China’s Chief Justice’s Extraordinary Statement: The Most Enormous Ideological Setback for a Professional Judiciary

Here is Flora Sapio’s original blog post about China’s Supreme People’s Court Chief Justice Zhou Qiang’s recent statement, which has provoked some unusual public opposition from China’s law reformers. Several aspects distinguish Zhou Qiang’s new and surprising statement.

It is much more threatening to the judicial cadres than the usual recitation about the importance of following the Party line. It focuses almost exclusively on “morality” and political reliability.  Its reference to heroic historical figures is surely bizarre and suggests that the recent investigation of the Supreme People’s Court by the Central Discipline Inspection Commission must have uncovered judges’ lack of reverence for Chairman Mao as well as their continuing desire for judicial independence from Party interference. This statement is the most enormous ideological setback for decades of halting, uneven progress toward the creation of a professional, impartial judiciary. It has already provoked some of China’s most admirable law reformers and public intellectuals to speak out in defiance, and, despite their prominence, I fear not only for their careers but also for their personal safety. 

I see Zhou’s statement as possibly necessary in order for Zhou Qiang, an enlightened and progressive Party leader,  to have his appointment renewed by the 19th Congress. There is immense dissatisfaction among many judges, especially the younger judges, over Xi Jinping’s restrictive, anti-Western legal values being imposed on them, contrary to their largely-Western-type legal education. This comes at a time when the courts are undergoing reforms designed to reduce the numbers of officials called “judges” by as much as 60% in order to make the remaining judges more of an elite, receiving greater prestige and compensation and a better reputation for competency. Many younger officials are leaving the courts, and the procuracy too, for work in law firms, business and teaching. They do not want to spend their lives applying legal principles opposed to their largely Western-type legal education.

Disappearance of Chinese human rights lawyer: what it means to be placed under “residential surveillance” in China

It’s been reported that (ex) human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, who disappeared on November 21, has been placed under “residential surveillance” (RS) by Chinese police. This sad experience shows how the new provision in the 2012 Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) – Article 73 – regarding RS has been abused by the police and the Party.

Lawyer Jiang Tianyong

My hope, rather vain in the current political climate, is that Jiang’s case will ventilate the problem of “residential surveillance” so thoroughly that it will create pressure for reform, as did Ai Weiwei’s case in 2011. At that time, if the government’s target maintained a residence in the jurisdiction of the police, the police were forbidden by Ministry of Public Security (MPS) rules to detain him in any residence but his own, i.e., to restrict him to genuine house arrest. What the police often did, however, as in Ai’s case, was to detain suspects they deemed undesirable in places designated by the police that were neither suspects’ homes nor regular police detention houses that, whatever their failings, were at least regulated by normal criminal procedures and protections. This was a plain violation of MPS regulations if the suspect maintained a local residence.

As a result of the Ai case and others that resulted in protests, when the CPL was revised in 2012 a specific provision was inserted into the new code authorizing RS “at a designated location”, i.e., in police custody, even in cases where the suspect maintained a local residence, but limiting this new authorization to three circumstances, i.e., cases involving national security, terrorism or serious bribery. As is so often the case, the relevant legislative language is vague, especially the provision that permits police to impose this six-months incommunicado sanction whenever they decide that the suspect may have committed a crime related to “national security”, an exercise of discretion that, unlike their desire to formally “arrest” someone, which must be approved by the procuracy within a 37-day period, the PRC system does not permit any other agency to review. Thus, as in Jiang’s case, all they need to do to inflict RS is assert a suspicion that the case might involve some aspect of national security.

Without even meeting any standard such as “probable cause” to believe the crime was committed by the suspect, the police detained Jiang ostensibly because he might have “incited subversion of State power”. This gives the police six months, without interference from any lawyer, family, friends or media, to subject the suspect to a whole range of pressures and punishments including torture in a highly coercive, sealed-off environment.

At the end of that very long period the police decide, based on the suspect’s degree of “cooperation” as well as other factors, whether the evidence elicited via their techniques warrants criminal prosecution in accordance with prescribed procedures leading to “arrest”, indictment, trial, conviction and sentencing. The final formal charge may indeed claim a violation of “national security” such as “subversion of State power” or merely “incitement” to such subversion. But the charge may turn out to be for a lighter offense the long incommunicado investigation of which would not have been authorized by the RS legislation.

