OxBlog

# Posted 2:03 AM by Patrick Belton

LE PLUS CA CHANGE, ET LE CHINE: James Mann, of CSIS and formerly the LA Times and one of the leading analysts of contemporary China within journalism or the academy, contributes a piece to today's WaPo on how in human rights, China hasn't changed over the past decade - the rest of the world has just lowered its standards:

The problem is that in fundamental ways relating to human rights and political repression, China today is not much different than it was a decade ago. Yes, China has been brought into the international community, if we define that phrase exclusively in terms of economics. But ordinarily the international community is not defined solely by membership in the World Trade Organization.

Chirac is right about one thing -- something has changed over the past decade. But it's not China. Rather, the rest of the world has become far more tolerant of the same Chinese political repression that it condemned in the early 1990s. A lifting of the EU arms embargo would be one more big step in this tawdry policy of accepting repression.

From permitting the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit prisoners in its jails, to allowing unauthorised public meetings or making the smallest statement of remorse for using arms against its peacefully protesting citizens, the Chinese regime has not budged in the slightest toward international norms of decency and human rights. On the contrary, from 1989 on, it's the West that has positively run, under three consecutive US presidents, to erase from the public stage all criticism whatsoever of the way Beijing treats its subjects.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion