CPTAUSRET
04-20-2006, 13:14
Google...China...and Us - Moral challenges we face.
National Review Online ^ | April 20, 2006 | Christopher Smith
On Wednesday, I conducted a hearing to examine China's human-rights record.
Over the years, I have held more than 25 hearings on human-rights abuses in
China and although some economic progress has been made, the human-rights
situation remains abysmal.
Among other things, this week's visit of President Hu Jintao to the United
States provides an opportunity to expose the terrible human-rights situation
in China today on a global stage. And it will, I hope, convey our
unshakeable regard and commitment to press Beijing for serious, measurable,
and desirable reform. Any relationship we have with China must begin with a
fundamental respect for basic human rights. The people of China deserve no
less. It is our moral duty to stand with the oppressed, not with the
oppressor.
State Department and other human-rights watchdogs indicate that Chinese
government's repression of its citizens continues. In fact, the current
regime is one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. The most
recent State Department Human Rights Report for China is approximately
45,000 words and lists 22 major rights problems.
Beijing views the information on the Internet as a potential threat to the
party's control over the people and the monopolization of political power.
And so, they restrict it. The freedom to publish information and read news
on the web unfiltered does not exist and individuals who attempt to speak
freely are frequently imprisoned and tortured. U.S. corporations should not
be aiding in that process. Yet at a February hearing I chaired on global
Internet freedom, some of the biggest corporations in America revealed how
they have partnered with the Chinese secret police to find, apprehend,
convict, and jail religious believers and pro-democracy advocates.
Though Yahoo voiced their profound regret for the imprisonment of Shi Tao
for 10 years, they couldn't say — and didn't seem to know — how many others
were condemned to jail and torture because of their willingness to comply
with the secret police. When asked under what conditions — court order,
police demand, a fishing trip — Yahoo surrenders e-mails and files to
authorities, their representative declined to reveal the information because
it would break Chinese law. Sadly, it was revealed at our hearing that
Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese police has seemingly lead to the
imprisonment of another democracy advocate, Jiang Lijun.
Google, for its part, created a search engine tailored to the wishes of the
People's Republic of China. Type in any number of searches, for "human
rights," or "Tiananmen Square massacre," or "Falun Gong," and the site
conveniently reroutes the web surfer to government propaganda — much of it
heavily anti-American, anti-Bush, and full of hate. Google responded to
concerns about enabling a dictatorship to expand its message of hate by
hiring big-time lobbying firms like Podesta-Mattoon, and the DCI group to
put a good face on it all — and presumably kill my pending legislation, the
Global Online Freedom Act of 2006.
Amazingly, Cisco showed no concern whatsoever that its "Policenet"
technology — a tool for good in the hands of legitimate law enforcement, but
a tool of repression in the hands of Chinese police — has now linked and
expanded the capabilities of the Chinese police. Microsoft censors and shuts
down blogs that the government objects to. (So I'm guessing Bill Gates kept
human rights off the agenda when he hosted Hu on Tuesday.)
A Stalinist Nightmare Revived for the 20th century China's continued
repression of religion is among the most despotic in the world. Citizens
practicing a faith other than officially sanctioned religions are often
subject to torture, imprisonment, and death at which time prisoner organs
are frequently harvested. Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, and Muslim Uighurs
are all being persecuted for their faith. Today, numerous underground Roman
Catholic priests and bishops and Protestant pastors languish in the infamous
concentration camps of China for simply proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Beijing reserves a special hatred for the Falun Gong. Nearly seven years
ago, the government began its brutal campaign to eradicate Falun Gong after
party members and Army officials had begun to practice the faith. Like all
totalitarian governments, the PRC fears and hates what it cannot control. It
is a Stalinist nightmare revived for the 21st century.
China's one-child per couple policy, decreed in 1979, has killed hundreds of
million babies by imposing Draconian fines — up to ten times annual salaries
— on parents. Brothers and sisters are illegal and sex selection abortions
have resulted in gendercide (100 million girls who should be alive today are
not). One Chinese demographer has admitted that by 2020, forty million
Chinese men won't be able to find wives because population control will have
destroyed the girls.
There is no recourse for millions of Chinese laborers trapped in poor
working conditions. Those who protest unjust wage and labor practices
outside of the government-controlled labor union are arrested and
imprisoned. Citizens are often persecuted for seeking help from the court
system to secure rights that the law, as restrictive as at is, guarantees
them. Lawyers who seek to help them are threatened, harassed, beaten,
disbarred, and jailed. They may join countless prisoners of conscience in
their modern-day concentration camps.
China admits to continuing a barbaric policy of harvesting human organs for
sale and transplant. We are told that siince 1993, there have been over
65,000 transplant procedures performed in China and a deputy health minister
recently stated that 95 percent of the organs are from executed prisoners.
In an effort to boost profits, it is reported that some provincial or local
officials have begun to allow mobile medical vans at execution sites to
facilitate the harvesting of prisoners' organs. The State Department and the
U.N. are investigating claims that China is targeting the thousands of
innocent Falun Gong prisoners it holds for organ harvesting and perhaps not
even waiting until they are dead.
The Communist regime in the Soviet Union fell after the economy collapsed
and voices of freedom and democracy were able to break through the walls of
repression. The Communist regime in China today has learned from the
mistakes of the former regime and seeks to build and consolidate economic
power while quickly and harshly stifling dissent. Human rights are
everyone's rights. Governments are instituted to secure, protect, and
safeguard those rights. Human rights aren't privileges. Human rights are
worth fighting for, even when inconvenient.
National Review Online ^ | April 20, 2006 | Christopher Smith
On Wednesday, I conducted a hearing to examine China's human-rights record.
Over the years, I have held more than 25 hearings on human-rights abuses in
China and although some economic progress has been made, the human-rights
situation remains abysmal.
Among other things, this week's visit of President Hu Jintao to the United
States provides an opportunity to expose the terrible human-rights situation
in China today on a global stage. And it will, I hope, convey our
unshakeable regard and commitment to press Beijing for serious, measurable,
and desirable reform. Any relationship we have with China must begin with a
fundamental respect for basic human rights. The people of China deserve no
less. It is our moral duty to stand with the oppressed, not with the
oppressor.
State Department and other human-rights watchdogs indicate that Chinese
government's repression of its citizens continues. In fact, the current
regime is one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. The most
recent State Department Human Rights Report for China is approximately
45,000 words and lists 22 major rights problems.
Beijing views the information on the Internet as a potential threat to the
party's control over the people and the monopolization of political power.
And so, they restrict it. The freedom to publish information and read news
on the web unfiltered does not exist and individuals who attempt to speak
freely are frequently imprisoned and tortured. U.S. corporations should not
be aiding in that process. Yet at a February hearing I chaired on global
Internet freedom, some of the biggest corporations in America revealed how
they have partnered with the Chinese secret police to find, apprehend,
convict, and jail religious believers and pro-democracy advocates.
Though Yahoo voiced their profound regret for the imprisonment of Shi Tao
for 10 years, they couldn't say — and didn't seem to know — how many others
were condemned to jail and torture because of their willingness to comply
with the secret police. When asked under what conditions — court order,
police demand, a fishing trip — Yahoo surrenders e-mails and files to
authorities, their representative declined to reveal the information because
it would break Chinese law. Sadly, it was revealed at our hearing that
Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese police has seemingly lead to the
imprisonment of another democracy advocate, Jiang Lijun.
Google, for its part, created a search engine tailored to the wishes of the
People's Republic of China. Type in any number of searches, for "human
rights," or "Tiananmen Square massacre," or "Falun Gong," and the site
conveniently reroutes the web surfer to government propaganda — much of it
heavily anti-American, anti-Bush, and full of hate. Google responded to
concerns about enabling a dictatorship to expand its message of hate by
hiring big-time lobbying firms like Podesta-Mattoon, and the DCI group to
put a good face on it all — and presumably kill my pending legislation, the
Global Online Freedom Act of 2006.
Amazingly, Cisco showed no concern whatsoever that its "Policenet"
technology — a tool for good in the hands of legitimate law enforcement, but
a tool of repression in the hands of Chinese police — has now linked and
expanded the capabilities of the Chinese police. Microsoft censors and shuts
down blogs that the government objects to. (So I'm guessing Bill Gates kept
human rights off the agenda when he hosted Hu on Tuesday.)
A Stalinist Nightmare Revived for the 20th century China's continued
repression of religion is among the most despotic in the world. Citizens
practicing a faith other than officially sanctioned religions are often
subject to torture, imprisonment, and death at which time prisoner organs
are frequently harvested. Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, and Muslim Uighurs
are all being persecuted for their faith. Today, numerous underground Roman
Catholic priests and bishops and Protestant pastors languish in the infamous
concentration camps of China for simply proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Beijing reserves a special hatred for the Falun Gong. Nearly seven years
ago, the government began its brutal campaign to eradicate Falun Gong after
party members and Army officials had begun to practice the faith. Like all
totalitarian governments, the PRC fears and hates what it cannot control. It
is a Stalinist nightmare revived for the 21st century.
China's one-child per couple policy, decreed in 1979, has killed hundreds of
million babies by imposing Draconian fines — up to ten times annual salaries
— on parents. Brothers and sisters are illegal and sex selection abortions
have resulted in gendercide (100 million girls who should be alive today are
not). One Chinese demographer has admitted that by 2020, forty million
Chinese men won't be able to find wives because population control will have
destroyed the girls.
There is no recourse for millions of Chinese laborers trapped in poor
working conditions. Those who protest unjust wage and labor practices
outside of the government-controlled labor union are arrested and
imprisoned. Citizens are often persecuted for seeking help from the court
system to secure rights that the law, as restrictive as at is, guarantees
them. Lawyers who seek to help them are threatened, harassed, beaten,
disbarred, and jailed. They may join countless prisoners of conscience in
their modern-day concentration camps.
China admits to continuing a barbaric policy of harvesting human organs for
sale and transplant. We are told that siince 1993, there have been over
65,000 transplant procedures performed in China and a deputy health minister
recently stated that 95 percent of the organs are from executed prisoners.
In an effort to boost profits, it is reported that some provincial or local
officials have begun to allow mobile medical vans at execution sites to
facilitate the harvesting of prisoners' organs. The State Department and the
U.N. are investigating claims that China is targeting the thousands of
innocent Falun Gong prisoners it holds for organ harvesting and perhaps not
even waiting until they are dead.
The Communist regime in the Soviet Union fell after the economy collapsed
and voices of freedom and democracy were able to break through the walls of
repression. The Communist regime in China today has learned from the
mistakes of the former regime and seeks to build and consolidate economic
power while quickly and harshly stifling dissent. Human rights are
everyone's rights. Governments are instituted to secure, protect, and
safeguard those rights. Human rights aren't privileges. Human rights are
worth fighting for, even when inconvenient.