Another meeting between a powerful dictatorship and a liberal democracy, another chance to pretend that by defending universal values, governments unavoidably hurt their countries’ own interests.
China has perfected the art of censoring speech, repressing minorities, jailing critics and flouting the rule of law at home. The consequences of its abuse extend beyond the mainland, though.
Not content to delete the online musings of 14-year olds in their parents’ Shanghai apartments, China is sending its censors abroad.
A South Korean court recently yanked a classical music performance from a theatre in Seoul. Why would a court of law in a democratic country demote itself to the position of crazed art critic? The court itself noted that the Chinese Embassy threatened South Korea with financial reprisals if the show went on. And why would the Chinese Embassy lower itself to issuing threats about a show in a foreign country? The show was about the Falun Gong, a minority group that China pathologically persecutes.
If only the stakes were no higher than art. But by persecuting yet another minority, China inflames international terrorism while supposedly fighting domestic terrorism: In Xinjiang province, where most Uighur Muslims live, China doesn’t let kids enter mosques, doesn’t let mosques broadcast the call to prayer, and doesn’t let anyone who might go to mosque travel without ID cards, wear headscarves, grow large beards, or give their children names that sound too Muslimy.
Don’t expect these interminable indignities to remain local. They humiliate and terrify a group so intolerably as to foment violent terrorism in China, and violent terrorism doesn’t tend to stay put. Well over 100 Uighurs have travelled to Syria and joined jihadist movements; many bring their wives and kids because they believe it better to live in a war zone than on the mainland. A New America study finds that China’s repression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, which the dictatorship justifies on the basis of counter-terrorism, encourages Uighurs to become terrorists abroad.
And it’s not as if China reserves repression for minority groups. It detains and tortures at leisure, locking up critics without anything approaching due process. We might think this a tragic violation of the rights of Chinese citizens, and perhaps we could leave it there, were China not jailing citizens of other countries, too, including our own.
Foreign governments can’t even console themselves with the knowledge that the only way people will get thrown in a Chinese prison cell is if they actually travel to the Chinese mainland. China allegedly sent special agents into Hong Kong and Thailand, kidnapped some booksellers, and whisked them back for a bit of detention and forced confession. If political dissidents won’t go to China, China might come to them.
And it won’t necessarily stop coming, even where it’s formally found to be acting illegally. After China frightened much of Asia by acting as if parts of the South China Sea that don’t belong to it do, in fact, belong to it, an arbitrator ruled that it was violating the law. China continues to help itself to more territory.
It’s not as if liberal democracies should only concern themselves with matters that directly affect them or their allies. The principles of liberal democracy deserve defending on their own merits. But a government that violates a principle in one place may violate it elsewhere, which China happily demonstrates by releasing government censors and kidnappers out into the world, creating the conditions for terrorism beyond mainland China, violating the autonomy of places that sit outside of it, and flouting the law even after it is found to be in violation of it.
It’s all very distasteful to self-respecting democracies, yes, but it’s also dangerous to them.
True, it’s not clear that countries such as Canada actually have much power to influence China. One thing ought to be obvious, though: If democratic states seek closer ties with China but can’t manage to persuade, force or harangue it into respecting human rights and the rule of law, they’re not necessarily sacrificing their values for the sake of their interests – in many cases, they fail one by failing the other.
Defending rights globally doesn’t undermine our other interests | Ottawa Citizen
