During China’s bid to host the Olympic Games, Liu Jingmin, vice president of the Beijing Olympic committee asserted that “by allowing Beijing to host the games, you will help the development of human rights.”
Two U.S. Congressmen are begging to differ.
“China is not progressing,” said Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA). “It is regressing. It is more violent, more repressive, and more resistant to democratic values than it was before we opened our ports to freely accept Chinese products.”
Wolf recently visited Beijing along with Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) to present the Chinese government a list of over 700 dissidents that they argue are being unjustly held. During last week’s trip, the two lawmakers also hosted a dinner for several Chinese human rights lawyers.
Three of the invited lawyers were detained and later put under house arrest by government security officials in order to prevent their attendance. A senior Chinese house church pastor, Zhang Mingxuan, was able to attend the dinner, but was placed under house arrest soon afterward according to Smith.
“Amazingly, when Pastor Zhang Mingxuan led us in prayer, he prayed for the government, and it was clear from his comments throughout the evening that he harbored absolutely no malice or hate towards those who have mistreated him on several occasions,” Smith recalled in a statement.
“It should be noted that the Chinese security police followed us to every meeting we had and we suspect listened in on all our conversations judging from questions we received from Chinese officials which could only have been known from monitoring our private conversations,” said Wolf.
The list of dissidents was presented to Ambassador Li Zhaoxing, Chairman of the National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Our exchange was candid and frank, and focused primarily on human rights, including the genocide in Darfur,” Smith said. “We presented him with a list of 734 political prisoners, and respectfully appealed to him and his government to work for their release. Darfur was emphasized in the talks, given China’s influence and collaboration with the Sudanese Government. China is one of Sudan’s largest arms suppliers, a source of weapons used to attack civilians in Darfur.”
Smith also pointed out that one detained human rights lawyer, blind activist Chen Guangcheng, is in prison in Linyi for bringing a class-action lawsuit against the government on behalf of several women who had been “severely and irreparably harmed by the one-child-per-couple policy which relies on forced abortion, ruinous fines and other forms of coercion to achieve its goals.”
Smith has noted in the past that the one-child-per-couple policy is a human rights abuse that not only kills children and abuses women, but is also becoming an increasing factor in the rise in human trafficking of North Korean women into China, where they are forced into prostitution, marriage or forced labor.
According to the Washington Post, the Chinese state security apparatus has tightened controls considerably ahead of the Olympics. Restrictions have been stepped up on known dissidents and human rights activists, preventing them from expressing their views or from coming to Beijing if they live in other cities.
In a previous interview, Wolf pointed out that dissidents in authoritarian states have often been threatened or prevented from meeting with visiting leaders from other countries. Specifically, he referenced President Reagan’s 1988 visit to the Soviet Union, when Reagan sought to meet with Soviet advocates of Jewish rights. Two of the advocates were approached by police and threatened with unspecified ”administrative measures” should they attempt to travel to Moscow and accept Reagan’s invitation to meet.
Wolf has called for heads of state to not attend the opening ceremonies of the games as a sign of disapproval of China’s poor record on human rights.
“Since President Bush has made the decision to attend the Beijing Games, he should plan to deliver a major speech on human rights while in China, similar to what President Ronald Reagan during his historic visit to Moscow in 1988,” said Wolf. He argued that Reagan’s speech calling on the Soviets to reopen thousands of boarded-up churches, to end the oppression of banned religious groups and to revoke Soviet law banning religious instruction dramatically raised the issue of human rights in the Soviet Union because it was done in such a high profile and public way.
Smith expressed the hope that his trip would intensify media attention on the suffering of human rights advocates and other victims of the abuses of the Chinese Government, and galvanize international pressure on the Government to adhere to international human rights standards.
Still, Smith and Wolf aren’t holding their breath.
“The crackdown on political dissidents and religious believers and the crushing of cyber dissidents is now going full-throttle. And shows no signs of abating,” Smith said in a statement.
“All that we experienced and saw during our visit was consistent with the heartbreaking accounts that we have heard from political dissidents and persecuted people of faith in China for years,” said Wolf.
More Resources:
- Interview with Congressman Wolf on China and the Olympics
- Statement by Congressman Christopher Smith on recent Beijing visit
- List of prisoners that Smith and Wolf presented to Chinese authorities for release
- Full Trip Report from Congressman Wolf
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