Genocide Watch Alert: China

As one of the oldest unified countries in the world, China has had many political systems, but all have been dominated by hierarchical, patriarchal dynasties. China has never had a democratic government or a tradition of respect for human rights.  Today, China is the world’s largest communist country. China is also one of the most severe violators of human rights. China’s human rights violations include systematic repression, brutal police action against its people, illegal repatriation of North Korean refugees, and repression of religious freedom and freedom of speech.

The systematic repression in China can be attributed to China’s Maoist state centralist ideology, lack of uniformity with which the law is applied, and rampant corruption within the system by members of the communist party. The corruption within the highest governing bodies does not provide the people with the representation that is promised in China’s constitution.  The National People’s Committee is, by law, the “highest organ of state power;” and is theoretically elected by the people. However, in practice this body has taken a subordinate position to the State council, which is not elected by the people but appointed by the Party, taking all effective political participation away from China’s citizens.

This subjective application of China’s constitution and other laws allows authorities to fabricate charges in order to justify government crimes such as forced disappearances and indefinite imprisonment. This is especially true with people accused of being enemies of the state, or democratic reformers. China’s treatment of democratic reformers has become more public in light of recent events such as the imprisonment of, Liu Xiaobo, in 2008 who was the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. While prosecutions are on the rise among dissidents and political reformers, the Party has also employed police brutality against certain ethnic populations to control growing criticism throughout the country. Many ethnic minorities have begun to fight back, resulting in high death tolls and ongoing resentment.

One of the most severe examples of police brutality in China is in Tibet. Social unrest has escalated in the last several years in the Tibetan Plateau region. A total of 24 Tibetans have committed self-immolation (self-sacrifice by burning) protesting the legitimacy of the Han government. (Han is the ethnic majority in China.) Mass protests and self-immolations have spurred Chinese police to open fire on protesters several times in the past year.  It is Chinese policy to re-populate Tibet with ethnic Han people, and to build railroads and roads to integrate Tibet into the Chinese nation-state, a denial of Tibet’s historic assertions of its independence.

The ethnic Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang in Western China has also been subjected to brutal repression.  Just as in Tibet, it is Chinese policy to re-populate Xinjiang with ethnic Han. There have been many instances in the past year involving Chinese authorities using unjustified police force on Uighurs. One incident this past year involved Chinese authorities barring a group of Uighurs from crossing the border out of China, opening fire and kidnapping at least 5 children. According to Amnesty International, Uighurs have been arbitrarily detained on trumped up charges of “splittism” and “inciting separatism” for exercising their right to freedom of religion, expression and association. Uighurs and Tibetans are only two of the many minorities in China that suffer from unfair and illegal treatment of the government.

The US Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom, Suzan Johnson Cook, was denied admission to China this past year.  Members of the Falun Gong movement have been systematically persecuted, and Christians worshiping outside officially approved churches have been arrested.  China has been characterized by the US Commission on Religious Freedom as one of the most religiously repressive societies in the world.

North Koreans who escape into China face the threat of repatriation, against international human rights law.  As a party to the U.N Refugee Convention, China is compelled to grant North Korean refugees political asylum in country. Instead, China has refused to recognize the refugee status of North Koreans and has labeled them as economic migrants and therefore not eligible for refugee status or asylum.  Already this year China has attempted to repatriate almost thirty North Koreans in full knowledge of Kim Jong-Un‘s severe “three generations” regulation. This regulation calls for the imprisonment of a “criminal’s” family over three generations as a way to “clean the Korean race.” Kim Jong –Un reintroduced this policy after the death of his father to coerce citizens into mourning for their “Great Leader.”

Continuing close economic relations between China and the U.S provide a platform for the U.S and the international community to address these human rights abuses. As the largest growing economy in the world, China should be held responsible for the crimes it is committing against its own people. China’s continued resistance to international law should be a major concern for countries like the U.S and the EU as China’s influence grows.  The international community should work to guarantee the safety and security of the Chinese people including ethnic and religious minorities, and should encourage China to re-open talks with the Dalai Lama and Tibetans, stop Chinese persecution of the Muslim Uighur minority, and ensure all people the fundamental rights of religion, speech, association and due process.

China’s role in supporting the genocidal policies of countries that provide it with oil and other resources, such as Sudan, should also be addressed.  The US and Western nations could make China pay a much higher price in its trade relations for its direct support of dictatorships such as al-Bashir’s in Sudan and Assad’s in Syria.

According to The Laogai Research Foundation 3 situations count as varying degrees of genocide in modern Chinese history:
1) The Landlord Extermination and Anti-Rightist Campaigns
2) The Great Famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward
3) The Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989
And 3 in China today:
4) The 3-5 million slaves in forced-labor prisons (read more)
5) One-child policy, forced abortions and missing girls (read more)
6) “Cultural genocide” in Tibet and Xinjiang

by

by