May many more people of influence make this an issue, is my prayer!

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | February 13, 2008 3:06 PM

I read recently that Britain was considering issuing a gag order on it's athletes, preventing them from making any political statements while in China. Disgusting.

Posted by: kevin s. | February 13, 2008 4:16 PM

I'm glad people are doing something about this, but it's too bad more pressure wasn't applied before China got the games in the first place.

Posted by: Eric | February 13, 2008 4:53 PM

While I agree we should not stand by and do nothing when we have oportunity to "make a difference". I first of all do not see the difference between the man who decided not to organize to opening and closing cerimonies and someone deciding not to go to the games as a statement of oposition (letting the powers that be in China know of corse). Just "telling the truth" is far short of the message China needs to move in the right direction on this issue. I don't think China cares that we know something...just what are we going to do about it. Like maybe not purchase China made products.?

Posted by: TC | February 14, 2008 10:16 AM

China is Communist, people.

When will this sink in? Communism with more trade is still Communism. They STILL believe in forcing it upon all of us world wide. Exploiting the worker class to build an empire for the "party" to rule.

You can't evolve communism to a lesser evil, and not just still be evil. The Kremlin got less tone-deaf in the 70's and 80's, but it was still the Kremlin. Perestroika was fancy words. The goals never changed.

Why dare none say it? Communism in China needs to fall, be overthrown.

1.3 billion people and not a one of them breathes a breath of free air, nor lives without fear of the state. You all attempt to make monsters out of Republicans - "extra chromosome" people ( Al Gore ), "Wants to kill old people and starve children" (more Gore). And one can hardly get a single liberal voice to hue and cry about the whale in the swimming pool called China.

Posted by: mark | February 14, 2008 12:00 PM

"There's lots of people this side of the pond who don't breathe the fresh air of freedom either, since our incarceration rate is higher than that of China, according to conservative groups like Cato who monitor such things."

Tying incarceration rates to the concept of freedom is so simplistic that it is just plain wrong. A society that allows murderers and rapists to run wild is not a free society. In America, incarceration is used to promote safety, which is a component of freedom.

In China, they imprison you for speaking out against the government or practicing religion of any sort. They incarcerate with an attempt to inhibit freedoms.

"The communist party is China is authoritarian and extremely conservative. In no way is it liberal in any way, shape or form."

If you are going to draw a comparison between our political ideologies and China, I would note that conservatives would not support nearly so strong a centralized government, and that our ideology is based upon the idea that government control of inudstry inevitably leads to the sort of human rights abuses we see in countries like China and Cuba.

I don't understand your point at all.

"Our most strident capitalists and profit-takers are engaged in just that lucrative trade, which produces profits and jobs for those here."

It does, which begs the question of whether ceasing to engage China in the economy will help or hurt when it comes to human right abuses. China has been able to achieve some measure of the power they seek by being a part of the world economy, which reduces their military threat. War with China would be much more disastrous than trade, wouldn't you agree?

Posted by: kevin s. | February 14, 2008 1:10 PM

Mark: "Why dare none say it? Communism in China needs to fall, be overthrown . . . And one can hardly get a single liberal voice to hue and cry about the whale in the swimming pool called China."

Not true. A number of liberals protested vociferously, arm-in-arm with conservatives I might add, the Chinese government's action in Tiananmen Square in 1989. I know, because I was part of that.

In March 2000 Nancy Pelosi of California joined fellow Democrat Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Senator Tim Hutchinson (Republican of Arkansas) to issue a bipartisan call for the Clinton Administration to press hard to get the UN Human Rights Commission to put China's human rights record on its agenda.

In a syndicated column run in the Seattle Times on Oct. 25, 2006, Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, wrote: "The human-rights wing of the Democratic Party, which includes the Free Tibet faction, is as antagonistic to Beijing as is the evangelical, God-loving right wing of the Republican Party. Both factions, if in power, spell trouble for China."

I could go on and on but you get the picture. To say that liberals are indifferent to the human rights issue in China is simply not true.

