Freedom in the World 2001 - China

2001 Scores

Status: Not Free
Freedom Rating: 6.5
Civil Liberties: 6
Political Rights: 7

Overview

Worker and farmer protests, popular anger over corruption, and the social impact of China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) were among the key issues facing the country's leadership in 2000. Continuing a policy set down in the early 1990s, Beijing responded by cracking down severely on dissidents while cautiously liberalizing the economy.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, following victory over the Nationalist Kuomintang. Mao's death in 1976 largely ended the brutal, mass ideological campaigns that had politicized nearly every aspect of public life and had resulted in millions of deaths. Deng Xiaoping emerged as paramount leader and initiated in December 1978 China's gradual transition from central planning to a market economy.

Following the April 1989 death of Hu Yaobang, whom CCP conservatives had removed as party-secretary general in 1986 for tolerating student demonstrations, students began weeks of pro-democracy protests in Beijing and other cities that ended in the bloody army crackdown around Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989. Hardliner Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai mayor and party boss, replaced the relatively moderate Zhao Ziyang as CCP secretary-general. Jiang became president in 1993, although Deng remained China's paramount leader until his death in 1997. Under Jiang, the government has continued implementing moderate free market reforms while tightly restricting dissent. The CCP hopes that economic development will stave off broad calls for political reform, but it fears that liberalizing the economy too fast will create social unrest at the same time that citizens are increasingly being exposed to foreign news and ideas about freedom and democracy.

At the CCP's Fifteenth Congress in September 1997, Jiang consolidated his authority by ousting several potential rivals from top posts and forcing several military figures out of politics. At the 1998 annual session of the rubber-stamp National People's Congress (NPC), Zhu Rongji, the architect of the economic reform process since the mid-1990s, replaced Li Peng as prime minister. Hu Jintao, the youngest member of the CCP politburo's seven-member standing committee, became politburo president.

While the student activism of the late 1980s has largely receded, in recent years authorities have faced challenges from intellectuals, religious sects, and blue-collar Chinese. Authorities moved quickly to detain and jail members of the opposition China Democracy Party (CDP) after it emerged in 1998. However, they have had far less success in suppressing the Falun Gong mystical sect, which stunned the Chinese leadership in April 1999 when it organized the biggest demonstration in the capital since 1989 to demand official recognition. Following revelations that many party members and senior military officers belonged to the group, authorities banned Falun Gong in July 1999 and began detaining thousands of followers. Nevertheless, Falun Gong members have continued to hold periodic demonstrations in Beijing.

Chinese authorities have in recent years also faced worker protests over job losses and unpaid pensions and other benefits. The often-violent protests have occurred in the context of Beijing's efforts to shut down or privatize most small- and medium-sized state-owned enterprises by the middle of the decade. China's expected entry into the WTO within a few years will require further reforms that could increase unemployment. However, officials have made limited progress in developing an effective and sustainable system of pensions, unemployment benefits, and health insurance for laid-off and retired state enterprise workers.

Beijing also faces serious social problems in rural areas, where farmers have frequently rioted, demonstrated, or otherwise protested against high and often arbitrary government fees and taxes. In one of the largest incidents in recent years, up to 20,000 farmers rioted for five days in August in southern Jiangxi province.

In yet another source of friction, leaders of the 7 million Turkic-speaking Uighurs and other, smaller Turkic groups in the northwestern Xinjiang region harbor long-standing grievances against Beijing for allegedly exploiting the region's rich mineral resources, controlling religious affairs, and altering the region's demographic balance by encouraging an influx of Han Chinese through job opportunities and other incentives. In recent years, authorities have committed widespread abuses while cracking down on both peaceful dissent and on armed Uighur groups that have carried out several bombings and assassinations. Amnesty International recorded 190 executions in Xinjiang between 1997 and mid-1999, mostly of Uighurs convicted of "subversion" or "terrorism" in unfair trials.

Reflecting the hope that economic development will weaken separatist tendencies, Beijing initiated a campaign in January 2000 to increase bank lending to Xinjiang and other impoverished, landlocked areas of western China. However, authorities maintained investment and regional protectionist policies that favor Guangdong and other wealthier southern and eastern provinces and have contributed to pronounced regional disparities in income and economic growth.

Official corruption also continued to be a serious problem. According to the Far Eastern Economic Review, China's auditor-general revealed in January that corrupt officials had stolen $15 billion in state money in 1999. In November, courts sentenced 14 people to death for their roles in a $6.6 billion smuggling racket in the port of Xiamin, although some analysts noted that senior officials had avoided prosecution during this first round of trials. Separately, authorities executed in September the former vice chairman of the NPC's Standing Committee for corruption, the highest ranking official executed since the founding of the People's Republic.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Chinese citizens lack the democratic means to change their government. China continued to be a de facto single-party state in which the CCP controlled the judiciary and restricted sharply freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion. Beijing signed in 1998 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but has not ratified it, and compliance continued to be limited.

