China WatchJon Kyl July 11, 2003 Imagine you are detained by police in another country and thrown into a cell for more than a year simply because you support democracy. There is no bail hearing, no formal list of charges, no effort made to assign you a lawyer. You are denied contact with your wife or children, who, for over a year, receive no word whether you are alive or dead. It sounds like a movie, but it'a true story. Dr. Yang Jianli, granted permanent resident status in the United States, has been incarcerated by the People's Republic of China for 14 months. Only within the last few weeks has Dr. Yang been allowed to meet with an attorney and get word to his wife that he is still alive. (Perhaps it is no coincidence that Beijing's concession occurred shortly after the U.S. House of Representatives condemned the detention. The Senate is considering a similar resolution that I sponsored with Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland). Dr. Yang is expected to be charged with espionage and illegal entry. But everyone knows that Dr. Yang's true crime is that he was in China to meet with pro-democracy activists. No one knows when, or if, he will be released. All things considered, Dr. Yang is one of the lucky ones. Recently, Chinese courts sentenced four other men to prison terms of 8 to 10 years for the crime of forming a political discussion group on the Internet. One of the prisoners, a former journalist, reported that he had been beaten by guards and tortured with electric shock. There are a multitude of reports throughout China of unjustified arrests, brutal beatings, torture, and executions based on flimsy evidence - the modus operandi for repressive regimes. In recent weeks, Beijing sought to extend these repressive tactics to the people of Hong Kong. At the time of Hong Kong's transfer from Britain to China in 1997, Beijing offered cheerful assurances that Hong Kong could maintain its free market democratic system. Yet last week, under the guise of increasing security, Hong Kong's leader, a Beijing loyalist, attempted to institute changes that would surely have facilitated a Chinese crackdown on basic civil liberties. Many of the vaguely defined crimes that would have been established - such as "subversion" - would have carried penalties that could include life in prison. More than 500,000 fearful Hong Kong citizens took to the streets to protest the proposal. Under the international spotlight, China backed down - but just for the moment. While scores of nations deserve scrutiny and condemnation for their human-rights abuses, China's actions merit special attention for several reasons. China is fast becoming one of the most powerful nations on earth. It is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and the world? most populous nation. U.S. companies are understandably eager to expand the export of American goods and services to this mammoth nation's billions of customers. Likewise the U.S. and its allies would like very much to form a strong, stable bond with a responsible partner in the Far East. But the true nature of a government can best be measured by the way it treats its own citizens. A regime that will crush and torture opponents at home will not hesitate to deal with equal brutality against nations that clash with China? own interests. It's worth remembering that. In fact, Beijing's oft-spoken words of conciliation are belied by a growing list of provocative actions that extend far beyond the atrocities committed against its people. China craves international standing, yet has done little publicly to encourage neighboring North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. Beijing denounced coalition efforts to free the people of Iraq, though Chinese companies helped provide weapons technology to Saddam Hussein and the Chinese military continues to conduct threatening exercises to intimidate the peaceful democracy of Taiwan. Sadly, the reaction of much of the world to Chinese provocations has pretty much amounted to a shrug. France even announced on June 30, for example, that it will urge the European Union to relax restrictions on exports of arms and military technology to China - a known weapons proliferator. (The restrictions had been imposed in protest of Beijing's massacre of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen Square.) Ignoring Chinese atrocities is bad enough; rewarding them is reprehensible. Worse still is the callous message that mass indifference sends to all those people who risk imprisonment and torture to bring freedom to an oppressed people. They deserve better than that. Jon Kyl is a Republican senator from Arizona. -------------------------- |