Xiao Qiang
Human Rights in China

International pressure, both bilateral and multilateral, has always been important in promoting change within China, and it has become even more crucial as economic ties between China and the outside world have grown. The UN's human rights mechanisms can be an effective avenue for addressing both individual cases and systematic patterns of human rights abuses within China, since UN intervention has a unique legitimacy and the Chinese government has, despite rhetoric to the contrary, explicitly accepted various UN standards on rights.

Human Rights in China (HRIC) has been active in raising China's human rights record at the United Nations since 1993. We have focused on three aspects in this work: firstly, pressing the Chinese government to ratify the human rights instruments and accept international monitoring; secondly, increasing scrutiny of China Us record by providing information to UN monitoring bodies; and thirdly, informing the Chinese public about UN standards, mechanisms and activities.

1. The macro approach: setting standards

We have urged the Chinese government to recognize international human rights standards by signing on to more UN human rights treaties, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Today, 130 countries have ratified the former and 132 the latter. Although it is one of only five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, China has yet to sign either treaty. Both domestic and international pressure are needed to induce the Chinese government to take this important step.

Beginning in the latter half of the 1980s, a growing domestic constituency has argued that China should do this, with academics and some government officials, particularly in the foreign ministry, the major forces supporting such action. This process was halted by the 1989 crackdown on the democracy movement, but the strong international pressure provoked by those events brought other changes. In 1991, the first Chinese government-sponsored "Human rights study group" visited Europe and the United States. Composed of intelligence personnel and academics, on its return the group wrote a report containing policy recommendations which included the signing of the two covenants. This was also among the principal demands of the groups of Chinese human rights and labor activists who emerged from the shadows last fall and in the spring of 1994, and unfortunately, were again crushed. However, their demand will continue to be raised, since it has strong support both inside and outside government.

Once China signs them, these covenants can have a similar impact to that the Helsinki Accords had on the human rights movement in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. They will provide the domestic human rights movement with standards to which it can hold the government and tools for measuring legal reform and conducting public education. Therefore, mobilizing international pressure on the Chinese government to sign the two covenants should be made a priority. In interventions and briefings at the annual meetings of the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, HRIC has repeatedly called on the Chinese government to do this. We have also been actively engaged in lobbying member states of the Commission and the Subcommission's experts to pass resolutions on China's human rights situation calling on the Chinese authorities to accept international scrutiny and to take further steps to recognize international standards. Every year, such resolutions in both meetings have failed even to be tabled for discussion, following the passage of "no action motions" introduced by China. These motions have been supported by Asian and African nations, while China has successfully exerted its political muscle to get abstentions from the Latin American countries and some Eastern European states. At the 50th Human Rights Commission meeting in February 1994, the distribution of votes was 20 for "no action," 16 against and 17 abstentions. However, the closeness of the vote, and the degree of Chinese concern shown in the expenditure of substantial political capital to achieve this result, indicate that the effort to pass these resolutions is worthwhile and should continue. In 1995, the important progress was made in this front. The 'no action motion' was first time defeated at the Commission. The voting on the resolution was defeated by only one vote. However, the process generated strong international public attention on the human rights situation in China.

HRIC has also been among those pressing for China to increase transparency, specifically to allow investigative visits by UN special rapporteurs and working groups and to withdraw reservations, such as that attached when China signed the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which states that the CAT treaty body may not conduct investigations of alleged abuses. In a recent positive development, the Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance went on a mission to China in November 1994. However, requests from the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to make such a visit have been rejected three years in a row, while China's talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on access to Chinese prisons do not appear to have made any progress, as Beijing wishes to impose conditions on any visits which would not be acceptable to the ICRC. In the course of the last three years, HRIC has been circulating information about China's human rights situation to NGOs, representatives of member states of the Commission and Subcommission experts, as well as other UN human rights bodies. We hope our publications, press releases, briefing seminars, oral and written interventions in public meetings and private discussions with governments and experts will ultimately contribute to the pressure on China to recognize and to implement its international human rights obligations. The effectiveness of these efforts will be enhanced by the development of a consensus in the international human rights community on the importance of the objectives described above.

