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Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual
Report for 2003
I. Executive Summary and List of Recommendations
The Commission finds that human rights conditions in China have not improved
overall in the past year. The Chinese government continues to violate
China's own constitution and laws and international norms and standards
protecting human rights. The Commission recognizes that some developments
are underway in China, particularly in the area of legal reform, that could
provide the foundation for stronger protection of rights in the future.
However, these changes have been incremental, and their overall impact has been
limited. Such limitations illustrate the complexity of the obstacles the
Chinese people face in their continuing effort to build an accountable
government that respects basic human rights and freedoms.
Chinese citizens are detained and imprisoned for peacefully exercising their
rights to freedom of expression, association, and belief. Law enforcement
authorities routinely ignore Chinese domestic law, or exploit loopholes in the
law, to detain suspects and defendants for periods greater than Chinese law or
international human rights norms and standards permit.
China's poor record of protecting the internationally recognized rights of
its workers has not changed significantly in the past year. Chinese
workers cannot form or join independent trade unions, and workers who seek
redress for wrongs committed by their employers often face harassment and
criminal charges. Moreover, child labor continues to be a problem in some
sectors of the economy, and forced labor by prisoners is common. Although the
government has begun to modify its policy of discrimination against migrant
workers from rural areas, these workers still face serious disadvantages as they
seek employment away from their home regions. Workplace health and safety
conditions are poor in many Chinese workplaces. Fatalities among mine
workers are especially common. Despite having enacted new and relatively
progressive laws designed to improve health and safety standards, the Chinese
government lacks the will or capacity to enforce these laws.
Scores of Christian, Muslim, and Tibetan Buddhist worshippers have been
arrested or detained during 2003. Chinese Catholics, Protestants, Muslims,
and Buddhists seeking to practice their faith outside officially-sanctioned
churches, mosques, and temples are subject to harassment and repression.
Government authorities continue to repress spiritual groups, including the Falun
Gong spiritual movement, chiefly through the use of anti-cult laws.
Chinese citizens do not enjoy freedom of speech or freedom of the
press. The Chinese government suppresses freedom of expression in a manner
that directly contravenes not only international human rights norms and
standards, but also China's own constitution. Some individuals and
groups that cannot obtain government authorization manage to publish on a small
scale, but only by employing methods that risk administrative and criminal
punishment.
China's new family planning law retains the broad elements of China's
long-held policies on birth limitation. These include mandatory
restrictions on absolute reproductive freedom and the use of coercive measures,
specifically severe economic sanctions, to limit births. However, the new
law also mandates prenatal and maternal health care and services for women.
The Chinese government is taking significant steps to address HIV/AIDS, but
progress has been hard to achieve and public ignorance of the disease remains
widespread. Public health policies in some provinces have fostered the
spread of HIV/AIDS and have left patients and orphans in dire distress.
Complaints by these victims have been met with fear and forceful repression.
China has built a progressive legal framework to protect women's rights and
interests, but loopholes remain, and implementation of existing laws and
regulations has been imperfect, leaving Chinese women vulnerable to pervasive
abuse, discrimination, and harassment at home and in the workplace.
Recent policy changes in China indicate progress toward scaling back the
restrictive residency registration (hukou) system, allowing rural
migrants in urban areas to more easily obtain status as legal residents.
In a welcome development, the Chinese government abolished an often abused
administrative detention procedure called ``custody and repatriation'' in
response to public outrage over official complicity in the death of a
detainee. But local governments often fail to implement central government
policy directives adequately, and ingrained discriminatory attitudes and
practices toward migrants impede reform.
China has continued its efforts to reform and strengthen basic legal
institutions. Experimental efforts by local people's congresses and local
administrative bodies, if sustained and further expanded, could improve China's
human rights performance by improving the accountability of public officials and
transforming expectations regarding the role of public opinion in governance.
The Chinese government has made progress in its effort to improve the capacity,
efficiency, and competence of its judiciary and is considering reforms that may
enhance judicial independence in limited respects. Accession to the WTO
has had a positive impact in the areas of legislative and regulatory reforms by
raising awareness of the importance of transparency at all levels of
government. It is also helping to drive positive reforms in China's
judiciary.
Despite the long-term promise of these changes, their overall impact
remains limited at present. Although local governments have attempted to
provide more information to their citizens and have begun to open their
processes to public scrutiny, public hearings and real consideration of input by
the public are limited in practice. The judiciary continues to be
plagued by complex and interrelated problems, including a shortage of qualified
judges, pervasive corruption, and significant limits on independence.
Legal restraints on government power remain weak in practice.
Nevertheless, Chinese citizens are using existing legal mechanisms to challenge
state action in increasing numbers and are exhibiting signs of greater
empowerment in confronting the state in some areas. Prompted in part by an
official focus on constitutional development, Chinese citizens engaged in a
spirited discussion of constitutionalism for much of the year. In
mid-2003, however, central authorities became concerned about the scope of this
promising discourse and prohibited discussion of constitutional amendments and
political reform in the media or in unapproved academic forums until further
notice.
