HUMAN RIGHTS AND UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD CHINA FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

In The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, evangelical historian Mark Noll laments the dearth of careful evangelical political reflection.

Crossroads, a program of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), is designed to play a part in correcting these deficiencies. Established in 1992, Crossroads' goal is to encourage substantial evangelical reflection on public policy through a cooperative process linking Christian graduate students, established scholars, and policy analysts. The Crossroads Monograph Series on Faith and Public Policy is the result of these efforts.

Crossroads aims to equip readers to make a more informed and faithful response to current issues. Each of the monographs in this series develops policy proposals based on biblical principles and careful social analysis. The monographs wrestle with the question of the relevance of Christian convictions to our political system, and help lay the foundation for a new generation of responsible evangelical scholarship.

Crossroads is supported by grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Henry Luce Foundation. The views expressed in this monograph are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ESA or its funders.

The issue of human rights exemplifies the differences between the social, cultural, economic and political systems of the world’s most populous nation and the world’s most powerful nation, the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America. Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping himself is said to have stated,

Recently, students of Sino-American and international relations have published a number of influential works describing what they see as America’s “coming conflict with China,” or “the clash of civilizations” between the West and China. In both cases it is argued that the United States is destined to find itself, if not at war with China in the near future, then at least in a serious political stand-off with China, perhaps in a new Cold War.² While I think such pessimism is deterministic and unwarranted, the potential for serious conflict between China and the United States is very real.

Why is the human rights issue so salient in Sino-American relations? Deng was right in the statement above, that the “battle” over alternate visions of human rights has immense ramifications for China. However, with the end of the Cold War and the liberalization of China’s economy, this “struggle” is not between two world systems, as was the case during the Cold War, but rather between the “Western” and alternative paradigms of society, government and economy.

In the Western position in regard to human rights, the “struggle” centers on an argument that human rights as defined in the UN documents are universal. An alternative view, posited by leaders in China, Malaysia, and Singapore among others, is that human rights are not universal, but rather can be defined only as being relative to local cultural, historical, and/or developmental realities. If the Chinese government prevails in its bid to make human rights seen as developmentally relative, they will be able to hold their heads high as they continue on their current course of development, wherein individual rights are sometimes subsumed for the “collective good” of economic development and the maintenance of order, the status quo, and the Chinese Communist Party. If China bows to the universal interpretation of human rights found in the UN’s Universal Declaration, it must make monumental changes in its social order, its legal system, and its system of governance, acknowledging that the state must be fully accountable to the people it governs in every respect.

It could reasonably be argued that full compliance with international human rights norms today in China could bring about a end to the single-party communist system of governance that has existed since 1949, for without control of the press, the freedom to quash dissent and to appoint leaders that will support the present system, the Party would not be able to guarantee its hold on power. If the Party could no longer engage in these activities, the only way it could remain in power would be to seek the legitimacy that victory in democratic elections amidst open party competition could give it. Even if the Communist Party were to prevail and remain in power, which would be within in the realm of possibilities, this new situation would be a monumental change.³ The human rights debate is no peripheral issue to the Chinese leadership, but is central to their ability to maintain their course along the Maoist/Dengist road, and they are well aware of that.

So from the Chinese perspective, fully conceding today to universalist notions of human rights could bring great social, economic and political unrest to their country, and could even mean the collapse of Chinese communism as we know it. The Chinese, therefore, see the present human rights debate as the continued attempt by Westerners to dominate them and reshape them into an image of the West, philosophically, economically and politically. Yet the Chinese have always seen and continue to see themselves today as fundamentally different from the West and the rest of the world, and quite capable of choosing their own path to development. Consequently, they find it insulting that the U.S., a nation with so much injustice and so many double standards in its own history (slavery, genocide of native populations, racism, CIA plots to overthrow governments, etc.), should deem itself worthy of judging the Chinese, particularly as it concerns a matter that according to the UN Charter falls within the purview of their own sovereign authority.

From the perspective of the U.S. government, the salience of the human rights issue reflects the American concern about the Chinese government’s lack of accountability to its people, which the U.S. sees as a troubling part of a more general trend of not being accountable to anyone (i.e., the world community). Though it calls itself “the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat,” Americans view the functionings of the government of the People’s Republic as less “democratic” and more like a “dictatorship.” They view today’s China as anything but “of the people, by the people and for the people.”⁴ Instead, the U.S. government sees the “people’s” government primarily as “of the Party, by the Party, and for the Party,” a party whose membership today, incidentally, accounts for only 4.8% of the population.⁵ With their belief in the “democratic peace theory,”⁶ American policy-makers worry about China. They fear that because the Chinese leadership is not entirely accountable to its people,⁷ it continues to be able to manipulate popular attitudes and opinions through a controlled media;⁸ and because its economy continues to grow so rapidly, a few old men with grandiose ideas for seeing China restored to its former greatness in this generation might be inclined to take the Spratley and Paracell Islands, to control the vibrant South China Sea-lanes, and to engage freely in mercantilist trade practices, among other things. In this case there might be little but the U.S. armed forces to stop them.⁹ American policy-makers would like to see a China that is accountable to its people, which means democracy and fully-implemented human rights, and accountable to the rest of the world, which as the democratic peace theory has it would be more likely under democracy.

Given the American interest in human rights and democracy taking deeper root in China, what might an effective U.S. foreign policy toward China look like? What exactly is the Chinese government’s position on human rights? Is the revocation of Most-Favored Nation (MFN) status an effective way to encourage the improvement of human rights in China, as many in the United States Congress have advocated in recent years? Are multilateral means more effective than bilateral ones? What should we as Christians think about human rights, and how would Christian values influence a policy-maker operating under their influence on this particular issue? This monograph will start with the last question, for the purpose of building an epistemological base for addressing the more specific policy questions. The monograph will conclude with Christian principles for dealing with the human rights problem in Sino-American relations.

This section discusses how Christians have viewed human rights historically and what a proper, biblical commitment for Christians to human rights should be, and why.

Christians, it seems, have a rather peculiar relationship with human rights. Broadly speaking, there are two large “camps” of Christians in the United States. Ron Sider has documented this phenomenon well:

Sider goes on to emphasize that Christians should in fact be concerned with both aspects of the Christian life. In studying various churches’ views of human rights, the unfortunate split documented by Sider is reflected in various churches’ support for human rights (or lack thereof) during the twentieth century.¹¹

In regards to human rights, the “structure reformers” above, mainly liberal or mainline Protestants, preceded the “soul-savers,” or the conservative, primarily evangelical churches, in the move away from the “render unto Caesar” tradition of Protestant politics wherein the church avoids political involvement. The liberal mainline Protestants have been very engaged in human rights as an issue, believing it to be a main concern of the Lord Jesus himself. Church leaders have used their pulpits to advocate human rights for a long time. Their work in the World Council of Churches, an international ecumenical association of churches founded in 1948 in which liberal Protestants have maintained a very strong position, was instrumental in bringing the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights into being.¹²

The conservative, generally evangelical churches,¹³ while by no means opposed to the principles of providing peoples with protections from tyranny and oppression, have until recently been less enthusiastic about the human rights movement, shuddering at the thought of an international Leviathan (a supercharged UN) dictating norms of conduct to UN member states, believing that meeting many of the needs of the peoples is not the job of the states but of the church. In addition, some fear that Christian support of the human rights movement was akin to reducing the gospel to the provisions in the human rights covenants, or joining the very forces of secular liberalism that were undermining the evangelical church.

Roman Catholics, though perhaps less “one-sided” than Protestant churches, were also slow to support the human rights movement. After the Reformation and particularly during the Enlightenment, the new culture of individualism and rights talk that sprang up in northern Europe was threatening to the Catholic Church of the day because of the church’s closer identification with the state (rights, of course, being a claim on the state by individuals), and the Catholic Church’s view that the human leaders of the church receive divine sanction and thereby are able to confer it upon secular state leaders in certain situations. Change came in the Catholic Church on the issue of rights with Pope Leo XII (1878-1903) who stated that “Man precedes the state,” Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) who asserted that people have certain “fundamental personal rights,” and Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) who reaffirmed the dignity of the human person (dignatus humanae), which had been taught in the Catholic Church for centuries and was based on the notion of “imago dei,” or the tenet that human beings are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Pope John XXIII concluded, therefore, that human rights were worthy of support by the church and were inherent to every human being by virtue of “imago dei.”

Liberal and conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics, despite their theological and political differences, do seem to agree on the importance of human rights today. They agree that human rights are important primarily because of the dignity of the human person as created in the image of God. The human person has infinite value, for the Creator not only created human beings, he redeemed them. Christians believe Jesus Christ, who has infinite value to God, was given to die for those God created, which only underscores their value. Many Christians today also agree that working for human rights is a vital cause because Jesus worked for many of the same causes during his time on earth. Visiting the imprisoned, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, welcoming and helping refugees, helping to heal the sick or infirm, comforting and helping the oppressed or those in distress, are all concerns dear to God's heart, as the Bible amply shows.¹⁴ Thus the message for Christians is, as Jesus said, "go and do likewise." One of the strongest messages in the Bible for human rights advocacy is a segment from the oracle of King Lemuel: “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9).¹⁵

One important aspect of the Christian vision of human rights, then, is that human rights, per se, are not an end in themselves. Jesus himself told us what he expected of us, which is to say what our “ends” are in this world as Christians. In one instance he reduced it all to one priority. When asked, “What must we do to do perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:28-9). James warns us not to take this to mean that once we are saved we have no further work to do (James 2:22-27, 14-26).¹⁶ So what did Jesus mean exactly? In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus sums up our whole duty as believers, boiling it down to two commandments, which are consistent with the “work” he admonishes us to do above. He says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Our reasons as Christians for supporting human rights correspond to Jesus’ two greatest commandments.

Certainly, a key aspect of loving God is to spend time in praise and worship, to read God's Word, and to be a part of his body, the church. Yet keeping his commandments is another way we love him. Jesus, God incarnate, says in John 14:20-21, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Jesus commands us to care for the poor and for widows, to visit those in prison, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, etc. To care about the human rights of others and to do something on their behalf when they are violated is one way in which we can love our neighbors as ourselves, thus fulfilling the second great commandment. All humans are vested with "imago dei," and loving and caring for their needs and interests is both a task which God commands us do to, and is a way we love God.

In addition, loving the people of God’s creation and standing up for others' human rights and for justice in general should be seen as an extension of the incarnation of Jesus Christ in his people here on earth, and part (but not all) of the fulfillment of the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15. God cares about justice, and he cares about human beings. We should too—not only because we are called to, but because as Christians we represent the Lord on earth, as 2 Corinthians 5:20 states: “So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us...” Loving others through service is a part of the Christian witness that says, "We love because he first loved us" (I John 4:19), and is part and parcel of the spreading of the gospel of life. Most missionaries will testify that they could not get far in spreading the gospel without loving, serving, meeting the needs of and protecting the interests of those they minister to. Working for the causes of human rights, whether at the macro-policy level or in the micro-field level is one means to the end of expressing the love of God in a troubled world, so that by our love, some might be saved. Loving the people of God's creation is important; otherwise, as Scripture tells us, we cannot know God, and if we do not even know him, how could we love him (1 John 4:10-21)? So Christians ought to applaud and join in the work of human rights advocates and field workers, Christian or non.

Here, however, is another place where the divide, the “one-sided Christianity” Ron Sider spoke of, rears its ugly head. Among Christians there are many who make a distinction between compassionate ministries, such as meeting the needs of the victims of human rights violations, and advocacy ministries, such as addressing the governments and social systems that bring about the oppression. Both are certainly works that can be guided by God’s love. Some, particularly the more conservative evangelical Christians, are more comfortable with the compassion side of human rights concerns but question the utility of advocacy, being perhaps either blind to the more systemic sources of oppression, or simply pessimistic about the outcome of political engagement. Some of them would agree with a friend of mine who once said that trying to influence the political realm “is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” In other words, the world is a sinking ship and the real kingdom work is spreading the gospel, to see as many saved as possible before it goes down. Others, particularly the more liberal, mainline-denomination Christians, emphasize the advocacy side of the work, saying that the real source of the problem is the political systems and the institutions of injustice that oppress, and that simply meeting the needs of the victims is like treating victims’ gun-shot wounds while failing to take the gun away from the killer.

In line with Sider’s appeal for a more balanced appeal to ministry, Christians should see both compassion ministry and advocacy ministry as worthy of our attention. While the Titanic analogy might have some truth, the Lord of life cares about the passengers on the ship, even as it is going down. They are his creation, the objects of his love, and he cares if they are in pain, in despair, in fear, even as the ship sinks. Moreover, meeting their needs as the ship goes down—even rearranging the deck chairs—could be the act of love that opens their hearts to the love of God. The God of justice would be concerned about those who were trapped below deck; he would be angry with those who locked the doors that trapped them there and would hold them accountable, whether in this life or in the next. Likewise, Christians must continue the work of the kingdom in all its facets until the Lord comes again—that is to say, worshipping God, spreading the gospel, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and setting the prisoners free. We should not take the state of the ship to mean that God's coming is imminent and thus that certain aspects of the Lord’s work are no longer necessary.

A handful of other points should be made here. The first is that while embracing human rights, we must remember that the gospel cannot be reduced to human rights. Human rights are worthy of our attention and support as Christians because they are meant to protect human beings, in whom God has invested his image; because a hands-on approach to supporting human rights can play a part in Christian witness; and because God commands us to love our neighbor and love himself, and human rights advocacy can be a part of both. Still, God’s primary purpose here on earth has not been concerned with our rights, per se, nor did Jesus die for our rights. Jesus came, as he himself put it, “that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Human rights can go a long way toward more abundant life, but they can never substitute for a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Though the implementation and protection of human rights in a society can do much to guarantee the liberty of the person, it can do nothing to guarantee the liberty of the soul, the inner person. Only the work of Jesus Christ in the person can do that work. The liberated individual in the free society can quickly become a bond servant to desire, materialism and other vestiges of the ultimate dictator, the self. This is an important distinction in the way Christians and non-Christians view human rights. For the Christian, the free person, protected by the enforcement of human rights, is not truly and finally free unless liberated by the Savior, the God-man Jesus Christ.

