Days before China's human rights record comes under scrutiny before a key U.N. panel, the government's grip on dissent seems as firm as ever.
Government critics have been rounded up and some imprisoned on vaguely defined state security charges. Corruption whistle-blowers have been bundled away, while discussion of sensitive political and social topics on the Internet remains tightly policed.
But the Chinese don't count suppression of dissent as violating freedoms:
The council will review a report submitted by China that emphasizes the government's interpretation of human rights largely as a matter of improved economic conditions. Standards of living are rising, it says, while progress is being made in education, health, political participation and the legal system.
"The Chinese people, who once lacked basic necessities, are now enjoying relative prosperity," the document says.
A lot of Americans who favor extensive economic engagement with China believe that political freedom must follow economic freedom no matter how badly the Chinese Communist Party wishes to wall off the latter from the former. The experience of the Soviet Union's Glasnost policy is certainly a piece of evidence in support of this idea. And for decades now, the Chinese people have seemed mostly content to accept their Two Freedoms--the freedom to get rich and the freedom to keep their noses out of the government's business.
The current economic global downturn breaks the implicit CCP bargain with the people that the party will provide prosperity in exchange for the people agreeing to stay out of politics and stay quiet, enjoying their new standard of living.
Still, the government still has the guns. Twenty years ago, Peking had no problem slaughtering protesters to maintain control. And last year, the Tibetans felt the fury of the state's security apparatus. So far, public unrest doesn't appear to be anything more than the usual disorder that the state has handled without losing control. We shall see.
