When the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4, 1989, many Hong Kongers watched in horror on their TVs. A few days before, one million of them had marched in solidarity with the rebellious Chinese gathered in the square to ask for more liberalism and democracy from the Chinese authorities. Thirty years on, it is Hong Kong that is fighting for democratic values — for its very political survival, actually — against another onslaught by the same Communist government in Beijing.
The situation is dire. The Hong Kong government, now apparently under the direct influence of Beijing, has proposed amending existing extradition laws to give unprecedented power to Hong Kong’s leader — an official essentially chosen by the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.)… Seguir leyendo »
Depuis sa fondation en 1949, la République populaire de Chine a cherché à renforcer son contrôle sur les régions périphériques et historiquement non-chinoises, telles que le Tibet, et le cas moins médiatisé du Turkestan oriental.
Au cours des dernières décennies, pour asseoir son autorité, le régime chinois n’a pas hésité à recourir à divers moyens économiques, politiques, mais aussi à la force et à l’encouragement à l’installation – voire à l’envoi direct et programmé – de populations han (chinois ethniques) dans ces périphéries pour mieux les arrimer à son territoire national.
Dans ces régions qui possèdent langues, cultures et organisations sociales et politiques propres, le mécontentement vis-à-vis des politiques imposées par l’Etat chinois et le questionnement de la légitimité de son autorité se manifestent continuellement jusqu’à aujourd’hui.… Seguir leyendo »
What does it take to intern half a million members of one ethnic group in just a year? Enormous resources and elaborate organization, but the Chinese authorities aren’t stingy. Vast swathes of the Uighur population in China’s western region of Xinjiang — as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities — are being detained to undergo what the state calls “transformation through education”. Many tens of thousands of them have been locked up in new thought-control camps with barbed wire, bombproof surfaces, reinforced doors and guard rooms.
The Chinese authorities are cagey and evasive, if not downright dismissive, about reports concerning such camps.… Seguir leyendo »
The first threatening phone call that Zhuang Liehong got in New York was in the fall of 2016, on a gloriously warm September morning. The call came from a jail where his father was being held following a protest in Mr. Zhuang’s home village in Southern China. “Is this Zhuang Liehong?” asked an unfamiliar voice. When Mr. Zhuang said yes, there was a pause and his father’s voice came on the line. “Son”, he said, “stop doing what you’re doing. It will be bad for your family”.
What Mr. Zhuang had been doing, for the most part, was posting on Facebook.… Seguir leyendo »
Last week at the Olympics, despite the dogged efforts of Vice President Pence, human rights promotion lost out to intrigue as the world fawned over Kim Yo Jong, North Korea’s chief of propaganda and sister to dictator Kim Jong Un. But this year’s games are just the latest evidence the world has stopped viewing these international events as opportunities to highlight liberal values.
The power of the Olympics to be a platform for human rights advocacy was decimated after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, when the Chinese government reneged on its promises by perpetrating a crackdown while the world stood idly by.… Seguir leyendo »
Apple ha compartido algo muy valioso. No se trata del anuncio de la última versión del iPhone, sino de una enorme cantidad de datos personales que irán directamente al régimen autoritario más grande, y uno de los más severos, del mundo: el gobierno comunista de China.
Debido a la continua represión de los derechos humanos y de la libertad de expresión por parte del gobierno chino del presidente Xi Jinping, así como a su involucramiento cada vez más profundo en las democracias de Occidente, las políticas de Apple en China tienen implicaciones de mucho mayor alcance para todos nosotros.
El verano pasado, Apple anunció que se asociaría con Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), una empresa propiedad del Estado relacionada con el Partido Comunista, para construir el primer centro de almacenamiento de datos de Apple en China.… Seguir leyendo »
Apple is selling out. It’s not about the latest version of the iPhone, but the huge cache of personal data that will be going directly to the largest, and one of the harshest, authoritarian regimes in the world: the Communist government of China.
