[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4872-4873]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                WAR ON TERROR AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, attention is understandably on Iraq this 
week as we move ever closer to a decision on use of military force 
there to disarm the regime of Saddam Hussein. But as we contemplate 
whether such action makes sense in terms of protecting our people from 
the threat of global terrorism, it is important that we not lose sight 
of important developments in other parts of the world.
  Earlier this week, Secretary of State Powell visited Beijing, 
reportedly to seek the support of China's leaders in dealing with Iraq 
and North Korea. This makes sense, since China has the power to veto 
any U.N. resolution on Iraq and is reputed to have influence with Kim 
Jong-Il. Our relations with China have warmed since September 11, as 
its support was deemed important to the success of the ``war on 
terrorism,'' both in Afghanistan and beyond. Unfortunately, China's 
leaders appear to have a very different agenda for this war. As the 
Chinese would say, we are sleeping in the same bed but having different 
dreams.
  Earlier this month, Wang Bingzhang, a Chinese democracy activist who 
has lived most of the past 20 years in New York as a U.S. legal 
permanent resident, was sentenced to life in prison following a secret 
trial on charges of espionage and ``leading a violent terrorist 
organization.'' Chinese authorities had had him in custody, unbeknownst 
to his family, since last July, when he was apparently abducted while 
visiting Vietnam and brought across the border into China. The Chinese 
authorities have presented no public evidence linking Wang to any 
violent activities. Since being exiled to Canada in 1979, however, he 
has advocated peaceful democratic change in China, founding the 
magazine China Spring in New York in 1982 and serving as an adviser to 
the outlawed China Democracy Party. He sneaked across the border into 
China in 1998, when the China Democracy Party was attempting to 
organize and register itself within the boundaries of Chinese law, and 
was detained and deported. The Chinese Communists clearly see him as a 
nuisance, and the ``war on terrorism'' provided a convenient excuse to 
silence him.
  Last month, Chinese authorities executed a former Tibetan monk, 
Lobsang Dhondrup, who was accused of carrying out a series of bombings 
in Sichuan Province. Lobsang was detained near the scene of one of the 
bombings last April. But the only evidence made public against him was 
his confession, which was very likely extracted through torture. He was 
killed immediately after the Intermediate Court for the Ganzi Tibetan 
Prefecture upheld his death sentence. The same day, the Sichuan 
Provincial High Court in Chengdu rejected the appeal of Tenzin Delek 
Ripoche, a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk and social and environmental 
activist, and reaffirmed his suspended death sentence in connection 
with the same case. Chinese authorities have provided no public 
evidence linking Tenzin to the bombings, according to Human Rights 
Watch.
  A third man, Tsereng Dhondrup, was given 5 years for merely 
circulating petitions in defense of Lobsang and Tenzin. Authorities are 
thought to be holding 10 other ethnic Tibetans in connection with the 
bombings but will not release their names or locations.
  Mr. President, I do not dispute for a moment that Chinese authorities 
have the right--indeed the duty--to take firm measures against 
terrorism within their borders, just as we are doing here. The bombings 
in Sichuan, which took innocent life, were without question terrorist 
acts, as were the bombings this week on Beijing university campuses, 
and they should be condemned. The imperative to combat terrorism does 
not absolve any nation, however, of its obligation to respect basic 
human rights, including the right to due process. Whether Lobsang was 
involved in the bombings in Sichuan we may never know. But Assistant 
Secretary of State Lorne Craner has expressed ``deep concern'' as to 
whether Lobsong received a fair trial, according to the Washington 
Post. Neither Lobsang nor Tenzin was allowed to choose his own defense 
attorney. Tenzin was held incommunicado for 8 months, up to the day of 
his trial, and appeal hearings were closed to the public on the grounds 
that ``state secrets'' were involved.
  These cases illustrate a deeply cynical misappropriation of the anti-
terrorist struggle by a repressive regime to suppress legitimate 
dissent, persecute restive minority groups, and literally get away with 
murder. Administration officials maintain that, while seeking China's 
cooperation in combatting international terrorism, they have at the 
same time made clear that China should not interpret that as a license 
to violate basic human rights. But violate them they have, and 
apparently with increasing frequency.
  In the Northeast Chinese Rustbelt city Liaoyang, two labor leaders--
Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang--are awaiting sentencing following their 
January 15 trial for ``inciting the subversion of the political 
authority of the state.'' The prosecution said they conspired to 
``overthrow the socialist system.'' In fact, what they did was organize 
protest marches last spring for workers laid off from a state-owned 
plant that went bankrupt in 2001, owing them several months of back 
wages, as well as pension and other benefits and severance allowances. 
Workers suspected the plant's management had embezzled funds that 
should have been used to pay those benefits. The authorities declared 
the protests illegal and arrested Yao, Xiao, and two other organizers.
  According to labor activists in Hong Kong who have been monitoring 
the case, Yao and Xiao were held for several months without formal 
charges and were denied access to their lawyer on the grounds that the 
case involved ``state secrets.'' The initial indication was that they 
had been arrested for illegal assembly. But when the workers of 
Liaoyang continued to rally behind their leaders and the case attracted 
international attention, Chinese authorities asserted that the men had 
carried out ``destructive activities,'' including car-bombings and 
destroying public property.

