BUSINESS COALITION

I. MEMBERS OF CONGRESS! HEAR THE CALL OF THE CHINA DEMOCRACY PARTY FROM ITS HOME BASE IN HANGZHOU, TO SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW IN CHINA BY APPROVING PNTR.

DO NOT DESERT THESE PEOPLE! THEY CALL FOR PNTR!!!

Statement of the Zhejiang Provincial Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party

China hopes to enter the World Trade Organization by the end of the year 2000. With little more than half a year remaining, the China Democracy Party has been carefully tracking the progress of this issue.

Support of China's entrance into the WTO has been a consistent position of our party since its founding two years ago. We consider that the further liberalization of the economy and the entrance into the world mainstream can bring limitless opportunities for a better life to the industrious and talented Chinese people, and can also make a real contribution to the prosperity and development of the entire world. At the same time we hold that fairness and the improvement of democratic rule of law are the fundamental guarantors of the healthy functioning of a contemporary economy. Entrance into the WTO will inevitably make demands for the politics of democracy even more pressing in China. The members of the China Democracy Party will stand unbendingly for the principles of peace and ideals, and, together with all the people of China, will promote the realization of political democracy on the mainland of China at an early date.

We recognize the forces of progress and pragmatism within the Chinese Communist government have worked very hard on behalf of China's entry into the WTO. We acknowledge as well that some privileged groups and some feudal and conservative power centers have been fear-mongering and throwing up obstacles to WTO. We also understand that a minority of figures in the democracy movement, which has suffered so heavily from the repression of the communist regime, see China's entry into the WTO as a strengthening of only one party -- the Communists -- and so oppose WTO accession. We consider that China's WTO entry has implications for China's future as a nation and for the survival of its people. It has implications for the huge question of orderliness in the world economy. Turning our backs on this will not only throw away years or even decades of opportunity for our economy, but will also be an obstacle to the progress of the Chinese people's realization of freedom and democracy. We urge that obsession with factional or partisan differences be overcome, and advocate that all China Democratic Party members abroad -- and all others who participate in the Chinese democratic movement -- work together in support of China's entry into the World Trade Organization.

We especially call on all organizations of the China Democracy Party in North America to strengthen their cooperation in working together to promote the decision by the U.S. Congress, expected in late May, to support the United States Government in granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to China. We also call on China Democracy Party organizations in all the nations of Europe to promote the support of China's WTO entry by the governments of the various nations in which they reside.

We demand that the Chinese authorities immediately cease their new violations of human rights, release all political prisoners, get rid of the banning of publications and the banning of political parties in a step by step manner, clean up government administrative behavior, and rigorously to observe the law, so that China may enter the WTO fully qualified, and so that the Chinese people may face the world as fully qualified members of the human race.

China Democracy Party Zhejiang Provincial Committee
May 10. 2000 (Tr. Bob Kapp)
Contact: Nie Minzhi, tel. 86 571 518-2834 (Chinese Language Only)

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II. RADIO FREE ASIA INTERVIEWS THE AUTHOR OF THE CHINA DEMOCRACY PARTY ZHEJIANG PROVINCIAL PREPARATORY COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON PNTR!

Radio Free Asia Broadcast, "Chitchat," May 11: Translation of Chinese Script

Announcer: This station yesterday reported that the Zhejiang Provincial Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party had issued a Statement supporting China's entry into the World Trade Organization and supporting a position in favor of US granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status to China. In the Statement, the Party especially called on dissident organizations overseas to unite in support of the passage of PNTR legislation, and at the same time denounced the Chinese government's violations of human rights.

Today we specially interviewed one of the writers of the China Democracy Party's Statement, Mr. Nie Minzhi of the Zhejiang Provincial Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party.

Mr. Nie pointed out that many members of the China Democracy Party are now in detention, and that he himself is confined to his residence by the Chinese public security agencies.

Below is the transcript of our interview with Mr. Nie.

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RFA: Can you explain to us why you are supporting US granting of PNTR to China?

Nie: If the US Congress can pass PNTR, the results will be beneficial for China and for the US. So we hope that the US Congress can pass PNTR. On this question, we have for a fairly long period of time been seeking the views of those throughout the China Democracy Party with whom we are able to make contact, and these people are of one mind on this. Before drafting our Statement, we had a number of lively discussions back and forth, so I consider that the Statement represents the opinion of the vast majority of the members of the Zhejiang Provincial Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party.