Yet more than protecting the rights of the individual to seek truth which might allow him or her to find the Almighty, Christians also can agree that human rights are a tool to be used in the fight against evil and injustice because the Almighty himself is involved in the fight against evil and injustice. Participating in the struggle against human rights violations is to stand on the side of light against darkness, and this leads to two additional points. If human rights are indeed such a tool, non-Christians can (even unwittingly) use the tool to God's glory also, and Christians and non-Christians can work side by side in advancing the cause of human rights. Christians then are right to support organizations such as Amnesty International on issues in which they are in agreement, even if non-Christians do not share our motivation to glorify God. Secondly, sin not only has individualistic manifestations (i.e., in the form of personal sin), but can be manifest in social structures, as was obviously the case in Nazi Germany or in the institution of slavery. Where there remains debate among Christians is whether or not sin is inherent in specific social or economic structures such as capitalism, socialism, or trade relations between the developed and developing worlds.

Christians can also agree that the rights of human beings are to be viewed as above the particular interests of the state. The state should be seen as subservient to the human beings encompassed within it. Neither the state nor its leader(s) must be allowed to be, as has been the case in numerous historical examples,¹⁷ an end in itself, which is idolatry. Rather, the state is an important part of the means by which the ends of justice and order are achieved. Though there are differences among Christians as to the individualist or communitarian primacy of human rights, all can agree that implementing human rights norms is a hedge against the whims of the state, which in the 20th century has made unprecedented demands on the citizen, often putting its own interests above the interests of the masses it was meant to serve.

More controversial is the notion that no particular type of human rights norms (political and civil, for example) is superior to any other (economic, social and cultural).¹⁸ Having freedom of speech does not mean one is free from hunger or will live through a cold northern winter without employment (i.e. without money or heat). On the other hand, in some social systems, having socialized medical and social welfare systems (in the former U.S.SR under Stalin, for example), while perhaps ensuring that one will not starve or want for medical attention, cannot ensure one will live long enough to enjoy those benefits—if one happens to believe differently than the state and one voices one's opinion. While Christians in the world’s developed North have traditionally emphasized civil and political rights, and Christians in the developing South (particularly in Latin America) have tended to emphasize the need for social and economic rights, there is now growing consensus in both hemispheres about the need for balance. Much still needs to be worked out, however, particularly in implementing social and economic rights, as debate continues over whether the state, the market or the church, or some combination thereof, should be left to handle certain aspects of social welfare.

Many Christians also argue that religious freedom is one of the prime human rights, or perhaps the primary human right. Religious freedom could be called the freedom to one's own sense of truth. As Catholic thinker George Weigel has put it, "The right to religious freedom has to do with our obligation, as creatures endowed with intelligence and free will, to seek the truth."¹⁹ It is hard to consider a person free if that person does not even have the freedom to seek out truth and to decide what is true for himself or herself. Religious freedom is in some cases even called a "divine right," which is to say, God's right over human beings,²⁰ a right God has to reveal himself to all persons, a right which should not be infringed upon by any human actor.²¹

Lastly, Christians should agree that human rights are universal. In the last few years, particularly since the development of the East and Southeast Asian economies, there has been much debate over the universality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Many people in China, Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere have been very assertive in saying that they do not share “the West's view” of human rights, which they argue is synonymous with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. While there can be no doubt that the UDHR does flow out of Western epistemology and tradition, it was approved by the UN General Assembly, consisting of Western and non-Western countries, in 1948. Not only did non-Western countries ratify the final document, many of them took part in drafting it. In addition, many of the nationalist movements in the developing world that came into being during the twenty years to follow cited human rights as a reason for their desire to self-determination. In too many cases, it was only after authoritarians and/or military cliques took power in these countries that the Western views of human rights became challenged. This feeds suspicions that many of the "national differences on human rights" spoken of by such leaders have been crafted for their own political expediency.

Given these factors, a Christian view of human rights can only be universally-applicable, as the UDHR itself suggests. As the three Christian traditions discussed above have concurred, human rights are based on the human dignity that comes from being created in the image of a holy God. This is known to all, or potentially knowable by all, because of the role of natural law.²² Human dignity is held equally and inherently by every member of the human race (imago dei being vandalized only by sin, which is equally universal), and Scripture tells us that all human beings are created in the image of God. Natural law, though some persons are more attuned to it than others, is present in all members of the human race as well. Therefore, since all human beings have the dignity of "imago dei," and this knowledge is to a greater or lesser extent available to all peoples via natural law and the "law of conscience," human rights must be universally valid, bar no culture, no tradition, no excuses.

Now there is room here for flexibility of implementation and even some flexibility of interpretation that could be allowed in making human rights manifest in a particular polity. This is because humans are free by God's design, and because we also have international agreements that respect national sovereignty. Culture, custom and experience, among other factors, do mix with natural law and shape human reason in such a way that there will be honest differences in how a particular UDHR article might be best interpreted or implemented in a particular national setting. The chief difficulty in interpreting the Declaration and the Covenants is in whether member states interpret human rights in purely individualist terms, or in more collectivist, communitarian terms. This and other related matters of interpretation and implementation should be decided democratically within each member state. This flexibility is not an attempt to bend to relativism, but to face the reality of the need for particularistic functionalism within the framework of universal norms.

In conclusion, there is a strong case for Christian involvement in and support for the human rights movement. Helmut Frenz, the Chilean Lutheran Bishop who won a Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission for Refugees in 1974 for helping Chilean refugees after the coup against President Allende, has said, "The commitment and struggle for human rights is, after all, nothing but the realization of charity." Upon receiving the award, he lamented the fact that he was chosen for a medal for doing no more than what any Christian in his position should have been doing in such a situation.

While there are still disagreements in Christian (and secular) circles over certain provisions in the UN covenants, such as how many economic claims citizens have on the state, need Christians any further prodding to support human rights initiatives writ large? Need Christians any further affirmation that to work in advocacy of human rights is to work for the good of others and is thus pleasing to the Lord?

Then let the discussion now turn to human rights as an issue in the relations between the United States and China. In considering more specific policy issues in international relations, the question of how Christian principles should be applied to human rights policy as an issue in international relations will continue to be developed.

The human rights debate as we have come to know it in Sino-American relations did not really come into existence until after the June 4, 1989, incident in Tian’anmen Square, which was called a “massacre” by American China-watchers, a “turmoil” by the Chinese government. The late appearance of human rights in Sino-American relations is a bit odd in some respects, because it is not as if the human rights situation in China was lovely until 1989, but then changed overnight into a barbaric despotism. China’s human rights situation was undoubtedly at its worst in China during the cultural revolution of 1966-76. Even during the Carter administration’s tenure, when it could reasonably be said that human rights were higher on an American president’s foreign policy agenda than ever before or since, relatively little was said about human rights in China.

Perhaps this was because expectations of China were not so high during the time of the Carter administration, as China had just emerged from the cultural revolution and had just begun its post-Maoist reform. China at that time appeared to be moving in a positive direction in the area of human rights. In 1982 China was elected a member of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission, participating formally in its 38th session. Over the next few years China had one of its members elected to the Sub-Commission on Human Rights as well, and it voted with Westerners to send a UN investigator to Afghanistan to report on human rights there under Soviet rule (despite Soviet and East European protests that such was an interference in internal affairs). By 1989 it had signed and ratified the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and five other treaties and covenants on human rights.²⁴

It was the June 4 incident that changed the West’s perceptions of human rights in China drastically, for it seemed to them to be a large step backward. Following the Chinese government’s violent suppression of the Beijing Spring movement early on the morning of June 4, 1989, Western governments expressed outrage, variously freezing credits, development aid, exports to China, and imports from China. Some non-Western nations followed suit, including the Philippines, El Salvador and Japan. Many protesting nations helped dissidents escape via their embassies, eventually granting many of them visas to their own countries where the leaders went into exile. The United States was initially a bit slow to respond as due to President Bush’s beliefs that the best way to influence China was through trade and other contact and by addressing the Chinese with a more soft-spoken demeanor, but it signaled its disappointment by freezing a number of government-to-government meetings and business dealings. Congress took a harder line, however, insisting on a broad range of sanctions which included the suspension of trade assistance, a freeze on exports on satellites and most armaments to China, and the suspension of insurance for U.S. companies doing business in China which was administered via the U.S. government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation.²⁵ By 1992, though many of the Tian’anmen demonstration leaders were still in detention, all of the international sanctions resulting from the incident had been dropped. The Tian’anmen incident was not forgotten, however, and thus was born the human rights issue in China’s relations with the United States.

What exactly are the charges against China as it regards human rights? While there are many charges, a good starting point is to summarize the 1997 report of Amnesty International, an organization that has become one of China’s leading human rights critics.²⁶ According to the report, in 1997 there were hundreds and perhaps thousands of prisoners of conscience in China, including activists promoting greater levels of democracy, human rights, religious freedom, ethnic autonomy and other issues. Widespread abuse by police was reported, included torture and beatings, which in conjunction with generally poor prison conditions and treatment, led to the reported deaths of a number of prisoners. In addition, 3500 prisoners (some, prisoners of conscience, according to Amnesty sources) were executed during the year according to official records, but AI sources believe the number to be higher. Many prisoners were sentenced to death after unfair trials, some had their appeals ignored, and others were detained without charges for long periods of time. Religious groups also received sanction and/or detention of their members if their existence or activities were not approved of by the state, particularly in the areas of Xinjiang and Tibet. The report states that numbers of Protestants, Catholics, Tibetans and Uighur Muslims were arrested and some beaten for protesting or failure to comply with various aspects of Chinese government policy during the year. Given this summary of the basic charges against the Chinese government regarding human rights, let us now consider the Chinese government’s view of human rights before moving on to the present issues confronting American policymakers.

It is commonly accepted that in the current discourse, there are basically three possible views on human rights.²⁷ The first, as has already been discussed, is that of the Western nations and of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that human rights are universal by virtue of the fact that all people are, after all, human—the secular version of the Christian “imago dei” argument. The second is the cultural relativist argument, the idea that a people’s conception of what is and is not a human right depends primarily on cultural proclivities at certain points in time and space. Human rights are, therefore, seen as being relative to the values, norms and practices of a given culture, which is to say that “universal human rights” do not exist. The third has been called the “developmentalist” version of human rights, which argues that a nation’s ability to implement human rights norms is relative to its level of socioeconomic development. So while the developmentalist notion of human rights sees socioeconomic relativism in human rights, it ultimately admits of universal notions of human rights, only calling for delays in their full implementation until a “prudent” time in the country’s socioeconomic development. As we have already discussed, critics of the latter two visions of human rights argue that they are only used to justify continued repression by governments to maintain the political status quo, while critics of the universal notion of human rights argue that it is used as a tool by the West to impose Western values on non-Western nations.

The Chinese have variously posited both the cultural-relativist and developmentalist views of human rights.²⁸ China human rights expert James Seymour has noted that in matters of civil and political rights, “China’s leaders take a cultural relativist approach.”²⁹ Yet, as China foreign policy expert Peter Van Ness has put it,

'While China is as good a case as any for the cultural-relativist case, if any can be made,³¹ recently Beijing has favored the developmentalist line. The two are actually contradictory in their pure forms: while the relativist view denies universality at its core, the developmentalist view holds that human rights are indeed universal, but that countries should be given time to develop economically before being held accountable for the full civil and political rights of their citizens (which means relativism in the short-term, but universalism in the long-term, as countries develop). As Van Ness noted, China has admitted to universalist notions of human rights in its developmentalist rhetoric. Despite the relativist rhetoric of the Bangkok Declaration in which China played a leading role, Beijing has reiterated its support for universalism within the rubric of developmentalism. At the same time it has stressed each country’s “right to development,” alluding to the UN General Assembly’s 1986 declaration that regards social, cultural and economic development as a right, and putting social and economic rights above civil and political rights. Most importantly, after President Jiang’s meeting with President Clinton in 1997, the Chinese government signed the UN’s quite universalistic Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, which is what the West had been pressuring it to do for some time.³² So in the end there can be little doubt that China’s stated stance today on human rights is developmentalist.

The differences between China and the U.S. over human rights should be seen as one important issue in the broader context of Sino-American relations. In looking at those bilateral relations, it is apparent that the debate in U.S. policy circles over how to handle China seems to have boiled down to a choice between “engagement” and “containment.” Engagement is a term that refers to a policy of constructively engaging China by expanding trade, and cultural, scientific, educational and diplomatic exchanges. The belief behind the policy of engagement is that as China is welcomed into the world community and has more and more contact (engagement) with democracies and free market practices, China will be influenced positively, and that over time, as its businesspeople, artists, scientists and students and scholars interact more with the outside world, they too will desire democracy and a more full implementation of human rights for their own land, and will seek to influence Chinese policy-makers to that end. Concomitantly, as China continues to open its economy to the forces of the free market, engagement advocates argue, an effective rule of law will be more and more necessary to regulate the burgeoning economy, and this will work towards making the government not only more effective, but more accountable to the people. As the non-State actors become wealthy, they attain a voice, and this strengthens civil society in such a way as to create pockets of power that will increasingly hold the government accountable. A gradual, peaceful evolution to democracy and the full implementation of human rights is the hope behind the policy of engagement.

Less benign and more confrontational is the policy of containment, which sees China’s leaders in a more belligerent light. In this view, a comparatively soft, gradualist policy like engagement will not work, but will only serve to “appease” the Chinese leadership.³³ Here China is compared to the former Soviet Union, a case in which direct action was taken to weaken the leadership’s hold on power and to challenge their every assertive foreign policy move. The underlying assumption in this case is that China is now an untrustworthy, unaccountable, even expansionist (or at least potentially expansionist) power, which must be checked presently before it becomes too powerful to check later.³⁴ Some of the members of this camp see the threat of American revocation of MFN as an effective tool to use against China.³⁵

Human rights advocates can be found in both camps, but Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other such human rights-oriented non-governmental organizations tend to fall into the harder-line camp in their view of China. While not necessarily advocates of containment as a general approach to China, they are less likely to see the Chinese leadership in a complimentary light, and favor greater confrontation with Beijing over human rights. Their general disposition is that full implementation of human rights cannot wait for a “peaceful evolution” because there are people suffering now. One cannot help but be sympathetic to this argument—who wants to be the one to tell the jailed dissident or 77 year-old Catholic priest that they have to wait for the “peaceful evolution” to be released? Yet students of international relations and the moral ambiguities of sovereignty will do well to remember two points: first, human rights issues do not exist in a vacuum—they are not the only issues in Sino-American bilateral relations; and second, one country cannot simply go around “correcting and punishing” another country for its domestic injustices, because of the importance of the concept of sovereignty and self-determination in international law. (A possible exception may be made in extreme circumstances such as genocide, and then with a consensus from the international community via a UN mandate—more on this to follow.) In other words, we cannot send in the Marines at will to release Chinese prisoners of conscience. This is a cold reality, but a reality we must accept in this imperfect world if we desire to uphold each nation’s right to sovereignty and self-determination, including that of our own nation.

Behind both containment and engagement is the hope of facilitating China’s transformation into a free-market democracy, which is why China is not enthusiastic about either policy. U.S. policy toward China has employed both strategies in recent history. Containment was the policy after the communists won China in 1949, particularly during the Korean War years and immediately thereafter, and persisted to a greater or lesser degree until China’s rapprochement with the U.S. in 1972. After that, American policy has largely consisted of engagement. June 4 brought sanctions from the U.S., but the U.S. has not in recent years attempted to “contain” China internationally as it did the Soviet Union during the “golden years” of Soviet containment.

Recently there has been much talk of containing China and many comparisons between today’s China and the Soviet Union of the past. The gist of the argument for containing China may be summed up, “It worked for the Soviets, why not for the Chinese?” This comparison of the Soviet Union and China is problematic and the analogy a poor one. The Soviet Union, as George Kennan’s famous “X” article appearing in Foreign Affairs in 1947 points out, was truly an expansionary threat.³⁶ They had just solidified their control of Eastern Europe and erected what Winston Churchill called “the iron curtain.” The Soviet Union’s post-war actions in Japan, Berlin and Korea, in Prague in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979; their numerous actions in support of what American leaders called “communist insurrection”; and the legacies of Stalinism—which it would later be revealed left 15 to 20 million dead – all left no doubt that their domestic policies were dangerous to their own people, and that their foreign policies were aimed at threatening or subverting Western nations and stirring up communist revolutions around the world. In short, containment was the policy needed to deal with such an expansionary threat.

While communist China was worthy of containment in the 1960’s when the Chinese people were suffering under Mao’s extremism and Mao’s foreign policy was to support wars of national liberation,³⁷ today’s China cannot be compared to the former Soviet Union. Today’s China is not expansionary in that sense. Yes, they want control over Taiwan, and their claims to the Spratleys and the Paracels have been quite aggressive. Yet both U.S. policy and UN resolutions recognize China’s claim to Taiwan; and the claims they have made to the Spratleys and the Paracels, though somewhat dubious, are that these uninhabited islands are and have been a part of Chinese territory. Though each of these issues certainly has the potential to explode into conflict with neighbors and regional powers if China handles them poorly, they cannot be compared to the occupation of half of Europe and the political, economic and military support of communist revolutions around the world, as was the case with the Soviet Union. The containment policy is a policy that a foe of the United States has to “earn.” China has not “earned” this (dis)honor. Moreover, containment is a policy designed for nations that pose an external threat. It has never been used because of human rights violations within a country. It is a policy that Americans might use if China shows a pattern of invading its neighbors,³⁸ but until or unless something like that were to occur, speaking of containment in regard to China presently seems unrealistic and rather bellicose. Such talk is more likely to create a war, hot or cold, than to encourage commitments to peace and human rights. An American policy of engagement with concomitant firm moves to engender international Chinese accountability through bilateral and multilateral channels is what the present situation with China calls for. This will be developed further below.

Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, or Normal Trade Relations (NTR) as it has been called more recently, has been at the center of the debate over U.S. human rights policy towards China since at least 1992, following the end of the international sanctions on China by the U.S. and other members of the international community that came as a result of the Tian’anmen Square incident of 1989. For those in Washington who felt that the end of sanctions spelled a softening in the U.S. approach to China, MFN became a tool whereby the U.S. could remind the Chinese each year with its renewal, or the threat of its revocation, that China was indeed accountable to the world community, or at least to the U.S., in the area of human rights.

The MFN debate is important to study for at least two reasons. First, it is a good example of a more confrontational way of dealing with a country like China, and it is a good example of the problems associated with such an approach, as I will discuss below. In addition, MFN is not a dead issue, but is, as of September, 1999, still very much a part of the negotiations for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. In fact, it remains a major sticking point in the negotiations, one which China’s critics in Washington are loathe to concede.

Why do the Chinese care about getting MFN/NTR status each year? Primarily because MFN status, which is really normal trade relations status between two countries as the new NTR denotation indicates, gave the Chinese better access to U.S. markets through lower trade barriers, an important consideration considering that one of the most vibrant sectors of the Chinese economy in recent years has been the export sector. MFN status also makes it easier for U.S. companies to invest in China, which has also been very important for stimulating China’s domestic market, bringing in much-needed capital and technology.

The conditionality of granting MFN status to totalitarian or authoritarian countries first became an issue as a result of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974, which disallowed MFN for the former Soviets unless they allowed a certain number of Soviet Jews to emigrate to the West each year to avoid persecution. Each year, after reviewing the record of the Soviet Union in the preceding year, the president made a recommendation to Congress to bestow MFN that year or not; to overturn the president’s recommendation, a joint resolution of both the House and the Senate was required. After the bloody suppression of demonstrators at Tian’anmen Square and elsewhere in China in 1989, Republican Senator Jesse Helms, Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz and others advocated the revocation of China’s MFN status as a sign of their disapproval, the first time MFN had been linked to human rights in the Sino-American relationship. In 1992, members of Congress who felt disgust with the trend toward normalization of Sino-American relations borrowed the principle of the original Jackson-Vanik Amendment and its linkage of MFN to a human rights issue, and tried to formalize a similar policy for China—making renewal of MFN for China contingent on improvements in its human rights situation. President Clinton not only recommended and won the renewal of China’s MFN status in 1992 and 1993, but in 1994 succeeded in dissolving the formal linkage between China’s human rights practices and MFN status with the United States. China’s critics in Congress did not give up, but have regularly brought MFN back as an issue, most recently during the summer of 1999, with the deterioration of Sino-American relations in the spring and early summer of the year. The president’s renewal of MFN for China was approved once again during the summer of 1999, but some say the real battle over the issue looms in the final negotiations for the entry of China into the World Trade Organization. This would give China permanent MFN/NTR status, ending the regular confrontations between the president and Congress over the issue.³⁹

The question to be addressed here is whether or not revoking MFN would be a just and effective way to help foster a better human rights situation in China. I will argue below that it is neither just nor effective.

American revocation of MFN from China is an attempt at what international relations theory and human rights specialist Jack Donnelly calls “humanitarian quasi-intervention,” or a situation wherein “one party tries to subordinate the other to its will through injury or punishment,” for the purpose of “remedy[ing] gross, systematic violations of [internationally-recognized human] rights.”⁴⁰ As has been argued, MFN revocation is a serious matter, more akin to economic sanctions than to the denial of a special trade-policy give-away, indicated by the recent change in nomenclature from Most-Favored Nation status to Normal Trade Relations status. Donnelly’s conclusion regarding unilaterally-imposed humanitarian quasi-intervention and human rights is that “none of the obligations to be found in multilateral human rights treaties may be coercively enforced by any external actor.” Even in regards to multilateral actions, Donelly argues, “There is not a single case, with the possible partial exception of South Africa, in which the UN has been willing to intervene on humanitarian grounds when an existing government has resisted.”⁴¹

The UN has avoided sanctioning such interventions because it was designed primarily to protect states from incursions by other states, not to protect citizens from abuses by their own governments. This may be changing at the UN as international consensus grows to allow humanitarian interventions in certain circumstances.

In 1999, NATO’s intervention in Kosovo presented another case. Yet, following Donnelly’s logic and the logic and reality of international law, the Kosovo intervention was highly problematic. It was essentially illegal. According to the UN Charter, to which all of the members of NATO, and Yugoslavia, are signatories, such military actions must be approved by the Security Council and carried out under the supervision of its Military Staff Committee or by participants in the action as approved by the Security Council.⁴² Strictly speaking, however, given the Charter’s emphasis on state sovereignty, there is no provision for such interventions within the internationally-recognized borders of sovereign states. In Chapter 1, Article 2, No. 7, the Charter states,

What the UN Charter says of intervention is all in the context of intervention after a cross- border attack has occurred. That did not apply to Kosovo, as it is still a part of Yugoslavia. The real issue has been how to define “matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” It would seem that the jury is still out, although there is certainly a growing international consensus that there are times when the sovereignty of a state might be infringed upon in cases such as ethnic cleansing or genocide with state complicity (the former was the case made for the Kosovo intervention), or in cases in which all law and order has broken down and the government has neither the will nor the ability to address the problem (as was argued in the case of Somalia).

A recent article in Foreign Affairs⁴³ discusses this dilemma, concluding that despite the restrictions of the Charter on interventions, a new international consensus seems to have been formed that allows such humanitarian interventions. This is not in and of itself problematic, as most nations or organizations using constitutions or articles of institution find it necessary to amend them at some time. Granting this, intervening without UN Security Council approval is problematic and may set a precedent for other such non-approved interventions in the future, paving the way for old-fashioned power politics in the name of humanitarianism. This is after all what both the Nazis and the Japanese claimed to be doing in their World War Two forays: both claimed to have a destiny to liberate their neighbors from the “folly” of their own self-rule, replacing it with the more “enlightened” German-led “Third Riech” or Japan-led “East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.” Certainly the way the Russians, the Chinese and various other developing nations saw the Kosovo intervention as a similar propagandistic power play, which therefore does not make it a good precedent for future interventions or international law.

But even when there is a plausible case for intervention—conceding that there are such cases—the UN Charter has set the standard operating procedures for such an intervention. Though such cases are not explicitly discussed in the Charter (this has been a problem for the UN for some time, as even Peacekeeping, an old standby of the UN, is not discussed in the Charter), when an intervention is called for, the concerned parties must take the matter to the Security Council for approval. This is the only way to bestow real international legitimacy on such interventions, something the Kosovo intervention lacked despite the consensus of NATO’s 19 members.

Donnelly goes on to argue that foreign powers cannot really create a positive human rights situation by imposition.

With the approval of the UN Security Council and, in all but the most extreme cases, the country in question,⁴⁵ international forces might be able to contribute to building a situation wherein the situation can be stabilized, law and order restored, and human rights better-honored.⁴⁶ Yet this is not something to be taken lightly, nor is it done easily, for such interventions often cross over into the realm of state-building, the U.S. interventions in Somalia and Haiti being cases in point.

In Sino-American relations, the U.S. threat of MFN revocation represents an attempt at an imposition by a foreign state. It is an ultimatum saying, “do as we say or we’ll punish you severely.” Revoking MFN would be a blow to China, disrupting one-third of its exports.⁴⁷ To put this in perspective, what would the impact be on American businesses if one-third of American exports were effectively blocked? It would be extremely disruptive to the national economy and to the lives of millions of Americans. It would no doubt threaten American national economic security, which has been recognized as a part of overall national security, as indicated by the Clinton Administration’s recent establishment of the National Economic Security Council. So too with China, but given the early stages of Chinese economic growth, the much larger population (U.S. = 260 million; China = 1.2 billion) and the greater fragility of the economy and the political situation, the revocation of MFN by the U.S. would be a much greater blow to China than a similar move would be by another country to the U.S.

Given the fact that the present Chinese government’s legitimacy currently rests primarily on its economic performance, such a move could destabilize the country politically as well. The loss of export income could cause the closure of many export-oriented industries, forcing many workers (and their families) into unemployment and out on the streets, which could lay the foundation for the sort of agitation widely feared by the people of China, not only the government—the dreaded “luan” (“chaos”). “Luan” has plagued the country countless times in its long history, and has given birth to the rise of warlords and brought death to countless thousands of innocent people. Out of such a scenario would come thousands of refugees, which would flood Asia, Europe and North America. This scenario is not what the people of China want. They have endured oppression in recent decades, and for centuries, because they believe that given their historical and demographic realities, even limited freedom with stability is better than such “luan.” While there is no certainty that the effects of MFN revocation would be this drastic, the possibilities are very real. Are U.S. policy-makers prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of a policy as proactive and interventionist as the revocation of MFN?

It is important to consider not only MFN revocation’s possible effects on China, but also its effects on the U.S. and its citizens. Revocation of MFN for China would cause U.S. consumers to pay more for all those consumer items we now complain about because they are made in China, but buy anyway because they are affordable. So many of the shoes, toys, shower curtains, cordless telephones, and backpacks that we buy from China would all have to be purchased from other sources, and that means higher prices. As the huge business lobby in Washington, DC, attests, MFN revocation would hurt U.S. companies doing business in China as well, particularly corporations such as Motorola, IBM, Boeing and Chrysler, whose success in China does much do boost the American economy.⁴⁸ If a Cold War resulted from U.S. sanctions, also hurt could be American college students, the poor and homeless, the elderly, and anyone else affected by shifts in U.S. government spending.

Given the differences in Chinese and American culture, philosophy, ideology, and values, overt conflict or a Cold War with China is a possibility any time in the future decades,⁴⁹ but it would become much more likely with the American revocation of MFN for China. This would be read by the Chinese as U.S. hostility, even an act of war given the possibly devastating effects it could have on China. As Paul Marshall, who has very convincingly documented the seriousness of persecutions against Christians in China and other lands, has noted, “removing MFN is like a nuclear bomb: if used, it brings indiscriminate destruction. It works best as a credible threat and deterrent.”⁵⁰ MFN’s efficacy in the past was as a deterrent. When the U.S. government failed to use it, it lost its deterring effect. A deterrent that is not credible is no longer a deterrent. Because MFN’s revocation has been threatened by the U.S. so many times in the past, never to be carried out, the Chinese may not see it as a serious threat today. But even if they did, as Marshall notes above, Congress could only carry make good on their threat once, and the destruction would be “indiscriminate.” Is this an appropriate way to try to encourage the more full implementation of human rights in China?

For some ends, the costs of the means might be justified. Thus, even if there were agreement that it was logical and ethical to use MFN as a lever on the Chinese in regard to human rights, the next question to ask is, would it work to achieve the desired end? Would it actually improve the human rights situation in China? Would it lessen the persecution of Christians, Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists there?

An understanding of Chinese culture and history suggests that it would not. Though political expedience is at least part of the reason Chinese Communist Party leaders use the protest, “you Americans are meddling in our internal affairs,” every time the U.S. makes any negative declarations on human rights in China, a thorough analysis of Chinese opinion on the subject would reveal that indeed the Chinese people as a whole are very sensitive to foreign pressures or “meddling” in their internal affairs.⁵¹ This comes as a result as their historical collective xenophobia, but also because of the last 160 years of their history in dealing with foreign powers. Once the world’s greatest civilization,⁵² they were consistently pushed around, taken advantage of, and humiliated by foreigners. This is why the recent return of Hong Kong to Chinese authority was such a momentous event for Chinese of all political dispositions and citizenship. Many Chinese, including Chinese Christians, do not like what their government does to dissidents and Christians any more than Americans do (if they are even aware of it), but they still generally do not think it is right for the U.S. to try to impose its vision of government and social and political norms on China. Like a mother who does not like other parents scolding her child, the Chinese generally do not appreciate foreigners trying to change their country. Their sense of national pride seems to be greater than their sense of indignation at their own government’s shortcomings.

