Growing Concern Over China's Human Rights Record
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-11/growing-concern-over-chinas-human-rights-record
Forty years ago, China invited an American ping-pong team to visit - the first step in reversing decades of little contact with the U.S. Today the U.S.-China relationship is critically important. The two nation's economies - the world's largest - are intricately linked. The U.S. and China share global and strategic concerns as well. But the recent arrests of Chinese journalists, lawyers, writers and artists have evoked international criticism. This week the Obama administration publicly admonished China for its troubling human rights record. We'll talk about China's response and whether pushing Beijing to allow more dissent is an effective strategy.
Guests
Kenneth Lieberthal
senior fellow and director of the John L. Thornton China Center at The Brookings Institution; former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council under President Clinton.
John Pomfret
diplomatic correspondent, The Washington Post; adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; author of "Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China."
Renee Xia
international director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders Network.
John Frisbie
president, U.S.-China Business Council.
Comments
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I am deeply disappointed (to put it mildly/politely) that US is responsible for allowing China to get away with murder. It seems that China can commit human rights abuse any which way on any given day but they don't even get a slap on the wrist. If another country did this, US would be all over them to get rid of their govt system, their leader etc. This hypocrisy is sickening to me. Just this morning, I heard that China wants to see the wreckage from the helicopter left behind in Pakistan. If China is growing economically, it's because US and other countries don't apply the same rules to them as they do for others. China will only allow plants to be setup if blue prints/technology is shared!!! What happened to intellectual property laws?? If US and other western nations clamped down on China and stop their dirty tactics like currency fixing, stealing/pirating US technology, abusing basic human rights, may be China wouldn't be number 1 in 5 years!!! If they are #1 any time soon, I hold US and other nations responsible for China's power and growth. Let China grow and prosper by following the same rules of the game as US and other countries like India do.
There's an old saying that goes something like letting the person that's without tarnish throw the first stone or another way of looking at the subject is looking at whose calling the kettle black, as if Guantanamo and the School of the Americas, or whatever the administration now wants to call it, are figments of our imagination, as if we really care, as if our own house is squeaky clean. There's a bag in the corner with a lot of dirty laundry from 9/11. Anyone want to take a look?
I doubt if the 'suicide nets' surrounding factories in China are there to support the wonderful working conditions.
What are "American" values? Without a doubt, universal values should ALWAYS have priority. American history and the status quo is too contradictory to peace, equality, and justice to be hailed as a paradigm. Sure...in writing, our constitution is almost ideal, but China and almost all non-Anglo-Saxon nations recognize the duplicity and hypocrisy. The good ol' USA was (in effect ) founded on human rights violations...and it is so apparent that the hearts of many of our statesmen still wish for, and hope to further perpetuate a divided nation where the rights of many are compromised...all for control and greed. No...America hardly qualifies as a model for human rights advocacy...or even decency.
The blood of innocents is still spilled in America...but it's usually the minorities (those without power), so it becomes acceptable. America has way too much guilt to have any clout in other nations' cultural affairs. Oh...but we have WMD...and the fiscal deficit to prove it.
Seems to be a matter of perspective and definition of "human rights". In CHina it is a human right to have a job and work for progress - in U.S.A. it is a human right to be unemployed while the corporations export jobs to China. In CHina it is right for humans to limit reproduction of humans to fit the resources - in U.S.A. it is a human right for each and every ovum to be fertilized and become another human to eventually be an unemployed American.
The fact is Americans, in general, do not allow for any other view of acceptable culture than the culture they have been raised in - all other cultures are unacceptable.
It is interesting that U.S.A. is prancing around the globe preaching freedom and democracy while at the same time here at home we are giving away our freedom and our democracy has been bought out by corporate interests.
Who are we to tell any other nation they do not have good human rights?
Especially the nation that owns the U.S.A.
Remember all those grand political and economic theorists (mostly on the right) who predicted that when China embraced free markets and free enterprise it would develop democracy and political freedom?
Remember Marx's prediction that the establishment of Communism would lead to the "withering away of the state", since in the "worker's paradise" there would be no need for government, since there would be no crime, etc.?
Gee, it looks like all these beautiful theories keep getting destroyed by ugly facts.
Repeat after me: there is no necessary connection between economics and politics! One can have political freedom without (and before) economic freedom - English history proves that. One can also have capitalism without political freedom - China is proving that every day.
Oh, and to those bad mouthing America: I admit we're not perfect (who is?), but we're a damn site better than China! (Or do you want to live in a country where they can force you to have an abortion, sell you children's toys painted with lead, and give you transfusions from a common vat of infected blood, and you have no say in the matter at all?)
{{Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
Repeat after me: there is no necessary connection between economics and politics! One can have political freedom without (and before) economic freedom - English history proves that. One can also have capitalism without political freedom - China is proving that every day.}}
I'd put it more strongly than that- to equate "Free Market Economics" with Democracy is an act incredible arrogance and moral degeneracy.
{{Oh, and to those bad mouthing America: I admit we're not perfect (who is?), but we're a damn site better than China! (Or do you want to live in a country where they can force you to have an abortion, sell you children's toys painted with lead, and give you transfusions from a common vat of infected blood, and you have no say in the matter at all?)
May 11, 2011 - 12:48 pm}}
As usual, the Blind propose to lecture the Blind--
Years of forced sterilizations up to the present day. Govt theft of Children for a host of Legal, Mental, Moral and Economic shortcomings. Prisons overflowing with the Poor and the Insane. Our own Home- grown Insurgency still enforced by wholesale Murder of Black Men by psychopathic cops. And now they are beating and killing the Black Women as well.
(Cont)
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
(Cont)
Peaceful Liberal Protest has vanished because of systematic, heavy-handed treatment by cops.
Babies milk tainted with PCBs. Children poisoned by EColi, etc. 40,000 deaths annually due to tainted food.
Forgotten the Great AIDS tainted Blood Scandal?? Recent deaths and misery caused by reusing sloppily cleaned disposable catheters etc. Massive overradiation by for profit hospitals.
This whole program was a long string of accusations against China for acts that are rife in the US (And I might add triply in Israel).
The combined total of killings by the Iranian, Egyptian, Chinese etc etc Governments during the Arab Spring is a mere shadow of that by the Israeli Jews in their unprovoked attacks on Lebanon and Palestine.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
99 44/100 PerCent of the crap that is written and Broadcast in this Nation and particularly by NeoCon Propaganda Network is from or derived from Defectors who come to the US and are made Rich by doing everything in their power to destroy their Homelands, their Friends and Families.
Look at our History!!
Is that what you call Journalism?
Is that what you call Information that nourishes Democracy?
Is that what you call Policy?
Letting Your Chinese Quisling get away with "Disappeared", which means throwing Liberals out of helicopters over the ocean!
Letting Your Chinese Quisling get away with "Torture" ( a word no longer allowed in the NPR Lexicon)! Wow, said Diane!!
Using the Net Worth of Legislatures to compare Wealth disparity in China and the US is certainly in contention for most assinine statement of this Hour. About Par for the Post. (see my comment below on the membership of "Journalists", serving Military, et al in one of the most corrupt Political Institutions in the World).
Another of the manifold examples of Diane's shameless censorship of opinions contrary to her NeoCon Syllabus- cutting off the Caller pointing out the monumental hypocracy of the Right's treatment of American Unions vice their crocodile tears for the poor working Folks of their du Jour Enemies.
(See my comment below on the Rehm Censoring Microphone and how Diane lost her voice).
When Lech Walesa was trout fishing in his mountain prison, the Head of the Air Traffic Controllers Union was dragged through the Streets of Norfolk, Virginia chained hand and foot like a Mad Axe Murderer.
Coal Company blew up an 8 by 10 tool shed, blamed it on the Union and a (Typically) crooked Virginia Coal Country Judge partially suceeded in putting the entire UMW out of business.
Diane, you are a disgrace!!
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Monte Haun:
I share your outrage and agree with most of your assertions.
One important thing you must keep in mind is that the USA and China Incorporated are one in the "Glowball Economy."
(Two Indian farmers commit suicide because of compounding debt each hour due to the same genre of economic aggression.)
A free market would tend to equalize working conditions and wages over time so that Chinese would enjoy the same advantages we have. But there has never been a "free market" anywhere beyond vegetable bartering farmers or a perfect communism to exceed the Shaker cloisters. The "Glowball Economy" is rigged to sink the boats of all waged workers and is a merchantilist syndicate operated by a tiny Oligarchy. The same people who own the Chinese own us under the current rules of property, Constitutions notwithstanding. That is why our Supreme court is arrogantly contradictory and our Congress and President are bought. Governments disregard even science until it provides methods of more efficient wealth and labor extraction.
Diane Rehm is a good woman whose consciousness is constrained by her social circle and the producers at WAMU.
It is doubly cruel of you to mock her disability. As soon as Diane did the things you demand of her she would be replaced by a worse person. Exactly what do you not understand about reform in a time of fascism? I almost flagged your post but thought people needed to see.
A Letter Fell from the Book
When in time it for you arrives.
And each one of your selves is the door,
to the mirror you seek.
To whom,
which one is invited inside to you speak.
After having arrived.
What was it that you did not say.
Having thought to say what was never said.
Being now to late to say what was said.
Did you smile and unthinkingly say?
Sit.
Here please sit here where you are.
Eat from this bowl and drink from this cup.
Others whom are are you one myself.
The love letter from the book on the lower shelf.
The image on the cover a reflection of the self.
The reflection in the mirror a photograph of your life.
Come sit down.
Enjoy your life until the night when it comes.
And comes the soft wind the candle, it goes out.
Create Date : Monday, July 25, 2011
Update Date : Monday, July 25, 2011
Is It Poetry
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Tai Chi Italy (7/25/2011 10:57:00 AM)
strangely enough my dear late mother left lots of little notes in lots of her book for me to find and it is such a pleasure to find them, often, just when I need them. A far reaching write about life as we blow it. You are right! Life is to be enjoyed and not just constantly annoyed! lol
Smiling at you
Tai