The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization, is mandated by law to monitor human rights, including worker rights, and the development of the rule of law in China. The Commission by mandate also maintains a database of information on political prisoners in China—individuals who have been imprisoned by the Chinese government for exercising their civil and political rights under China’s Constitution and laws or under China’s international human rights obligations. All of the Commission’s reporting and its Political Prisoner Database are available to the public online via the Commission’s Web site, www.cecc.gov.

Preface

The findings of this Annual Report make clear that human rights conditions in China over the last year have deteriorated. This has occurred against the backdrop of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, and the Chinese government’s years of preparation for accession, which provided the impetus for many changes to Chinese law. Those changes, some of which have been significant, have yet to produce legal institutions in China that are consistently and reliably transparent, accessible, and predictable. This has had far-reaching implications for the protection of human rights and the development of the rule of law in China.

The Chinese people have achieved success on many fronts, for example in health, education, and in improved living standards for large segments of the population, and they are justifiably proud of their many successes. But the Chinese government now must lead in protecting fundamental freedoms and human rights, including the rights of workers, and in defending the integrity of China’s legal institutions with no less skill and commitment than it dis-played in implementing economic reforms that allowed the industriousness of the Chinese people to lift millions out of poverty.

Most importantly, the Chinese government must free its political prisoners, who include some of the country’s most capable and socially committed citizens—scholar and writer Liu Xiaobo, HIV/ AIDS advocate Hu Jia, prominent attorney Gao Zhisheng, journalist Gheyret Niyaz, Tibetan environmentalist Karma Samdrub, and many others named in this Annual Report and in the Commission’s Political Prisoner Database. By engaging rather than repressing human rights advocates, the Chinese government would unleash constructive forces in Chinese society that are poised to address the very social problems with which the government and Party now find themselves overburdened: corruption, poor working conditions, occupational safety and health, environmental degradation, and police abuse among them.

Stability in China is in the national interest of the United States. The Chinese government’s full and firm commitment to openness, transparency, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights, including worker rights, marks a stability-preserving path forward for China. Anything less than the government’s full and firm commitment to protect and enforce these rights undermines stability in China.

Overview

Over the Commission’s 2010 reporting year, across the areas the Commission monitors, the following general themes emerged:

New trends in political imprisonment include an increasingly harsh crackdown on lawyers and those who have a track record of human rights advocacy, particularly those who make use of the Internet and those from areas of the country the government deems to be politically sensitive (e.g., Tibetan areas and Xinjiang).
Nexus between human rights and commercial rule of law, has become more evident particularly in connection with laws on state secrets, the Internet, and worker rights.
Communist Party’s intolerance of independent sources of influence extends broadly across Chinese civil society, including with respect to organized labor.
Chinese government’s new rhetoric on compliance with international human rights norms creates new challenges for U.S.-China dialogue and exchange.
Global economic conditions have prompted the Chinese government to expand state economic and social control in a manner that impedes the development of the rule of law.
Misapplication of law as a means of control has become more evident as the Communist Party has expanded and strengthened the capacity of law and regulation to serve as a means for the Party to control an increasing number of facets of daily life.
Prospects for human rights and the rule of law in China depend on decisions taken at the highest levels of the Communist Party.

New Trends in Political Imprisonment

The Chinese government appears to be engaged in an increasingly harsh crackdown on lawyers and human rights defenders. The tightening of control over criminal lawyers, human rights lawyers, and the legal profession more generally has led some of China’s leading legal experts to state that the rule of law is in "full retreat" in China. Over the last two years, several lawyers involved in human rights advocacy work—including in legal cases involving house church members, public health advocates, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and others deemed by the government to threaten "social stability"—have been harassed and abused by the government based on who their clients are and the causes those clients represent.

The Internet appears to have given rise to a new category of political prisoners in China. Many citizens who criticize the government on blogs and comment boards face no severe repercussions— at most their comments may be deleted. But individuals who have a track record of human rights advocacy, political activism, grass-roots organizing, or opposition to the Communist Party, and some from areas of the country the government deems to be politically sensitive (e.g., Tibetan areas and Xinjiang), have been targeted systematically. Among the most common charges against these citizens are the crimes of "subverting state power" or "splittism," which carry a sentence of up to life imprisonment, and inciting subversion or "splittism," which carry a sentence of up to 15 years. Individuals, including lawyers, writers, scholars, and businesspeople, have been imprisoned on these charges for posting online essays critical of the government, for exposing corruption or environmental problems, or for trying to organize political opposition online, without advocating violence.

