Amess implores Government to get tough on human rights abuses in China

Thursday 16th February 2006

On Wednesday 15th February 2006, David Amess MP facilitated an adjournment debate on the floor of the House of Commons on human rights abuses in China.

In his speech, Mr. Amess admonished the ineffectiveness of the Government’s current policies with China and pressed the Secretary of Trade, Ian Pearson, about Government plans to strengthen their economic stranglehold on the Chinese in order to promote an end to the systemic human rights abuses.  Highlighting several key areas of concern, Mr. Amess listed article after article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ratified in 1948, which China continues to violate with impunity.  Mr. Amess voiced his concerns with the “oppression of intellectuals and their freedom to express themselves in writing and conversation.”  He discussed how political dissidents and journalists are often arbitrarily imprisoned for shades of disagreement with the governing regime, illuminating China’s role as the global leader in imprisoning journalists.  While pointing out the massive role that the Chinese government plays in censoring the information that reaches their citizens, Mr. Amess chastised the international IT community, particularly the Google and Yahoo corporations for ceding to the regulations.  Google.cn provides a self-censoring search engine to China that limits the amount and breadth of search results available.  Yahoo recently handed over account information that lead to the incarceration of Shi Tao, a journalist who wrote an email via his Yahoo account to the United States discussing the Government directive on how to report the events of the Tiananamen Square massacre anniversary. 

In exasperation, Mr. Amess said,

‘Those examples of corporate adherence to the insidious policies of the Chinese Government that limit the freedom of expression and information will only serve to further circumstances in which citizens are devoid of accurate information on world conditions and affairs that could help them rise above their current suppressive regime-and Britain remains silent.’

Mr. Amess went on to discuss the persecution, torture, imprisonment, exile, and executions of Christians, Catholics, Uigher Muslims, the Falun Gong, and the Tibetan Buddhists.  This situation is all too ironic in that both the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Chinese Constitution assert the right to exercise their religion.  Yet, such treatment is not limited to these religious groups, but also human rights defenders, pro-democracy rebels, and ordinary citizens petitioning the government. 

Mr. Amess criticism continued,

‘China’s corrections institution can boast of one statistic-its position as the global leader in executions.  Amnesty International has said that at least 3,400 executions-84% of the global total-were performed last year, while another 6,000 people were condemned to death in China alone.  The true figures are classified as state secrets, but are believed to be much higher.  Those statistics are a cause for much concern, given widespread flaws in the judicial system such as lack of transparency and rampant corruption, and the seeming impossibility of attaining justice or even recourse, especially in rural China-yet Britain remains silent.’ 

Mr. Amess took time to raise concerns about the particular issue of the reproductive regulations over women and China’s one-child policy, leading to forced abortion and sterilisation as preventative measures, and ‘job loss, demotion, eviction, property confiscation, and exorbitant fines up to 10 times annual income’ as punitive measures for exceeding the one-child limit.  The natural preference of male children to perpetuate the family name has lead to massive female infanticide, sex-selective abortions, and abandonment and neglect of baby girls throughout the country.

Mr. Amess concluded by peppering the Government with questions about their economic empowerment of the oppressive Chinese regime via trade, the humanitarian aid funding groups that contribute to the sterilization of thousands of women and the abortion of millions of innocent babies,  and the ineffectiveness of the diplomatic policies that have been on-going for more than a decade.

Mr. Amess surmised,
‘It is time for our Government to stand up and implement strong measures to deter Chinese persistence in unconscionable human rights abuses.  It is time for the UK to admonish international business for perpetuating the policies of the Chinese Government.  It is time for the UK to begin supplying funds directly to humanitarian groups that will unequivocally aid Chinese women and children.  In the interests of a silenced population, it is time for the UK to end economic empowerment of the Chinese regime.  It is time at long last for the British Government to speak our clearly, loudly, and firmly against human rights abuses in China.’

The Minister of State for Trade replied with a celebration of the progress China has made in the past several decades, while insisting that the present Government policies were the best options for further change.

‘China needs to make substantive progress on human rights, not only in alleviating poverty, although that is welcome. We want the Chinese Government to make steady progress with civil and political rights. That is why the UK Government have regularly, and at high level, lobbied the Chinese Government to issue a timetable for the ratification of the international covenant on civil and political rights—a covenant that, if ratified with minimal reservations and applied in its true spirit, could do much to improve the lives of China's citizens.

The UK is pursuing a policy of critical dialogue and engagement that aims to lead to real progress in China. We are not remaining silent. The hon. Member for Southend, West obviously disagrees with our strategy, but the process of critical engagement is producing change and is the best possible means to ensure that further change takes place in the future. In practice, under that policy, we use a variety of mechanisms, including the UK-China human rights dialogue, ministerial contacts and EU mechanisms to raise concerns about certain practices or incidents in China, which, in our view, are incompatible with international human rights standards. We urge the Chinese Government to change their behaviour and to try to share our own practice and experience on human rights, where possible.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office also funds a number of human rights projects in China that focus on priority topics, such as the death penalty and torture, and aims to work with those institutions that are interested in bringing Chinese practice into line with international standards.’