Human Rights in China

1
Human Rights in China

• Current Issues and How they Came to Be

2
China Today
3
Peoples Republic of China

• Established 1 October 1949
• Socialist Republic
• Current President Hu Jintao
• Single-party system
• Pop. 1,315,844,000 est.

4
The Cultural Revolution(1966-1976)
5
The Cultural Revolution

• Political rivalry
• Mao Zedong vs. Liu Shoqi

6
The Cultural Revolution

• The Red Guard
• Cultural Repercussions
• Anti-Soviet
• Anti-Western
• Anti-bourgeois intellectual
• For democracy

7
The Cultural Revolutions End

• Zhou Enlai
• Premier of China
• The Gang of Four
• Tiananmen Square, 1976

8
Tiananmen Square MassacreJune 4, 1989

• Student protests 1985-1989
• Hu Yaobang, General Secretary resigns     
   -dies in April 1989
• Peaceful memorial march

9
Tiananmen Square

• Progresses over seven weeks
• Military action
• Innocent bystanders
• Unknown death and injuries toll

10
Press Speech

• -Highest number of imprisoned journalists
• (VOA)
• Has it gotten better or worse?

11
Press Speech

• Reporters Without Borders
• 10,000 public order incidents in 1994
• 86,000 public order incidents in 2006
• Why?

12
Press Speech

• New York Times
• Nicholas Kristof
• Chinese have more political freedoms than ever

13
Religion

• There are 5 Official Religions recognized by the
  Chinese Communist Party (CCP
• Buddhism
• Taoism
• Islam
• Protestantism
• Catholicism

14
Publicly

• Government officials praise the social work of
  religious groups and ask all mainstream groups
  to register, warning unregistered groups that
  policies against them will be fully enforced.

15
Privately

• The Chinese government has shown a lack of
  consistency in registering religious groups, even
  those known to be considered mainstream
• Falun Gong?
• a widely known instance of religious
  persecution in China

16
Freedom of Assembly

• Any group meeting is treated very much like a
  religious group, all meetings must be registered
  and monitored
• The CCP labor union and women and youth
  organizations are the only ones of their kind
  allowed

17
Reproduction

• The Chinese government is known to be
• very active in population control, through its
  well-known one-child policy.
• what is the one-child policy and how is it
  carried out?
• how does this affect women?

18

• In 1979 the government began to encourage couples
  to plan for one child only
• In 2002 the One Child Policy was made official
  law.

19
But

• Does this infringe on Article 16 of the Universal
  Declaration of Human Rights?

20
Chinese Argument

• Economic Freedoms
• versus
• Political
  Freedoms

21
Food for Thought

• http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7546498.stm
• Is the U.S. any better than China regarding Human
  Rights?