[[Page 4873]]

  This was something not even the Liaoyang police and prosecutors had 
alleged. Even the local representative of the official Communist Party 
labor organization called the allegations ``a complete fabrication.'' 
Nonetheless, when formal charges were finally announced against the men 
last month, they were charged not just with illegal assembly but with 
the much more serious offense of subversion. At their four-hour trial 
January 15, the prosecution made no attempt to tie Yao and Xiao to any 
violent activities. Instead, they argued, Yao and Xiao had subverted 
the authority of the Chinese state by attending preparatory meetings of 
the then not-yet-banned China Democracy Party back in 1998 and 
communicating with ``hostile foreign elements,'' such as Agence France 
Presse and the Wall Street Journal.
  Here again, China's rulers have appropriated the language of 
antiterrorism to persecute people who have done nothing more than 
challenge the authority of the Communist Party through peaceful means.
  Meanwhile, throughout China, the brutal suppression of the Falungong 
spiritual movement, which President Jiang Zemin has branded an ``evil 
cult,'' continues. Charles Li, a U.S. citizen Falungong practitioner, 
is about to enter his sixth week of detention in Jiangsu Province, 
where he returned to spend Chinese New Year with his parents. 
Authorities have not charged him, and he has been allowed only one 
half-hour meeting with U.S. consular officials. Initial reports 
indicated he was accused of hijacking television broadcasts to spread 
the banned Falungong message. But his friends and associates maintain 
he was not even in China when those incidents occurred. His actual sin 
appears to be having had the temerity to serve a subpoena on the Mayor 
of Beijing, when he visited San Francisco last year, under the Alien 
Tort Claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act, as was his right as 
a U.S. citizen on U.S. territory under U.S. law.
  Why is it that we are seeing so many egregious violations of basic 
human rights in China in such a short span of time? Could it be that 
the senior leadership in Beijing knows that the world's attention is 
currently focused elsewhere? Could it be they think U.S. criticism of 
their actions will be muted, since the administration needs their 
support, or at least their acquiescence, on Iraq and North Korea? Or 
could it be that President Jiang and his cohorts, who will step down 
next month, want to clear the dockets so that Hu Jintao and the new 
crew can begin with a clean slate? Remember that Jiang rode to power on 
the tide of blood from Tiananmen Square, and he has snuffed out 
anything that even smelled of political reform ever since.
  I hope China's incoming leaders, by virtue of their shared 
generational experience, will adopt a more enlightened view toward 
political modernization than their predecessors did. They are less 
likely to do so if they infer that the rest of the world is not paying 
attention or doesn't care. We must keep the disinfectant of sunlight 
focused on them, and anyone else who would deny people their basic 
freedoms and dignities in the name of ``stability,'' ``security'' or 
the ``war on terror.''
  Thank you, Mr. President.

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