So was the 2012 revision a reform? On the one hand, it prohibits police from giving RS in a “designated location” to a local person suspected of tax irregularities, for example, as Ai Weiwei supposedly was. On the other, it now for the first time authorizes incommunicado RS for local people any time the police choose to investigate conduct they wish to claim might constitute a type of “national security” violation (or a serious bribery or terrorism-related case). The result is that police, and the Party, now enjoy virtually unlimited freedom to arbitrarily detain and punish for six months anyone they think may be a dissident. This needs to be kept in mind when considering the progress made by the formal abolition of the police administrative punishment of “reeducation through labor”.

It should also be pointed out that Party members, who are subject to the feared Party “discipline inspection” procedures of “shuanggui”, which can extend incommunicado detention for longer periods than RS, are not immune from RS either, although it would take unpermitted empirical research to determine how often this type of RS is used against them.

China’s seizure of underwater US drone and implications

China has returned the U.S. underwater drone (“unmanned underwater vehicle” or UUV) that it seized in the South China Sea last week. Plenty has been said about the illegality of China’s seizure, such as Julian Ku’s analysis here and that of James Kraska and Pete Pedrozo here. The PRC’s feeble and vague attempt to justify its action legally and the immediate move to return the drone certainly reflect its awareness of its poor legal position.

Politically China is using this incident to make the broader point of seeking to halt U.S. surveillance closer to China in what is plainly China’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), whether or not the PRC’s minority legal position prohibiting EEZ surveillance is acknowledged. The UUV incident is undoubtedly an effort to remind us of PRC objections to what is really “close in” surveillance.

Obviously, the attitude of the Trump administration will be crucial in determining whether the U.S. and China are headed toward military conflict. The U.S. government should devise plans for a more vigorous effort to negotiate detailed understandings about UUV and other surveillance activities. The PRC is likely to continue its resistance to such efforts unless it decides to follow Russia’s example by belatedly acceding to the majority rule permitting EEZ surveillance. Such a change in principle is unlikely in the foreseeable future because of the immediate importance to the PRC of insulating from American scrutiny the movements of its submarines in the South China Sea and because the tides there seem to be moving in China’s favor at the moment.

There is also the broader and even more dangerous problem America faces of continuing to protect Taiwan’s security as tensions mount in the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan and South China Sea issues are related since they both involve the major question of the extent of the U.S. government’s continuing involvement in East Asia. Will there be any possibility of serious negotiations with Beijing on these matters in the near term? First, the U.S. government will have to prepare a strategy, one that will have the backing of a divided American people long tired of foreign wars but aware of East Asia’s importance to our security, of our accomplishments in the post-WW II era and of our values.

International Human Rights Day

Reports about human rights advocates in China suffering in detention and abuse such as this one on Hada, an Inner Mongolian dissident and this one on rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang certainly inspire feelings of sadness and even hopelessness. Yet the odd thing is that many Chinese human rights lawyers and other advocates continue to enter the fray, even though now fully aware of the potential consequences. Efforts are gradually being made to learn what makes them tick. Infectious Western political ideology? Religion, Eastern or Western? The psychology of martyrdom?

Some even now maintain that the numbers of human rights activists are growing, a claim that is plainly difficult to verify. It all reminds me of the situation in South Korea in the ‘70s under General Park while China was still in Cultural Revolution. The late Kim Dae-jung seemed to be motivated by Jeffersonian democracy, indeed believed that the tree of liberty has to be periodically nourished by the blood of patriots, and was prepared to die for the cause, as he almost did on at least three occasions. He was also a devout Roman Catholic and strongly supported by his highly religious wife. South Korea, well over a decade later, experienced a stressful but largely peaceful revolution, and Dae-jung was liberated, vindicated and empowered.

Prospects for his Chinese heirs seem very gloomy at present. Yet, as we mark International Human Rights Day today, we should admire them, wish them well and hope that the UN Declaration on Human Rights, which was adopted with considerable pre-1949 Chinese input, will soon prevail in China too.

Video of my talk with Scott Savitt about his new book, Crashing the Party, An American Reporter in China

Here’s the video of my talk on November 22 with Scott Savitt about his new book, Crashing the Party, An American Reporter in China, which I highly recommend. Thanks to the China Institute in America for hosting the event and recording it.

