A hot air ballon: China's National Human Rghts Action Plan

On Monday the Chinese State Council, chaired by Premier Wen Jibao, released what it termed "a human rights action plan". The lengthy 27 page document, as posted on China Daily and reported in the NYT, was announced as the government's "first working plan on human rights protection". The document pledges, in less than two years, to correct just about every conceivable wrong in China.

The National Human Rights Action Plan, 2009-10 comes less than two months before the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, and as I see it, that's its sole raisson d'etre: to preemptively take the steam out of any disturbances that are bound to arise at that time. However, it's just an emergency valve that the Party has placed on the machine of the Party State for what's bound to be a hot summer in a few places in China, but it's a facade knob. It's something straight out of Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory. However, I give Wen Jibao and gang a hand for their hurry up attitude in drafting the Party's "first working plan on human rights protection". (That in itself reveals the sad condition of human rights in the PRC). And all of this accomplished in less than two years! Bravo! I'm rolling. Who do these clowns think they are fooling?

This rights paper is only the latest in a long series of white papers and policy pronouncements dating back to '49 that have all been intended to show that Party orficials take human rights seriously in China. However, it's the first "action plan". None of the previous ones were. Here is the list of all the wonderful things they say they are going to do for the nice, downtrodden people of China, finally. Read at your pleasure...

Introduction
I. Guarantee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(1) Right to work
(2) Right to basic living conditions
(3) Right to social security
(4) Right to health
(5) Right to education
(6) Cultural rights
(7) Environmental rights
(8) Safeguarding farmers' rights and interests
(9) Guarantee of human rights in the reconstruction of areas hit by the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province
II. Guarantee of Civil and Political Rights
(1) Rights of the person
(2) Rights of detainees
(3) The right to a fair trial
(4) Freedom of religious belief
(5) The right to be informed
(6) The right to participate
(7) The right to be heard
(8) The right to oversee
III. Guarantee of the Rights and Interests of Ethnic Minorities, Women, Children, Elderly People and the Disabled
(1) The rights of ethnic minorities
(2) Women's rights
(3) Children's rights
(4) Senior citizens' rights
(5) The rights of the disabled
IV. Education in Human Rights
V. Performing International Human Rights Duties, and Conducting Exchanges and Cooperation in the Field of International Human Rights
(1) Fulfillment of international human rights obligations
(2) Exchanges and cooperation in the field of international human rights

Whew! Got all that? The Ant has heard that they were going to add a 28th page to the document, but they decided that they didn't want to waste any more paper. One wonders what the point is of all of the above if, as legal experts say, the civil liberties mentioned in the action plan are already guaranteed by Chinese laws or the Constitution? However, international human rights advocates, trying to look on the bright side, say that "it focuses on trying to advance respect for human rights within the existing bureaucracies and that the release of the action plan could help abused citizens by providing clearer guidance to local and provincial governments of the long-term direction of national policy". (One suspects that they intend to bring in the foreign experts of Stuart Smalley Seminars, Inc. to provide them with the "sensitivity training" to enable all of this). Further, "they cautioned that any implementation would require many years of work by local, provincial and national government agencies, many of which have shown little interest in initiatives that may limit their power." I guess that rules out getting all of this done in less than two years. Bummer...

As the NYT writer stated, this is "a lengthy document promising to improve the protection of civil liberties, which are often neglected and sometimes systematically violated in China". The abysmal history of civil rights in "modern China" (there's nothing really modern about China in terms of its internal dynamics) is a long story about how Chinese citizens are systematically and routinely violated by the authorities, leaving citizens who find themselves jacked up by the Party without any practicable grounds for appeal through the Communist Party-controlled courts. Further, the document "does not propose any fundamental reforms of the country’s one-party system, such as making the courts independent of party control or allowing other parties or political groups to hold power. Nor does it propose phasing out the system of administrative detention, which gives broad powers to local law enforcement officials, including the ability to send people to prison camps for “re-education through labor” without a trial. There is also no promise to close the unregistered jails that municipal and provincial governments have set up in Beijing and elsewhere to detain petitioners who want to present their grievances". (NYT). Until the Chinese get a clearer sense of what habeas corpus means and put an end to local PSB officials acting like a regional militia in their own private fiefdom, not much is going to change in China. But that's why those things aren't slated in the document. There is no good faith here, nor could there ever be.

This whole document is a bogus hot air balloon. Simply reading the very first pledge of the document immediately reveals how massively suspect it is. "By the year 2010, the registered urban unemployment rate will be kept below 5 percent. In 2009 and 2010, an additional 18 million urban workers will be employed and 18 million rural laborers will move to cities or towns and find jobs there, and the state will take proactive and effective measures to offset the negative impacts of international financial crisis, and ensure the economic, social and cultural rights of all members of society." It doesn't take a genius to realize that this very specific promise, without question, depends more on the health of the global economy than on the efforts of the government by itself. It reads more like a sorcery than a practicable plan, from beginning to end. Again, I presume the aforementioned foreign experts intend to provide training in positive thinking technologies to assist the Chinese with making this probable delusion a reality. "China, just say, 'I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!' (and will buy the things I make that I can't afford to buy myself), and we'll all be a 'harmonious society!'". Dream on.

The official Xinhua news agency cleared its throat and in conclusion said, “The government admitted that ‘China has a long road ahead in its efforts to improve its human rights situation.’ ”