Given the Chinese government’s continuing crackdown on human rights and freedom of speech under President Xi Jinping, as well as its deepening reach into Western democracies, Apple’s policies in China have far-reaching implications for us all.
Last summer, Apple announced that it would be partnering with Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, a state-owned company with Communist Party connections, to build Apple’s first data-storage center in China.… Seguir leyendo »
On March 19, a human rights activist from Taiwan named Lee Ming-che disappeared in mainland China, and his wife back in Taipei, Lee Ching-yu, became a member of one of the least desirable clubs in the world: the spouses of people who for political reasons have fallen into the hands of China’s public security police. The club’s members share at least two characteristics. One, they have been deprived of husbands or wives who have done nothing that would constitute a crime in any democratic country; and two, they face a kind of deafening silence from the authorities in China, and that silence itself speaks loudly of the power that the state has over the puny, isolated individual—in other words, over Ms.… Seguir leyendo »
What does the Communist Party’s handling of the case of Liu Xiaobo tell us about its approach to dissidents and freedom of speech in the Xi era?
What it tells us is the party is tightening control much more than before. The Liu Xiaobo case shows that the party is not comfortable with people asking for the constitution of the People’s Republic of China to be enforced. Charter 08, for which Liu Xiaobo was jailed, ultimately amounts to asking for the rights of Chinese citizens, as articulated in the constitution, to be fully implemented. That resulted in Liu Xiaobo being incarcerated.… Seguir leyendo »
La relativamente súbita muerte (a los 61 años) de Liu Xiaobo, el disidente y Premio Nobel de la Paz chino encarcelado, supone una gran pérdida. También dejó algo bien claro: que la dirigencia del Partido Comunista de China (PCC) está decidida a defender por los medios que sea y a cualquier costo su monopolio político.
Liu, un ex crítico literario y conocido promotor de los derechos humanos y la resistencia no violenta, pasó los últimos ocho años de vida tras las rejas, bajo acusaciones de “subversión” inventadas. Su verdadero delito fue pedir democracia en China. Incluso antes de ser encarcelado, ya era víctima de acoso y vigilancia policial todo el tiempo.… Seguir leyendo »
For gentlemen of purpose and men of benevolence, while it is inconceivable that they should seek to stay alive at the expense of benevolence, it may happen that they have to accept death in order to have benevolence accomplished. —Confucius, Analects
In 1898, some of China’s most brilliant minds allied themselves with the Emperor Guangxu, a young ruler who was trying to assert himself by forcing through reforms to open up China’s political, economic, and educational systems. But opponents quickly struck back, deposing the emperor and causing his advisors to flee for their lives.
One, however, stayed put. He was Tan Sitong, a young scholar from a far-off corner of the empire.… Seguir leyendo »
In the late 1960s Mao Zedong, China’s Great Helmsman, encouraged children and adolescents to confront their teachers and parents, root out “cow ghosts and snake spirits,” and otherwise “make revolution.” In practice, this meant closing China’s schools. In the decades since, many have decried a generation’s loss of education.
Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was sentenced to eleven years for “inciting subversion” of China’s government, and who died of liver cancer on Thursday, illustrates a different pattern. Liu, born in 1955, was eleven when the schools closed, but he read books anyway, wherever he could find them.… Seguir leyendo »
One of my countrymen, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been imprisoned for eight years for the crime of drafting Charter 08, a political manifesto calling for democracy in China.
Now, the 61-year-old intellectual and literary critic has liver cancer — and the Chinese authorities are refusing to allow him to travel to the United States for medical treatment. If Mr. Liu’s incarceration for “inciting subversion of state power” was appalling, the way China has handled Mr. Liu’s illness should give pause to any government or business seeking to form closer ties with Beijing.
No lawyer or independent medical professional has been allowed to see Mr.… Seguir leyendo »
Every year in China, thousands of people suffer what the United Nations calls “arbitrary detention”: confinement in extra-legal facilities—including former government buildings, hotels, or mental hospitals—which are sometimes known as “black jails.” There is no formal arrest or presentation of charges, and access to lawyers is denied. Many of those detained in this way have criticized the government, complained about abuse, petitioned for remedies, or assisted others in seeking justice (rights lawyers have been especially vulnerable). Others are simply people whom authorities regard as “troublemakers” who might “disturb order” at politically sensitive times such as meetings of the National People’s Congress, anniversaries of the Tiananmen massacre, or last month’s G20 summit in Hangzhou.… Seguir leyendo »
While Chinese media giants have made news by acquiring significant Hollywood assets over the past few months, the Chinese Communist Party has been busily producing its own video content, though the stiffness of the acting and repetitive dialogue would no doubt make any seasoned director shudder. From finance professionals forced to “apologize” for their attempts at accurate reporting on the country’s economic slowdown to the chilling “confession” this week of human rights lawyer Wang Yu, the Communist Party is clearly trying to cover up the bitter truth of its brutal rule — and, at the same time, assuage its unease and fear — by broadcasting a series of preposterous confessions on state media platforms.… Seguir leyendo »
Two years ago, I was invited by the American Bar Association to prepare a manuscript for a book to be titled “Darkness Before Dawn.” This book was to describe the decade I spent engaged in human rights work in China and what those experiences tell us about the country’s politics, society and future. But the ABA soon rescinded the offer. The reason I was given? The group did not want to anger the Chinese government.
I don’t write this to pick on the ABA. There was nothing uncommon about this episode, but the details are useful in illustrating the corrosive influence of the Chinese Communist Party on the West.… Seguir leyendo »
On March 27, Chinese police crashed my father’s 70th birthday party in China’s southwestern Sichuan Province. They accused my family of causing a forest fire the day before by lighting incense and burning paper as part of the annual tomb- sweeping festival to honor deceased relatives. Three of my siblings were summoned to the police station and found out quickly that they were not being detained over an arson charge.
As an exiled Chinese journalist living in Germany, I had written an article in mid-March for Deutsche Welle criticizing the Chinese government for “secretly kidnapping” a journalist, Jia Jia, in connection with a widely distributed open letter calling for the resignation of President Xi Jinping.… Seguir leyendo »
A Hong Kong publisher specializing in books banned in China has disappeared mysteriously, sowing fear among Hong Kongers that the Chinese government is growing bolder about encroaching on their liberties. As the saga continues to unfold, Beijing is reacting bizarrely, and in ways that suggest that the story is the extension of a long-running power struggle at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
Mighty Current is an obscure Hong Kong publishing company that churns out gossipy titles about China and its top leaders. On Dec. 30, Lee Bo, 65, an editor at the company, received a phone order for a dozen books, including several about the private life of President Xi Jinping.… Seguir leyendo »
In April 2011, I was kidnapped by the Chinese undercover police at a Beijing airport and detained at a secret location for 81 days. After my release, the government charged me with tax evasion, even though most of the questions during my confinement centered on my political activities. They demanded that I pay back taxes and a fine totaling $2.4 million, and when I asked why the shakedown, one official replied, “If we don’t penalize you, you won’t give us any peace.”
I decided not to give them peace. I contacted Pu Zhiqiang, one of the few courageous lawyers willing to defend political activists who suffer abuse at the hands of China’s authoritarian regime, to file an appeal.… Seguir leyendo »
President Xi Jinping’s impending state visit to the United States will focus attention on the widening differences between the two countries rather than their common interests despite a slowing economy and other domestic Chinese problems.
No issue is knottier than human rights, or as pressing. We received a preview last month when, for the first time in two years, a human rights dialogue was held. Tom Malinowski, U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, who led the American delegation, briefed the media afterward. Those present included representatives of China’s state media.
In opening remarks, Malinowski said there was a “growing sense of alarm” about human rights developments in China and that the issue “will be very prominently addressed” during the state visit.… Seguir leyendo »
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