Human Rights in China: US Foreign Policy Responds

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Human Rights in ChinaUS Foreign Policy Responds
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Communist China

• October 1, 1949 Mao Zedong announces the
  founding of the Peoples Republic of China

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History of US relations with China

• 1972 Nixon visits China

• 1979 Carter visits, restore diplomatic relations
• 1984 Reagan visits

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Martial Law

• 1989 President George Bush visits China, praises
  economic reforms and greater acceptance of Human
  Rights.
• 4 months later hundreds of students are killed in
  Tiananmen Square, Martial Law declared on May
  20th, 1989

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Tiananmen Protest
Victims of brutality lay dead after the
massacre at Tiananmen
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Chinas Human Rights Violations

• Slave labor
• Political prisoners
• Child labor
• Religious intolerance
• Coercive family planning
• Forced abortions, sterilization
• Death penalty

• Why violations occur
• The Chinese constitution and laws provide for
  fundamental human rights, including due process,
  but these are often ignored in practice. (Guilty
  until proven innocent)

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50th Anniversary What Future for Human Rights?

• As the Peoples Republic of China prepares to
  celebrate its 50th anniversary, many people in
  China are still being denied their fundamental
  human rights.
• The Chinese leadership must decide whether China
  in the next 50 years will be ruled by law and
  justice and respects its citizens human rights,
  or remain known as a country where serious human
  rights violations occur on a daily basis and
  state officials routinely ignore the law.

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Interesting Facts

• More people are executed every year in China than
  in the rest of the world put together.
• Over 60 crimes are punishable by death.
• From 1990 till the end of the of 1998, Amnesty
  International recorded over 25,400 death
  sentences and over 16.600 executions,

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Interesting Facts (con.)

• Police often intimidate and humiliate people in
  custody, beat, kick, and use electric shocks on
  detainees, hang them by arms, shackle them in
  painful positions and deprive them of food and
  sleep.

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Humans in China

• Palden Gyatso, in cuffs.

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Arguments For Trade with China

• Sanctions deny people goods, and punish the
  people, not the government at fault.
• Trade has pulled 200 million Chinese out of
  poverty since 1978.
• Trade will Open China to freedom for western
  religions

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• Depriving Americans of the freedom to trade and
  invest in China violates their rights to liberty
  and property
• Would keep millions of Chinese in poverty by
  restricting their right to trade, ironically with
  hopes of promoting human rights.

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• The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger
  the tides of human progress and peace among
  nations. - Ronald Reagan
• Using sanctions to punish countries that violate
  human rights is just another way of forcing
  western morality on the rest of the world.
• Are human rights merely western morals?