Youtube:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zIjeVjcQ0Y

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS9RLF6JRGE

 Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIQn8fi9vbI

Donald Trump's telephone call with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen

China plainly cannot be happy with this direct telephone contact between Taiwan’s President Tsai and President-elect Trump. Of course, Trump is not yet president, so the contact can be regarded as unofficial. Yet it suggests the possibility that the Trump administration may to some extent alter the long-standing policy of the U.S. Government of not maintaining official contact with the Taiwan government.

Photo credit: Reuters, ABC News

Pressures have been building during the Obama era to abandon the strict US policy of not permitting the president and vice president of Taiwan to do more than transit the U.S. Indeed, I have advocated allowing them free access to every place in America except Washington, D.C., especially since the current rule restricts my freedoms of speech, information and association unnecessarily and undesirably. A similar rule has prevented the highest American officials from visiting Taiwan, again an inappropriate restriction, especially when the security of Taiwan will soon become a major issue in Sino-American relations once again.

Of course, administrations often change course in light of events. In April 2001 I recall watching George W. Bush, as part of what appeared to be a pugnacious stance toward China, declare on TV at the outset of his administration that he would do ”whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan. Once 9/11 occurred, his administration moved much closer to the People’s Republic and began to avoid provocative statements.

North Korea policy: how about some imaginative variant thinking?

Here’s a piece by Gordon Chang last week on North Korea, To Disarm North Korea, Wage Trade War On China, advocating waging a trade war with China to make it stop from supporting North Korea.

What about trying a different policy toward North Korea, going to the other extreme from Gordon Chang’s proposal? I refer to a systematic effort to bring the North Korean regime fully into the world community and meet its security needs.  US policies toward Vietnam, China, Burma, Cuba and even Iran have changed remarkably and favorably, with varying degrees of success. North Korea would be the ultimate challenge, and implementation would require enormous patience, imagination, flexibility, public education and expenditure of considerable political capital at home and abroad, especially in Northeast Asia. But no other course seems promising. On and off, I have had a number of contacts with the North since 1971, enough to make me think that such an unlikely suggestion may well be worth considering. 

Human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong has disappeared for nine days after visiting 709 family in Changsha

Photo: China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group

Jiang Tianyong, a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer, was apparently abducted on November 21 after visiting the family of another human rights lawyer who has fallen victim to China’s crackdown starting from July 9 last year (709 crackdown). Jiang’s wife as well as family members of the rights lawyers who have been detained since the crackdown and fellow lawyers have issued a statement demanding the Chinese government to launch an investigation and reveal Jiang’s whereabouts.

Let us hope that Jiang will soon be released. He is a hardy veteran of such intimidations but this time he may be held for much longer than before. The police may have secretly detained him in the guise of “residential surveillance”, which would give them the power to hold him incommunicado for six months if they claim that he falls into one of the three categories of supposedly exceptional circumstances that allow detention apart from the conventional criminal process. Or he may be detained in the guise of the regular criminal process, according to which the police, again because of their very broad interpretation of another narrow legislative exception, allow themselves 30 days to hold a suspect before being required to charge the suspect before the prosecutor’s office or release him. Or, as often happens, the police or their hired thugs may have simply detained Jiang with no legal authority, in effect kidnapping him as they have so many others including one of his early clients, the blind “barefoot lawyer” Chen Guangcheng.

I first met the courageous Jiang in Beijing in 2005 when he and his law partner Li Heping, who has long since been confined as a result of criminal prosecution, were representing Chen, and we all lunched together. Jiang told me at that time how, as a young public school teacher, he had decided to become a lawyer in order to try to improve China’s human rights situation.  Shortly after lunch, Chen was abducted by Shandong police who had come to Beijing without seeking permission of their local counterparts.

For more than a decade since that meeting Jiang himself has had to play “cat and mouse” games with the security police in an effort to avoid the long-term detention that would stop his human rights work. For example, a few weeks after Chen’s abduction I telephoned Jiang to tell him that Chen, in a quick, furtive call to me, had asked that Jiang take the night train from Beijing to Shandong to try to visit Chen. Jiang agreed to try, despite the serious risk that he would be beaten by police thugs who were guarding Chen’s village. An hour later, however, Jiang called me back to report that he had received a call from the local judicial bureau ordering him not to travel to Shandong. The judicial bureau had evidently been contacted by whoever had been listening to my first call with Jiang. As a result, he did not make the trip but did manage to send an assistant, who was indeed abused by the local Shandong thugs.

