Throughout early 2016, the United States, the European Union and other world powers
released a series of joint statements citing growing concern over China’s respect for
human rights.
According to Reuters, the documents accuse the Chinese government of covering up disappearances,
censoring opposition and fostering a biased judicial system, among a slew of other violations.
Human rights abuses have reportedly escalated in China since President Xi Jinping took office
in 2014.
So, what are China’s human rights violations?
Well, China is an authoritarian state, ruled under a one-party system.
As such, its government has historically valued state sovereignty over individual rights.
In fact, China didn’t even officially recognize human rights until the early 1990’s, after
the fallout of the Tiananmen Square democratic movement.
Their first major treaty, the “White Papers”, endowed all citizens with the rights to free
speech and assembly, and specifically outlaws any media censorship.
In total, the government has signed and ratified more than 20 international treaties on human
rights.
However, China has sidestepped many of these international norms, and the government’s
attitude on the matter has largely gone unchanged.
In China today, the most frequent victims of human rights violations are critics of
the government, like journalists, lawyers, artists and activists.
The state is known to harass, imprison and even torture opposition members, in many cases
without just cause.
For instance in 2015, the Chinese government arbitrarily detained or questioned more than
200 human rights lawyers and activists whom they suspected of undermining the ruling party.
Experts say the crackdown was part of the state’s larger effort to dismantle the “rights
defense” movement, which is a group of intellectuals defending individual rights through legal
action and activism.
By the end of the year, 25 people were missing or in custody.
China’s human rights violations are often difficult to prosecute, as the county’s
legal system has been designed to limit individual rights.
This was exemplified 2015, when China drafted a series of laws that effectively silenced
dissidents, under the guise of expanding national security.
Among them is an anti-terror law that gives authorities sweeping powers to combat militants
and separatists, including the right to monitor private communications.
Critics of the law say its definition of “terrorism” is alarmingly broad, and could hinder freedom
of speech and religion for China’s religious and ethnic minorities.
China has also introduced legislation that expands the state’s power to regulate and
monitor foreign human rights organizations.
This is all under the backdrop of China’s seemingly endless war against the internet.
Although most of the Western web is already blocked under China’s “great firewall”,
the government does permit certain sites, albeit under tight supervision.
For instance in 2014, the state passed new regulations on China’s primary social media
site, WeChat, barring private users from sharing news, current events, or anything that undermined
the socialist system.
The state has since shut down millions of accounts that have not met those requirements.
In a an open letter to President Xi Jinping, Western powers cited these and other infringements
on human rights as not only immoral, but harmful to China’s own economy.
They said the abuses have created “a climate of uncertainty” for investors, who are particularly
important to China during its economic decline.
Whether their concerns have any effect on the country’s systematic human rights violations
remains to be seen.
And China’s problems don’t end at their border.
Learn about some of China’s controversies in regards to terrorism in Pakistan by checking
out this video from our friends at China Uncensored.
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