The real issue is: what can concerned Americans--conservative, liberal, Jacobite, whatever--do to encourage human rights in China? "Constructive engagement"? a trade boycott? protests at the Beijing Olympics? I'd be interested in hearing ideas on this.

Posted by: carl copas | February 14, 2008 3:27 PM

Kevin: "In China, they imprison you for...practicing religion of any sort."

This was true in the Mao era but not true for the past 25 years. Religious practice IS allowed in China and there are many legal Catholic and Protestant churches, mosques, and Buddhist temples there that are very active. You can buy Bibles and other Chrsitan materials (crucifixes etc.) in the bookstores.

However, worshipping in a church that is not government-sponsored often results in prison and persecution and we must keep up the pressure on the government to halt that persecution. Interestingly, in some areas such as Guangzhou the local government turns its head as the "house churches" operate openly, while in areas around Beijing or in some rural areas the punishments can be very severe. It is inconsistent and often depends on how corrupt or vengeful the local government leaders are.

But I agree wholeheartedly with your main point: it needs to stop and we as Christians and as human rights advocates need to keep it on the radar screen.

Posted by: I and I | February 14, 2008 3:43 PM

China doesn't just have harsh punishments for political dissent, it has draconian punishments for what we consider garden-variety criminal behavior in the U.S.

It's such an article of faith that we are "free" that there's virtually nothing that could happen here that would shake some people's faith.

Moreover, China now fits better in practice a working definition of fascism rather than communism. In fascism, there is capitalism and private ownership of business, but there is no poltical freedom, along with an emphasis on nationalism rather than internationalism. China has morphed into just such a politically authoritarian and nationalistic state, regardless of the overt name applied to its rulers.

Posted by: N.M. Rod | February 14, 2008 9:39 PM

That ANYONE would defend communism, after living in our society, is incomprehensible.

That a Christian would attempt to equate the US and China, in terms of Freedom... Especially religious freedom...?

In comprehensible.

I could not imagine claiming the name of Christ and being so utterly callous to the plight of the billions of victims of Communism.

Posted by: mark | February 14, 2008 11:34 PM

I don't defend China's record on human rights. I condemn it. I am anti-communist, but I also against authoritarian regimes of the right. Like Alexis de Tocqueville in "Democracy in America," I recognize that tyranny can take root and undermine freedom in any political system, whether a kingdom, a constitutional monarchy, a republic or a democracy.

The Chinese government government has committed genocide in Tibet and is engaging in an illegal occupation there. In some ways, however, their behavior mirrors the universal human propensity for conquest and domination of others - including a past history of similar abuses against American Indians.

It is true that China is a political dictatorship. It is no longer communist, however, in terms of the abolition of private property and a centrally planned economy with 100% state ownership of the emans of production. There is even a stock market, a Marxist heresy if ever there was one, which would have been unimaginable under Mao Tse-Tung. The stock market is the heresy of wicked heresies to a communist and its depiction as a pit of greed was a moral staple of communist propaganda of the past.

Communism was an international movement with the motto, "Workers of the world, unite!" That is hardly China's ideology and neither are they seeking to export revolution. Instead, they have focussed on themselves and become nationalistic at the same time they have decided to employ capitalism and private enterprise. In this, if any socialism remains at all, it is the "national socialism" of strong authoritarian single party rule which allows for private ownership and private wealth. This is politically very much related to the kinds of regimes of fascist Italy and loyalist Spain, but without the extreme anti-semitism of Nazi Germany.

Before thinking that anti-communism necessarily makes one an uncritical advocate for all things American, recall that Soviet dissident and great writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was very popular in America as long as he denounced the abuses of the Soviet system and its leadership, but he was not well-received when he cast a critical eye on and pointed out Amererica's own failings.

I must remark that it's too bad the insults and demeaning language are continuing unabated, instead of real engagement. However, I hope that it's realized it certainly isn't coming from me.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | February 15, 2008 1:39 AM

(Looking over the comment I made yesterday, I realize it wasn't clear and ought to rewrite because it sounds like the opposite of what i meant to say. "..the government of China is considered liberal by their own rhetoric and by that of the international community insofar as it expands rights, not restricts them" really should have read "the government of China is considered liberal only in instances in which it expands rights not previously given, not when it restricts them.")