Under the 1982 constitution, the NPC is the highest organ of state authority. In practice, parliament has little independent power. However, in recent years delegates have registered protest votes over the government's handling of rising crime rates and other issues. While eight small, pro-government parties exist alongside the CCP, authorities have cracked down on members of the CDP, who made in 1998 the first attempt to register an opposition party since the founding of the People's Republic. Courts have sentenced more than 30 CDP members to prison terms of up to 13 years, mainly on subversion charges.

Under the 1987 Village Committees Organic Law, voters elect some 60 percent of China's 928,000 village bodies. However, authorities permit only prescreened CCP candidates and some independents to compete. Moreover, non-elected CCP secretaries have far greater powers than the elected leaders, and in any case, county governments rather than village bodies hold key administrative powers. Independents have won seats in many villages, but throughout the country, balloting is characterized by irregularities and unfair procedures.

The CCP controls the judiciary through local party bodies called political-legal committees, and directs verdicts and sentencing in sensitive cases. Judges are poorly trained and are generally retired military officers selected on the basis of party loyalty. Bribery of judges is rampant, and local governments frequently intervene in ordinary cases.

Nevertheless, in recent years the government has made some efforts to strengthen the rule of law, improve training for judges and lawyers, and make the legal system less arbitrary in nonpolitical cases. The government revised in 1997 the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) to grant defense lawyers a greater role and increase their access to defendants; end the presumption of guilt (although without establishing a presumption of innocence); and bar judges from ordering quick trial and execution for crimes that allegedly "seriously endanger public order." However, judicial authorities appeared to honor these provisions mainly in the breach, and suspects still do not have the right to a lawyer the first time they are interrogated, which is apparently when most pretrial torture occurs. Moreover, the 1997 revisions introduced new summary trial procedures in certain cases. The judiciary opened many trials to the public in 1999, although politically sensitive cases remained closed.

Ordinary citizens continued to sue township governments, employers, state enterprises, and local police, something that would have been impossible only a few years earlier. Claimants have won out-of-court settlements or outright victories in some cases. The courts generally accept only lawsuits that dovetail with central government policies and priorities, such as finding an orderly means to handle labor grievances, or that are useful in curbing arbitrary action by increasingly autonomous local officials. At the same time, judges are often reluctant to rule against local governments, which provide their salary and appointments. Local authorities have harassed plaintiffs and refused to comply with unfavorable judgments.

The 1997 CPL revisions eliminated the category of "counterrevolutionary" crimes that courts had used to imprison thousands of dissidents. However, authorities continued to apply broadly drawn laws against "endangering state security" and "leaking state secrets" to a wide range of political and nonpolitical activities. Authorities also continued to arbitrarily imprison dissidents and ordinary criminal suspects through administrative detention procedures for up to three years without charge or trial. The revised CPL also included a separate article aimed at pro-independence and autonomy movements in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet. (A separate report on Tibet appears in the Disputed Territories section.)

The government continued to hold what may be upwards of several thousand political prisoners, although the exact number is difficult to determine. Authorities held many of these political prisoners, along with an unknown number of ordinary criminal suspects, without trial in laogai, or "reform through labor" camps. Amnesty International announced in May that it had records of 213 people who were still imprisoned or on medical parole relating to the 1989 pro-democracy protests. Unrelenting police harassment continued to prevent many dissidents from holding jobs or otherwise leading normal lives.

Amnesty International said in a May report that torture of political detainees and ordinary criminal suspects and prisoners is "widespread" in police stations, detention centers, prisons, "re-education through labor" camps, and repatriation centers throughout China. In recent years, authorities have sentenced some persons convicted of torture to heavy prison sentences, although most perpetrators go unpunished. Nearly 70 crimes are punishable by the death penalty. In addition to executing people convicted of violent crimes, in recent years China has executed numerous people for nonviolent offenses including hooliganism, theft of farm animals or rice, or corruption.

The government continued to permit private media to report on local government inefficiency, official corruption, and other problems that Beijing itself seeks to alleviate. However, the CCP maintained tight control over political content and prohibited media from directly criticizing the CCP's monopoly on power or top leaders. At least a dozen journalists remained in jail over their reporting. In recent years, the State Press and Publishing Bureau and the CCP's Department of Propaganda occasionally have warned, suspended, or banned liberal magazines, newspapers, and book publishers for breaching limits on freedom of the press. Authorities have also dismissed several journalists and editors for publishing books or articles with liberal views.

Authorities continued to regulate Internet access and content for China's 17-20 million Internet users. The government announced in January regulations that provide for lengthy jail terms for the unauthorized release on the Internet of broadly-defined "state secrets." In October, authorities limited foreign ownership in Chinese Internet companies and made websites responsible for censoring illegal content including pornography and political topics.

According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, more than 200,000 social groups are officially registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Many work in ostensibly nonpolitical fields including the environment and the provision of social services for women and migrant workers. Authorities maintained a complex vetting process to deny licenses to politically oriented groups, based in part on State Council Order 43 of 1989. The order banned "identical or similar social organizations...within the same administrative area," thereby outlawing independent labor organizations or other nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that serve a function ostensibly covered by an existing government-controlled organization. Authorities generally enforced regulations requiring NGOs to report to specific government departments, and maintained the right to shut down arbitrarily any NGO. Freedom of assembly is limited. Authorities permitted numerous public protests concerning labor and housing grievances and other ostensibly local issues but dispersed many others.

Beijing maintained its tight controls over organized religious practice. Authorities continued to pressure Roman Catholic and Protestant churches to register with either the official Catholic Patriotic Association or its Protestant counterpart. In return for an easing of harassment, official churches must accept Beijing's power to appoint clergy; monitor religious membership, funding, and activities; and regulate the publication and distribution of religious books and other materials. Other regulations required students at state-approved seminaries to pass exams on political knowledge. Beijing also continued to deny official Catholic churches the right to maintain loyalty to the Vatican.

Many unregistered Protestant churches and openly pro-Vatican Catholic groups continued to function. However, in recent years authorities have raided, closed, or demolished scores of churches and detained hundreds of bishops, priests, and ordinary Protestant and Catholic worshippers for months and, in some cases, years. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported in December that authorities in eastern Zhejiang province had destroyed or closed up to 1,200 Taoist, Buddhist, Catholic, and Protestant temples and churches during a year-long crackdown on allegedly illegal religious activities. In Xinjiang, authorities continued to maintain sharp restrictions on construction of mosques and on Islamic publishing and education, ban religious practice by those under 18, and enforce closure orders on dozens of mosques and Koranic schools. The government officially recognizes only five religions, and all others are prima facie illegal.

Amnesty International said in December that at least 77 Falun Gong followers are reported to have died either in custody or shortly after their release, apparently due to torture or other abuse, since September 1999. The same month, AFP reported that authorities had since mid-1999 sentenced some 450 Falun Gong members to prison sentences of up to 18 years, sent more than 600 to mental hospitals, put 10,000 in labor camps, and placed another 20,000 in detention centers, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. While these figures could not be verified, they corresponded with those in a March Amnesty report, which said that authorities had arbitrarily detained tens of thousands of practitioners, some repeatedly for short periods, since the government banned the Falun Gong movement in July 1999. The organization estimated that authorities were still holding " thousands" of Falun Gong practitioners and had sentenced hundreds more to prison terms after unfair trials or to forced labor camps without trial. Authorities have also extended the crackdown to other Qi Gong groups that, like the Falun Gong, combine spirituality and meditation.

China's strict family planning policy continued to limit urban couples to one child, while in rural areas parents of a girl could petition authorities for permission to try to have a son. Couples adhering to the policy received preferential education, food, and medical benefits, while those failing to comply faced a loss of jobs and benefits, fines, or even forced abortion and sterilization. As in past years, authorities sometimes punished couples failing to pay the fines by seizing livestock and other goods and destroying homes. In recent years, anecdotal evidence has suggested that authorities are enforcing the policy somewhat less rigidly, although this varies by region.

Chinese women continued to face social and economic discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, and tended to be far likelier than men to be laid off in state enterprise restructuring. In rural areas, women continued to be abducted or otherwise sold into prostitution or marriage at fairly high rates.

By law all unions must belong to the CCP-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and independent trade unions are illegal. Private factories reportedly frequently paid workers below-minimum wages, forced them to work overtime, and arbitrarily dismissed employees. Authorities occasionally permitted workers to hold strikes to protest against dangerous conditions, low wages, and unpaid wages and benefits. The government continued to require most prisoners to work for little or no compensation.

In the 1980s and 1990s, tens of millions of Chinese entered the private sector in the Special Economic Zones in southern cities or other urban areas, or found work in the semiprivate, small-scale township and village enterprises in the countryside. This released them from dependence on the danwei, or state work unit. However, for many urban dwellers the danwei continued to control everything from the right to change residence to permission to have a child. The economic reforms initiated since the late 1970s have also given workers more flexibility to relocate to areas of fast economic growth, which, combined with a shortage of jobs in rural areas, has contributed to a "floating population" of 80 million to 100 million migrants seeking work in the cities.