Reporting On Each Other: The Human Rights and “Wrongs” Between the US and China
Wendy Liu
April 23, 2007
Every spring, there is a “tit-for-tat” ritual between the US and China over human rights.
In March, the State Department issues its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Started in 1977 when President Carter made human rights the centerpiece of American foreign policy, the reports now provide analyses of the human rights condition of over 190 countries, not including the United States, of course. In April, it puts out “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy,” a supplementary listing the work the US government has done in promoting human rights around the world.
Often within hours of the State Department’s release, China, as one country that gets routinely and severely criticized in these reports, responds with its own report, titled the Human Rights Record of the United States, citing human rights abuses in America.
As the ritual goes, China would slam the State Department as slandering, interfering in China’s internal affairs, disregarding of facts and progress made, etc. and call on the US to use the mirror on itself. The US would dismiss China’s report as propaganda, diverting from its problems, without substance, etc.
To go beyond the headlines and the angry, sometimes comical, exchange of words, I decided this year to take a look at the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2006, especially the part on China, as well as China’s report on the US. As a former Chinese citizen and currently a US citizen, I believed I should know the difference. Here are my impressions.
One, the “Country Reports” does have the air of a world supreme judge.
Thanks to the diligent work of the staff of the State Department, the reports are well detailed and organized. All of them come under seven sections, including Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Respect for Political Rights, Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons, Worker Rights and a number of sub-sections. Comments, cases and statistics are given under each section regarding a country’s performance, be it China or the UK or Iraq. A paragraph in the beginning of each country report gives a summary of the country’s general human rights condition as good, improved, unsatisfactory, poor or deteriorated. Reading them did make one wonder if it should not be an international blue ribbon committee, for instance, rather than one country’s foreign affairs agency that authors such reports.
Two, the “Country Reports” confuses government and individuals in some of China’s cases.
There is no denying that China’s human rights practices, especially political rights, are far from being up to international standard. The media and the Internet censorship, the jailing and harassing of dissident journalists and lawyers, the ban on independent unions, churches, political parties, etc. are all actual offenses by the government, as rightly laid out in the reports. Many other citations, however, are different, such as mine accidents and deaths, wage arrearages to migrant workers, sub-standard working conditions, discrimination against women in work place, excessive fees of public schools, trafficking of women and children, etc. These are offenses by individuals, individual businesses and individual organizations against existing Chinese laws and regulations. Some problems, such as the lack of adequate medical care or roads/building access for persons with disabilities, are simply an issue of funds or level of economic development.
Three, China’s report on the US is not all propaganda.
In “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006” compiled by China’s State Council, there is a strong case where individual offenses are taken for government offenses, especially in sections On Racial Discrimination and On the Rights of Women, Children, the Elderly and the Disabled, for instance. However, when it came to sections On Civil and Political Rights and On the US' Violation of Human Rights in Other Countries, especially regarding government’s electronic surveillance of citizens, information gathering on anti-war protestors, phone call records collecting, torture and indefinite detention of prisoners, and the staggering civilian casualties in the Iraq war, it was a different matter. As Ivan Eland, Director of Center for Peace & Liberty of the Independent Institute, said in his recent article, “Things are getting bad when an autocracy chastises a republic for its human rights abuses and the criticism has merit.” Indeed.
As someone who has lived in both the “autocracy” and the “republic,” I have three words for human rights watchers in both countries: perspective, perspective, perspective.
In that perspective, “human rights” was a totally foreign and bourgeois concept to the Chinese not too long ago. In that perspective, racial segregation did not officially end in the United States until the early 1970s. China, of course, still has a long way to go. The US is not completely there yet. Slamming or dismissing each other’s report may not be the most mature thing to do.
In March, the State Department issues its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Started in 1977 when President Carter made human rights the centerpiece of American foreign policy, the reports now provide analyses of the human rights condition of over 190 countries, not including the United States, of course. In April, it puts out “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy,” a supplementary listing the work the US government has done in promoting human rights around the world.
Often within hours of the State Department’s release, China, as one country that gets routinely and severely criticized in these reports, responds with its own report, titled the Human Rights Record of the United States, citing human rights abuses in America.
As the ritual goes, China would slam the State Department as slandering, interfering in China’s internal affairs, disregarding of facts and progress made, etc. and call on the US to use the mirror on itself. The US would dismiss China’s report as propaganda, diverting from its problems, without substance, etc.
To go beyond the headlines and the angry, sometimes comical, exchange of words, I decided this year to take a look at the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2006, especially the part on China, as well as China’s report on the US. As a former Chinese citizen and currently a US citizen, I believed I should know the difference. Here are my impressions.
One, the “Country Reports” does have the air of a world supreme judge.
Thanks to the diligent work of the staff of the State Department, the reports are well detailed and organized. All of them come under seven sections, including Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Respect for Political Rights, Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons, Worker Rights and a number of sub-sections. Comments, cases and statistics are given under each section regarding a country’s performance, be it China or the UK or Iraq. A paragraph in the beginning of each country report gives a summary of the country’s general human rights condition as good, improved, unsatisfactory, poor or deteriorated. Reading them did make one wonder if it should not be an international blue ribbon committee, for instance, rather than one country’s foreign affairs agency that authors such reports.
Two, the “Country Reports” confuses government and individuals in some of China’s cases.
There is no denying that China’s human rights practices, especially political rights, are far from being up to international standard. The media and the Internet censorship, the jailing and harassing of dissident journalists and lawyers, the ban on independent unions, churches, political parties, etc. are all actual offenses by the government, as rightly laid out in the reports. Many other citations, however, are different, such as mine accidents and deaths, wage arrearages to migrant workers, sub-standard working conditions, discrimination against women in work place, excessive fees of public schools, trafficking of women and children, etc. These are offenses by individuals, individual businesses and individual organizations against existing Chinese laws and regulations. Some problems, such as the lack of adequate medical care or roads/building access for persons with disabilities, are simply an issue of funds or level of economic development.
Three, China’s report on the US is not all propaganda.
In “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006” compiled by China’s State Council, there is a strong case where individual offenses are taken for government offenses, especially in sections On Racial Discrimination and On the Rights of Women, Children, the Elderly and the Disabled, for instance. However, when it came to sections On Civil and Political Rights and On the US' Violation of Human Rights in Other Countries, especially regarding government’s electronic surveillance of citizens, information gathering on anti-war protestors, phone call records collecting, torture and indefinite detention of prisoners, and the staggering civilian casualties in the Iraq war, it was a different matter. As Ivan Eland, Director of Center for Peace & Liberty of the Independent Institute, said in his recent article, “Things are getting bad when an autocracy chastises a republic for its human rights abuses and the criticism has merit.” Indeed.
As someone who has lived in both the “autocracy” and the “republic,” I have three words for human rights watchers in both countries: perspective, perspective, perspective.
In that perspective, “human rights” was a totally foreign and bourgeois concept to the Chinese not too long ago. In that perspective, racial segregation did not officially end in the United States until the early 1970s. China, of course, still has a long way to go. The US is not completely there yet. Slamming or dismissing each other’s report may not be the most mature thing to do.
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