liaoning province. His wife Liu Xia continues to be
subjected to unlawful house arrest. In August, Liu Xiaobo's brother-in-
law, Liu Hui, was given an 11-year sentence on fraud charges; it is
widely believed the heavy sentence is part of broader effort to punish
Liu Xiaobo's family.
Legal Reforms
While the government rejects judicial independence and prohibits
independent bar associations, progressive lawyers and legal scholars
continue to be a force for change, contributing to increasing popular
legal awareness and activism.
The Chinese Communist Party maintains authority over all judicial
institutions and coordinates the judiciary's work through its political
and legal committees. The Public Security Bureau, or police, remains
the most powerful actor in the criminal justice system. Use of torture
to extract confessions is prevalent, and miscarriages of justice are
frequent due to weak courts and tight limits on the rights of the
defense.
In November, the government announced its intention to abolish re-
education through labor (RTL), a form of arbitrary detention in which
the police can detain people for up to four years without trial. There
were about 160,000 people in about 350 camps at the beginning of the
year, but numbers dwindled rapidly as the police stopped sending people
to RTL. The official press, however, reported that some of these
facilities were being converted to drug rehabilitation centers, another
form of administrative detention. At time of writing it was unclear
whether the government would fully abolish administrative detention as
a way to deal with minor offenders, or whether it would instead
establish a replacement system that continued to allow detention
without trial.
China continues to lead the world in executions. The exact number
remains a state secret, but experts estimate it has decreased
progressively from about 10,000 per year a decade ago to less than
4,000 in recent years.
Freedom of Expression
Freedom of expression deteriorated in 2013, especially after the
government launched a concerted effort to rein in micro-blogging. The
government and the Party maintain multiple layers of control over all
media and publications.
Internet censors shape online debate and maintain the ``Great
Firewall,'' which blocks outside content from reaching Internet users
in China. Despite these restrictions, the Internet, especially
microblog services known as ``weibo'' and other social media tools, are
popular as a relatively free space in which China's 538 million users
can connect and air grievances. However, those who breach sensitive
taboos are often swiftly identified and their speech deleted or
disallowed; some are detained or jailed.
In January, Southern Weekly, a Guangzhou-based newspaper known for
its boundary-pushing investigative journalism, was enveloped in a
censorship row after the paper's editors found that their New Year's
special editorial was rewritten on the censors' orders and published
without their consent. The original editorial had called for political
reform and respect for constitutionally guaranteed rights, but the
published version instead praised the Chinese Communist Party. The
paper's staff publicly criticized the provincial top censor, called
for his resignation and went on a strike; the paper resumed printing a
week later.
In May, the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party's Central
Committee issued a gag order to universities directing them to avoid
discussions of ``seven taboos,'' which included ``universal values''
and the Party's past wrongs, according to media reports.
Since August, authorities have waged a campaign against ``online
rumors.'' The campaign has targeted influential online opinion leaders
and ordinary netizens. The authorities have detained hundreds of
Internet users for days, closed down over 100 ``illegal'' news websites
run by citizen journalists, and detained well-known liberal online
commentator Charles Xue.
Also in August, the government official in charge of Internet
affairs warned Internet users against breaching ``seven bottom lines,''
including China's ``socialist system,'' the country's ``national
interests,'' and ``public order.'' In September, the Supreme People's
Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (state prosecutor) issued
a new judicial interpretation applying four existing criminal
provisions to Internet expression, providing a more explicit legal
basis for charging Internet users.
Freedom of Religion
Although the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the
government restricts religious practices to officially approved
mosques, churches, temples, and monasteries organized by five
officially recognized religious organizations. It audits the
activities, employee details, and financial records of religious
bodies, and retains control over religious personnel appointments,
publications, and seminary applications.
Unregistered spiritual groups such as Protestant ``house churches''
are deemed unlawful and subjected to raids and closures; members are
harassed and leaders are detained and sometimes jailed.
The government classifies Falun Gong, a meditation-focused
spiritual group banned since July 1999, as an ``an evil cult'' and
arrests, harasses, and intimidates its members. After releasing a new
documentary about a labor camp in which Falun Gong practitioners were
detained and tortured, filmmaker and photographer Du Bin was detained
in May. He was released after five weeks in detention.
In April, a court in Henan province sentenced seven house church
leaders to between three and seven years in prison on charges of
``using a cult to undermine law enforcement'' evidence suggested they
had only attended meetings and publicized church activities.
Health and Disability Rights
The government has developed numerous laws, regulations, and action
plans designed to decrease serious environmental pollution and related
threats to public health, but the policies are often not implemented.
In February, a lawyer's request under the Open Government
Information Act to reveal soil contamination data was rejected;
according to the authorities, such data was a ``state secret.'' Also in
February, after years of denial and inaction, the Ministry of
Environmental Protection finally acknowledged the existence of ``cancer
villages,'' those with abnormally high cancer rates. Victims had long
pressed for justice and compensation and domestic media had written
extensively on the issue.
Despite a review in 2012 under the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), protections of the rights of persons
with disabilities remain inadequate. These individuals face serious
discrimination in employment and education, and some government
policies institutionalize discrimination.
In February, the State Council's Legislative Affairs Office
announced amendments to the 1994 Regulations of Education of Persons
with Disabilities in China. While welcome, the amendments do not ensure
that students with disabilities can enroll in mainstream schools or
mandate appropriate classroom modifications (``accommodations'')
enabling them to participate fully in such schools.
In May, China's first Mental Health Law came into effect. It filled
an important legal void but does not close loopholes that allow
government authorities and families to detain people in psychiatric
hospitals against their will. In July, after the law came into effect,
Gu Xianghong was detained for five weeks in a Beijing psychiatric
hospital for petitioning the authorities about her grievances.
Women's Rights
Women's reproductive rights and access to reproductive health
remain severely curtailed under China's population planning
regulations. While the government announced in November that Chinese
couples will now be allowed two children if either parent was a single
child, the measure does not change the foundations of China's
government-enforced family planning policy, which includes the use of
legal and other coercive measures--such as administrative sanctions,
fines, and coercive measures, including forced abortion--to control
reproductive choices.
The government's punitive crackdowns on sex work often lead to
serious abuses, including physical and sexual violence, increased risk
of disease, and constrained access to justice for the country's
estimated 4 to 10 million sex workers, most of whom are women. Sex
workers have also documented abuses by public health agencies, such as
coercive HIV testing, privacy infringements, and mistreatment by health
officials.
In January, the Supreme People's Court upheld a death sentence
against Li Yan, a woman convicted of murdering her physically abusive
husband. Domestic violence is not treated as a mitigating factor in
court cases.
In May, Ye Haiyan, China's most prominent sex worker rights
activist, was detained by police for several days after being assaulted
at her home in Guangxi province over her exposure of abusive conditions
in local brothels.
Although the government acknowledges that domestic violence,
employment discrimination, and gender bias are widespread, it limits
the activities of independent women's rights groups working on these
issues by making it difficult for them to register, monitoring their
activities, interrogating their staff, and prohibiting some activities.
Migrant and Labor Rights
The official All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) continued
to be the only legal representative of workers; independent labor
unions are forbidden.
Despite this limitation, workers have become increasingly vocal and
active in striving for better working conditions across the country,
including by staging protests and strikes. In September, Shenzhen dock
workers went on strike to demand better pay and working conditions. Ten
days later, the workers accepted a government-brokered deal that met
some of their demands.
In May, the official All-China Women's Federation issued a new
report revealing that the number of migrant children, including those
living with their parents in urban areas and those ``left behind'' in
rural areas, had reached 100 million by 2010. Migrant workers continue
to be denied urban residence permits, which are required to gain access
to social services such as education. Many such workers leave their
children at home when they migrate so that the children can go to
school, rendering some vulnerable to abuse.
