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Louisa Coan
Senior Program Officer for Asia, NED

Jan. 20, 1999

House Committee on International Relations
Hearing on "Human Rights in China"

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify on the topic of human rights in China, and particularly the recent harsh crackdown on dissent in China. I know that this issue is of strong interest to the Committee.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a nonprofit, bipartisan grant-making organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. With its annual Congressional appropriation, the Endowment makes hundreds of grants each year to support prodemocracy groups in every region of the world. Endowment programs in the areas of labor, free-market and political party development are conducted by four core institutes: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). The discretionary grants program assists prodemocracy organizations in other countries doing work in areas such as civic education, independent media and the free flow of information, human rights documentation and education, the rule of law, and conflict resolution.

The National Endowment for Democracy has been providing support to Chinese dissidents since its creation. The Endowment's very first grant, in 1984, was for The Chinese Intellectual, a Chinese-language journal edited in the United States and circulated both inside China and among exiles, students and scholars outside China. No longer in publication, The Chinese Intellectual was an extremely well respected journal because it provided what was at that time a rare forum for the free exchange of ideas concerning political, social and cultural issues in China's tradition and its future. Thanks to technology and the global communications revolution in the past 15 years, many other forums now exist to enable such independent examination of ideas, and to enable exposure of human rights abuses and other concerns that would otherwise be censored and suppressed by China's one-party state.

The widely publicized crackdown and the high-profile trials in December 1998 should not be seen as an unusual development. As the human rights organizations represented at this hearing have documented exhaustively, high levels of repression of political speech, non-state-approved religious worship, and all forms of independent organizing have persisted throughout China's "reform" era, since Deng Xiaoping's ascendency to power in 1978. Several witnesses who have spoken before this Committee and its Subcommittees in the past, like Wei Jingsheng, Liu Qing and Xu Shuiliang, were first jailed for their roles in the "Democracy Wall" movement of the late 1970s.

The most recent series of arrests and the broader crackdown at the end of 1998 have been well publicized. For this, credit should be given to the international media and foreign supporters of freedom in China. But most importantly, the glare of the worldwide spotlight has been turned on because of the efforts of Chinese democracy activists who have gotten the story out, not only about the three prominent leaders whose sentences were announced in the Chinese state-run press, but about dozens of others who also suffered harassment and arrest, and literally hundreds of supporters in China who signed petitions, staged public demonstrations, sent open letters, and went on hunger strikes to call attention to the abuses.

Observers have noted that one reason for the government's determination to end decisively the period of relative freedom in early 1998 dubbed the "Beijing Spring" was the approach of the year 1999, which marks the anniversaries of several political watersheds, including the 50th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and the 10th anniversary of the "Tiananmen Massacre." Dissidents have traditionally chosen significant anniversaries as the occasions to organize demonstrations or mount symbolic protests of government repression. One simple example is the large number of petitions issued each year on June 4, signed by brave individuals inside China, calling for a wide variety of political freedoms and for government action on pressing social concerns, such as corruption.

Other important reasons for government concern about the possibility of dissident activities leading to wider unrest include: growing unemployment due to layoffs in the state-owned sector, a slowdown in the rate of economic growth that will also contribute to more unemployed, and public anger at government corruption.

Apart from all these reasons why the relative loosening of 1998 would not be allowed to continue, it should be noted that the freedom of the so-called "Beijing Spring" was selective and limited, and from its beginning, conditional. That is, rather than lasting institutional changes whose effects can only be seen over the long term, the flowering of intellectual give-and-take in the world of arts and publishing was an effort on the part of the individuals involved, who had no control over when government and party officials would decide to re-impose traditional forms of intimidation and abuse.

These tools of intimidation and repression have been used throughout the 1990s.

While thousands of political prisoners jailed for their participation in the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstrations have since been freed, many hundreds are known to remain in prison. Amnesty International issued a document in June 1998 listing more than 250 people known to be still in prison for their peaceful political activities in 1989.

New, harsher laws and regulations to limit dissent have been passed throughout the 1990s, even while many other aspects of the legislative, legal, and judicial systems have been undergoing positive reform. New regulations defining the crime of endangering "state security" have enabled authorities to use this label, rather than the internationally frowned-upon term of "counter-revolutionary crime," (a patently political designation), to harass and imprison journalists, labor activists, and others. The "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign launched in 1996 was announced as an initiative to answer citizens' legitimate concerns about rising crime through a high-intensity series of high-profile police actions. The "Strike Hard" campaign never officially came to an end, though it faded from the scene in most urban areas. In minority areas, however, it is a different story. Particularly in Xinjiang province, home to the Muslim Uighur nationality, the "Strike Hard" work appears to be going full-tilt, clearly a tool being used to justify harsh measures against political activists, including many well publicized executions of accused pro-independence activists.

In this context of periodic waves of highly visible crackdown on dissent, against a background of unaccountable state power, the Endowment's experience is that it is possible to provide extremely practical, direct support through material and technical assistance. The NED has been able to support strong and influential work by Chinese activists, even while they operate under severe constraints, in the following areas:

1) Human rights documentation

The best known organization of Chinese human rights activists providing a channel for information to the international media, the UN, and governments is the New York-based group Human Rights in China. Through members and contacts in China, Human Rights in China is able to gather and verify information about hundreds of cases each year, which are then documented in Chinese and English. The information is disseminated in press releases (about 2 per week), in-depth reports submitted to UN bodies, its quarterly journal China Rights Forum, and an authoritative website, http://www.hrichina.org/.

The Laogai Research Foundation run by Harry Wu has also brought to the light of international attention several areas of systemic human rights abuse that are most well hidden by secretive government institutions, including widespread use of administrative detention to confine dissidents as well as criminals to back-breaking forced labor in a vast network of labor camps, trafficking in organs from executed criminals, and abuses resulting from China's birth-control program.

The India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy is emerging as an important center for monitoring and reporting on human rights in Tibet. Much more could be done to enable these groups to produce more research, provide training that would enable them to expand their staff, and gain experience in presenting the information to UN bodies charged with monitoring the Chinese government's compliance with its international treaty obligations.

2) Support for the human rights movement inside China

In addition to diplomatic protest and the global media exposure which is sometimes the best protection against further depredations, material support can be provided to activists inside China who are monitoring and reporting on human rights abuse. They are doing the groundwork of getting in touch with family members, collecting the information, and alerting the international media and democratic governments. NED has been able to provide modest amounts over the years through U.S.-based groups, which have sent in humanitarian support for families of political prisoners, small sums for travel and communications, and funds to pay legal costs for prisoners who manage to hire lawyers of their choice.

3) Human rights awareness and education

All three human rights groups listed above have produced materials, in Chinese and Tibetan respectively, intended to enable citizens of the PRC to better understand their rights under international law and even under Chinese law. With China's recent signing of both major UN human rights covenants, this work become even more relevant. The Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor has just created the first database in the world to make available on-line Chinese-language versions of the principal UN human rights covenants, including Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and so on. Various other ways to circulate information on the covenants and to explain specific ideas in them have also been proposed to the NED. Labor rights awareness is a particular focus that NED has been able to support in the past, including practical information for Chinese workers on their rights under existing Chinese law and how to respond to violations.

4) Free flow of information

The English-language media has covered very well the Chinese democrats' spectacular success in using the Internet to break through government censorship. Chinese VIP Reference (Dacankao, Xiaocankao), and China News Digest (Hua Xia Wen Zhai), which also has an English version, are the best-known independent news-service operations. The Press Freedom Guardian newspaper has been published twice a month since 1989, providing uninterrupted coverage of human rights and the democracy movement. This newspaper, too, is now available through the Internet. Tibet Times, a new Tibetan-language newspaper published by an independent group in exile, is another important attempt to foster the growth of an independent and diverse media.

The Internet is also home to journals of opinion and social criticism, like the monthly Democratic China Magazine, which went from printing 6,000 copies per issue to registering 1.7 million hits per month when it switched to on-line publication.

There are also many other areas of work which would benefit from increased support and attention on the part of American institutions, both government and private. Activists have described to us many unfilled needs and additional areas of work that have been unexplored or neglected in the past.

1) The work of human rights activists in China

This area includes support for families of activists who are harassed or jailed, funds for fax machines and other communications costs, legal fees, and the like. While many activists have used all their personal savings, and overseas Chinese and sympathetic friends have donated generously in the past, more support is still needed.

2) Human rights documentation and reporting

In addition to augmenting the resources and skills of existing groups based outside China (in India, the U.S. and Hong Kong), there are enormous gaps that could be filled by specialized projects that would focus on particular problems that are now under-reported through lack of information and networks to collect and analyze that information. Additional areas that would benefit from increased research and attention include minority rights, the situation of certain ethnic populations such as the Uighurs in Xinjiang and Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, women's human rights, religious communities, prison conditions, and pre-trial detention and other procedural practices.

3) Human rights awareness and human rights education

Circulation of a huge variety of materials, from the texts of UN covenants to short "know your rights" materials for general consumption, could further raise rights awareness in China. Materials in non-Chinese languages used by millions of people in China are currently all but non-existent. Human rights activists should be freed up to explore popular forms, including radio, drama or arts-based material. While currently it may be possible to have only marginal impact on formal incorporation of civic education and human rights education into curricula in China, preparation for that work can begin now, both inside and outside the country.

4) Free flow of information

Journalism and news services

Circulation of democratic ideas

Support for high-quality forums for exchange of opinion, whether print or Internet-based

5) Legal studies

All observers agree on the importance of research and training to popularize the attitudes and lay the foundation for the institutions that produce the rule of law. Individuals in China and in exile are working on many practical projects under this large rubric. The list of important areas of work includes analysis of constitutionalism, federalism, due process, professional standards for judges and lawyers, criminology, and many other issues.

6) Practical dialogues on pluralism and the rights of minorities

As in most countries, the struggle to realize human rights and democratic rights for minority populations and ethnic-minority regions is extremely contentious in China, and will remain so throughout any democratization process. In addition to specialized research into human rights abuses, mentioned above, groups of concerned individuals can begin now to build a foundation for dialogue among the groups that will need to negotiate their relations in the future, including Han Chinese and people from Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Taiwan.

7) Professional training in key areas necessary for the functioning of democratic institutions.

Most obviously, these include journalism and law, particularly programs which emphasize the special role that these professionals play in maintaining the values and institutions vital to creating and maintaining a healthy democracy, and the role of professional associations as civil society actors that must be committed to ensuring pluralism, respect for fair play, independence of private associations, and other key values. More American institutions can get involved in this work, and direct support for Chinese and Tibetans interested in this may also be possible, through overseas-based Chinese professional associations or other groups. Programs could range from producing periodicals devoted to these topics to arranging internships with Western watchdog groups created by members of their professions. Even if most of the participants are exiles who are not able to return to China freely, these activities can nonetheless be extremely influential in China, through the circulation of new ideas about how institutions should be run and training of individuals who may in the future return to China to work in these fields.

This list covers only some of the practical work that is possible to do currently and can benefit most from international support of various kinds from a variety of institutions. I would be happy to respond to any questions that the Committee might have, or to provide more information about any of the initiatives mentioned here. Thank you again for the opportunity to present some of our ideas.