The Chinese government, therefore, has national opinion on its side in opposing what it calls foreign (especially American) “hegemonism.” It will not and can not accept overt American attempts to change their nation, because that is an insult to the national sense of “face,” an important concept to understand when dealing with the Chinese. Rationality and interests are sometimes laid aside when face is threatened. The Chinese government can endure rebukes, criticisms, insults, and nasty reports about the human rights situation in their country, but they would almost certainly not bow to American revocation of MFN. Thus revoking MFN is not likely to improve the human rights situation in China. The Chinese would absorb the loss and move on as best as they could.

If revocation would not achieve its aim of improving human rights in any case, why make U.S. consumers pay higher prices for imported goods, why hurt U.S. companies doing business in China and Chinese private-sector entrepreneurs doing business with the U.S., and why threaten to start what could be a Cold War with China which would cost U.S. taxpayers more in terms of the consequent defense commitments that would require? These costs of revoking China’s MFN status are hard to justify, given that they are unlikely to bring about the desired end.

As was the case with the Jackson-Vanik amendment and revocation of MFN for the Soviet Union in earlier years, many have argued that MFN withdrawal was a credible threat to the Chinese and served to improve the human rights situation there. The same people have argued that the Clinton Administration’s delinkage of MFN and human rights in 1994 was a mistake.

China’s human rights situation has deteriorated since delinkage in 1994, and it is true that for Christians in China, “this is the most repressive period since the pre-Deng period of the late 1970’s.”⁵⁴ Linkage is sure to have had some effect on the thinking of the Chinese leadership. Yet can we attribute the increase in human rights abuses between delinkage in 1994 and the present solely to the end of formal MFN linkage?⁵⁵ There are other possible explanations, such as the power struggle behind the scenes as Jiang Zemin battled to consolidate his power in the twilight and passing of the Deng Xiaoping era (by 1994 Deng Xiaoping’s health was seriously failing, and he died in 1997); and the threat posed to China’s authoritarian leadership by the first democratic election on Chinese soil (in Taiwan in 1996), the threat of Taiwanese “secession,” and the consequent presidential victory of native-Taiwanese Lee Teng-hui.⁵⁶ Other factors included the preparations for the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty and conservative pressures not to let anything go awry there; the political shuffling behind the scenes in preparation for the 15th Party Congress in October, 1997, held only every five years, where most momentous decisions and policy changes are announced (of particular importance with the passing of Deng); and the pressures created by the East- and Southeast Asian economic crisis. 1999 has been even tighter in political terms as the Party has tried to pass quietly over the 80th anniversary of the May Fourth movement (which advocated science and democracy), the 40th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprisings, and the 10th anniversary of the Tian’anmen protests, as well as the unrest posed by the May bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the widespread demonstrations by the members of the Falungong movement. All of this was in the minds of the leaders as they prepared for the huge, nationalistic hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on October 1, 1999, an event of extreme importance to the Party and the State.

Given all of these issues and the nature of the regime in Beijing—which does not depend on democratic legitimacy but rather on a combination of nationalism, the legend of the old Party heroes, good economic performance and, where necessary, force—the fact that the recent two or three years have been more restrictive of people’s political rights in China should not come as a surprise, and would have been the case with or without MFN linkage. To admit that MFN linkage did have some effect between 1992 and 1994 (some effect is likely) does not weaken the argument that it is a poor tool in the long run; for as a deterrent, it deters only as long as it is credible, and it cannot remain credible forever. As a deterrent, the threat of removal of MFN status would have become unbelievable even if President Clinton had maintained linkage for years to come.

Despite the question of the legality of unilateral sanctions by international law and the bylaws of the WTO, sanctions without international support and constancy are often ineffective. This is true despite the potential gravity of the effect a U.S. revocation of MFN could have on China, as documented above. If the U.S. were to impose sanctions unilaterally (i.e. revoke MFN), the Europeans, Japanese, Taiwanese and others would quickly pick up some of the economic slack and to some extent mitigate against the effects of such unilateral American sanctions (though they could by no means entirely make up for the lost American market). The Chinese have given indications of their willingness to do business with others should the U.S. revoke MFN. In 1994, when former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl came to Beijing just before the U.S. Congress’ decision on MFN, the Chinese rewarded him with large contracts, including a big Airbus deal, for his “cooperation” in not making trade contingent on human rights performance. The message to the U.S. government was unmistakable. While MFN revocation would undoubtedly hurt China, the Chinese would likely accept the consequences and turn to the Europeans and elsewhere before giving in to the U.S. on human rights.

Moreover, the Chinese government would no doubt seek to focus criticism on the U.S. in its press, making the U.S. out to be the great demon, as has been the case in Iraq with some success. In this way it could protect itself to some extent from domestic criticism, possibly enabling it to survive the devastating effects of the sanctions by rallying the people to austerity measures in anti-American, nationalist fervor (as Iraq has done).⁵⁷ The Chinese government’s handling of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 is illustrative of the way in which a controlled media can whip up the sentiments of the masses. The government-controlled media did not start reporting NATO’s or the U.S.’ statements that the bombing was a mistake, or their regrets or apologies, until three days after the bombing was first reported in China (Tuesday, May 11, and Saturday, May 8, respectively), and it portrayed the bombing as “purposive,” “barbaric,” and part of a larger American plot to control not only Yugoslavia and Europe, but the entire world.⁵⁸

Another consideration in whether the means are able to bring about the desired ends is to ask who would be affected in China by such sanctions. For to say that sanctions would be effective, we must be convinced that they would harm the interests of the “bad guys” and help the interests of the “good guys.” Who in China would actually benefit from U.S. withdrawal of MFN? Considering how much this act could potentially hurt the Chinese economy, this might seem like a foolish question to some, for who could possibly benefit from such an outcome, and such a deterioration in Sino-American relations? To understand that there are some who would benefit, one must understand the nature of the factional infighting that is going on—and has always gone on—within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since Deng Xiaoping’s movement toward economic liberalization beginning in the late 1970’s, Deng presided over a split in the Party leadership. One side feared that such liberalization was selling out all that Mao and the Chinese had worked toward for thirty years (this the view of the conservatives, exemplified by Chen Yun and Li Peng, although Li pragmatically straddles the borderline between conservative and economic reformer). On the other side were those who believed the reforms were necessary to the survival of the regime and for the good of the country (this the view of the more flexible reformers, exemplified by Party Secretary Hu Yaobang and Deng himself). Making things more complicated was a split among the reformers, some of whom thought that political (i.e., democratic) reform should accompany the economic reforms (e.g., Hu Yaobang), and those who thought that the CCP must maintain tight political control during the economic reforms so as to avoid “luan.” Though Deng Xiaoping had often spoken of China’s need for democracy,⁵⁹ even after Mao’s death in 1976, he was generally of the latter opinion, and it was his opinion, not surprisingly, that eventually prevailed. It was the Beijing Spring (1989) demonstrations and their aftermath that sealed the fate of political reform, at least in the short term. For the conservatives were able to say, in effect, “I told you so—tolerance and lenience toward the demonstrators only led to chaos and greater intransigence on their part.”⁶⁰

Today the struggle within the Party ranks continues. President Jiang Zemin, Deng’s choice as successor, has effective control of the government, the military and the Party apparatus, but has a difficult task in satisfying both the aging conservatives and the more liberal reformers. Although arch-conservative Chen Yun passed away a few years ago, and the economic reforms have moved so far ahead that turning back on them would be all but impossible given the people’s rising expectations and consumerist appetites, the conservatives with Li Peng are still a force to be reckoned with. They are still adamant about political reform, taking a Leninist line on dissent (i.e., it must be crushed). Unlike Deng, Jiang does not have the legitimacy of being an old CCP revolutionary and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) veteran,⁶¹ but rather is a younger, second- generation technocrat (he was trained to be an engineer), and thus he is more vulnerable to the shifting of the political winds. He has less room to maneuver should the U.S. take a harder stance on human rights in China, should Hong Kong democrats push the Chinese too far there, or should the Taiwanese declare independence. Therefore, he would probably be in a position, in any of the above three situations, of having to take a hard line so as not to lose the support of the remaining conservative Party stalwarts and the PLA.

In answer to the question, “Who in China would benefit from MFN revocation?” it would be these conservatives and the PLA who would benefit most. As was the case in late May and early June, 1989, when the conservatives prevailed because the Party was threatened by the continuing pressure of the demonstrators, so too would the conservatives and leaders of the army benefit here. They have been saying for a long time that China’s greatest threat is the United States, while Deng and other moderates (relatively speaking) have made the case since the late 1970’s that China can engage the U.S., reaping the lion’s share of the benefits of the relationship, without the engagement being subversive to China. A few of the conservatives hold to older, Maoist dogma, saying that China has been treading a capitalist road to ruin of late, and must turn back to the Stalinist and/or Maoist ways of the past.⁶² Given the Party’s continued effective control of the Chinese media, U.S. MFN revocation or other strong unilateral U.S. action would be used as a case in point, demonstrating “American hostility and aggression” towards China.⁶³ The hardliners could then say, “We told you so.”

Thus it is arguable, as was the case between 1989 and 1992, that following MFN revocation the hardline conservatives would again gain sway in directing the Chinese ship of state, which has been guided by moderate reformers since Deng’s 1992 southern China tour when he resumed the economic reforms started before Tian’anmen. Accordingly, the more liberal reformers, those who might be more open to cooperating with the international community as it regards human rights, could find themselves in a more subordinate position. What this would mean for human rights in China is that the people who have demonstrated the least regard for human rights, in terms of their Leninist penchant for repression, would have the most influence in setting China’s policy.

Who would U.S. sanctions hurt? What of the persecution of Tibetan Buddhists, western China’s Muslims, and Christians? Since China views the “religious problem” as closely linked to foreign agents in each of these three cases, outside pressure on the Chinese government over its treatment of religious figures and religious bodies is extremely sensitive. Certainly there is a role that foreigners can play in encouraging Chinese leaders to honor their constitution’s provisions for freedom of religion and religious expression, but it comes down to a question of effective means, as is the case with human rights policy in general. What works in the Chinese context—heavy pressure, nastiness and threats; or respect, engagement, and gentle but firm pressure pinpointed where it will do the greatest good? Considering the arguments above, the latter seems preferable.

I am not a Muslim or a Buddhist and have little experience in relating to them in China, but as a Christian I do have some insights and experience relating to Chinese Christians, so I will here briefly consider the situation of Chinese Christians. I believe that what is true for them will generally be true for Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China as well.⁶⁴ The China Service Coordinating Office (CSCO) and its constituents agree that gentler approaches work better in the Chinese cultural context, noting that “the Chinese people traditionally have not responded positively to public confrontation and coercion.”⁶⁵ Public confrontation and coercion (such as MFN revocation), though perhaps having some effect in Western cultural traditions, are seen as a direct assault on one’s “face”⁶⁶ in the Chinese cultural context. They are the ultimate insult, indicating that the confronting party neither cares about the recipient’s “face” and feelings, nor about the relationship between the two parties.

The CSCO makes its case here by discussing the experience of China’s orphanages after Human Rights Watch’s 1996 reports of widespread abuse therein. As the reader might recall, the news received broad media attention in the West at the time. After following up on the matter, CSCO learned that as a result of all of the attention, the Chinese government asked foreign volunteers, many of whom are Christian and many of whom had worked there for years, to leave and not return. Given the poor conditions Human Rights Watch documented in these orphanages, the loss of these volunteers was a blow both to the Chinese workers and to the children there. It remains to be seen whether all of the attention will bring about the desired changes. This incident is typical of the way in which the Chinese deal with such “loss of face.”

Christianity is already viewed by most Chinese as a “Western” religion that came to China on gunboats full of opium, and is thus suspect. Western sanctions could reinvigorate these old fears and misperceptions among Chinese non-believers, making the spreading of the Gospel more difficult. Moreover sanctions could, as discussed above, empower conservatives in Beijing who would like to turn the screws on the Chinese Church even tighter than they already are. As the CSCO concludes: MFN revocation is likely to make things more difficult for the Gospel in China and for Chinese Christians.

What of political dissidents? It appears that for a couple of years, MFN linkage may have helped a few well-known dissidents. Since 1994, for a number of reasons, things have become tighter for dissidents. While no one really knows how the Chinese leadership would react to MFN withdrawal or other similarly strong unilateral American action, they most likely would seek to cut ties with the U.S., all but eliminating the little remaining U.S. bilateral pressure from the Chinese leadership. This would not improve the situation for jailed dissidents. Martin Lee, head of Hong Kong’s largest democratic party, commented that he would not like to see the U.S. use MFN as a bludgeon, even if China were to mishandle the Hong Kong transition, “because it hurts Hong Kong first and badly” and because doing so “is like saying: ‘If you still beat your wife and violently, I’ll shoot her.’” ⁷⁰ The leading Chinese democrat in China (and perhaps now one of China’s leading political dissidents, Hong Kong of course now being a part of China) therefore also recommends the U.S. abandon MFN linkage or other such forceful human rights monitoring tools for China.

Also hurt by such sanctions would be Chinese private-sector entrepreneurs doing business with the U.S. These are the people U.S. policy has always hoped to empower with its policy of engagement. Yet MFN revocation would inadvertently target these people because most of them are participating in what is the most vibrant sector of today’s Chinese economy—the export sector—approximately one third of which would be all but shut down with MFN’s withdrawal. Additionally, the sanctions would negatively affect the areas of China now undergoing the fastest economic, social, and to some extent even political changes—the coastal regions and the south.

I am not suggesting that carefully-crafted sanctions for human rights abuses are entirely out of the question under all circumstances, only that costs and benefits, efficacy, and legality must be measured in a case by case fashion within the guidelines discussed above. The various condemnations and international sanctions on China following the June 4, 1989, killings were deserved. These sanctions included suspension of more than $500 million in weapons contracts, equipment that could be used by the Chinese police, and U.S. government insurance for private investments in China.⁷¹ With the exception of the latter, which primarily penalized American businesspeople trying to do business in China, these sanctions were timely and appropriate because they targeted the organizations concerned, without harming parties not concerned. Yet even after the Tian’anmen killings, neither the Group of Seven industrialized nations nor the U.S. deemed the matter worthy of imposing economic sanctions. In fact, even then the U.S. Congress did not approve the removal of MFN for China, though as mentioned above, this was advocated by Republican Senator Jesse Helms, Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz, and others. If June 4, 1989, did not make China worthy of MFN revocation, why would it be logical at present?

