{"id":43413,"date":"2018-11-08T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=43413"},"modified":"2018-11-08T15:17:38","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T04:17:38","slug":"human-rights-with-chinese-characteristics-arent-human-rights-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/human-rights-with-chinese-characteristics-arent-human-rights-at-all\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Human rights with Chinese characteristics\u2019 aren\u2019t human rights at all"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Considering Australia had only 45 seconds to deliver its recommendations on China\u2019s human rights situation at the UN review of the country\u2019s record in Geneva yesterday, our diplomats managed to pack quite a lot in.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s representatives ran through the whole gamut of human rights issues that have continued to deteriorate under China\u2019s President Xi Jinping\u2014including worsening freedom of expression and religion and the continued use of the death penalty\u2014and called for the release of detained human rights defenders.<\/p>\n

But the diplomats reserved their most pointed criticism for China\u2019s treatment of minorities in Xinjiang province, calling for it to \u2018cease the arbitrary detention of Uighurs and other Muslim groups\u2019 there. Australia\u2019s full statement<\/a>, which is to be uploaded on the OHCHR website, said:<\/p>\n

Australia shares the UN\u2019s alarm at numerous reports of detention of large numbers of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim groups held incommunicado and often for long periods without being charged or tried, which exacerbates rather than prevents religious extremism.<\/p>\n

Australia recommends that China cease the practice of arbitrarily detaining Uighurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang, which is more likely to exacerbate than prevent religious extremism and, as recommended by the UN [Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination], immediately release individuals currently detained.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That the public criticism came on the eve of Marise Payne\u2019s official visit to Beijing\u2014the first by an Australian foreign minister in almost three years\u2014is a reassuring sign that the Australian government is prepared to prioritise values alongside realpolitik in its dealings with China. The foreign minister has committed to raising the issue<\/a> in her discussions in Beijing \u2018in an appropriate way\u2019.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s decision to join other countries like the Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the US signals a break from the approach introduced by then foreign minister Alexander Downer in 2007, which saw Australia opt for bilateral dialogues with China on human rights issues.<\/p>\n

Writing in the Financial Review<\/em><\/a> earlier this year, Downer said that then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright had been \u2018pretty robust in her criticism\u2019 of Australia\u2019s diplomatic stance at the time, but that he was satisfied the decision represented the \u2018smarter path\u2019 when dealing with China on human rights issues.<\/p>\n

But now that decision isn\u2019t looking quite so smart. With discussions held behind closed doors, Beijing continued to downgrade the bilateral human rights dialogues until they fell away completely. Then, seemingly emboldened by the lack of public criticism, Beijing started steadily running down the small gains it had made in recent years in civil and political rights.<\/p>\n

No area in China, save for Tibet, has seen human rights deteriorate as quickly and as systematically as Xinjiang. As our ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre report Mapping Xinjiang\u2019s \u2018re-education\u2019 camps<\/a><\/em>, last week demonstrated, Chinese authorities are rapidly expanding a network of internment camps there, with no end in sight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

As we write in the report, the rapid growth of these indoctrination centres is reminiscent of Beijing\u2019s efforts in the South China Sea. Similar to the speed with which it has created new \u2018islands\u2019 where none existed before, the Chinese state has changed the facts on the ground in Xinjiang so dramatically and so quickly that it has allowed little time for other countries to meaningfully react.<\/p>\n

The satellite imagery we analysed for the report reveals an archipelago of buildings that look like they\u2019re meant to be permanent. Given the huge amount of resources devoted to the project, it seems likely it\u2019s been designed to run for years to come.<\/p>\n

And as the Australian delegation\u2019s detailed questions in Geneva highlight, China has started to tweak the diplomatic language it\u2019s using to describe its orientation towards human rights, in an attempt to provide an ideological justification for the changes it\u2019s making on the ground.<\/p>\n

In a national report submitted to the UN ahead of the review, China said there\u2019s \u2018no universal road for the development of human rights in the world\u2019. Instead, it said, the country was committed to the pursuit of \u2018human rights with Chinese characteristics\u2019.<\/p>\n

The formulation is reminiscent of how Beijing describes its own system of government: \u2018socialism with Chinese characteristics\u2019\u2014which means it\u2019s not socialism at all. As Bao Tong, former political aide to the late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, has written<\/a>, the phrasing is really just a way of validating the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Through its words and its deeds, the Chinese government is showing what it really is and how it intends to shape the world in the coming decades.<\/p>\n

Payne, who\u2019s now in Beijing, has the perfect opportunity to reiterate Australia\u2019s strong views when she meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and make it clear that human rights are only human rights when they\u2019re based on universal principles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Considering Australia had only 45 seconds to deliver its recommendations on China\u2019s human rights situation at the UN review of the country\u2019s record in Geneva yesterday, our diplomats managed to pack quite a lot in. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":714,"featured_media":43414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2212,52,249,2238],"class_list":["post-43413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia-china-relations","tag-china","tag-human-rights","tag-xinjiang"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Human rights with Chinese characteristics\u2019 aren\u2019t human rights at all | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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