In the past year, government officials moved more aggressively to diminish or end the public influence of Tibetan civic and intellectual leaders, writers, and artists. Officials imprisoned such Tibetans in past years, but the frequency of using courts and the misapplication of criminal charges to remove such figures from society has increased. As of early September 2010, the Commission’s Political Prisoner Database had recorded more than 840 cases of political detention of Tibetans on or after March 10, 2008, when Tibetan protests began in Lhasa and then swept across the Tibetan plateau. The true number of political detentions during the period is certain to be far higher.

In the year since the government suppression of a demonstration by Uyghurs and multi-ethnic riots in Xinjiang starting July 5, 2009, human rights conditions in this far western region of China have worsened, and cases of political imprisonment remain of critical concern. At the same time that authorities have punished people for violent crimes committed in July 2009, they also have continued to conflate the right to demonstrate peacefully or to express criticism over government policy with criminal activity. In the past year, authorities imprisoned Uyghur Webmasters and a Uyghur journalist in connection with articles critical of conditions in Xinjiang and in connection with Internet postings calling for the July 2009 demonstrations. In the aftermath of the July 2009 events, authorities also carried out broad security sweeps resulting in mass detentions of Uyghur men and boys, some of whom appear to have had no connection to events in July 2009. The whereabouts of many people detained since July 2009 remain unknown.

Nexus Between Human Rights and Commercial Rule of Law

Developments over the past year have shown how business disputes and commercial issues can have real human rights implications when the Communist Party perceives its interests to be threatened. Under Chinese law, information relating to "national economic development" may be deemed a "state secret." Furthermore, officials sometimes deem information a state secret ex post facto, that is, after an alleged "crime" of unauthorized disclosure, trafficking, or possession of a "state secret" has occurred. Many Chinese companies dealing with foreign businesses are state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with close links to the government, heightening the possibility that such SOEs will press the government to classify commercial information as a state secret or that the government will use the charge of violating laws on state secrets to advantage Chinese commercial interests.

The crime of supplying a state secret to a foreign "organization" (a category that includes corporations) is punishable by up to life in prison. While it remains unclear whether this risk to foreign businesses has increased, high-profile cases in the last year illustrate that the risk remains real. Among such cases is that of Xue Feng, a geologist and U.S. citizen who helped his employer, an American firm, purchase commercially available information on oil wells and prospecting sites in China. The information was classified as a state secret after the purchase took place. A Chinese court then sentenced the geologist to eight years in prison. The case shows that the risk of being charged with violating laws on state secrets complicates the normal, legitimate gathering of commercial information. The imposition of such a risk whenever state ownership of industry is involved is contrary to standard international business practice and undermines the rule of law.

The controversy between the Chinese government and Google, Inc., over the last year highlighted the potential for Chinese censorship practices to interfere with the free flow of information among Chinese citizens and businesses, and between people and organizations in China and the rest of the world. The government appeared to single out Google in June 2009 during an anti-pornography campaign, saying Google was not doing enough to filter banned content (much of which is politically sensitive, not "pornographic"). In January 2010, Google announced that it had "detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China" that it said had "resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google." Google also said it had "evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists." Google said that "[t]hese attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered—combined with attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web" led the company "to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China." The Google controversy underscored what some business leaders have noted as the Chinese government’s long-growing impatience with private companies that it perceives to have grown too large or become too successful, or whose branding attracts too much loyalty outside of government-approved parameters.

The nexus between human rights and commercial rule of law also has been evident in the area of worker rights. High-profile worker actions during this reporting year included strikes calling for better wages and formal channels to submit grievances. In a number of strikes at prominent foreign manufacturing facilities in China, workers called for existing All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU)-affiliated unions to behave more independently within the confines of Chinese law. Striking workers’ demands for higher wages revealed that they may have been emboldened not only by protections for workers codified in labor laws that took effect in 2008, but also by a tighter labor market. However, they stopped short of calling for the formation of independent trade unions. The limited demands of workers reflected in part the political constraints imposed on the labor movement in China. Workers in China still are not guaranteed, either by law or in practice, full worker rights in accordance with international standards, including the right to organize into independent unions. The ACFTU, the official union under the direction of the Party, is the only legal trade union organization in China. All lower level unions must be affiliated with the ACFTU and must align with its overarching political concerns of maintaining "social stability" and economic growth.