Similarly, some years later, shortly after arriving in Beijing, I called Jiang to invite him to dinner that night. He said he would have to call me back in half an hour because he needed to ask for permission from the police “minder” stationed outside his law office. When he did call me back, he declined my invitation because the “minder”, whom Jiang evidently knew quite well, said that if Jiang wanted to return to the office the next day he had better not see me that night. Jiang, however, told me that his assistant would be permitted to join me for dinner, as he did, undoubtedly under surveillance.

Yet, despite such commendable caution, police have on some occasions detained and abused Jiang, but not for the long term that he might now confront.

Scott Savitt’s new book, Crashing the Party: An American Reporter in China

Last night I had the privilege of interrogating Scott Savitt about his new book, Crashing the Party: An American Reporter in China, in a 90-minute program at the China Institute’s new residence in New York.

The book is a highly informative, great read about China in the period 1983-2000 when Scott succeeded in immersing himself in Chinese life in various ways starting as a student and ending as a newspaper publisher.

The book begins and ends with a vivid, still relevant description of what it’s like to be detained by the secret police for 30 days in the year 2000, so perhaps I am biased in its favor because of concern for “the rule of law”, but there’s much else in it of interest to a broad audience, and it’s painfully honest.  Scott, whom I had only met occasionally over the years until last night, proved to be a lively and stimulating witness before a good-sized crowd. It’s a shame he has been on China’s black list for so many years but, even without the opportunity to return to China, I’m sure he can write a sequel to this just-published book detailing China’s progress and his many China-related activities since 2000.

For those who will be in the NY area sometime between now and late March, I urge you to make the trek to the China Institute’s new downtown Manhattan location in order to see the really spectacular and quite large exhibition of celadon masterpieces from the Six Dynasties period. This could never have been shown in the Institute’s previous, much smaller space on 65th St. 

Eric Li’s flawed arguments in a recent NYT Op Ed, “How Trump Is Good for China”

Eric Li, who made his name in the US with a TED talk in which he praised China’s political system, published an Op Ed in the New York Times on Monday, “How Trump Is Good for China.”

I do not object, as some have, to the Times publishing his one-sided piece because its Op Ed Page has favored strong “attack” columns since its inception under Harrison Salisbury in the early 1970s, and it’s good to know what a significant body of people in China are said to be thinking.

I liked Li’s idea of trying to find a “silver lining” by turning the vice of Trump’s election into the virtue of improved Sino-American relations, but his arguments are deeply flawed, as many have pointed out. Two aspects especially struck me.

One is his forceful summary of the ailments of American society and politics while totally ignoring the very serious challenges confronting a China that is gradually weakening, not only economically but also politically and socially.

The second aspect is related to the first. He completely ignores Xi Jinping’s increasingly severe suppression of internationally–recognized civil and political rights. Instead, Li seeks to convey the impression that those inside and outside China who protest Xi’s oppression are tools of aggressive American cultural imperialism rather than reflecting widely-shared universal, civilized values. Even the Times op ed editors, despite their preference for controversy, might have questioned these glaring defects.

Death sentence, sense of injustice and public opinion in China

Jia Jinglong, a villager who killed a local official after his house was demolished without proper compensation, was executed on Tuesday. This landmark case has multiple dimensions.

Jia Jinglong

The sense of injustice is spreading in China, and it is always fueled by cases that ordinary Chinese can grasp that violate their basic, widely-shared principles of fairness and humanity. This case blatantly demonstrates the inequality of the system. Another poor villager executed while well-connected murderers are often spared. Killing an official, however cruel or arbitrary his misconduct may have been, usually results in harsher punishment than killing a farmer. But much more is involved in Jia’s case. Housing demolition and its association with corruption and failure to observe prescribed acquisition procedures have sparked huge resentment and popular reactions, of course.

Moreover, there is often a denial of due process – fair criminal procedure – in this instance reportedly by not allowing competent counsel to take part in the defense in a timely manner and by denying defense counsel adequate time to prepare the defense.