2. The micro approach: using united nations monitoring mechanisms

Once China recognizes certain international standards, NGOs must monitor the government's actions and hold it to the standards contained in these treaties. The Human Rights Commission already has a series of mechanisms which can be applied in this way. For example, China has already signed the CAT and HRIC is currently preparing a report to present to the appropriate UN working groups and committees regarding Chinese government practices in the areas covered by the Convention. Besides monitoring through treaty bodies, individual cases can be brought to the various special rapporteurs and working groups. None of these mechanisms can function without information. HRIC is trying to fill this gap, particularly focusing on providing families and activists in China with details of what information is needed to submit a case and collecting and collating such information. Since the beginning of 1994, we have documented over 350 cases, including 14 cases involving disappearances. In July 1994, HRIC submitted detailed information about the individuals concerned to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. The Working Group issued urgent actions on four of the cases and passed some of the other cases on to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The effectiveness of such actions is demonstrated by the case of Liu Nianchun, who "disappeared" in May 1994. Despite repeated inquiries from his wife, Chu Hailan, and statements from neighbors who witnessed his arrest, the authorities refused to acknowledge that he was in custody for over two months. Upon receipt of HRIC's communication, the Disappearances Working Group issued an urgent inquiry about Liu. On September 7, the Chinese authorities replied to the Working Group that Liu Nianchun was under Residential surveillance and had never been detained. When Chu took the Working groups report to the police they finally admitted that Liu Nianchun was in their custody, but still refused to give her any further details since the case was confidential. Chu told Hong Kong newspapers that the Chinese government had lied to the UN in stating that Liu was never detained, thereby increasing the pressure on the Chinese authorities. Four weeks later, Liu was released and the police told him that their investigation was complete. You are not guilty, they said to him. Unfortunately, such releases have not been common, but in a number of other cases, responses to working groups have established the whereabouts of detainees and the charges under which they are being held for the first time.

Decisions by working groups also serve to assess measures the Chinese authorities use against their critics. For example, in 1993, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined, after a lengthy investigation, that Reeducation Through Labor, under which individuals can be sent to labor camps without trial for offenses not listed in the Criminal Code, was among types of detention under which the measure of deprivation of freedom is inherently arbitrary in character. This set an important standard, providing leverage to press the Chinese government for specific legislative change and contributing to awareness within China of the issues raised by measures such as Reeducation.

In September 1994, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention announced decisions on a number of cases from China and Tibet submitted to it over the last few years. The vast majority of these were Tibetan protesters and religious prisoners sent to serve Reeducation terms, all of whose detentions were found to be arbitrary. Recently Reeducation has become the Chinese governments principal weapon against human rights and labor activists around the country. As well as individual cases, systematic patterns of human rights abuses can be addressed through UN bodies. For example, individuals may submit information about their cases under the 1503 procedure if they can show that the abuse they suffered is part of a pattern of gross, large-scale, consistent violations. China is also subject to examination under the treaty bodies established by the CAT and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). HRIC conducted a research project on China's adherence to these treaties and analyzing its reports on them. As well as the report on the CAT mentioned above, HRIC prepared an analysis of China's implementation of CEDAW for the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. NGOs and experts in the UN system need such information if they are to exercise their role effectively.

3. Foundations for the future: public education

Of course, China's central role in the United Nations makes raising Beijing's human rights record through UN mechanisms particularly difficult. Furthermore, the UN human rights bodies are under funded, sometimes bureaucratic and often unable to act immediately, with the exception of some emergency procedures such as those used by the Disappearances Working Group. Despite these difficulties, all the efforts mentioned above are also contributing to an extremely important project: human rights education. Human rights activists and victims of rights violations need information about the basics of human rights work and practical guidance about how, and in what circumstances, they can use international human rights mechanisms to try to solve specific problems. Also, because of the prestige of the United Nations, when information about actions there such as HRIC's intervention at the August Sub Commission meeting is transmitted to China, it may have even more impact there than in the world body itself.

But the blanket censorship the authorities impose on information about rights conditions and human rights monitoring activities in China means that people have little access to such information. Since mass media tools such as television and newspapers cannot be used to conduct human rights education, we have to rely on what are called the small media. Through our publications and press releases we report as much as we can about UN actions on human rights relating to China. Chinese-language broadcasting services such as Voice of America, BBC and Radio France International frequently use our material and interview us, taking this information to many millions of listeners in China. For two year and half now, HRIC has been producing a twenty-minute radio program on human rights every two weeks. This presents human rights news, the activities of HRIC, the international human rights movement and related developments at the UN.

HRIC has produced and sent to China brochures, handbooks, the journal China Rights Forum and reports on a variety of topics. These include the history and current development of the international human rights movement, human rights treaties, the United Nations human rights mechanisms, human rights movements in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, women's rights, how to conduct human rights investigations and so on. We have found that information sheets of one or two pages are the most effective way of reaching people since they can be quickly disseminated by anyone in China with access to a copy machine or fax, or simply passed around from hand to hand. For example, we have an instruction sheet on How to Collect Human Rights information's that has proved especially useful. It includes a form for recording information on specific incidents of human rights abuse, making sure people know what kind of information is needed to present cases to UN working groups. Many completed forms have been returned to us, filled out by people throughout China. As technology spreads in China, increasingly it will also be possible to circulate information through such things as computer disks and audio- and videotapes.

China's integration into the international economy and the broader international community is happening at a rapid pace and no domestic political force will be able to reverse this trend. It may not be too long before the political climate changes enough so we see China becoming a signatory to the ICCPR, ICESCR and other rights treaties. The long struggle involved in creating effective mechanisms for conducting human rights education and monitoring, including the work at the United Nations described here, will lay down the foundations for the progress of the Chinese human rights movement.