The Chinese government opened a preliminary dialogue with envoys of the Dalai
Lama during late 2002 and 2003. The Dalai Lama's unique stature positions
him to help ensure the survival and development of Tibetan culture, while
contributing to China's stability and prosperity. Although the envoys'
visits are a positive step, repression of ethnic Tibetans continues and the
environment for Tibetan culture and religion is not improving.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Commission works to implement its recommendations until they are
achieved. Thus, in addition to the recommendations made in the 2002 report, the
Commission makes the following recommendations for 2003:
Human Rights for the Chinese People
- The Chinese government made significant and far-reaching commitments on
human rights matters during the December 2002 U.S.-China human rights
dialogue. The President and the Congress should increase diplomatic
efforts to hold the Chinese government to these commitments, particularly the
release of those arbitrarily detained, and the unconditional invitations to
the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention.
- U.S. government efforts to ensure that prison labor-made goods do not
enter the United States have been hampered by a general lack of information
and cooperation from the Chinese government. The President should
direct that the Task Force on Prohibition of Importation of Products of Forced
or Prison Labor from the People's Republic of China (created by Title V of
P.L. 106-09286) develop a database of known Chinese prison factories to be
used to bar the entry of goods produced in whole or part in those
facilities. The database should also be used to develop lists of Chinese
exporters handling goods from these prison manufacturing facilities.
- Without urgent action, China faces an HIV/AIDS catastrophe, yet the
Chinese government response has been tepid. The President and the
Congress should continue to raise HIV/AIDS issues at the highest levels of the
Chinese leadership during all bilateral meetings, citing the epidemic as an
international concern that cannot be solved without the action of China's most
senior leaders.
- The right to choose one's place of residence and to travel inside one's
country is not only a basic human right but also fosters the labor mobility
needed to build a modern economy. The Congress and the President should
urge the Chinese government to take additional measures to repeal residency
restrictions (hukou) and to continue to take concrete measures toward ending
discrimination against and abuse of internal migrants.
- U.S. government programs focused on Tibetans in China have done much to
improve conditions, but need additional resources. The Congress should
increase funding for U.S. non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to develop
programs that improve the health, education, and economic conditions of ethnic
Tibetans living in Tibetan areas of China, and create direct, sustainable
benefits for Tibetans without encouraging an influx of non-Tibetans into these
areas.
Religious Freedom for China's Faithful
- The freedom to practice one's religious faith is an essential right.
The President and the Congress should urge the Chinese government to
reschedule without restrictions previously-promised visits to China by the
U.S. International Commission on Religious Freedom and the UN Special
Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance.
- China's officially sanctioned religious associations unfairly restrict the
ability of Chinese believers to practice their religions freely, and many
believers have been imprisoned for practicing religion outside the
government-controlled system. The Congress and the President should
press the Chinese government to permit free religious practice outside these
official religious associations and release all those imprisoned for their
religious beliefs.
Labor Rights for China's Workers
- Chinese workers are frequently unaware of their rights under Chinese law
and China's international commitments. To help bridge this gap, the
President and the Congress should expand existing worker rights
education programs, emphasizing curriculum development and training in peer
education techniques, and should provide funding for legal clinics that take
on cases involving worker rights under Chinese law.
- U.S. government efforts to foster corporate social responsibility at home
and abroad lack focus, coordination, and policy guidance. The President
should establish a Coordinator for Corporate Social Responsibility to
coordinate interagency policy and programs and work with private sector
actors.
Free Flow of Information for China's Citizens
- The Chinese government exploits administrative restraints to chill free
expression and control the media. The President and the Congress should
urge the Chinese government to eliminate these restraints on publishing.
- China's government continues to prevent its citizens from accessing news
from sources it does not control, particularly from Chinese language
sources. The President and the Congress should urge Chinese authorities
to cease detaining journalists and writers, to stop blocking news broadcasts
and Web sites, and to grant journalist visas and full accreditation to at
least two native Mandarin speaking reporters from Voice of America's Chinese
Branch. The Congress should fund programs to develop technologies to
enable Internet users in China to access news, education, government, and
human rights Web sites that China's government currently blocks.
Rule of Law and Civil Society for China's Citizens
- A vibrant civil society and the rule of law help a country develop
politically, economically, socially, and culturally. The President
should request, and the Congress should provide, significant additional funds
to support U.S. government and U.S. NGO programs working to build the
institutions of civil society and rule of law in China.
- As the overall U.S. government effort supporting rule of law programs
increases, certain small-scale U.S. programs will have an impact beyond their
size and funding. The President and the Congress should augment
existing U.S. programs by making it a priority to create a permanent Resident
Legal Advisor position at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and to increase funding
for the Rule of Law Small Grants Program.
The Commission's Executive Branch members have participated in and
supported the work of the Commission, including the preparation of this report.
However, the views and recommendations expressed in the report do not
necessarily reflect the views of individual Executive Branch members or the
Administration.
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