Communist Party’s Intolerance of Independent Sources of Influence

The Communist Party’s determination to rein in independent sources of influence remained evident across Chinese society during this reporting year. For example, the Chinese government denies workers the right to organize into independent unions in part because the Party continues to regard organized labor as it does citizen activism in other spheres of public concern: as a threat to the Party’s hold on power and a potentially powerful competitor for allegiance. While legislative developments over the last three years now make collective bargaining a legal possibility in China, and efforts to develop collective labor contracting in some locales have progressed in limited respects (e.g., in Guangzhou and Shanghai), China’s leaders have made clear they will not tolerate an inde-pendent trade union movement. They do not see such a development as potentially helping to relieve the government of the burden of social pressures.

Chinese citizens who sought to establish and operate civil society organizations that focused on other issues deemed by officials to be "sensitive," including public health advocacy, housing rights advocacy, and advocacy on behalf of petitioners, ethnic minorities, or adherents of religious and spiritual groups, faced intimidation, har-assment, and punishment. The government continued to tighten its control over civil society groups through selective enforcement of regulations and through new regulations that make it difficult for some civil society organizations to accept tax deductible contributions or contributions from overseas donors.

The government also punished citizens who waged independent campaigns seeking greater government accountability. Activists who criticized the government for not doing enough to investigate the causes of school collapses in the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan have been imprisoned. Tibetans engaged in environmental protection activities with Party and government encouragement found themselves facing imprisonment when their popularity soared and they criticized local officials for breaking laws that protect endangered animal species. Petitioners in many areas of China were mistreated, harassed, and detained for their involvement in advocating for housing rights and for organizing to protest forced evictions and relocations in which the government failed to meet its obligations to compensate residents fairly and in accordance with the law. Mistreatment of those advocating on behalf of individuals who suffered abuse at the hands of population planning officials continued.

Authorities also sought to tighten control over the Internet, the influence of which continues to grow, with more than 420 million users in China. Officials stepped up monitoring and control of blogging, news, video, and social networking sites; issued legal measures that could increase pressure on Internet companies to censor political content; and sought to impose greater legal requirements on those wishing to post or host content on the Internet that could lead to self-censorship of political content for fear of government retribution. The government also continued to quash attempts by Chinese media to test the boundaries of media independence, as illustrated, for example, when an editorial calling for reform of China’s household registration system jointly published in 13 newspapers was removed from the Internet, and one of its co-authors was forced to resign his position as editor of one of the papers.

A further example of the Chinese leadership’s determination to rein in independent sources of influence is the continuing ban on Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a spiritual movement established in China in the early 1990s based on Chinese meditative exercises called qigong. By 1999, the Falun Gong movement reportedly had grown to include an estimated 70 to 100 million followers (also called "practitioners"). The group flourished during the decade following the suppression of the Tiananmen democracy movement in June 1989, which many viewed as a hopeful development, showing that it was possible, even in the wake of the events of June 1989, to build a non-state-affiliated popular organization in China on a massive scale without state support. In 1999, however, the Party announced a total ban on Falun Gong, the implementation of which has resulted in the harassment, detention, and mental and physical abuse of large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners in official custody, and in some cases torture and death. The ban remains in force today, and authorities regularly intensify crackdowns on the Falun Gong movement around events the government deems to be sensitive, such as the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.

Chinese Government’s New Rhetoric on Compliance With International Human Rights Norms

Chinese officials appear to have adopted a new rhetorical strategy with respect to China’s compliance with international norms. In the past, Chinese officials often argued that it was necessary to carve out exceptions and waivers to the application of international norms to China. While stating their embrace of international norms in the abstract, for example, on free expression and the environment, they sought to make the case that, in practice, China deserved to be treated as an exception, due, for instance, to its status as a developing country. Now, however, official statements increasingly tend to declare the Chinese government’s compliance with international norms, even in the face of documented noncompliance. For example, in June 2010, the State Council Information Office released a white paper presenting "the true situation of the development and regulation of the Internet in China" to Chinese citizens and the international community. The white paper claims the government "guarantees citizens’ freedom of speech on the Internet" and that its model for regulating the Internet is "consistent with international practices." One implication of this new rhetorical tactic is that it seemingly relieves Chinese officials of the burden of arguing from the outset for exceptions and waivers to the application of international norms to China. Simply declaring compliance shifts the burden of persuasion to those who point out the Chinese government’s noncompliance, placing them in the position of critics of China, subject to accusations by Chinese officials of "finger-pointing," "China bashing," and "poisoning the atmosphere" for good relations with China. By adopting this new rhetorical approach, Chinese officials make respectful, open, and frank dialogue with China more difficult, and the approach itself underscores how important it is that Members of the U.S. Congress and Administration officials not uncritically accept Chinese officials’ declarations of compliance.