In conclusion, the argument has been made that though the betterment of human rights in China is a worthy goal for Christians and for U.S. government policy, the unilateral revocation of MFN/NTR status for China is not just, nor is it likely to help the right people or bring about the changes that human rights advocates hope will come about in China. Should this lead those who care about human rights in China to feel despair, or to think that there is nothing to be done? Not so, as will be discussed below.

China is at present undergoing many changes which might affect human rights. Going back to the modernization theory of comparative politics,⁷² the works of Seymour Martin Lipset in particular, there is evidence that economic modernization, or “free-marketization”, drives social, cultural and political change. Also helpful in exploring the interrelationships between economics, society and politics is the recent work of Ronald Inglehart,⁷³ which argues convincingly that economic change drives cultural and political change. In addition, much of the vast new literature on civil society in the post-Cold War era suggests that the growth of a free market economy strengthens civil society and creates economic power bases that, because “money talks,” are able to influence matters in the political sphere. This can ultimately mean that players operating out of these independent power bases in civil society can check the power of the state, holding it more accountable to the people (provided these business leaders are not co-opted too extensively by the state, as Barrington Moore shows can lead to fascism).⁷⁴ I would argue that this has already been happening in China, particularly in the case of the wealthy province of Guangdong, which with its acquired wealth has proven to become quite independent and assertive in its relations with authorities in Beijing.

All of this leads me to believe that as China continues to experience the changes brought on by its opening to the outside world, and its transition to a more free market-style economy, the changes Westerners desire to see in China—a more democratic, open society that honors individual as well as collective liberties and human rights—will come with time. Therefore, best suited to America’s interests is the continued use of the policy of engagement, which seeks to empower those individuals in government and civil society with the potential to influence affairs in a more just, egalitarian, human rights-honoring direction. The recent histories of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand indicate that Asian political systems are not immune to the forces of modernity, and that more authoritarian political systems are difficult to shelter from the forces of economic modernization. Despite their authoritarian-collectivist historical and cultural trends and/or tendencies, democracy is to a greater or lesser extent being practiced in all of these lands, and I believe it is not only possible, but probable, that such will eventually be the case in China as well.⁷⁵ Many Chinese officials and scholars agree, though they stress that given China’s political culture and economic and demographic situation, these changes could not be brought about overnight, even if a new regime came into power.

Several recent statements and actions by Chinese leaders show that the government is taking democracy seriously at the very least. I think it is clear that this can only be good for human rights, though democratization is not the equivalent of human rights. Without political reform that includes deeper democratization, it is less likely that fully-implemented human rights will be realized in China. This is not to say that the realization of the full array of human rights in China must await democracy. Chinese citizens enjoy a large measure of human rights today in comparison to China’s human rights record in 1940 or 1970, and this has happened without democracy. Yet as was argued earlier in this monograph, the institution of the full array of civil and political rights in China would be a political sea-change and is therefore unlikely without greater political reform, which includes greater measures of democracy. So while there is no hard and fast rule that democracy and the full array of human rights must by definition go together, or that democratization must precede them, there is a logical relationship between the two. Historically, fully-implemented human rights come when regimes become accountable to the people, and this has been most likely under democracy.

The fact has received little attention in the Western press that the Chinese government has in recent years been gradually introducing grass-roots level democracy in China’s villages, the lowest level in China’s administrative hierarchy. More than mere rhetoric (for China has after all claimed to be democratic in process since 1949), these moves have even been monitored by Western observers under the auspices of The Carter Center at Emory University, including two professors of political science from the United States, Robert Pastor and Larry Diamond. Diamond, a professor at Stanford University and generally considered to be one of the world’s foremost scholars on democratic transitions, had this to say about his experiences in Northeast China’s Jilin Province in March, 1998:

The Carter Center, whose founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, has a great deal of international election-monitoring experience, has also reached an agreement with China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is in charge of planning and carrying out China’s village committee elections. The long-term agreement seeks to further improve the administration of democratic elections in China’s villages, including the setting up of “a computer-based national system for collecting data on village elections.”⁷⁷ The project also includes “exchanges and visits for training in election management procedures and work with the ministry to develop civic education programmes in China,” which included plans for Chinese delegates to observe primary elections in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to an article by Tan Qingshan, a professor of Chinese politics at Cleveland State University in the U.S. and a member of the Carter Center’s delegations in 1997 and 1998, the elections included non-Communist Party-members, and allowed write-in candidates when villagers were not satisfied with the given selection of candidates.⁷⁸ Another article published in China’s official China Daily critiqued the former “democratic” system wherein Communist Party cadres at higher levels pre-selected candidates for whom the villagers could vote, the old practice followed for years in China and the former Soviet Union, as “flawed,” and stated that it “stifled the villagers’ enthusiasm.”⁷⁹

Now while all of this is very encouraging, it is a far cry from elections at the national level. The Chinese Communist Party has not decided to give up its power at the national level, it has not allowed the free competition for top national posts by non-CCP members, nor has it rewritten the PRC’s constitution to establish anything resembling a Western-style democracy. In fact, the detention of activist Xu Wenli in December 1998 seems to show that the government is still not prepared to accept any democratic activity outside of the rubric that it itself has allowed and at the pace at which it has set, which is to say at this time at the very elementary village level, at a very gradual pace. There still remains no effective challenger to the CCP, nor will there likely be in the near future.⁸⁰ Still, this village-level democratization should not be simply written off as more Party rhetoric.

Could it be that top Party officials have seen the writing on the wall (i.e., the need for political and/or democratic reform) and, while trying to avoid the mistakes of the former Soviet Union and its rapid dissolution and overnight transition from the one-party ruled U.S.SR to the nominally-democratic Russian Republic, have realized that democracy is more stable, efficient, even rational in the long run than the present one-party system? While only these top Party officials could answer such questions (and presently, in the name of stability and saving face for the Party, they could not), it seems a distinct possibility, as suggested by the following two reports. A Wall Street Journal report in July, 1998 said that President Jiang Zemin, upon returning from his summit with President Clinton in the U.S. in November, 1997, ordered the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to draft a manual on democracy, which included sections on “the historic development of democracy, foreign models of democracy (with an emphasis on the Western countries, especially the U.S.), and China’s own democratic path,” a manual which is to be “mandatory reading material for high-ranking officials.”⁸¹Similar reports as to the veracity of this order by Jiang and the ensuing research were reported by The Hong Kong Standard, CNN and The South China Morning Post.⁸²

What is perhaps more telling and even more interesting is a recent article, again in the official China Daily, by Liu Ji,⁸³ who is mentioned in the two reports cited above as “an advisor to Jiang [Zemin],” and “a Jiang protege and high ranking official with the [Chinese] Academy [of Social Sciences]” (footnotes 63 and 64, respectively). Mr. Liu is reportedly leading the team doing the work on democracy at the Academy. In the article, Mr. Liu discusses the problems of big government, the need for “small government, bigger society,” and the need for the government to withdraw from the running of enterprises. The latter was announced at the 15th Party Congress in 1997 and is now being carried out, the most striking example of which is the government’s requirement that the PLA end all its business activities. According to Mr. Liu,

These are the words of a man very close to President Jiang, and they have been published in (at least) two official Chinese publications. While we have heard talk of democracy from CCP leaders in the past, the tone of this statement is different, more realistic. In addition, his comments about political reform sound like the sorts of things Mr. Deng said regarding economic reform in the early days of the economic opening. Deng made similar statements about the practicality of market tools in any economic system (i.e., even communist, centrally-planned systems) before and during the time he introduced his series of market reforms, particularly in the late 1970s and early 1990s. This article could be meant to begin paving the way for eventual, gradual political reform.

It is plausible that some of China’s top political leaders may have silently come to the same conclusion as Ruan Ming, former deputy director of the Theoretical Research Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School (until 1983 when he was kicked out). He said:

Ruan believes democracy will come to China, reminding us that, “a democratic system does not eliminate the role of the police, the courts, and prisons. On the contrary, it deploys them more effectively.”⁸⁶ While there is strong evidence that the leaders in Beijing are coming to this conclusion, the fact remains that aside from the clues presented above, perhaps only the passing of time will allow us to answer these questions.

While it may indeed be fair to say that the danger of chaos remains for a China seeking a transition to democracy because of its political culture with authoritarian proclivities, because of the weakness of the foundations of its rule of law, and because of the desires of some Mongolians, Tibetans, and Muslims in China for greater autonomy than they now have, we should not underestimate the ability of the market economy to disperse power to civil society, nor should we underestimate the power of the democratic ideal and the attraction of liberty in China. In our dealings with China, Americans and other Westerners should exhibit patience, having more faith in classical liberal ideals than those advocating the revocation of MFN have displayed—particularly when the costs of a showdown are so high to peoples of both sides, and the chances for such a strategy’s success so elusive.

In conclusion, resorting to more coercive tactics – i.e. using MFN as a club to beat the Chinese into submission on human rights—would 1) cause the Chinese to spurn most or all U.S. links of any kind, a blow to the policy of engagement; 2) cause Chinese leaders to ask American teachers and professionals to leave the country, among whom are many Christian tentmakers; 3) cause them to penalize U.S. imports, thereby hurting American companies operating in China and exporting to China; 4) empower the CCP hardliners; 5) disempower CCP moderates and political reformers, and up to one-third of China’s export-sector entrepreneurs, who are contributing to a new Chinese civil society; 6) alienate many Chinese Christians now open to American tentmakers, publications and broadcasts, and perhaps bring down tighter restraints on these Western influences; and 7) it will bring Chinese-American relations to a new low, to what might even be called Cold War status. In this situation, the U.S. would lose even the little leverage it now has to influence Chinese human rights policy, China would turn hostile to the U.S. and its security interests in the region, and the U.S. would be forced to increase its defense spending in response to the new situation.

Given these arguments, it must be apparent that from a moralist, legalist, or even a more utilitarian, consequentialist point of view, revoking China’s MFN/NTR status for any matter other than serious trade disputes,⁸⁷ the likes of genocide,⁸⁸ or as an act that was a part of a broader containment strategy if China invaded its neighbors, would be ill-advised, a complete failure, a foreign policy disaster.

Rather than confrontative measures such as MFN revocation, multilateral approaches, combined with gentle but firm bilateral pressure and national policies of engagement, are the best means to achieve the desired end: encouraging the Chinese government to better honor its commitment to human rights for the sake of a more stable, prosperous, just society. It is important to remember that human rights are one issue among many on the plate of debate as the governments of the People’s Republic of China and the United States meet. As the improvement of Sino-American relations has sometimes been hampered by China’s human rights violations and the linkage between human rights and trade issues, delinkage of the latter and a shifting of the burden of American human rights diplomacy to multilateral fora will help free up American policy toward China generally and bring about a sense of international burden-sharing in dealing with China, while making for what is likely a more effective strategy for dealing with China on the issue of human rights.

Advocating a shift to multilateralism in U.S. China policy is by no means to suggest there is no place for bilateral activity. The fact that U.S. government spokespersons have raised the names of individuals in detention in China has brought about the release of some of them. High level discussions between U.S. government officials and Chinese government officials can be constructive as well, as were the open discussions of human rights and other issues between Presidents Jiang and Clinton in their meetings in Washington and Beijing. One constructive new idea is the recent Republican proposal to increase American broadcasting of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America in East Asia.⁸⁹ Yet the most effective means of bilateral policy with China continues to be constructive engagement, for all the reasons mentioned above. This means, among other things, the continued practice of building up exchanges at all levels between Chinese and American nationals, schools, research institutes and corporations. Delinkage between human rights and MFN status, as the Clinton Administration has done, should be maintained.⁹⁰ The more severe pressure on China over human rights violations should come from the UN and its organs, not the U.S., for the UN has authority and legitimacy to speak on human rights that China recognizes, whereas the U.S. does not.

Perhaps the most important area in which the U.S. could improve its performance in holding China accountable on human rights issues using multilateral means is in its meetings with other governmental leaders, and particularly in its activities in the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.⁹¹ As has been discussed, the Chinese are very concerned about “face,” internationally as well as domestically. Although it may be difficult to believe, given the amount of official corruption in today’s People’s Republic of China, moral uprightness has always been a part of Chinese rulers’ “mandate of heaven” (the idea that in their rule they are responsible to and rule on behalf of “heaven”), and moral rhetoric has always been a large part of the Chinese communist dogma as well.⁹² Recall that one of the primary reasons for the student demonstrations in Beijing in 1989 was corruption in the Party. The Chinese are very sensitive to being labeled “immoral” or “corrupt” or “human rights violators,” because moral uprightness is a supreme virtue in China.

Therefore, one effective method, and one of the easiest in terms of cost, is verbal condemnation in international fora, because such condemnation carries authority.⁹³ This is exactly what can be accomplished at the UN Commission and Sub-Commission, but this is an opportunity the U.S. has failed to pursue wholeheartedly in recent years, preferring instead to pursue it bilaterally. The Chinese government has been able to deflect most of the international criticism of its human rights situation because it has been largely bilateral in nature, or has come from a few human rights NGOs. The unanimous international condemnation that occurred as a result of the suppression of the Tian’anmen demonstrations shook the Chinese leadership to the core. It was difficult to hide from or explain to the Chinese people, because it came from all directions—the UN and nations around the world. But human rights criticisms from the United States have been explained away to its people in the Chinese press as not to be taken seriously because the criticisms come from what the Chinese press has called the “imperialist,” the “hegemonist,” the “hypocrite.” So too has the government dealt with criticisms from human rights NGOs (when it has dealt with them at all), saying the NGOs have personal vendettas against China coupled with Tibetan Buddhist sympathies or American and English sources of influence (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, respectively). The Chinese leadership continually portrays American policy as seeking to use human rights to split Tibet from China, to undermine the CCP, and to advocate democratic revolution, among other things.

Gauging the attitudes of Chinese people myself when I was in China, and accepting David Shambaugh’s depiction of Chinese attitudes of the U.S.,⁹⁴ the Chinese government has used its controlled press to great effect toward these ends, but they would have a much more difficult time doing so if the U.S. was successful in its bid to bring about successful condemnations of China’s human rights practices through the appropriate UN bodies. As Ann Kent argues in Human Rights Quarterly,

If world bodies, made up of nations from all parts of the world, consistently passed resolutions against the Chinese in these fora when they committed human rights violations, the Chinese leadership would find it very difficult to sustain its old argument that it is the U.S. alone that is against them. In fact, most of these other countries too recognize that China has a serious human rights problem, but if they too are not gross human rights violators, they have too often been successfully persuaded or intimidated at these international meetings by Chinese lobbying that they pass a “no motion” vote on condemnations directed at China.⁹⁶

In an excellent analysis of monitoring procedures at the UN’s Commission on Human Rights and in the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Ann Kent illustrates Chinese tactics to avoid condemnations. They have had amazing success, only failing to avoid condemnation twice—in August, 1989 in the Sub-Commission as a result of the Tian’anmen Square incident, and in August, 1991, when the Sub-Commission passed a resolution against China because of “continuing reports of violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms which threaten the distinct cultural, religious and national identity of the Tibetan people.” By lobbying of other countries’ delegations behind the scenes, the Chinese have, thus far, eluded every other attempt by nations and NGOs to pin a resolution of condemnation on them. The lengths to which the Chinese go to avoid international criticism lends support to the argument that they are likely to respond to such criticism, as it regards their “mandate of heaven.”⁹⁷

One of the striking things Kent’s study reveals is the relatively apathetic stance of the U.S. delegations at these meetings compared to the zeal of the NGOs to pin a condemnation on the Chinese and the zeal of the Chinese to escape condemnation. She reveals many missed opportunities for the EC and the U.S., wherein with a bit more preparation, a bit more lobbying of swing-vote countries, and a bit more heart, the vote could have turned against China. For example, 1992 was a close year for the Chinese in the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights. It appeared that China would lose the vote, but when the wording of the document was finally agreed upon, “the U.S. delegation appeared to lose interest when it came to getting the results of its efforts adopted,”⁹⁸ and the vote to condemn China never came to pass. Kent believes that this was because having vetoed MFN linkage to human rights earlier in 1992, the Bush Administration did not want to appear too soft on human rights, and thus it pushed for a resolution at the commission; yet it did not want to take what it deemed too harsh a stand either, which is why it backed off at the end.

Another case when the U.S. missed an opportunity to rally a vote against China was at the March, 1994, meeting of the Commission on Human Rights.

It appears that the same pattern continued in 1999 when the U.S. sponsored a motion to condemn China’s human rights practices at the annual Geneva meeting. Following American satisfaction with the two Jiang-Clinton summits and the Chinese pledge to sign the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, American officials decided not to offer up their annual condemnation of China in 1998. Their critics, however, pointed out that the following months saw “one of the worst crackdowns against political dissent since 1989.” Thus the Clinton Administration decided to move for a vote condemning China at the 1999 meeting. However, Clinton administration officials appear not to have put their best effort forward: “T he announcement of the resolution was held up because of an internal dispute in the administration over whether to sponsor it. Some officials argued that it would be a meaningless gesture. ... The human rights commission’s six-week session opened Monday [April 19], and the vote on the resolution is expected on April 23, giving the U.S. relatively little time to make its case with other members.”¹⁰⁰

Once again, the U.S. was ill-prepared to make its case effectively with the other attendees of the meeting, and once again the U.S. failed even to get a vote to the table regarding China. The result was a “no-action motion” when the U.S. raised the issue of voting on condemnation of the human rights situation in China, passed by a 22 to 17 margin, with 14 abstentions.

Following her research of activity at the annual meetings of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Ann Kent reached the following conclusion: “The most logical and effective alternative to open bilateral pressures would appear to be a return to the multilateral mechanisms which were the mainstay of international pressure on China in the months immediately following the Tian’anmen crackdown in June 1989.“¹⁰¹

Multilateralism has a collective authority and a legitimacy that U.S. bilateral pressures have never had with China. As the examples above have shown, the United States has missed a number of opportunities to pursue multilateral channels with China. Besides likely being more effective, being tough on China in these multilateral fora is far less costly to U.S. policymakers in terms of time and effort (not to mention to U.S. businesses) than pursuing a human rights agenda primarily on a bilateral basis. In sum, an American policy of engagement with close monitoring of the human rights situation by the State Department and the continued application of pressure when necessary, stepping up the use of multilateral means via UN fora rather than relying so much on unilateral threats and unilateral economic sanctions, would be the best way to address the issues of human rights and greater governmental accountability in China.

The first section of this monograph elucidated general Christian principles for determining a proper stand on human rights. The monograph will close by clarifying the relationship between these general principles regarding human rights and the above arguments concerning issues of American foreign policy and international relations, while making a few additional recommendations for U.S. policymakers. Having made the case at the outset why Christians should support universal human rights, let me now explain why I believe it is God’s will to actively support human rights in China, but to do so in a way that does not resort to violence, threats, aggression, or language reflecting the same. Unfortunately, the Bible is not a handbook on foreign policy. In most cases it does not provide specific policy guidelines that would answer a statesperson’s questions and give him or her guidelines in dealing with a specific matter of conflict between two nations. But the Bible is loaded with principles of truth that, with study, discernment, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, can be applied to the matters of state, and in this sense it is quite relevant to international relations.

The Bible exhorts Christians to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). For this reason, and because Christians are called in Proverbs 31:8-9 to “speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of the destitute” and to “speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy,” it would be wrong to remain silent about the plight of people in China who suffer under the sometimes heavy hand of the present regime, particularly if our silence was for the sake of financial or political gain. Christians must speak out for those who suffer there, and to help them as they can. Let there be no mistake in the argument presented above on this count. We must speak the truth, and the truth is, there are grave human rights problems in China today. The question at hand is a question of means—how can Christians seek to use or influence positions of power in the United States government toward such an end?

One thing “speaking the truth in love” requires is speaking the truth, bringing the issue of human rights problems to the attention of those responsible for them. This has been discussed. Another biblical principle is found in Matthew 17:15-17. Here Jesus exhorts church members who have been on the receiving end of a sinful act to go and speak in private to the brother or sister who sinned against them. If the person does not listen, Jesus recommends bringing along one or two others aware of the issue for a second attempt at suasion. If that does not work, take it to the church for mediation, he says; and if that too does not resolve the situation, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Treating the Chinese as Gentiles and tax collectors (i.e., as ones from whom one must “come out and be separate”) because of unreconciled disagreements over human rights, it would seem, is precisely the option that some in Washington advocate—this is in effect one form of a policy of containment. Yet Paul tells us the following:

In contemplating a proper stance toward China on the human rights issue, the implication here might be that we are not called to disassociate over issues of human rights abuses, as the perpetrators are “of this world.” The call of Jesus and Paul, rather, is to disassociate with church members acting in ungodly ways. As the Matthew passage is speaking to the issue of conflict among believers, in a certain sense it does not apply to the issue of dealing with China, because it is not a matter of the church—neither the Chinese nor American governments can be seen as analogous to church members.

Still, the passage suggests principles that are godly and useful as long as they do not violate the spirit in which they were intended. Thus, in dealing with human rights abuses by the Chinese government, in the spirit of Jesus’ teaching above, Christians ought to advocate that their government first take the issue quietly to the members of the Chinese government who seem most directly responsible, telling them that their superiors will be notified if they do not improve their own record. If that fails to work, in the spirit of the Scriptures, U.S. officials could then contact the highest officials in China, and as a group confront the perpetrators. If this too fails, the Christian could recommend a U.S. policy that takes the issue to the United Nations—either the Security Council or the Commission on Human Rights, depending on the nature of the violation. If this fails, however, the principles of conflict resolution derived from Matthew reach their limit. To cut off ties completely with an offending state is at odds with the Pauline message that one would have to leave the world to escape the ungodly, and would lead to a monasticism which controverts Jesus’ call to be in but not of the world. If the U.S. has unsuccessfully tried suasion to stop members of the Chinese government from abusing their citizens, we cannot then kick the Chinese leaders out of world society or cut off all ties to them, as a church might shun a church member. There are at least two biblical reasons for this; first, Paul and Jesus are talking about church discipline, not international policy; second, while Scripture recognizes the authority vested in the church to make such judgments, there is no corresponding earthly authority in international affairs—not even in the UN, as sovereignty remains the domain of the States.

The second exhortation in “speak the truth in love,” besides speaking the truth, is to do so in love. What does this mean in the context of international relations and human rights diplomacy? Violence and aggression are not options for followers of the Prince of Peace, except perhaps in the case of a defensive commitment or sanctions, and then only in accordance with the UN Charter and the Christian just-war tradition.¹⁰² Sanctions, or the threat thereof, are a form of aggression, and as such are justified only in rather extreme circumstances. Verbal threats or aggressive or offensive language are a kind of verbal violence or aggression as well, and are not a Godly response to the problems discussed in this paper, nor will they help build bridges of greater understanding or help in resolving these difficult issues. Moreover, “speaking the truth in love“ means doing so with respect, with humility, and with genuine concern not only for those who have suffered, but with love for those who have caused the suffering. This is consistent with the biblical insight that “the struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

The policy of engagement as a means of encouraging change in people is consistent with the example of Jesus Christ. Jesus engaged with prostitutes, tax collectors and other “sinners,” showing them respect, acknowledging their basic dignity, and interacting with them on their own level. He did so, I believe, because he loved them, because he knew that they did not know a better way, because he believed that modeling a better way in his interaction with them would allow them to see the better way, and because he believed that he could not coerce a change in them. God has given individuals “sovereignty” over their choices, just as states have sovereignty in international law today. Though a purely consequentialist argument is insufficient, such considerations are still important, for Jesus knew that he could not force individuals to believe in him, to accept the gift of life he offered. He might have even considered such imposition unjust, for the Father himself gave humanity a radical freedom in the Garden of Eden millennia ago out of his love for his creation. In the sense that Jesus did not force himself on individuals despite the justice and good in what he had to share with them, the international community cannot force universal human rights or democracy on sovereign states, despite the justice and good in such concepts.

One might respond by saying, “That’s fine for personal morality, but if a person decides to kill or rob another ‘sovereign’ individual, the state intervenes to stop them or to punish them for this transgression. That is the standard God has set for states too. Why should they be allowed to commit crimes with abandon, whether it be against their own people or against other countries’ people? Sharing the gospel cannot be compared to enforcing the law—one cannot renounce sentencing, force or detention in the hope that one might simply persuade murders not to murder.” When a state commits a crime outside of its own borders, the above point holds true given the international accountability present in today’s international order. When a state commits a crime against its own citizens, however, it is different, because the powers of law enforcement lie in the hands of legitimate governments that rule over internationally-recognized territories (with the exceptions of the provisions of authority vested in the UN by the UN Charter). While this can create a moral quandary, as it has in Rwanda and Kosovo, there is technically no higher power, such as a world government, that has judicial authority over sovereign states in such matters. What we have presently is a system of sovereign states that are signatories to the Charter of the United Nations, and according to that world body, sovereignty remains in the hands of those states for “matters that are essentially within the[ir] domestic jurisdiction.” This is a legitimate standard that has been recognized by the signatories of the UN Charter. It might also be legitimately amended by the UN and its members as international consensus builds to define sovereignty as being deferred under conditions of genocide, ethnic cleansing or general state collapse. Yet only the UN and its member-states can decide this, and it must be done according to the standards the UN and its members have themselves set.

The authority vested in the UN by its member-states should be seen by Christians as falling under the command to respect authority found in Romans 13. A rogue state that invades its neighbor, as Iraq did in Kuwait, should be held accountable by the international community via the UN, as happened in that situation. Yet the UN and its member-nations have not established the precedent that it is conscionable for individual nations or groups of nations such as NATO to take the law into their own hands and intervene in the domestic affairs of another sovereign state without that state’s approval, and especially without the approval of the UN.¹⁰³ Doing so threatens to shake the foundations of the UN itself, challenging its legitimacy and authority, which would be a blow to world peace considering all that the UN contributes to international conflict resolution. Given the authority that I believe God has allowed to be vested in the UN, what NATO did in Kosovo, and what the U.S. would do to China by revoking MFN/NTR status unilaterally, controverts the authority that the international community has vested in the UN.¹⁰⁴ This is particularly true of NATO and the U.S. because these countries were moving forces in the establishment of international law and the UN. By failing to recognize and heed the authority of UN in the areas of its jurisdiction, they also fail to submit to the authority that God has vested in the UN. This is a transgression according to Romans 13, which supports the view that that God has established the UN and its authority in international law.

In the absence of the authority to impose international standards on China, aside from working to address the human rights problems there through the channels the United Nations has provided, it seems that the U.S. might learn from Jesus as he appealed to the unbelieving. In dealing with those who lived lives differently than he thought just, Jesus did not listen to those who told him he would be better off not having dealings with such people. He spoke the truth to them in love, serving them while at the same time opening himself up to them and drawing close to them. If Jesus had only preached to such people from a distance, or had he used deprecatory language in renouncing their behavior,¹⁰⁵ the changes in them he desired would have been less likely. Either they might never have had the chance for a close look at “the Way” he was talking about, or they would have rejected him for seeming insincere or for treating them with a patronizing paternalism. No, Jesus loved them, and they loved him, and in this way he got close to them and they were changed because of it. While the supernatural element might not be a part of the process of human rights dialogue between the U.S. and China as it was in these encounters (or maybe it is), the example the Lord set seems worthy of our emulation.

Another lesson can be learned from Jesus’ engagement with the suffering. He reached out to the poor, the weak, and the oppressed in the Roman colony in which he lived. Perhaps our government could make greater efforts to minister to the needs of those who suffer in China as a proof of our real concern for the Chinese. Perhaps funds could be directed toward helping victims of floods in China, toward helping those displaced by the Three Gorges Dam project, toward helping with development in Tibet or Xinjiang where repression is a greater problem, toward working with the government directly in helping with the rural election process or in helping the government-approved democracy parties in some way. These are just a few possible suggestions.