In this case another aspect that should have been considered by the courts was the defendant’s mental state. Here, as in some earlier well-known cases, the accused had obviously been brooding for a long time about the unfairness of being deprived of his home without adequate compensation and, consequently, losing his anticipated marriage. Had this aspect been investigated by the court and psychiatric experts, as Chinese law makes possible, it might well have resulted in a diminished sentence. But Chinese courts are reluctant to inquire into the defendant’s mental condition if the victim was an important local official or a police officer..

There is also the broader question of the courts and public opinion. There have been many examples of bloodthirsty public opinion causing lenient courts to reverse their verdicts and there have been many cases of sympathetic public opinion successfully pressing courts to reduce harsh sentences. Sometimes the Party mobilizes the media in a preferred direction or at least allows a mass sentiment to develop. Chinese judges have sometimes discussed with foreign specialists the sentencing dilemmas confronting them and asked for advice and information about how other countries, including the U.S., deal with the problem.

This case may also add to the pressure in China for finding some effective way to allow ordinary people to have a say in the administration of justice. This problem has been important throughout East Asia - in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, each of which has resorted to different solutions. In China’s Henan Province, the High Court at one point claimed it was introducing an American-style jury system, but that, of course, turned out to be misleading. China’s “people’s assessors” system, imported from the USSR in the ‘50s, has long been recognized as an insignificant and inadequate way to allow laymen to sit and vote with professional judges.

Finally, as the Jia case illustrates, public speech in China is, once again, being increasingly suppressed. Will people soon be afraid of even expressing themselves in private conversations, as during the Cultural Revolution?

A Conversation With Ai Weiwei

Here are the video and transcript of a conversation I had yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York with the courageous and outspoken Chinese artist/activist AI Weiwei.

GlaxoSmithKline’s corruption in China

Here is an interesting and thoughtful piece by David Barboza in today’s New York Times about GlaxoSmithKline’s bribery scandals in China. The piece raises the question of why Glaxo, as a multinational company, had been so incredibly slow to investigate corruption of its own employees abroad.

I can add a few words based on my own experience as a lawyer advising foreign companies seeking to do business in China from 1979 to 2001. Multinationals, in dealing with China, often reflect their national corporate cultures as well as their own distinctive ones. Among the key factors are, at headquarters, the position enjoyed by the legal department in relation to the company’s overall management and, in the field, the extent to which the headquarters legal department seeks to keep informed about and influence what the company’s representatives in China are up to.

Some American-headquartered companies’ general counsel play very prominent roles both at home and in China and nip in the bud any evidence that the company’s staff in China might be engaging in illegal conduct, whether initiated by the staff or in response to the blandishments of local officials. Attitudes among European companies vary, of course, but there has been, and perhaps even today is, a tradition of somewhat greater tolerance for bribery when competing in a foreign business environment, despite legal regulations that ban it. Japanese companies, although notorious for the methods often used in some Asian countries, seem to demonstrate considerable ambivalence in China, frequently smoothing their way with the usual array of gifts and other “friendly” gestures but showing sometimes exaggerated sensitivity at headquarters about avoiding actions that could be interpreted as corrupting in a major way. Japan’s wartime history in China still makes them more sensitive than most other foreign competitors. 

This is a great and important subject worthy of scholarly and journalistic research. Unfortunately, my own experience with multinationals is relatively limited and long out of date.

Working Towards Peace in the South China Sea

For those who follow South China Sea issues, I gave a talk on Oct. 18 at the National Committee on US-China Relations on " Working Towards Peace in the South China Sea," discussing the ramifications of the present situation in the region and offering some policy recommendations. Here is the video.

Streaming of Chinese court trials

Xinhua just  reported that China has launched a website broadcasting court trials. Live streaming of court hearings, despite its obvious restrictions and selectivity, is a good step forward in expanding public awareness of China’s courts and of various legal principles and their application in daily life. This is part of an effort to increase popular respect for the judicial process, which has been widely mistrusted.

This welcome initiative should be understood together with the recent effort to increase the prestige of judges and prosecutors by winnowing out many official legal staff who bear the label of “judge” or “prosecutor” but who do not have the competence or seriousness to carry out the work expected. The idea is to create a judicial elite separate from the regular bureaucracy and to try to reduce the roles of corruption, “guanxi” (relationships), local protectionism and local Party and government influence upon court decisions.