Although China has numerous workplace safety regulations,
enforcement is lax, especially at the local level. For example, in
June, a fire at a poultry farm killed 121 workers in Jilin province.
Subsequent investigations revealed that the local fire department had
just days before the fire issued the poultry farm a safety certificate
even though it failed to meet a number of standards.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
The Chinese government classified homosexuality as a mental illness
until 2001. To date there is still no law protecting people from
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,
which remains common especially in the workplace.
Same-sex partnership and marriage are not recognized under Chinese
law. In February, a lesbian couple attempted to register at the
marriage registry in Beijing but their application was rejected.
On May 17, the International Day against Homophobia, Changsha city
authorities detained Xiang Xiaohan, an organizer of a local gay pride
parade, and held him for 12 days for organizing an ``illegal march.''
In China, demonstrations require prior permission, which is rarely
granted.
Tibet
The Chinese government systematically suppresses political,
cultural, religious and socio-economic rights in Tibet in the name of
combating what it sees as separatist sentiment. This includes
nonviolent advocacy for Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama's return,
and opposition to government policy. At time of writing, 123 Tibetans
had self-immolated in protest against Chinese policies since the first
recorded case in February 2009.
Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment remains common, and torture and
ill-treatment in detention is endemic. Fair trials are precluded by a
politicized judiciary overtly tasked with suppressing separatism.
Police systematically suppress any unauthorized gathering. On July
6, police opened fire in Nyitso, Dawu prefecture (Ch. Daofu), on a
crowd that had gathered in the countryside to celebrate the Dalai
Lama's birthday. Several people were injured. The government censored
news of the event.
In an apparent effort to prevent a repetition of the popular
protests of 2008, the government in 2013 maintained many of the
measures it introduced during its brutal crackdown on the protest
movement--a massive security presence composed largely of armed police
forces, sharp restrictions on the movements of Tibetans within the
Tibetan plateau, increased controls on monasteries, and a ban on
foreign journalists in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) unless part
of a government-organized tour. The government also took significant
steps to implement a plan to station 20,000 new officials and Party
cadres in the TAR, including in every village, to monitor the political
views of all residents.
The government is also subjecting millions of Tibetans to a mass
rehousing and relocation policy that radically changes their way of
life and livelihoods, in some cases impoverishing them or making them
dependent on state subsidies, about which they have no say. Since 2006,
over two million Tibetans, both farmers and herders, have been
involuntarily ``rehoused''--through government-ordered renovation or
construction of new houses--in the TAR; hundreds of thousands of
nomadic herders in the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau have been
relocated or settled in ``New Socialist Villages.''
Xinjiang
Pervasive ethnic discrimination, severe religious repression, and
increasing cultural suppression justified by the government in the name
of the ``fight against separatism, religious extremism, and terrorism''
continue to fuel rising tensions in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region.
In 2013, over one hundred people--Uyghurs, Han, and other
ethnicities--were killed in various incidents across the region, the
highest death toll since the July 2009 Urumqi protests. In some cases,
heavy casualties appear to have been the result of military-style
assaults on groups preparing violent attacks, as in Bachu prefecture on
April 23, and in Turfan prefecture on June 26. But in other cases
security forces appear to have used lethal force against crowds of
unarmed protesters.
On June 28, in Hetian prefecture, police tried to prevent
protesters from marching toward Hetian municipality to protest the
arbitrary closure of a mosque and the arrest of its imam, ultimately
shooting into the crowd and injuring dozens of protesters. On August 8,
in Aksu prefecture, police forces prevented villagers from reaching a
nearby mosque to celebrate a religious festival, eventually using live
ammunition and injuring numerous villagers. After each reported
incident the government ritualistically blames ``separatist, religious
extremist, and terrorist forces,'' and obstructs independent
investigations.
