The commission, established by Congress two years ago when the United States gave China Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status, issued its report at a Capitol Hill press conference convened by the two co-chairs, Sen. Max Baucus (Montana) and Rep. Doug Bereuter (Nebraska).
"The commission put its finger on some key issues," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division. "But it hasn't been effective this past year exerting pressure on China. And this report doesn't propose the kind of strategic actions needed to make an impact on China's serious human rights problems."
Human Rights Watch welcomed the commission's criticism of arbitrary arrests, torture, violation of worker rights and the lack of an independent judiciary. Human Rights Watch also welcomed the suggestions for the summit meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin on October 25 in Crawford, Texas, contained in a letter to Bush accompanying the report. But they didn't go far enough.
Although the commission noted China's attempts to use the war on terrorism to justify broad repression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, its letter to President Bush did not urge him to highlight this issue in Crawford, privately and publicly. Nor did it suggest that Bush use the summit to schedule a trip to China by the U.S. labor secretary to deal with worker rights violations.
Instead, the commission asked the president to raise cases of individual political prisoners, to call on China to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to invite U.N. human rights experts to visit China.
The commission is a bipartisan group composed of 19 members of Congress and representatives of the U.S. State, Labor and Commerce Departments. When it was created, the commission was widely seen as a substitute for the annual trade debate on China, which ended when PNTR was granted, to keep the focus on human rights concerns. But thus far, it has failed to have any significant impact on China policy. The group has made no effort to send international trial observers to China, to post one of its research staff in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, or to propose legislation on a code of conduct for American companies operating in China -- including Internet companies.
"If Congress decides to fund the commission next year, it should attach requirements for specific actions, such as sending delegations to China to discuss its concerns with government officials and others," said Jendrzejczyk. He added that the commission had yet to send even one delegation of Congressional members to China.