In accord with the idea of speaking the truth in love and the need for engagement, the Christian concept of “witness” can play a part in changing hearts, and it too is a biblical principle that can be applied to American human rights diplomacy and China. The principles involved in trying to encourage a “non-believer” in human rights to become a believer in (and a practitioner of) human rights are similar to a Christian believer trying to encourage a non-believer to accept Christ.¹⁰⁶ Both scenarios deal with methods of persuasion, of presenting a good case.¹⁰⁷

The concept of “witness” is a biblical principle found in both the Old and New Testaments. In Acts 1:8, Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We find a similar passage in Isaiah 43:10. “You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.” What do such passages mean by witness? Commonly, a witness is someone who has seen something and on the basis of this experience has some authority in telling another. We cannot be witnesses if we have not seen or experienced the phenomena in question. This is true of Christians who believe Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father and to salvation, and desire to tell others of the joy they have found in that knowledge. To be an effective witness implies the idea of practicing what one preaches; to be believable one must be credible. As a Christian witness one must know God and his eternal love and one must live it out to some tangible degree to be credible. If one’s testimony is that God is love and that God’s love has changed one’s life, why should non-believers take this testimony seriously if they see the testifier consistently engaging in non-Christ-like behavior and displaying none of God’s love in his or her daily walk? In such a case one’s witness as a Christian would not be very credible, and the testimony would not carry much authority. Yet if one’s life overflowed with God’s love, and one’s words and actions were in unison, such a witness would be credible and the testimony would have authority.

In this case the U.S. government can learn something from the persuasive techniques of evangelical Christians, just as early Russian communists learned how to spread their revolutionary “gospel” from missionaries. Whether the subject is a Christian trying to persuade a non-Christian to believe in Jesus, or a representative of the U.S. government trying to persuade a representative from the Chinese government that human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are worth recognizing and protecting, the same principles of persuasion hold true. These are:

In American foreign policy toward China as regards human rights, there is definitely room for improvement in implementing these principles of “conversion,” as shown by the following brief evaluation of U.S. witness corresponding to the principles listed above.

In sum, if American policymakers dealing with China and human rights issues saw their task as “witnesses” to and participants in human rights, rather than judges of other nations’ human rights situations, American policy would meet with greater success.¹¹¹

While China’s human rights situation under Deng Xiaoping was deplorable, it must be remembered, as Andrew Nathan notes, that it was “an undoubted improvement over Mao’s.”¹¹² Despite the fact that China’s human rights situation has deteriorated since delinkage in 1994, and despite the truth in the statement that for Christians in China “this is the most repressive period since the pre-Deng period of the late 1970’s,”¹¹³ the statements of doomsayers, and their inferences that human rights in China will only deteriorate, must be held in the light of Nathan’s statement. China normalized its relations with Western nations in 1972 and opened its national “door” in 1978-9, and since then phenomenal changes have taken place. A “peaceful evolution” has indeed been taking place in China, and is likely to continue doing so. There is no turning back to Maoism for China. The point was made well by Edwin J. Feulner not long ago in the Washington Times as he addressed Sino-American relations and the MFN question:

We seem to have forgotten this as we deal with China. As noted above, we Americans tend to be impatient. Our impatience in dealing with China could cost us a lot more than a few dollars in lost sales. In one of the final scenes of the Hollywood classic, “Patton,” General Patton is speaking on the telephone with one of his superior officers about his orders to treat his new allies, the Soviets, with cordiality and respect. When his superior tells him to relax, that the war is over, Patton responds, “Well, the war shouldn’t be over. We should stop pussy-footing about the ... Russians. We’re going to have to fight them sooner or later anyway. Why not do it now, when we’ve got the army here to do it with?” Despite such words and the warnings of the doomsayers of that day, we all know that the Cold War ended not with the sound of artillery or with the drone of B-52’s, but with the sound of hammer blows and falling bricks at the Berlin Wall, the popping of champagne bottle corks, and thousands of cheering voices. Why are so many China-watchers sure that the doomsayers, some of whom are saying war between the U.S. and China is inevitable, are correct now?

China is going to be a superpower. It is not up to the United States to decide whether or not it can be. Being the world’s strongest nation might require the United States, along with the international community, to hold the Chinese government accountable to international standards from time to time, as was the case when Americans stood alongside a host of other nations against Iraq during the Gulf War. Should China prove to be an aggressor in that sense, let the U.S. and the international community stand up to them as they did to Saddam Hussein. But let us not assume China is another Iraq without solid reasons for doing so. At present, there are none.

China, like the United States, is a sovereign state, and they, like Americans, have dreams and aspirations. If Americans truly believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they must recognize that the Chinese are certainly endowed by the creator to have the same rights as God has granted Americans, which include the rights of self-rule and sovereign statehood. Despite all the problems in China today, the people value this more than they value what they consider the abstract concept of human rights at present.

As Americans and Christians, we should try to influence the Chinese government to move toward full implementation of human rights, because we believe that our creator himself values such rights. Yet Americans cannot run China’s government, nor can we choose China’s form of government for it. Our role should be to provide a “human rights witness” so that the Chinese people will see it, desire it, and press their leaders for it, and so that their leaders too will see it in our government’s actions, noting its contributions to justice, efficiency and long-term stability. The policy of providing a “human rights witness” in the context of engagement seems the most effective U.S. human rights policy toward China, as well as the most consistent with biblical principles of both justice and love in an imperfect world of sovereign nation-states.

[1] As quoted in James D Seymour, “Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations,” ed. Samuel S. Kim, China and the World: Chinese Foreign Relations in the Post-Cold War Era, (Boulder: Westview, 1994): 202. Seymour notes, “These remarks (the authenticity of which remains to be certified) are attributed to Deng in Wang Renzhi, “CPC Takes Offense on HR Issue: CPC Central Committee Document,” Dangdai (Hong Kong), 15 July 1992, pp. 39-41, translated in U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: China, 22 July 1992, p. 16. Return to monograph

[2] See The Coming Conflict with China, by Richard Bernstein (former Time Beijing and UN bureau chief and present New York Times book critic) and Ross H Munro (former Time Hong Kong and Bangkok bureau chief, Toronto Globe and Mail Beijing bureau chief, and present Foreign Policy Research Institute-Asia Program Director) (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). See also Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 1993), and his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Return to monograph

[3] No one knows if China could sustain such changes without the outbreak of “luan,” or chaos, since Chinese society is not built on a foundation of the rule of law (which allows regime transition), but on the rule variously or simultaneously of personality, Party mystique, and force I believe the leadership genuinely fears “luan,” and they play up this fear to the public—often sucessfully—when they stress the need for order above all, which was the case in the aftermath of June 4, 1989. Return to monograph

[4] One could make a good argument that the CCP did represent the will of the people in the early years of its rule, however; and as will be discussed more below, local elections are becoming increasingly common in China Return to monograph

[5] There are 58 million Chinese Communist Party members Matt Forney, “Private Party,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 Oct. 1997, p. 20. Return to monograph

[6] This is the idea that nations with democratic forms of government do not fight each other (though they might go to war against non-democratic states) The empirical evidence seems to support the theory. For advocacy of the democratic peace theory, see Michael W. Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 12, no. 4 (Fall 1983); Carol Ember, Melvin Ember, and Bruce Russett, “Peace Between Participatory Polities,” World Politics 44 (July 1992): 573-97; and John M. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 867-125. For arguments against democratic peace theory, see Christopher Lyne, “Kant or Can’t: The Myth of Democratic Peace,” International Security, 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 5-49. Return to monograph

[7] Because of what happened in June, 1989, the government does not have the luxury of being so largely unaccountable to its people, for the demonstrations garnered a lot of popular support Return to monograph

[8] While this is more and more difficult to do given the popularity of the internet and the growth of non- approved publishing houses, the way the media handled the May, 1999, bombing of China’s Belgrade embassy shows that the media is still a force to be reckoned with The event was portrayed as a deliberate attack on Chinese territory by an aggressor, with no practical reporting of U.S./NATO statements that the bombing was an accident or that the U.S./NATO had expressed regret. Nor was there any real coverage of the plight of the Kosovar Albanians or the brutality of the Serbs during NATO’s Yugoslav campaign. What was emphasized in the media was the plight of the Serbs and the effect of the NATO bombing on them. The purpose of the particular portrayal was to whip up anti-U.S. feelings and pro-China nationalism. The Chinese government is aware of its own ethnic problems in Xinjiang, Tibet and elsewhere, and the media’s stance here did much to ensure popular support if the government has to suppress its own minorities in the near future. While most people in China recognize that the media is the tool of the government, they likely do not see to what extent it influences them. Return to monograph

[9] I do not mean to sound as if I am jumping onto the “China threat” bandwagon I do not think the scenario I have spelled out here is likely, but such possibilities haunt those responsible for U.S. security. Return to monograph

[10] We are talking primarily about Protestant Christianity here See Ron Sider, One-Sided Christianity? Uniting the Church to Heal a Lost and Broken World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), p. 25. Return to monograph

[11] For an excellent elaboration of the historical views of human rights in the liberal Protestant, conservative Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions, see Robert Traer, Faith in Human Rights: Support in Religious Traditions for a Global Struggle (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991) Return to monograph

[12] Ibid, 21. Return to monograph

[13] Traer breaks liberal mainline Protestants down into Anglicans/Episcopals, Methodists, most Lutherans and Presbyterians, and most developing-world and African-American Protestants (though theologically, most African-American churches have more in common with conservative Protestant churches), among others He defines conservative Protestants as Baptists, some Lutherans, and Presbyterians, Pentecostals and Charismatics, and the Reformed churches. I would add that churches within the Anabaptist tradition have split the difference, being theologically conservative and evangelical, but active in issues of human rights, the poor, etc. Return to monograph

[14] See, for example, Matthew 25:31-46 or Esther 4:12-4 Return to monograph

[15] See also Isaiah 58 All Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise specified. Return to monograph

[16] Moreover, in Mathew 25, Jesus reminds us in no uncertain terms that “works” are a vital part of our role as his followers Return to monograph

[17] The case could be made that the state or the leader of the state was “god” in the US.SR under Stalin, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea under Kim Il Sung, and so on. In these cases, individuals were called to sacrifice their all for the state. Return to monograph

[18] I refer here to the UN Covenant on Political and Rights and the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights The U.S. has signed the former, but not the latter. Return to monograph

[19] George Weigel, “Why Cable TV is not a Human Right,” Christianity Today, special issue on human rights, 20 July 1992, p 33. Return to monograph

[20] Richard Mouw, “Is Religious Liberty a Human Right?” Christianity Today, special issue on human rights, 20 July 1992, p 37. Return to monograph

[21] This means that Christians must respect the rights of all others to seek their own truth or religion as well 2 Corinthians 4:2-6 supports thi Return to monograph

[22] As per tradition, I draw the notion of natural law from Romans 2:15 This idea is developed at greater length in a 1996 unpublished paper entitled, “A Christian View of Human Rights,” which I can make available to the reader upon request. A strongly recommend source for these ideas is J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997). Return to monograph

[23] Helmut Frenz, “Human Rights: a Christian Viewpoint,” Christianity in Crisis, 21 June 1976, p 146. Return to monograph

[24] Ann Kent, “China and the International Human Rights Regime: A Case Study of Multilateral Monitoring, 1989-94,” Human Rights Quarterly, 17, no 1 (February 1995): 8. Return to monograph

[25] James Seymour, “Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations,” in China and the World: Chinese Foreign Relations in the Post-Cold War Era, ed Samuel S. Kim (Boulder: Westview, 1994), p. 208-9. Return to monograph

[26] Amnesty International Report 1997, Amnesty International Publications (London, 1997), pp 118-121. Return to monograph

[27] There is of course the orthodox Marxist version also, that conceptions of human rights are a function of the mode of production in which a society finds itself For Marx, these modes of production were, the primitive communal (hunter-gatherer) stage, the ancient (slave-based) stage, the feudal stage, the capitalist stage, and the communist stage. Therefore, feudalism would have one kind of value system and notion of human rights, capitalism another, and communism another. Though the Soviets and the Chinese used to run this argument, very few people do anymore, so it is not included here. Return to monograph

[28] For a good elaboration on China’s various stands on human rights, see Michael Sullivan, “Developmentalism and China’s Human Rights Policy: Should June Fourth Be Forgotten?” Paper presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies (Washington, DC, April 6-9, 1995) Return to monograph

[29] D Seymour, “Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations,”in China and the World, ed. Samuel S. Kim. Return to monograph

[30] Peter Van Ness, “Addressing the Human Rights Issue in Sino-American Relations,” Journal of International Affairs 49, no 2 (Winter, 1996): 309-32 [emphasis in original] Return to monograph

[31] For those believing human rights are indeed universal in time and space, there is obviously no case that could be said to be an exception Yet if there were, China might be the best candidate for a relativist argument. Among today’s still-extant cultures, China’s cultural roots are among the deepest, going back some 5000 years; such cultural longevity denotes some degree of resilience or resistance to outside influences. During the times of European colonialism, vast tracts of China were untouched and thereby uninfluenced by the West, and beginning in the 1950s, until the early 1980s, China remained largely closed to the outside world. It has only been in the past few decades that Chinese citizens have been exposed en masse to the forces of modernity (beginning with the sweeping anti-feudalism of communization) and Westernism (beginning really only in the 1980s and 1990s with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping), forces that have been the catalysts moving the cultures of other people groups to evolve or change. For this reason, Chinese culture might be said to be more of a “pure form,” i.e. less adulterated by Westernism, than that of other people groups, and the argument for cultural exceptionalism or relativism might be more easily made. Return to monograph

[32] The Chinese government said, however, that this was subject to the approval of the People’s Consultative Congress, and as far as I know, the signing has yet to be officially approved The Chinese have also signed the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Return to monograph

[33] For an example of such a view of China, note the words of Representative Pete Stark, D-Calif, as quoted in Jim Abrams, “House Backs Normal Trade with China; Approval Overcomes Charges of Spying, Government Abuse,” Associated Press and The Record (Bergen County, NJ), 28 July 1999, p. A15: “This is just a matter of will Americans do business with murderers, with torturers, with child molesters, with people who are being led by leaders who have no spark of humanity.” Return to monograph

[34] Note this excerpt from Abrams, “House Backs Normal Trade with China”: “The ‘gangster-like rulers’ in Beijing are building up huge trade surpluses with the United States while aiming missiles at US. cities, said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. The Chinese are committed to destroying capitalism: ‘Read that: the United States of America is who they want to destroy,’ Rohrabacher said.” Return to monograph

[35] Senator Paul Wellstone, D-Minn, is an advocate of such an approach, lamenting the delinkage between human rights and trade in U.S. policy towards China. “I am dismayed that momentum toward W.T.O. membership for China builds as if the human rights situation there is irrelevant. A return to a formal link between trade and human rights policy is not in the cards under this President. But we should insure that the Chinese understand that commercial concerns alone will not determine our policy.” Paul Wellstone, “Get Tough with China,” New York Times, 5 April 1999, p. A21. Return to monograph