Arbitrary arrest, torture, and ``disappearance'' of those deemed
separatists are endemic and instill palpable fear in the population. In
July, Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur professor at Beijing's Nationalities
University published an open letter to the government asking for an
investigation into 34 disappearance cases he documented. Tohti was
placed under house arrest several times and prevented from traveling
abroad.
The government continues to raze traditional Uyghur neighborhoods
and rehouse families in planned settlements as part of a comprehensive
development policy launched in 2010. The government says the policy is
designed to urbanize and develop Xinjiang.
Hong Kong
Despite the fact that Hong Kong continues to enjoy an independent
judiciary, a free press, and a vocal civil society, freedoms of the
press and assembly have been increasingly under threat since Hong Kong
returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Prospects that election of the
territory's chief executive starting in 2017 would be genuinely
competitive dimmed after Beijing indicated that only candidates who did
not ``oppose the central government'' would be able to run.
Hong Kong has witnessed slow erosion of the rule of law in recent
years, exemplified by increasingly strict police controls on assemblies
and processions, and arbitrary Immigration Department bans on
individuals critical of Beijing, such as members of the Falun Gong and
exiled dissidents from the 1989 democracy spring.
Chinese Foreign Policy
Despite China's continued rise as a global power and its 2013
leadership transition, including the appointment of a new foreign
minister, long-established foreign policy views and practices remained
relatively unchanged.
China has become more engaged with various United Nations
mechanisms but has not significantly improved its compliance with
international human rights standards or pushed for improved human
rights protections in other countries. In a notable exception, shortly
after it was elected to the UN Human Rights Council in November, China
publicly urged Sri Lanka ``to make efforts to protect and promote human
rights.''
Even in the face of the rapidly growing death toll in Syria and
evidence in August 2013 that the Syrian government used chemical
weapons against civilians, Beijing has continued to object to any
significant Security Council measures to increase pressure on the Assad
regime and abusive rebel groups. It has opposed referral of the
situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and an arms embargo
against forces that commit widespread human rights or laws of war
violations. China has also slowed down Security Council-driven efforts
to deliver desperately needed humanitarian assistance across the border
to rebel controlled areas in northern Syria.
In a minor change of tactics, if not of longer-term strategy,
Chinese authorities have become modestly more vocal in their public and
private criticisms of North Korea, particularly following actions by
Pyongyang that increased tensions between members of the six-party
talks aimed at addressing security concerns posed by North Korea's
nuclear weapons program.
Both private and state-owned Chinese firms continue to be a leading
source of foreign direct investment, particularly in developing
countries, but in some cases have been unwilling or unable to comply
with international labor standards.
Key International Actors
Most governments that have bilateral human rights dialogues with
the Chinese government, including the United States, European Union,
and Australia, held at least one round of those dialogues in 2013; most
acknowledge they are of limited utility for promoting meaningful change
inside China.
Several of these governments publicly expressed concern about
individual cases, such as those of Xu Zhiyong or Liu Hui, or about
trends such as restrictions on anti-corruption activists. Ambassadors
from the US and Australia, as well as the EU's special representative
for human tights, were allowed to visit the TAR or other Tibetan areas.
None of these governments commented on the denial of Chinese
people's political rights to choose their leaders during the 2012-2013
leadership transition, and few successfully integrated human rights
concerns into meetings with senior Chinese officials.
China participated in a review of its compliance with the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the
international treaty body charged with monitoring implementation of the
convention and a review of its overall human rights record at the UN
Human Rights Council, but it failed to provide basic information or
provided deeply misleading information on torture, arbitrary detention,
and restrictions on freedom of expression. There are eight outstanding
requests to visit China by UN special rapporteurs, and UN agencies
operating inside China remain tightly restricted, their activities
closely monitored by the authorities.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sherrod Brown, a U.S. Senator From Ohio;
Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
APRIL 8, 2014
On February 21, nine Members of this Commission--Democrats and
Republicans from both the House and the Senate--sent a letter to
Chinese President Xi Jinping, urging him to end the crackdown on rights
advocates in China.
Among the cases we highlighted was that of Uyghur scholar Ilham
Tohti, and his daughter joins us today. Mr. Tohti is a thoughtful and
peaceful advocate of the rights of the Uyghur minority, who has sought
to build bridges among ethnic groups. We are grateful that his daughter
joined us today.
We are grateful that the prominent human rights lawyer Teng Biao
could join us via Skype. Teng Biao has provided legal assistance in
human rights cases at great risk to himself. Our staff has made every
effort to ensure the security of this feed and we hope there will be no
disruption.
We are grateful, too, that Mr. Clarke and Ms. Richardson could take
time out of their busy schedules to be here. Ms. Richardson is a
respected expert on human rights. Mr. Clarke has done considerable
research into understanding China's legal reform and rule of law
development.
This hearing comes at an important time.
President Xi Jinping has been in power more than a year.
As we will learn more today, he has presided over a worrisome
crackdown that is estimated to have swept away more than 150 activists,
lawyers, journalists, and intellectuals.
President Xi spoke of respecting the Constitution and rule of law
when he entered office. He has talked tough on corruption. His
government has pledged to protect ethnic minorities.
But when his own citizens, including the father of our witness
today, sought to hold the Chinese government accountable they were
punished.
They include the legal advocate Xu Zhiyong, who has sought to
promote educational opportunity and transparency of officials'
finances. He is now serving a four-year sentence for ``disturbing
social order.''
They include the activist Cao Shunli, who sought to participate in
the drafting of China's human rights report to be presented to the UN
Human Rights Council. She died last month after being detained and
denied medical treatment.
They include the four lawyers trying to defend Falun Gong members
held in illegal detention centers known as black jails. The lawyers
have been detained and beaten.
During President Xi's first year in office we have learned that
independent voices--even those that echo the government's concerns and
try to uphold the law--will not be tolerated.
These actions are not befitting a country that every day claims to
want, and is seeking, in fact, greater international legitimacy.
We urge the government of the People's Republic of China to respect
the fundamental rights of every one of its citizens to freedom of
expression, press, association, and religion.
We do so not simply because this is China's obligation under
international law, but because China will be better and stronger if it
gives its citizens a voice and stake in the system.
By listening to and respecting the rights of citizens like Ilham
Tohti and Xu Zhiyong, China can involve all its people in dealing with
the most important problems of the day--corruption, ethnic tensions,
income inequality.
But first, President Xi and China's leaders must view these
citizens not as threats but as people who want what's best for their
country.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S. Representative
From New Jersey; Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on
China
APRIL 8, 2014
On the morning of March 14th, Cao Shunli died alone at Beijing
Military Hospital #309. Chinese police detained her on September 14,
2013, after she attempted to attend the UN Human Rights Council's
review of China's human rights record.
She was officially detained on the bogus charge of ``suspicion of
illegal assembly'' and ``creating a disturbance.'' During her six month
detention she was repeatedly denied medical care for serious
conditions, many which developed in prison.
China's campaign to discredit Cao Shunli even continued past her
death. Authorities continue to deny her family the dignity of releasing
her body for burial. Chinese diplomats in Geneva objected to a planned
moment of silence at the UN Human Rights Council.
It is a sad irony that Cao Shunli's pleas for human rights in China
were finally heard at the UN after her death.
Cao Shunli is exactly the type of person the Chinese government
should embrace--not jail, discredit, and leave to die. She was a brave
advocate for human rights, who had sacrificed much to make her country
a better place. She wanted a China that fulfilled its highest ideals
and its promises to advance human rights and protect the poor and
vulnerable.
Unfortunately, her case is not an isolated one.
President Xi Jinping has presided over one of the most extensive
crackdowns on rights advocates in recent memory. 200 hundred people
have been arrested in the past year and many more are intimidated into
silence.