Naomi is right when she writes "the Communist government has lifted 400 million people out of poverty over the past 20 years (World Bank statistic)." I also agree with her that in a sense, the government is "bribing" a critical mass with prosperity in exchange for not uprising for more democratic freedoms. My impression is much like Naomi's--there really is very little agitation among college students for expanded political rights. They feel they have a bright economic future, better than that of their parents and with slightly more civil liberties, and so by and large they see no need to rock the boat further.

Where you are going to see the agitation is among the peasants who do not share in the prosperity, whether they are displaced or whether their communities are experiencing birth defects because of pollution from an upstream factory. This is already happening--a few years ago there were more than 400 peasant uprisings within a years' time. Often they are violent and someone gets killed.

Often, what is behind this abuse of the peasants is local corruption. The local officials get kickbacks from the factories and mining companies and make ad hoc laws that favor the businesses at the expense of the peasants. Essentially, what you have in China is an unbridled capitalism with none of the regulations that keep our own capitalist system (usually) workable and fair. But you still have the name communism, and the civil liberties repression leftover from when China was actually communist.

So Mark, it is naive to say that China is practicing communism in the 21st century. Totalitarianism, yes, and we must continue to speak out about it, but it's not communism.

Posted by: I and I | February 15, 2008 9:02 AM

Is there a moderator who could give Mark a warning?

Rather than posting admonitions to the moderators to take action here, concerns about postings and/or pasters' behavior should be sent directly to the moderators themselves. Their email link is on the Rules of Conduct page, but for convenience, here it is:

community@staff.beliefnet.com

They need to hear from you, especially concerning repeated violations of the rules of conduct by the person named here.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | February 15, 2008 10:44 AM

Naomi - I appreciate the perspective from someone who lived in China. I've never lived there, so you, and anyone else, can take what I say with a grain of salt...

...but it sounds like you’re making an excuse for tyranny. You acknowledge that people who “fall out of line” (awful choice of words on your part) face oppression and imprisonment in China. Go to any human rights organization and they have reams of data on people who’ve simply disappeared or have been thrown into jail. Millions of Chinese have died or never lived because of their inhumane “one-child policy”.

This is from Human Rights Watch: “Human Rights Watch said that the repression of dissidents and human rights activists has broadened in recent months to include systematic intimidation, surveillance, and confinement of dissidents’ close relatives. Such tactics keep the dissidents’ cases out of sight and prevent relatives from mounting legal challenges. ..In addition to the sharp deterioration of the situation of human rights defenders and dissidents, Human Rights Watch also noted a host of serious and uncorrected problems linked to the preparation of the Games, including forced evictions, land seizures, suppression of petitioners, closure of migrant children schools, heightened internet censorship, and the use of “hard-strike” anti-crime campaigns to prepare the eviction from Beijing of undocumented rural migrant workers, beggars, vagrants, and sex workers. “

I guess these people all “fell out of line”. I understand your point that the government believes the only choice is between these actions and the chaos that sometimes follows freedom (or is it really just their loss of power they fear?). But I would think there is a third way between a complete democratic revolution and the tyranny under which the current Chinese live.

On another note… I’m glad to see Sojourners is applauding the Australian government’s apologies for past wrongs to their native people. Let’s hope Sojourners puts pressure on the Chinese to apologize for the millions who died when they tried to implement socialism.

Posted by: Eric | February 15, 2008 3:35 PM

TC wrote: I don't think China cares that we know something...just what are we going to do about it. Like maybe not purchase China made products?

That's exactly the conversation we've had in my family - stop buying products made in China. It isn't easy, and we are just one family, but if enough families bonded together and started writing letters to toy & other manufacturers explaining the reason for this boycott, it just might create some momentum. It's time to put some action behind our hope for change, and if my consumer dollars are the only action I have at my disposal, so be it.

Posted by: KCT | February 16, 2008 10:00 AM