Streaming will not only challenge prosecutors and judges to look and do better in action but also lawyers. It will be interesting, for example, if lawyers in the new spotlight will learn to cross-examine witnesses in court. But that will require changes in the system requiring witnesses to show up in court rather than merely give written testimony that allows them to escape cross-examination, which has often been called the greatest instrument for the discovery of truth in a legal system. 

P.S. I don’t believe the court hearing reported here ("China jails women's rights campaigner after torture in detention") was selected for live streaming!    

Peter Dutton's commentary on the significance of China’s response to the South China Sea arbitration award

Here is a brief comment worth reading on the PRC's response to the recent UNCLOS arbitration award. As Peter makes clear, the significance of China's response goes far beyond the specific dispute and raises the question of the reliability of any PRC international legal commitment including its economic pledges relating to One Belt One Road and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

One hopes that the PRC will begin to recover from its major blunder through the quiet discussions that have begun with the Philippines. Previous PRC leaders have shown the capacity to modify unwise attitudes toward international law. Whether the current leadership is up to the task is probably doubtful but may depend on the extent to which other influential nations seek to demonstrate the undesirable consequences of Beijing's stance.

One important topic that has not received enough attention is where Taiwan fits into the equation. Unlike the PRC, the ROC was eager to take part in the Philippine arbitration proceedings. The UNCLOS tribunal, well aware that its decision on the merits of the many sensitive issues at stake would infuriate Beijing, went out of its way to avoid further offending the PRC in its handling of Taiwan's efforts to be heard. Taiwan could not take part in the proceedings, and the tribunal even refused to allow Taiwan observer status at the hearings, which had been granted to several interested Southeast Asian states. Moreover, the tribunal's opinion referred to Taiwan in a way that would not offend Beijing (but was sure to offend Taiwan). To its credit, and perhaps in order to please Beijing, the tribunal, while not formally accepting the strong "friend of the court" brief submitted by Taiwan's leading NGO - the Chinese (Taiwan) Society of International Law, on whether Taiping island (Itu Aba), the largest of the Spratlys and the only one occupied by Taiwan, is entitled to an Economic Exclusive Zone, did make the brief available to the parties and surely considered it before disagreeing with Taiwan's (and Beijing's) position. Taiwan's new government is now struggling with the dilemmas of how to respond to the tribunal's decision, which offended it not only in substance but also in procedure.

My interview with the Diplomat on legal reform, human rights and judicial independence in China

From the Diplomat, September 1 (Link here)

Foreign NGOs - Wang Daohan, Ford Foundation and the Chinese government’s attitude at the start of Opening and Reform

This year’s events in China – including the passage of a law that emphasizes strict control of foreign NGOs and the show trials two weeks ago of Chinese rights activists whom Beijing accused of working with “hostile foreign forces” – have shown that Chinese leadership is extremely wary of a “color revolution” inspired by the outside world.

In light of current concerns of the international community, it might be useful to recall the very different situation in 1979. China was just opening, and I was in Beijing at the invitation of the city government to help train its economic officials in international business law. I got to know Wang Daohan, then head of the new national Foreign Investment Commission, through his very able assistant, a young economics graduate named Tang Yunbin, whose English skills had proved helpful in efforts to develop an updated Chinese legal vocabulary for terms like “foreign tax credit”.  Wang had just been moved into his new job from an earlier post as Minister of Foreign Economic Relations. More than most PRC leaders, he saw the need for Chinese officials to learn about foreign economic transactions and institutions but felt frustrated by the limited opportunities for them to do so.

I knew that Ford Foundation, which had sponsored Harvard Law School research on the legal systems of China, Japan and Vietnam, was eager to enter China and be helpful but seemed frustrated in efforts to do so. It plainly made sense to try to bridge the gap, so I invited Carl Green, an American lawyer who was then Ford’s representative in Tokyo, to come to Beijing to have lunch with Wang.

Since the PRC for three decades had been denouncing foreign foundations like Ford as running dogs of imperialism, Green was understandably apprehensive that China might spurn Ford’s interest. Lunch was pleasant through the main course, but neither Wang nor Green appeared willing to initiate discussion of the subject that brought us together.