Chinese authorities are not only arresting rights advocates, they
are also intimidating and detaining their family members as well--a
chilling escalation of abuse that is both outrageous and illegal.
The Congress has repeatedly expressed its concern about health and
welfare of Chen Kegui , the nephew of Chen Guangcheng and Liu Xia the
wife of Nobel Prize Laureate, Liu Xiaobo --but many more families
suffer in silence. We urge the Chinese government to stop its
harassment and detention of the family members of dissidents.
We are also concerned about recent efforts to silence the work of
human rights lawyers. Four lawyers were detained recently in northern
China for seeking to defend Falun Gong practitioners arbitrarily
detained in a ``black jail.'' Over the past several years, human rights
lawyers are often stripped of their legal licenses, beaten by police or
hired ``thugs,'' and detained--for seeking to provide legal services
consistent with China's own laws and its international obligations.
China's human rights lawyers courageously remain committed to the
rule-of-law, even though, it seems, the Chinese government is not.
China's active repression of ethnic minority communities has failed
to bring stability and only created more discontent. It even jails
those, like the Uyghur Ilham Tohti who seek to bridge the divide
between their ethnic group and China's majority Han population,
promoting inter-ethnic dialogue and understanding.
Expanding police power is not the answer to creating stability in
restive ethnic minority areas of China. Tibetans, Uyghurs , and
Mongolians should be given a way to shape policies that affect them and
preserve and practice, without interference, their unique religions,
cultures, and languages. Unfortunately, China has worked to silence
Tohti's voice, and the voice of others, who have actively worked to
ease inter-ethnic strains. The silencing of these voices is likely to
further marginalize ethnic communities and worsen the prospects for
peace and prosperity for Han and Uyghur alike.
President Xi came to office one year ago promising reforms of
longstanding policies, including abolishing the re-education through
labor (RTL) system of arbitrary detention, changing the household
registration system and ``One-Child'' policy, and expanding efforts to
stamp out corruption.
Yet, except for aggressive campaigns to discredit former political
opponents and silence rights advocates, none of these reforms have
produced results.
President Xi promised to create a ``China Dream'' of unlimited
prosperity and progress, but coupled that with vision with a more
conservative tone, opposing greater press freedom and ``western-style''
rule of law and extending existing curbs on the freedoms of expression,
association, assembly, and religion. The Chinese government continues
to prohibit independent labor unions and human rights organizations;
heavily censors the media, the Internet, and academic research on
topics deemed too ``political.'' It uses ``social stability'' to
justify suppression of human rights advocates and repressive policies
in ethnic minority areas of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia.
The China Dream is becoming a nightmare for those peacefully
advocating for human rights and the rule of law.
A strong and secure China would welcome independent civil society
and free press, committed to holding the Chinese government accountable
to its highest ideals and promises. Instead it criminalizes dissenting
opinions and uses repression to silence those viewed as challenging its
authority.
China must begin to embrace the idea that continued prosperity and
security can only be ensured when freedom is embraced and human rights
protected.
The China Commission has repeatedly urged the Administration to
raise, in a serious and visible way, the issue of human rights abuses
in China. That need continues now, more than ever, in the midst of the
current crackdown on rights defenders.
But more needs to be done to improve human rights diplomacy with
China. The Administration has promised an ``Asia Pivot,'' but the human
rights and democracy pillar of that policy is, by far, the least
developed part.
There are pressing economic and security concerns in the Pacific
that require U.S. leadership, but the hard won truth of history is that
a future of stability and prosperity is built on the foundation of
liberty and human rights.
The United States must find credible ways to advance this principle
in its relations with China. And, we must find ways to effectively link
U.S. interests in human rights with its interests in global security
and freer and fairer trade.
That is the challenge. We in the Congress, and at the CECC, promise
to continue work to advance universally-recognized rights and freedoms
in China.