Thank you for the opportunity to provide some brief remarks before you today.
I'm an assistant professor in the department of political science at York University. I've been researching and teaching China's politics and economy since the early 1990s, first as a student and now as a professor. One of my areas of specialty is political change in China and China's role in the international system.
Just by way of background, prior to joining York University in 2006, I was a Canadian diplomat in our embassy in Beijing, responsible for managing Canada's foreign aid to China and North Korea. From 2000 to 2003 I worked in the China and Northeast Asia division of CIDA and the China-Mongolia division of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I was a visiting fellow at Peking University from 1997 to 1998. I'm a Canadian of Chinese ancestry. My grandfather came to Canada in 1904. I speak Mandarin and Cantonese. In the past 10 years I've lived five years in China.
In the short time that I have here, I wish to address two issues related to Canada-China human rights dialogue: first, Beijing's willingness to accept, uphold, and enforce human rights standards from less acceptance to more; and second, the conditions under which Beijing is most likely to adhere to international standards of human rights.
One, to what extent is China willing to accept, uphold, and enforce human rights standards? I think it's fair to say that China's position on human rights has evolved significantly over the last 30 years. It has come to accept the basic idea that there are universally accepted human rights, a departure from the Maoist period, when it held that the west's notions of “human rights” embodied “capitalist” and “bourgeois” thinking that did not apply to China and other socialist states. It has begun to accept the idea that this universal definition of human rights includes political and civil rights as well as economic and social rights. It has yet, however, to ratify the international convention of civil and political rights.
Despite Beijing's gradual and growing acceptance of the concept of universal human rights, significant gaps remain between its position and that of Canada. China continues to insist that human rights are not absolute, that their promotion must be weighed, according to Beijing, against other considerations, particularly China's transitional stage of economic development and political stability.
It argues that political and civil rights can only be implemented gradually, at a higher level of economic and societal development, and with broader adherence to the rule of law and greater political stability.
There is also the possibility that China is trying to develop a new model of politics and governance that it will call “democratic”, which may contain elements of pluralism but will not contain multi-party contestation or direct popular elections to the highest offices in the country, elements that Canada regards as intrinsic parts of a democracy.
I would suggest that equally important for the committee's purposes is Beijing's ambivalence towards international enforcement of human rights standards in other countries where they are being violated. More recently, China has been increasingly willing, though, to subject some cases of human rights violations to international pressure and has gradually shifted position on North Korea, Darfur, and Burma.
However, China continues to regard economic sanctions and security-led humanitarian intervention as unacceptable violations of sovereignty of the country in question, except in cases of the most severe internal conflict or where there may be spillover effects that threaten international stability. However, Professor Allen Carlson, at Cornell University in the United States, has shown that China has shifted slowly on its position on international intervention over the past 15 years. So there appears to be possibility also for movement on this front.
Two, when does China appear most apt to adhere to international standards of human rights? China appears more likely to adhere to international standards of human rights:
1. When Beijing sees that the standards and norms in question are truly universal, when the standards are supported by the vast majority of states in both the developed and developing worlds. This explains China's growing acceptance of some of the international civil and political rights—for example, child rights and gender rights.
2. When China sees its behaviour in keeping with human rights standards and norms in keeping with its own interests, and behaviour that violates those standards could potentially threaten China's own objectives. But here we're really talking about “threats” of the highest order in terms of national survival. This is perhaps the main reason why China has come to support the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
3. When China sees that the international organization enforcing the norms is widely regarded as legitimate and effective. This is reflected in China's willingness to take security issues to the United Nations Security Council and its more cautious response toward the advances of the G-8. China tends also to react strongly against proactive and provocative rights advocacy at the bilateral level.
4. When Beijing knows it will be isolated in terms of world opinion if it obstructs the enforcement of the international human rights standards or norms. This lesson can be drawn from the embarrassment that China suffered recently when it tried to transport conventional arms to Zimbabwe.
5. When China sees that other major powers, especially the United States, abide by the international human rights norms that it expects China to honour.
Some generalizations: China has come to increasingly accept a wide range of international norms in contrast to the Maoist period, but it still defines some of those norms differently than does Canada, including those governing human rights. China continues to hold that the enforcement of norms should be constrained by commitment to the principle of national sovereignty. And China appears most likely to adhere to international human rights standards when it sees the norms or standards, or the enforcement agency, widely accepted as legitimate.
My personal view is that Canada has the most leverage in promoting Canadian and international values on human rights in China when it promotes international standards and norms at both the multilateral and bilateral levels through a strategy of constructive engagement in which, bilaterally, Canada focuses on building a sustained and comprehensive political policy dialogue with China and through sustained and systematic programs of constructive socialization at the bilateral level. This would mean, to some degree, pursuing more advocacy-oriented agendas at the collective multilateral level.
Thank you.