Author: Editorial
Publication: The Economist
Date: March 22, 2001
China's human-rights record is up
for debate at the United Nations. Members should vote for censure
THOSE who prefer quiet diplomacy
to the megaphone kind often argue that shouting at the Chinese government
about the way it treats its people is counter-productive. Far better, they
argue, to work with the Chinese, not against them, sending teams to teach
them about the rule of law and inspectors to look at their prisons. In
the meantime, of course, the non-confrontational attitude allows trade
to flourish.
The trouble with this approach is
that it does not seem to be working. Most independent observers, as well
as America's State Department, believe that in recent years the Chinese
government's treatment of its people has been getting worse, not better,
probably because the Communist Party feels itself under threat. First the
embryonic China Democracy Party was smashed. More recently, hundreds, even
thousands, of people have been locked up for simply wanting to practise
a form of meditative exercise called Falun Gong. As many as 100 Falun Gong
members, say the Americans, have been tortured to death. Tibetans and Uighurs
are more actively repressed than ever. Psychiatric wards are filled with
dissidents.
So the Americans have this year,
as last, tabled a motion of censure at the annual meeting of the UN Commission
on Human Rights. And once again, Europe has chosen the spineless option.
The EU's foreign ministers decided this week that they would not co-sponsor
America's resolution, though they would vote in favour of it. That might
not sound too bad, but for one thing: there will probably not be a vote.
If past form is anything to go by,
the Chinese will head off the embarrassment by putting down a "no-action
motion" and then twisting the arms of a majority of the commission's 53
members to make sure that it goes through. China has been busily buying
votes, by making it clear to poor countries that their chances of Chinese
aid are intimately linked to the way they raise their hands in Geneva.
But if the no-action motion succeeds, there will not even be a debate,
far less a vote, on America's highly critical resolution. The proper course
for the EU would have been to co-sponsor the original resolution, as it
used to do until a few years ago, when more commercial considerations intervened
after back-to-back trips to Beijing by Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac.
Instead, the EU has taken the hypocrite's way out.
But why all this fuss about a vote
that never had much chance of success in the first place? Because symbols
matter, because China evidently cares about the Geneva vote (especially
as it may influence the decision on who gets the 2008 Olympics) and because
the UN remains the last place where China's human-rights record can be
seriously scrutinised. The lure of trade long ago detached human rights
from matters economic. Once China joins the World Trade Organisation, even
the annual American ritual of deciding whether China's record is such as
to allow it trade privileges will come to an end. As for Europe, its "dialogue"
with the Chinese on human rights is carried on far out of sight by relatively
lowly officials, not ministers.
Solidly invertebrate Europe
One of the sorriest roles in all
of this belongs to Britain, notably to its foreign secretary, Robin Cook,
who once bravely spoke of giving British foreign policy an "ethical dimension".
Britain, apparently, wanted to see a tougher line on China at Geneva, but
in the end bowed, as it has done ever since Mr Cook took over, to "European
solidarity", and backed the invertebrate line. Britain and other countries
that claim to care about human rights, such as the Netherlands, Denmark
and Sweden, could co-sponsor the American resolution as independent countries.
But don't count on it.
The UN's human-rights commissioner,
Mary Robinson, announced her resignation this week, funnily enough at the
very moment that the EU was reaching its decision. She said she thought
she could achieve more "outside the constraints that a multilateral organisation
inevitably imposes". Fancy.