RFA: In preparing this Statement, were you and your colleagues originally in agreement, or did you go through many exchanges and debates before reaching agreement on the text?

Nie: NO! From the start, there no major differences of opinion on this. The great bulk of our opinions were unanimous.

RFA: You have said that PNTR would be good for China: in what ways?

Nie: On this issue, we understand the opinions of a number of friends abroad who believe in an annual debate with the Chinese Communist authorities over Normal Trade Relations. To put it plainly, they see this annual debate as a bargaining chip. But we do not see it that way at all. For example, in China today, so-called political criminals and vicious criminals number in the many hundreds. So let's suppose that through these annual debates, the Communist authorities reach a deal with the other side for the release of maybe one, or perhaps a couple or several of these people. I ask you: each year this kind of argument takes place once, and under the one-party Communist dictatorship in our country if we know that hundreds upon hundreds of people need to be liberated from their status as political criminals or vicious criminals, can you well me how many people will actually be freed by this once-a-year negotiation?

So we believe that the basic question lies in letting all the people of our country understand and know the preciousness of freedom and democracy. The critical issue is allowing all of us to arise together to struggle for our democracy and our freedom. Only in that way will we be able fundamentally to solve the problems we confront today.

RFA: The Statement is issued in the name of the Zhejiang Provincial Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party. Have other party members elsewhere in China issued similar Statements? Do you support those?

Nie: We have not had contact with other provinces on this, because of the conditions that the China Democracy Party faces within our country, with which I think you are familiar. But I can say with certainty that for Zhejiang, where the China Democracy Party was founded, on this issue our Statement unquestionably represents the view of the overwhelming majority within the China Democracy Party. Of course, I have already been hearing today about discussions of our Statement overseas. We hope that those discussing the Statement abroad will understand us and we hope that they will be take the interests of the Chinese people as their foremost concern.

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III. STATEMENT OF THE CHINA DEMOCRACY PARTY OVERSEAS OFFICE (NEW YORK) MAY 15, 2000

China Democracy Party Overseas Office
Declaration on Supporting U.S. Unconditional PNTR to China May 15th, 2000

The China Democracy Party was founded in conformance with the trend of history and the demands of the people. The inclinations of the Chinese people (which include Chinese people living overseas) are objectives of the China Democracy Party. We believe the majority of the Chinese people are willing to see China having economic development, prosperous living conditions. It is the common sense for the Chinese people to wish China joining the international economic community. China Democracy Party is having no other choices but conforming to the Chinese People. We declare hereby to support the Unconditional PNTR to China by the U.S. government. And we further declare to support China to join the WTO.

We believe the closer of the economic relationships between the United States and China, the more chances for the United States to politically influence China, the more chances to monitor human rights conditions in China, and more effective for the United States to push China to launch political reforms. It will be just the opposite to isolate China. Isolations will lead China to take the dead end, like North Korea, Cuba and Iraq.

The China Communist government power is planted in the state ownership. The very base for the government power is in each and every state-owned companies and farms. Bringing China into the international community will speed China!'s economic privatization and its development, thus to turn the state ownership to private ownership. This change will tremendously weaken the state ownership that the Communist government power basically relies on. This change will also loose the Communist government controls and isolations upon the Chinese people!'s thoughts. It will enlarge the distance between the people and the authorities, as well as to defeat the docile policy of the Communist government towards the Chinese people. In long run, it will further speed up the democratization in China.

We believe the international community should reserve the power to criticize and to monitor the human rights conditions in China according to the United Nations Human Rights Covenants. However, we also believe that those criticism and monitoring will become more effective only if the economic relations with China getting closer. For this reason, we are hereby appealing to the U.S. Congress to pass an independent act to monitor the human rights conditions in China.

In addition, we believe the main force to push China!'s democratization is inside China, it comes within the people in China. International pressures are only to play the secondary roles. We are hereby appealing to the U.S. politicians to turn your attentions to the inside China and to focus on the opposition movement within its boarder. Supporting the opposition movement inside China will likely to harvest more fruits with less effort.