As dessert arrived, feeling a bit anxious about the way things were going, I said to Wang what he obviously already knew - that Ford might be willing to help with the training of Chinese officials in international economic matters. He feigned welcoming surprise and asked Green to what extent Ford might help. Carl, visibly tense, mustered all his gumption and said that Ford might be willing to contribute as much as one million USD to such training.  Wang almost snorted in scornful disbelief. “What”, he said, “do you know how poor China is and how huge its needs are? One million dollars is nothing.”  

At that point Green, instead of being offended, began to relax, for he saw that China was prepared to behave like the governments of many other developing countries and that cooperation would be possible, at a heftier price, to be sure!

What a difference 37 years have made!

More on rights lawyer Wang Yu’s “confession and release” and China’s revival of “brainwashing” practice

There is no doubt whatever that Wang Yu will not be free to resume her practice of human rights law or her previous professional or even personal friendships. Her hope must be to obtain her husband’s release from jail, to be able to see her son and to procure for him the right to study abroad, as was originally planned. The elements of the deal struck will gradually emerge.

To say that her statement was “probably” the product of coercion is silly since she has been held in an immensely coercive environment for over a year. These “confessions” are reminiscent of the “brainwashing” era of the 1950s for which the new China became infamous. Brainwashing was based on long-run confinement in a coercive environment combined with heavy doses of thought reform and the realization that release depended on adopting, at least temporarily, the “new truth”.

The regime obviously altered Wang Yu’s restrictions (it did not “let her go”) because of the enormous international pressures brought to bear. The American Bar Association’s annual meeting at which the award is to be granted is about to be held. Her alleged repudiation of the award, which was a brilliant decision by the ABA to recover its loss of prestige from earlier inadequate criticism of the PRC, is the PRC’s attempt to discourage all foreign legal organizations from further attacks on the PRC’s human rights violations.

Of course, some lawyers and their legal assistants have been released during the past year while other lawyers are still detained and awaiting criminal conviction and prison punishment as well as the loss of their right to practice law, unless they too succumb to the brainwashing and other coercion to which they are being subjected. Even legal assistants such as Zhao Wei have not been spared the “confession and release” farce.

Non-release “release” of human rights activists and their confessions

Photo: Wang Yu and her son Bao Zhuoxuan, Photo courtesy of Bao Zhuoxuan

Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Yu has been “released” on bail, as reported in today’s Wall Street Journal. Wang Yu was seen in a video making a confession. “I also wrote inappropriate things online and accepted interviews with foreign media. For this, I feel ashamed and express remorse,” She said. As to the inaugural American Bar Association (ABA) International Human Rights Award given to her, she was quoted as saying she did not “acknowledge, recognize or accept” the award.

It’s obviously too soon to analyze with confidence but it sounds like another of the curious deals that are being struck between PRC oppressors and courageous but hapless human rights victims, deals involving the welfare of spouses, children, parents, lovers etc as well as the target whose captivity and torture are at stake.

This is all so sad, not only for the oppressed, broken victims but also for China and its standing in the world. These pathetic, ludicrous “confessions” and charges are obviously designed for a Chinese audience, but tens of millions of Chinese are not foolish enough to believe these farces.

Yet the damage to China that these torture-inspired fairy tales inflict abroad is incalculable. Does the Chinese leadership not see this? Xi Jinping is holding himself and the country up to increasing worldwide ridicule. This is the Chinese Communist Party’s distinctive contribution to the playbook of international Communist abuse of the legal system and promises to rank in notoriety with Stalin’s infamous purge trials, although so far no Chinese victims have been formally executed!

I’d like to think that if the ABA, in its new vision, could honor every detained human rights lawyer in China, it could guarantee them some minimal concession from their oppressors, but we know that international prizes can only be helpful in a few cases and certainly cannot free even Nobel Prize winners!

I don’t know what this foretells re the ABA’s work in China. Certainly it adds fuel to the fire of the continuing debate over what the appropriate ABA response to the vicious repression of human rights lawyers should be. If this case results in the termination of the ABA’s praiseworthy activities in China, it would be another classic instance of what Beijing propagandists like to call “dropping a rock on your own foot”.