Q: Does the recent EU accord on support for China's entry into WTO help or hinder the human rights cause?
A: Human Rights Watch believes that broader trade with China can be consistent with advancing human rights, but only if it is combined with effective, sustained pressure on China to respect basic civil and political rights.
Q: How does Human Rights Watch respond to the argument that the opening up of foreign trade and investment inherent in membership of the WTO tends to encourage greater political liberty and democracy?
A: As a WTO member China will commit itself to respecting global trading rules. This is a step towards China's integration into the international system regulating not only trade relations but also governments' treatment of their own citizens. Restructuring China's economy to fit WTO standards could give a boost to those within China arguing that it must further open up both politically and economically if it is to be a respected member of the international community.
But, WTO membership will not itself lead to political changes in China. Pressure to modernize China's legal system to handle commercial disputes and protect contracts, for example, might have a positive impact on the rule of law, but experience in other countries has shown that strengthened capacity in commercial law does not always translate into a fairer system of criminal justice or reduce political pressure on judges.
Q: Can China's entry into the WTO and issues of trade and investment in general be considered as separate from political issues like democracy and human rights?
A: No, Human Rights Watch believes that the EU and China's other major trading partners must increase pressure on Beijing for significant improvements in human rights. It makes little sense to bring China into the WTO and expect it to abide by global trading rules when Beijing flouts international rules on human rights with impunity.
China must be moved to go beyond opening its markets to opening its jails, easing restrictions on the press and Internet, and protecting the rights of workers, Tibetans and other minorities.
The expected further rise in the unemployment rate may create more instability in the short run with authorities clamping down on attempts by workers to organize. But eventually the government may be forced to create channels for workers to negotiate over their grievances. The alternative to allowing greater freedom of association is to risk disaffected workers turning against the state.
Q: What indications could the EU look for as signs that China's human rights record is improving?
A: The EU should e.g. set concrete meaningful and realistic human rights benchmarks for China to reach, based on which the EU will measure progress in its so-called human rights dialogue with China. Such benchmarks could e.g. be:
- Ratification of the two UN covenants.
- Serious steps by China to begin dismantling the huge system of "re-education through labor".
- Open Tibet and Xinjiang to regular, unhindered access by United Nations human rights and humanitarian agencies, foreign journalists and independent monitors.
- Review the sentences of more than 2000 "counter-revolutionaries" convicted under provisions of Chinese law repealed in 1997.
- Abolition of the death penalty.
Getting China to meet these conditions is possible only if the EU engages in the same kind of intensive high level negotiations with Beijing that it conducted to finalize the trade agreement this spring.
Q: What is Human Rights Watch's reaction to reports that the Chinese government on October 23 will submit one of two UN human rights covenants to the National People's Congress for ratification?
A: We would welcome the ratification if indeed it does take place, but we will be watching closely to see whether China, as expected, decides to include a reservation to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights effectively refusing to allow free trade unions. We would of course oppose any such reservation. Also, while ratification is evidence of a government's acceptance of the principles of human rights, it is no guarantee that those principles will be put into practice.
Q. What about labor rights in China, and the prospects for improvement?
This past June, the International Labor Organization (ILO) considered a complaint against China on violations of key labor rights. The ILO's Committee on Freedom of Association said that certain provisions of China's labor law were contrary to fundamental principles guaranteeing the right of workers to form and join trade unions of their own choosing. It also condemned the system of "re-education through labor" and urged China to release imprisoned union leaders, and to accept a direct contact mission from the ILO to visit China to examine ways improve worker rights. As of August 2000, there was no response from the Chinese government. If China is interested in improving respect for basic labor rights, it should immediately accept the ILO's mission and implement the ILO's recommendations.
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