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· The Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, which reduced the country mostly to chaos, denied an entire generation formal education, and saw perhaps another two million killed for no reason justifiable in human terms,
· The Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.
The government of Hu Jingtao and Wen Jia Boa is today showing little willingness to learn from past human rights disasters. Indeed a recent meeting of Amnesty International leaders from numerous countries evidently concluded unanimously that human rights have deteriorated significantly across China over the past two years. If this trend continues, which athlete, government, company or spectator of conscience would want anything to do with Olympic Games held in Beijing in 2008?
In applying for the coming Games, the government of China undertook to improve human rights; it continues to move briskly in the opposite direction. Can the government then be trusted to keep others of its Games undertakings even remotely in line with the Olympic spirit? If not, should the International Olympic Committee not move the event to one of the other cities which sought the privilege of hosting them?
Middle Kingdom Economy
This brings me finally to the economy of China, which we all know has grown at a phenomenal rate since the late 1970s. As the Australian Paul Monk put it in his 2005 book, Thunder From The Quiet Zone, starting with a tiny GDP of $US 106 billion in 1970, China’s economy by 2004 stood at $US 1.3 trillion, which is in the same range as what was produced that year by about 32 million Canadians. One must, moreover, keep in mind that even with such growth China’s economy in 2004 was, for example, less than 12 per cent of the gross size of the US economy. The per capita GDP of $US 1200 that year in China was about five per cent of Canada’s per person level.
My own view is that the particular model of capitalism Deng Xiaoping unleashed at the end of the 1970s is essentially heartless and without even remotely adequate social safety nets. Everything, including work conditions, the natural environment, and the consequences for people with jobs in other countries, is sacrificed in order to produce consumer goods for export at low prices. Most Chinese workers are exploited mercilessly by what is really a carnivore economy, which would make American robber barons in the 19th century green with envy. Perhaps nothing demonstrates the inhumanity of it all better than the practice of murdering Falun Gong prisoners of conscience to sell their vital organs often to foreigners. The sums paid by foreigners involved in “organ tourism” are enormous.
There is no rule of law in China as Canadians understand it; the courts are mostly theatre, where judges normally announce decisions made by local party committees. Not long ago, for example, the Beijing appellate court rejected the appeal by the New York Times researcher, Zhao Yan. His lawyer pointed out afterwards that his client was not allowed to call witnesses or present certain evidence. How can any responsible person invest other people’s money in such a legal jungle, where party apparatchiks behave like lions?
Only recently as well, the world learned that Gao Zhisheng, one of China’s best and most courageous lawyers was charged with “inciting subversion” after being held in prison without charge since mid-August. The news in recent days indicates that police have beaten up his wife severely and even continue to harass their two young children. It reminds us all of the sorts of things that go on in the regimes of Omar el-Bashir of Sudan, Burma’s Senior General Than Shwe, Kim Jung-il of North Korea and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, which are not coincidentally all close allies of the government of Messrs Hu and Wen.
Conclusion
Human dignity today is indivisible around the world. All faith communities and other members of civil societies everywhere should be fully united on issues like the ones facing Falun Gong practitioners have faced daily for too long across China. If the peoples in open societies around the world don’t unite on such matters, some of the world’s remaining 40 or so dictatorships will only repeat the terrible ravages of the last century.
Here are some specific ways we can demonstrate Canadian concerns about basic freedoms in China:
1. Use every political, diplomatic and economic venue to raise and highlight religious freedom issues with the government Beijing. Let’s also avail ourselves of every opportunity to raise such issues with any official visitor from China;
2. Human rights dialogues should be held in public fora, not behind closed doors, because they are matters of widespread Canadian interest;
3. Canada-China relations should be based on fundamental human values, not commercial interests alone. A democratic and open society in China is in the long-term interest of peace, prosperity and security for the world;
4. Some additional funding from Canadians for supporting religious freedom in China, much in the same way pro-democracy movements elsewhere are supported;
5. Parliament should bar our companies from supplying suppression technologies to the government of China, such as surveillance devices and arms; and
6. Hold frequent conferences to address religious freedom issues in China.
Thank you
(RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND FALUN GONG IN CHINA 全文完博讯www.peacehall.com)[上一页][目前是第2页]
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