Chinese officials in the last year also increasingly have sought to portray the "Chinese model" (zhongguo moshi) as consistent with international human rights standards. In an April 2010 speech before the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, for example, State Council Information Office Director Wang Chen said the government is campaigning to gain global acceptance for its model of Internet control, having "engaged in dialogue and exchanges with more than 70 countries and international organizations," "countered Western enemy forces’ smears against us, and enhanced the international community’s acceptance and understanding of our model of managing the Internet." This new approach seeks to redefine the substance of international human rights standards in a manner that legitimizes the Chinese government’s noncompliance. This new approach appears to be connected with debates going on now within China over whether China should sign on to, or try to change, the rules of the international system.

Global Economic Conditions and the Expansion of State Control

The Communist Party is motivated to deliver employment and prosperity to inland and rural areas, and not just to coastal regions that already have benefited disproportionately from economic development, in part in order to demonstrate the Party’s ability to govern. The global economic downturn has dampened demand for Chinese exports, and that has made the delivery of employment and prosperity to inland and rural areas more challenging for the Party. In these areas, grievances over lax enforcement of health and safety standards and of environmental and worker rights protections have fueled discontent. The corruption and collusion between local businesses and local regulatory authorities that are associated with lax enforcement have undermined the reputation of the Party in these areas. In response, the leadership has resorted to expanded state economic and social control.

In the economic sphere, state-owned companies acquired private companies at a faster clip in the past year than previously. Flush with capital from an economic stimulus program of unprecedented magnitude and favored in the awarding of infrastructure projects, China’s state-owned enterprises have expanded easily and squeezed out private firms in some sectors. The need to address corruption and collusion between private firms and local regulatory officials, however, has allowed officials to cast expansion of state control as a method for improving accountability and the rule of law. In part because corruption and lax enforcement of health and safety standards and environmental and worker rights protections are the problems that fuel local discontent, Chinese citizens have not widely contested the Party’s justification of expanded state control in these terms.

At the same time, many Chinese firms, especially state-owned enterprises, continue to benefit from the Chinese government’s industrial policies that provide government subsidies, preferences, and other benefits. The government also has promoted "indigenous innovation," a massive government campaign to decrease reliance on foreign technology through industrial policies and to enhance China’s economy and national security, with the stated purpose of enabling China to become a global leader in technology by mid-century. Such policies have further facilitated the expansion of state control of the economy.

In the social sphere, China’s leaders over the last year sought to expand control by establishing or strengthening existing Party "branches" in non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and residential communities. Local governments, charged with "maintaining social stability," established or strengthened existing "stability preservation offices" and established new "stability preservation funds" (weiwen jijin) from which they make payments to people with grievances in order to preempt their escalating disputes. Large numbers of petitioners availing themselves of China’s xinfang ("letters and visits") system for filing grievances against the government were harassed, abused, detained illegally, and involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals or sent to "reeducation through labor" facilities. Officials continued to use license suspension and disbarment as methods to control human rights lawyers who sought to represent clients in cases deemed by authorities to be politically sensitive.

Misapplication of Law as a Means of Control

The Communist Party and Chinese government are expanding and strengthening the capacity of law and regulation to serve as a means to control an increasing number of facets of life in China. Officials this past year sought to increase monitoring of communication technologies—the Internet and cell phones—that play a significant role in the daily lives of large numbers of Chinese citizens. Officials sought to make it easier for the government to identify the source of online content, by barring anonymous commenting, for example, and passed legal measures that add pressure on Internet companies to police the Internet for state secrets and for content that authorities allege may "infringe on the rights of others." While such moves may be aimed partly at legitimate targets of concern, including spam and defamatory content, in the Chinese context they also provide opportunities and incentives for officials and private companies to censor politically sensitive content.

Authorities increasingly have used the Law on the Control of the Exit and Entry of Citizens to manage dissent. Article 8 of the law allows the government to ban "persons whose exit from the country, in the opinion of the competent department . . . [would] be harmful to state security or cause a major loss to national interest." During this reporting year, authorities increasingly cited this provision to prevent rights defenders and advocates who are critical of the government from leaving China.