[36] The article also appears in Kennan, “America and the Russian Future,” American Diplomacy (New York: Mentor and the University of Chicago, 1951): 121-44 Return to monograph

[37] On Mao’s revolutionary foreign policy, see Peter Van Ness, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking’s Support for Wars of National Liberation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970) Return to monograph

[38] If it happens to be Taiwan, it would depend on how China handles the issue Certainly, outright unprovoked invasion of the island might call for a policy of containment, illustrating that the leaders of China have preferred force to peaceful means of conflict resolution, which could be an alarming prospect for China’s neighbors, and for U.S. security interests in the region. Return to monograph

[39] Catherine Dalpino, “Changing China on Human Rights,” The Boston Globe, 9 August 1999, p A14. Return to monograph

[40] Jack Donnelly, “Human Rights, Humanitarian Crisis, and Humanitarian Intervention,” International Journal (Autumn 1993): 610, 612 Return to monograph

[41] Ibid, pp. 623, 636. Return to monograph

[42] On this, see the UN Charter, Chapter 7 Return to monograph

[43] Michael J Glennon, “The New Interventionism: the Search for a Just International Law,” Foreign Affairs (May/June, 1999): 2-7. Return to monograph

[44] Donnelly, “Human Rights, Humanitarian Crisis, and Humanitarian Intervention,” pp 639-40. Return to monograph

[45] Here again the UN has set the precedent that interventions should have the consent of the government on whose territory the intervention should take place, unless the situation is such that there is no real government or the atrocities bring an international consensus on intervention approved by the Security Council The success of an intervention becomes problematic when the majority of the people in the land oppose the presence of the invading international forces ostensibly there to protect human rights. Return to monograph

[46] The multinational intervention in East Timor is a good example, for it has the approval of both the UN and of Indonesian President Habibi Return to monograph

[47] Richard Bernstein and Ross H Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997): 97. Return to monograph

[48] For a taste of the discussion from the perspective of businesses in one Midwestern American city, see Mike Boyer, “China: Favored Nation? Cincinnati Firms Want Trade Renewal,” The Cincinnati Enquirer 15 June 1999, p B10. Return to monograph

[49] Though I strongly disagree with their pessimism and sensationalism, Bernstein and Munro effectively document the present and potential difficulties in Sino-American relations in their book, The Coming Conflict with China Return to monograph

[50] As quoted in Diane Knippers, “How to Pressure China,” Christianity Today, 14 July 1997, p 13. Return to monograph

[51] David Shambaugh’s analysis of Chinese perceptions of the US. supports this, as has my own experience living in China for four and a half years. See Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972-1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991): 226, 256. Return to monograph

[52] Read the 13th century works of Marco Polo on this Return to monograph

[53] Human Rights Watch World Report 1995 (NY: Human Rights Watch, Dec 1994): 146. Return to monograph

[54] Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1997), p 80. Return to monograph

[55] I have seen no studies that are able to prove that this was the case, and I doubt it possible to prove in any case Return to monograph

[56] Remember that the mainland Chinese were concerned enough about the outcome of the Taiwanese elections to fire missiles off its coast Also, Lee Teng-hui is native Taiwanese, ethnically. Return to monograph

[57] This is one of the disadvantages of unilateral channels, pointing to the advantages of multilateral channels of pressure, as I will argue below Return to monograph

[58] These statements are based on my own observations of the Chinese reaction to the bombings I was in Beijing at the time. Return to monograph

[59] Sadly Deng never followed his own wisdom when he said, “We must strengthen our legal system Democracy has to be institutionalized and written into law, so as to make sure that institutions and laws do not change whenever the leadership changes, or whenever the leaders change their views.” See Ruan, Ming, Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994): 251. Return to monograph

[60] In actuality, the battle for political reform had already been lost in 1987, when Hu Yaobang was ousted from his position of Party general secretary, for “allowing” the 1986-87 student democracy demonstrations to spread It was his death on April 15, 1989, that sparked the demonstrations at Tian’anmen Square, as students gathered there to honor him, lament his loss, and protest the Party’s turning from the political reform he had advocated. Return to monograph

[61] The PLA is the “Red Army” of China, the army of the Communist Party, now the PRC’s army Return to monograph

[62] For a taste of this line of thought, see Joseph Fewsmith’s book review (or the book itself if you can find it) of Looking at China Through a Third Eye [Luo yi ning ge er, Disanzhi yanjing kan Zhongguo] (Taiyuan: Shanxi Publishing House, 1994), which appeared in The Journal of Contemporary China, no 7 (Fall 1994): 100- 04. Supposedly written by a German scholar named Leninger and then translated into Chinese, there seems little doubt that it was written by a Chinese scholar. It reportedly received favorable comments from Jiang Zemin. For further elaboration on the various views in China of U.S. foreign policy, see Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972-1990. Return to monograph

[63] The joint US./UK bombing of Iraq in December, 1997, was also viewed very critically in China and plays into the hands of the more conservative elements in the government. There at the time, I found near unanimity among Chinese scholars and common people regarding their opposition to the U.S./UK action, and increasing worry that this could be further proof of what they see as America’s lack of accountability and its tendency toward unilateral military action in the post-bipolar world. Return to monograph

[64] It is my impression that all of the Dalai Lama’s PR campaigns and travels, as much as they have been a success in winning the support of the Western world, have done little to alleviate the plight of Buddhists in Tibet Return to monograph

[65] China Service Coordinating Office, “Mission Agencies View MFN Pressure as Counter-Productive” (Wheaton, IL), 27 March 1997, p 2. Return to monograph

[66] “Face” here is meant in the sense of the English concept of “losing face,” which is to say that “face” means one’s reputation, one’s honor It is a very important concept in East Asian cultures, one to which great attention is paid, and for the protection of which almost no effort is spared. Return to monograph

[67] Here the CSCO is referring to the recent efforts of American Christians to pressure Congress to revoke China’s MFN status to help fellow Christians in China Return to monograph

[68] CSCO, “Mission Agencies View MFN Pressure as Counter-Productive,” p 1. Return to monograph

[69] Ibid Return to monograph

[70] Quoted in Steven Erlanger, “Clinton to Tweak China Over Hong Kong,” The New York Times, 15 April 1997, p A3. Return to monograph

[71] The editors of TIME magazine, Massacre in Beijing: China’s Struggle for Democracy (NY: Time/Warner Books, 1989): 177 Return to monograph

[72] The modernization theory is basically a school of thought popularized after WW2 that assumes that to modernize, a developing country needs political and economic liberalization a la the Western democracies For a more detailed analysis, see Donald H. Chilcote, Theories of Comparative Politics, 2nd Edition (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994): 222-226. Return to monograph

[73] Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) Return to monograph

[74] Bernstein and Munro, The Coming Conflict with China, 61-2; Barrington Moore, Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). Bernstein and Munro document the similarities between today’s corporatist/semi-authoritarian China, and the fascism of Mussolini’s Italy or Franco’s Spain in the 1930’s. Although interesting and worth noting, there is no reason to expect China to follow Nazi Germany’s path, for there are too many dissimilarities. Return to monograph

[75] On this, see Edward Friedman, Democratization: Generalizing the East Asian Experience (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994) Return to monograph

[76] As quoted in an interview in Liang, Chao, “Election Process Still Improving, US. Visitors Say,” China Daily, 12 March 1998, p. 3, China’s daily, official English-language newspaper. Return to monograph

[77] Liang, Chao, “China, US. Agree on Grass-Roots Election Data Bank,” China Daily, 16 March 1998, p. 3. Return to monograph

[78] Tan, Qingshan, “Village Elections Democratic,” China Daily, 22 June 1998, p 8. Return to monograph

[79] He, Sheng, “Local Elections Take Democracy to Countryside,” China Daily, 22 June 1998, p 9. Return to monograph

[80] I assume that despite the existence of a number of government-approved democratic parties, they are under government oversight, which is to say they cannot pose a real challenge to the Party at this time Return to monograph

[81] As taken from the Internet via the American-based Association for Chinese Political Studies (acps1@paclpspa.niu.edu), as reported in Kathy Chen, “Jiang Zemin Orders Research on Democracy,” The Wall Street Journal, 23 July 1998. Return to monograph

[82] This is according to a July 11, 1998, compilation from the internet via the Association for Chinese Political Studies (acps1@paclpspa.niu.edu), as reported by Zhanglin Lin. Return to monograph

[83] Liu, Ji, “Democratic Reforms Must Proceed in Steps,” China Daily, 15 December 1998, p 4. The article originally appeared in Chinese in the Xinhua Digest. Return to monograph

[84] This bit is interesting because it suggests that perhaps the “Peoples’ Democratic Dictatorship” (Marxist lingo for CCP rule) isn’t so democratic after all, a change from the rhetoric of yore Return to monograph

[85] Ruan, Ming, Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994): 241 Return to monograph

[86] Ibid, p. 247. Return to monograph

[87] Even Sino-American relational pessimists Bernstein and Munro argue that MFN linkage to human rights was a bad idea from the beginning, and should be handled strictly in terms of trade issues The Coming Conflict with China, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997): 210. Return to monograph

[88] I am by no means implying moral equivalence here, only that MFN is a trade issue, and should be treated as such, exchanging tit for tat in trade disputes, with the exception of a very extreme case of human rights violations, such as genocide, or as a matter of participating in UN-brokered multilateral economic sanctions Return to monograph

[89] See Representative John E Porter, Republican from Illinois, “Why I Changed My Mind on MFN,” Wall Street Journal, 24 June 1997, p. A22. While in China I noticed that a lot of my younger Chinese friends listened regularly to VOA in English because this helps them as they study English. This suggests that there is a substantial audience for these programs, for many are studying English. Return to monograph

[90] Delinkage is not just a Clinton policy George Bush opposed MFN linkage to human rights when Congress introduced it as well. Return to monograph

[91] NGOs have dubbed the Sub-Commission “the best hope for a non-selective application of human rights standards” Joint Statement by Non-Governmental Organizations to the sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 45th Sess., 26 August 1993, as quoted in Ann Kent, “China and the International Human Rights Regime: A Case Study of Multilateral Monitoring, 1989-1994,” Human Rights Quarterly, 17, no. 1 (February 1995): 5. Return to monograph

[92] In addition, despite the high incidence of official corruption, China’s crime rates, murder rates, rates of drug abuse, and other social indicators are much lower than those of the US.. Return to monograph

[93] I noted earlier the failures of the Dalai Lama in his public relations campaign, and the pressures the Western press put on the very people it wanted to help by its revelations on orphanages in China This kind of dilemma could arise here too as the Chinese government might seek to “punish” the U.S. or its representatives for bringing up motions of condemnation at UN meetings. The reason this kind of condemnation is more effective is that China does not recognize the Dalai Lama, nor does it accept the criticisms of the Western press, as both are considered “anti-China” and bent on splitting or destabilizing the country. Such accusations are harder to pin on the UN, for the Chinese recognize it and its organs. Return to monograph

[94] Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist, Return to monograph

[95] Ann Kent, “China and the International Human Rights Regime: A Case Study of Multilateral Monitoring, 1989-1994,” Human Rights Quarterly 17, no 1 (February 1995): 3. Return to monograph

[96] Ibid, p. 33. Return to monograph

[97] Ibid Return to monograph

[98] Ibid, p. 26. Return to monograph

[99] Ibid, p. 42. Return to monograph

[100] Bob Drogin and Elizabeth Shogren, “US. to Cite China Rights Abuses; Diplomacy: Beijing Vows to Fight UN Resolution, Which Will Outline Repression of Tibet and Political Dissent,” Los Angeles Times, 27 March 1999, p. A-16. Return to monograph

[101] Kent, “China and the International Human Rights Regime Return to monograph

[102] A defensive commitment could include participation in a UN-approved, multilateral force whose mission was to protect refugees or victims of genocide or ethnic cleansing from the offenses of government forces or para-military groups, etc While space limits a discussion about the vices and virtues of Christian pacifism, such as that of John Howard Yoder, and the Christian realist or just-war tradition of the likes of Reinhold Niebuhr, suffice it to say I support a position of “pacifistic Christian realism.” Return to monograph

[103] Again, the action of the UN force in East Timor is instructive, in that the action received both the sanction of the UN Security Council, and of the Indonesian government Return to monograph

[104] Not to mention the rules of the World Trade Organization, of which the US. is a member, which forbid economic sanctions by its members except those sanctions approved by the WTO. Return to monograph

[105] The only people with whom Jesus used rather harsh language were the Pharisees, the people supposed to be of God He never spoke harshly with the people of the world, for as he said on the cross, “They know not what they do.” Return to monograph

[106] I attribute the idea that “witness,” in the evangelical Christian sense, is applicable to human rights to Professor Jack Donnelly of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, who brought up the analogy in conversation one day while we chatted in his office, though he himself is not a Christian Return to monograph

[107] I do not mean to minimize the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit here My analogy is concerned with the human role (“the feet which bring good news”) which might or might not be a part of the process. Return to monograph

[108] Consider the CIA’s role in overthrowing democratically-elected, but leftist, Chilean President Salvador Allende, and bringing about his replacement, no friend to human rights, General Augusto Pinochet Return to monograph

[109] For an example of charges against the US., see the Amnesty International Report 1997 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1997), pp. 326-29. Return to monograph

[110] Vice President Al Gore’s speech at the ASEAN meeting in Malaysia in 1998 is an example He is widely viewed as having lectured regional leaders, Malaysian President Mahatir in particular, on the benefits of human rights and Western-style democratic systems in a way which was seen by those leaders as highly patronizing and paternalistic. Return to monograph

[111] For more on this idea, see Daniel W Wessner, “From Judge to Participant: The United States as Champion of Human Rights,” in Peter Van Ness, ed., Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays from the United States and Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1999): 255-77. Return to monograph

[112] Andrew Nathan, “Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Policy,” Human Rights Quarterly, no 139 (Sept. 1994): 631. Return to monograph

[113] Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out, (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1997): p 80. Note that this is referring to Christian persecution, not human rights more broadly. 1989 was still the worst year for human rights in general. Return to monograph

[114] Edwin J Feulner, “Changing China, But Not by Revoking MFN,” The Washington Times, 14 April 1997, p. 42A. While I agree with his argument, I would prefer to express it in less self-congratulatory language—e.g. referring to the transforming nature of democratic values, rather than “our values,” as it must be stressed that these are universal values, not only Western. I would also say that the desire for change in the examples cited arose in response to exposure to these democratic values, not as something “we gave them.”

R&HR

Religion and Human Rights

HUMAN RIGHTS AND UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD CHINA
FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE