Business as Usual When
China Visits
by Bill Shein

Perhaps the most telling image from Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States last week was that of a Secret Service agent covering the mouth of a protester during a White House ceremony.

Wang Wenyi, who gained admission to Thursday's formal arrival ceremony with a press pass, interrupted Hu several times and yelled, "President Bush, stop him from killing!" After nearly three minutes, she was finally whisked away. On Friday, she was charged with "attempting to intimidate, coerce, threaten or harass a foreign official in the performance of his duties" — an offense punishable by six months in prison.

Bush later apologized to Hu for the incident, saying, "I'm sorry it happened," and they carried on with talks on economic issues.

And so it remains — literally and figuratively — business as usual in our dealings with China, one of the world's most flagrant human rights abusers.

It's not just a few protesters or pesky human rights organizations raising the alarm about China, the country that manufactures so much of what Americans buy. On March 6, our own State Department issued a stunning 50,000-word report on China's atrocious human rights record. It contains so much horrifying information that it's impossible to summarize. But here are some lowlights:

In 2005, there were "increased restrictions on freedom of speech and the press" in what is described, in the report's opening sentence, as "an authoritarian state."

What happens to people who speak out? "Those who aired views that disagreed with the government's position on controversial topics risked punishment ranging from disciplinary action at government work units to police interrogation and detention."

It gets worse. "[China] also permits sentencing without trial to as many as four years in re-education-through-labor camps and other administrative detention." An estimated 300,000 Chinese are imprisoned in such camps.

China also uses "torture and coerced confessions of prisoners," an ongoing human rights outrage that the United States can no longer credibly criticize. The report also cited "non-judicially approved surveillance and detention of dissidents" and "monitoring of citizens' mail, telephone and electronic communications." (In other words, warrantless wiretaps.)

According to the report, perhaps 10,000 Chinese are executed each year, many on the day of their "conviction."

There was continued "cultural and religious repression of minorities in Tibetan areas," as China continues to settle ethnic Han Chinese (often described as "temporary workers") in Tibet, part of a decades-long effort to erase Tibetan culture.

And this should be an eye-opener for those who believe our current approach to China will nudge it toward greater freedom and democracy: "Among those specially targeted for arbitrary detention or arrested during the year were current and former China Democracy Party activists." (Since 1998, the CDP has called for multiparty democracy and respect for human rights. The nerve!)

There's more, much more. But based on Hu's reception in the United States, you'd think we didn't know. Or, worse, that we don't care.

First came the fancy dinner party at Bill Gates' $100 million mansion near Seattle, overflowing with business executives eager to sell their wares to China's 1.3 billion people.

Then came several events with President Bush. According to the Washington Post, "Bush made sure to surround Hu at the East Room luncheon with corporate titans, including top executives from General Motors, Home Depot, Motorola, Caterpillar, DaimlerChrysler, Avon Products and Goldman Sachs."

Perhaps it's foolish to ask, but where were the representatives from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the Tibetan government-in-exile? How about the State Department officials who wrote that stinging report? Were they invited?

Today, to do business in China, Google lets the Chinese authorities censor its search results. And Yahoo has provided information that has led to the jailing of dissidents. (To enter the Chinese market, Yahoo agreed to refrain from "producing, posting or disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.")

Some argue that trade with China, even if we must compromise on major issues like censorship, is the best way to promote democracy and influence the Chinese leadership. But after reading the State Department's chilling human rights report and witnessing last week's nearly exclusive focus on U.S.-China commerce, it's fair to ask a simple question: Who is influencing whom?

Because when someone like Wang Wenyi faces prison time in the United States for a peaceful protest against China's human rights abuses, the answer is not so clear.

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Bill Shein knows that this column will not appear in Google China.

(This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle newspaper on April 23, 2006. Join a discussion about this column in Bill's blog. And read Bill's previous column, "The War on Justice").