The Party and government also continued to use law to entrench a policy framework of state control over religion, as well as to exclude some religious communities from the limited but important protections afforded to state-sanctioned religious groups. In the past year, authorities made use of laws concerning property and financial assets to restrict the religious freedom of unregistered religious groups. President Hu Jintao used the powerful Fifth Tibet Work Forum platform to emphasize the Party’s role in controlling Tibetan Buddhism and the important role of law as a tool to enforce what the Party deems to be the "normal order" for the religion. The government and Party created increasing restraints on the exercise of freedom of religion for Tibetan Buddhists by strengthening the push to use policy and legal measures to shape and control the "normal order" for Tibetan Buddhism.

During this reporting year, China’s security and judicial institutions’ use of laws on "endangering state security"—a category of crimes that includes "subversion," "splittism," "leaking state secrets," and "inciting" subversion or splittism—infringed upon Chinese citizens’ constitutionally protected freedoms of speech, religious belief, association, and assembly. For example, the government has used the law on splittism to punish Tibetans who criticized or peacefully protested government policies and then used the law on "leaking state secrets" to punish Tibetans who attempted to share with other Tibetans information about incidents of repression and punishment. Authorities also issued regulations in the past year in Xinjiang to impose state-defined notions of "ethnic unity" and to tighten controls over online speech. The imprisonment of Uyghur Webmasters and a Uyghur journalist on charges of endangering state security, in connection with online postings and articles critical of conditions in Xinjiang, underscored authorities’ use of the Criminal Law to quell free expression. The imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo and other activists on inciting subversion and leaking state secrets charges after they peacefully criticized officials and the Party further underscored authorities’ use of the Criminal Law to quell free expression.

Prospects for the Rule of Law in China

Prospects for human rights and the rule of law in China depend not only on decisions taken by officials responsible for implementing law and protecting rights at the grassroots, but also on decisions taken at the highest levels of the Communist Party. The Party, with over 75 million members (roughly 5.7 percent of China’s total population), strives to maintain unchallenged rule over a country of more than 1.3 billion people. The Party stakes the legitimacy of its claim to rule China on its ability to provide both stability and prosperity to the Chinese people, and to "unify the country" (tongyi guojia). The Party leadership regards developments that could adversely affect China’s one-party system as potential threats to stability, prosperity, or unity. The rule of law, if implemented faithfully and fairly, should benefit not just those the Party favors. Some of China’s leaders, therefore, regard implementation of the rule of law as potentially diminishing the capacity of the Party to maintain control.

Three decades ago, the challenge that reformers within the Party faced was to find a way to advance market-oriented reforms while ensuring that economic development still bore the imprimatur of the Party. They succeeded. The economy boomed, and the Party received enough of the credit to enable it to maintain its hold on power. The challenge that reformers within the Party perceive today is in finding a way to advance the rule of law in a manner that results in the law still bearing the imprimatur of the Party. Over the last year, senior leaders have reiterated positions emphasizing the leading role of the Party, the need to adhere to the Party’s formulation of "socialist democracy," and the impossibility of implementing "Western-style" legal and political institutions.

Motivated by China’s dependence on foreign investment, China’s leaders have appeared to be more nimble in the commercial context to accept concepts and practices associated with so-called Western-style rule of law. Whether a decrease in China’s reliance on foreign investment ultimately will be associated with change or continuity in this regard remains to be seen. The findings of this Annual Report suggest, however, as the Commission reported in its last Annual Report, that the Party still "rejects the notion that the imperative to uphold the rule of law should preempt the Party’s role in guiding the functions of the state." Chinese leaders’ actions over the coming months will shed light on whether their stated commitment to the rule of law is real. The Commission and those who pay close attention to these issues in China will watch developments carefully.

In 2009, the Chinese government issued the 2009–2010 National Human Rights Action Plan that uses the language of human rights to cast an ambitious program for promoting the rights of Chinese citizens. The Action Plan has been described by some human rights advocates as signifying "remarkable progress" because in it the Chinese government articulates a clearly defined time period (2009–2010) for implementing a number of commitments to civil and political rights. The findings of this Annual Report document how the Party thus far has prioritized strengthening its grip on society over the implementation of the commitments to human rights and the rule of law set forth in the Chinese government’s own Action Plan. The Commission urges Members of the U.S. Congress and Administration officials to continue to inquire about the Chinese government’s progress in translating words into action and in securing for its citizens the improvements it has set forth in its Action Plan. To that end, this Annual Report and the information available on the Commission’s Web site may serve as useful resources.

I. Executive Summary

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A summary of specific findings follows below for each section of this Annual Report, covering each area that the Commission monitors. In each area, the Commission has identified a set of issues that merit attention over the next year, and, in accordance with the Commission’s legislative mandate, submits for each a set of recommendations to the President and the Congress for legislative or executive action.