China Democracy Party Overseas Office
Chief Director: Wanjun Xie (Signed)
May 15th, 2000
Tel/Fax: 718-505-1028
Web: http://209.75.88.222/cdp/index.html

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IV. PLEASE READ THE WORDS OF ZHOU YANG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CHINA DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM ALLIANCE, ON PNTR FOR CHINA Mr. Zhou, originally a poet from Shanghai, is a veteran of the 1979 democracy movement in China, and is now a resident of New York.(This article posted to the Democracy Forum Web Site, www.asiademo.org, May 7, 2000)

GRANTING PERMANENT NORMAL TRADE RELATIONS TO CHINA CAN IMPROVE THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN CHINA.

A nation cut off from the world economy cannot share a common language with the world. A nation long closed cannot but be light years away from the mainstream of world demands on human rights. Not only is there a gap, it can even be extremely harmful to human rights. Thanks to the communist dictatorship, China was cut off completely for twenty years from the '50s to the '70s, following Mao Zedong's extreme nationalist slogan designed to rouse the people: "We must have independence, autonomy and self reliance to smash the economic blockade of China led by U.S. Imperialism and Soviet Revisionism!"

In the course of making "Independent sovereignty and self reliance" a practical reality, the movement for "More, Faster, Well, and Economically Building the Socialist Great Leap Forward" occurred.

The collapse of this movement led to two serious results. One was the temporary collapse of the Chinese economy, causing directly the deaths of 60 million people -- far more than the number of people who died worldwide in the second world war.

The other result was that Mao, in order to squelch the enormous problems brought on by the collapse of the Great Leap Forward and in order to deflect popular dissatisfaction against him because of the disasters of the Great Leap, fomented the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, for which the Chinese people paid the price of another ten million deaths.

After the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the slogans called for advancing along the path toward the wider world. China's economy began to recover. The lives of the Chinese people showed definite signs of improvement. Economic interactions were inseparable from cultural interactions. Together, they promoted participation in the world economy according to commonly accepted rules and cultural values. After long isolation from the world, the Chinese people entered anew into the processes of world economic activity, and at the same time imbibed many fruits of the world's cultures. From all sides, the Chinese people resisted the irrational ideology of the communists. Faced with the harsh resistance of the Chinese people, the communists gradually relaxed the rigid teachings of communism. Today, all that remains is the one-party dictatorship.

But it is undeniable: after such a long period of isolation, China's economy is still backward. In the process of the transition to becoming part of the world, the vast numbers of laid off state enterprise workers are known to everyone. China also has a number of less visible problems, unnoticed by the media: low standards of living, and the travails and hopelessness of large numbers of rural dwellers locked for long periods in the backward countryside. These laid-off workers, and the rural dwellers whose conditions are even more dire, today desperately need employment to be able to improve the conditions of their lives.

Giving Normal Trade Relations to China is not simply giving NTR to the communists. It is giving China Normal Trade Relations. Giving NTR to the Chinese economy brings benefit to the employment situation of the Chinese people. AND it forces the Chinese communists, in the mainstream of the world economy, to acknowledge the rules and disciplines of global economic interchange. It compels the communists to understand the necessity of adherence to these rules.

Granting PNTR to China is a positive force in promoting China's recognition of world human rights values and in improving the human rights situation of the Chinese people.

Clearly, fight against the granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations to China will not do the slightest bit of damage to the communists' cadres. When 60,000,000 people were dying of starvation in China, not one was a communist cadre. Most of those who were driven to starvation were peasants.

The communists considered the death of the Chinese people to be the the necessary price of an experiment in communism.

The communists consider the massive destruction of the human rights of the Chinese people to be the necessary price of resisting the outside world.

History has already proved: every method, every technique, every program that enables the communists to isolate China from the outside world in the end bring down grievous harm only upon the Chinese people, who are themselves under the domination of the communists.

So, for the sake of bettering the living conditions of China's people and raising to better levels the human rights situation of the Chinese people, Normal Trade Relations treatment for China is needed. Only in this way will the Chinese communists come to accept the standards and the rules imposed in the course of global trade. Only in this way will the Chinese communists slowly respond to the spiritual demands and the values that are part of world culture, naturally including the spirit of human rights and its ethical demands.

(New York, April 24, 2000). (DRAFT translation by Bob Kapp

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V. DISSIDENT FU SHENQI, IMPRISONED THREE TIMES FOR A TOTAL OF MORE THAN TEN YEARS, SPEAKS ON PNTR FOR CHINA.POSTED ON THE DEMOCRACY FORUM WEB SITE, http://www.asiademo.org/, APRIL 30, 2000

GRANTING PERMANENT NORMAL TRADE RELATIONS TO CHINA CAN IMPROVE THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN CHINA.

Since the June 4 Incident, every spring, the question of whether or not to extend NTR treatment for China has been a hot topic in the U.S. Congress. Every year, the Congress's Resolution of Disapproval of NTR Renewal has been rejected because of the President's veto power.

For people in the democracy movement who oppose the Chinese communist authorities, this sensitive question requires close attention. In the first few years, nearly all Democracy figures hoped that the US government would use this method to force the communist authorities to improve the human rights situation in China. People thought these methods could serve many purposes. Most clearly, in the spring of 1993, in order to induce Clinton to provide relatively more favorable policies to China and to renew annual MFN treatment, China made a series of small gestures. Wang Dan, Wang Xizhe, and Xu Wenli were released from prison early. I myself had my sentence lightened: the supplemental sentence of deprivation of political rights was not attached to my main conviction for counterrevolutionary crimes. This was unusual in Chinese jurisprudence then, and remains unusual now.

Now time has passed, and people can see that the results of US use of economic sanctions against the Chinese communists have been very limited. The communists from time to time put out some superficial statements responding to international public opinion, or use some famous dissidents to do the same kind of small gestures. But the overall human rights situation is really not affected. And the regime even uses a few of the most famous dissidents to conduct hostage trades with the US or with international society.

Like kidnappers, the Chinese communists seize famous dissidents. International opinion is inflamed, giving these dissidents even greater influence. Usually it's the US that demands their release. The communists then bargain over terms. After they achieve some political or economic advantages they release the hostages and send them to America. And public opinion paints this as a big improvement in China's human rights situation.

So among China democracy figures, the NTR question generates two views. One view is an extension of the old outlook, and holds that the U.S. should not relinquish the use of the economic tools of NTR renewal to make China change its human rights situation.

The other view advocates that NTR and the human rights question be separated.

I unquestionably support the second view, for three reasons.

1. THE ANNUAL ARGUMENT OVER NTR RENEWAL EXERTS NO GENUINE PRESSURE ON THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS AND PERFORMS ABSOLUTELY NO ROLE IN COMPELLING THEM TO IMPROVE THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION.

2. SUCH ATTEMPTS AT PRESSURE ARE EASILY TURNED AROUND AND USED BY THE COMMUNISTS TO FAN THE FIRES OF ANTI-AMERICANISM AND TO REPRESS DEMOCRATIC SENTIMENTS.

3. THE CHINESE ECONOMY HAS ALREADY PASSED THE POINT OF NO RETURN IN EMBRACING MARKET ECONOMICS. BINDING CHINA'S ECONOMY MORE TIGHTLY TO THE WORLD ECONOMY IS ALL BENEFICIAL, WITH NO DRAWBACKS, FOR CHINA'S RULE OF LAW, FOR FREEDOM AND FOR DEMOCRACY. AT A TIME WHEN CHINA IS ABOUT THE ENTER THE WTO, TURNING BACK TO THE OLD TECHNIQUE OF TYING NORMAL TRADE RELATIONS TO HUMAN RIGHTS IS OUT OF TUNE WITH THE NEEDS OF THE TIME.

In my view, if the U.S. eliminates China's NTR treatment, this will do nothing to shake the communist party's monopoly on power. THOSE WHO WOULD REALLY BE HURT WOULD BE THE CHINESE MASSES AND CHINA'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. America's stringent sanctions against Iraq still haven't toppled Saddam Hussein, but instead have strengthened his nationalistic political foundations. If the U.S. kills NTR for China, what good would it do?

Since if killing NTR is of no use, it's really not necessary for the U.S. Congress to spend some much time and effort on this question in the name of its concern for Chinese democracy and human rights.

That can't hold a candle to providing Permanent NTR treatment to China and slicing through these entangled questions once and for all, and instead spending more of their effort on continuing to promote the achievement of the market economy and globalization in China.

They way I look at it, the improvement of the human rights situation and the advancement of democracy in China must mainly depend on the great mass of the Chinese people, in the process of economic modernization, gradually creating the popular citizen consciousness and democratic consciousness and struggling for them. It will not be achieved through the action of the U.S. Congress in debating Normal Trade Relations or in trying to exert pressure.

(End of April 30, 2000 Article) (DRAFT Translation by Bob Kapp)

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VI. WHO IS FU SHENQI?

Statement of Mr. Fu Shenqi Chinese Dissident and Laogai Survivor on U.S. Implementation of Prison Labor Agreements in China before the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate May 21, 1997

From January 1983, I was incarcerated at the Shanghai Municipal Prison because of my political statements. The government devised a system of work points to control the prisoners. Prisoners were forced to labor. Work points were deducted for failure to fulfill quotas. Once or twice a week prisoners could watch TV; once a month they could watch a movie, buy foodstuffs, or meet with their family. These benefits were deprived for failure to fulfill quotas or for unsatisfactory performance in reform. Hence, many prisoners were forced to labor overtime to maintain the work points. Those who were slower could have only 3-4 hours of sleep a day. I witnessed how the prison established a semiconductor radio assembly shop. As I learned from other prisoners and policemen, the prison also ran a regular print shop and other processing shops.

From July 1993 to April 1994, I was incarcerated at 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion, Shanghai Reeducation-Through-Labor Farm located at Dafeng County, Jiangsu Province. Again my political activities were my 'crime'. In cooperation with Shanghai No. 18 Knitting Mill, the battalion made interlock jerseys. Reeducation-Through-Labor (Laojiao) inmates were forced to labor and reform their ideology. In the busiest times, they had to labor nearly 20 hours a day. Inmates, while working at sewing machines, often fell asleep. In slack season, several hours a day inmates sat on benches, studying, writing ideological reports or what they learned from studies. The 1st Company, 3rd Battalion established a shop for making teaching slides.

In April 1994, I was transferred to the 5th Battalion. In 1994 and 1995 I witnessed how from June to October the battalion's 2nd Company assembled multicolored Christmas lights for export for Haiman Multicolored Lamps Factory and a lamps and lanterns factory of Jiangsu Province. Each box consisted of 36, 50, 100 or 200 lights on a string. The lights I have at hand are similar with those processed at the 2nd Company. The task was hard. Every inmate had to labor overtime, many laboring until one or two at night. Those who failed to fulfill quotas were punished. Inmates at the woolen sweaters mill also often labored overtime. Inmates in farming had to labor overtime even more. For instance, inmates who transplanted rice seedlings often labored from seven in the morning till eight at night.

On Laojiao farms inmates were routinely beaten and cursed. Government cadres cuffed and kicked them at will. Those Laojiao inmates trusted to supervise other inmates beat and cursed them even more. I was also beaten by them.

In China, reform-through-labor (Laogai) and Laojiao facilities are not common prisons, but the communist party's tools for consolidating its one-party rule. Not only do the facilities force prisoners to labor for profit, they also force inmates to accept brainwashing. The thought reform made them surrender to the communist party ideologically and psychologically.

Pursuing Democracy From the Factory Floor -- The Struggle of Fu Shenqi

Shanghai activist Fu Shenqi has always been a path-breaker: at the time of the Democracy Wall Movement of the late 1970s he was already linking the struggle for democracy with workers' rights and then, soon after the crackdown on the 1989 student movement, he joined in the effort to establish an independent human rights organization in his home city. He was sent to jail three times for his pains, completing a three-year term of Reeducation Through Labor in 1996. He left China in September of that year, and now lives in New York.

Fu Shenqi: In my 'Manifesto For My Life,' written on my birthday in 1974, I declared: I have decided to struggle for justice and for the freedom and happiness of mankind. In 1975, I threw myself into social activism, and organized a reading circle. In 1976 I found a kindred spirit in Wang Shengyou; we began to organize an opposition group and an opposition movement. I was sent to prison three times over the next ten years.

Wang Yu: You were formerly a worker. I'd like to ask you to discuss the current situation of workers on the mainland.

FSQ:From the point of view of human rights, Chinese workers never enjoyed the most basic civil rights. Freedom of assembly and association, the rights to demonstrate and strike - all are forbidden. All unions are officially controlled. If workers wish to organize their own unions or associations, or call a strike, and so on, these can all be labeled hostile actions and thus banned and suppressed. The phrase "the workers are the masters" is nothing but empty words.

When reforms began in 1979, the workers' position was weakened. Workers in the state enterprises faced a crisis - being laid off. Once laid off, a worker lost all social benefits; this meant that their survival itself was threatened. Even today there is still no system in China to defend the rights of workers who have lost their jobs. Previously, workers' basic subsistence was guaranteed under the system known colloquially as the "iron rice-bowl." Thus, in comparison with the past, the civil and political rights of workers have made no progress, and their social standing has slipped considerably. WY: Has the situation of workers in individual businesses or private enterprises shown any improvement by comparison?

FSQ:It's just my personal opinion, but Shanghai workers in the joint-venture, foreign-invested and private enterprises can say their lives are quite good. However, in remote regions, in private industries or state industries which pass for private ones, the situation of workers is very poor. Salaries are kept to the bare minimum, and there are no social benefits; provisions for safety in the work environment are very bad, in fact, scarcely exist. There are frequent accidents and injuries, and the situation of miners is the worst of all. WY: How can the problems of workers be resolved?

FSQ:Previously, the relationship of workers to factories was identical to that of workers to the state. Now this has changed. Workers not only have a relationship to the state, but also to a private boss, and possibly to a foreign enterprise as well. In addition, some Chinese workers are peasants: in the busy season in the countryside they work in the fields, and in slow seasons, they go and work for cash. Workers' relations to the workplace have become multifaceted.

Today Chinese workers are heterogeneous, and the interests of the society as a whole are complex. However, before the 1970s, the entire situation was more simple: Chinese workers belonged either to state or collective enterprises. The current tensions between workers and factories have become an unavoidable problem. Laying off workers is proof of the failures of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it shows clearly that the reform of state industries not only has not worked, but in fact has made them worse. The problem of the ownership of the means of production has not been dealt with effectively. In the course of the reform process, the privileged class composed of linkage between business and government interests has gobbled up state property. The state is in debt, yet the government uses the people's savings to cover the debt. This process is an unending vicious circle. The wealth produced over decades by workers in the state enterprises has in fact been misappropriated. That kind of wealth should be the property of the workers, the common possession of workers. Yet workers have been made to suffer the consequences for the state's actions, and this is a great injustice.

In order to truly protect the interests of workers, China needs a supervised transition to a system of shareholder-owned companies, or a policy of privatization. Workers should be allowed to take part in the process of turning enterprises into joint-stock companies and to form independent trade unions. Ownership of property should be clarified; the workers who produced wealth for decades should not bear the burden of the state's debts. Workers should have unemployment insurance; the state has a duty to see to this. The current form of privatization is not just; it harms the interests of the workers.

PARTICIPATION IN ELECTIONS: A USEFUL STRATEGY

WY: When the first elections in which independent candidates could stand were held in 1980, you decided to run for the position of workers' representative in the local people's congress. I'd like to ask you to discuss your experience and feelings on this matter. What caused you to come forward as a candidate? How do current democracy activists view elections?

FSQ:At that time, the views of democracy activists with regard to elections fell into two categories. Some opposed participation in elections, as they felt it would only legitimize the CCP. They believed that the principal task should be to expose the hypocrisy of elections in China; involvement in them should be avoided. Others felt that we should make use of the opportunity to further the legal struggle: if possible, we should exercise the right to stand for election and strive to get elected as representatives of the people. Those without the conditions to run for office should use the right to vote to encourage the rest of the electorate to do their best to exercise their franchise. I belonged to the second category, and so I decided to run for office. I threw myself into the campaign, hoping to have an effect on the society and widen my ability to influence society.

WY: Do you feel that the influence you gained through taking part in the election was positive or negative?

FSQ:I feel it was positive. At the beginning, many workers thought that this kind of election was a travesty, something you should not participate in or take seriously. But later, when the election activities were in full swing, even the people who held those opinions gradually came to feel that their ballots were significant. They came to look at the elections differently. That is, instead of viewing themselves as a kind of passive negation, they began to see themselves as an active affirmation. That is a process of developing a sense of self-consciousness. This kind of self-consciousness is precisely the starting point for a modern democratic life to come into existence.

Therefore, I feel that democracy activists should not just attack the elections held on the mainland and then consider that issue closed. On the contrary, this form of legal struggle should be used to the fullest possible extent; every drop of substantive content should be wrung from it, in order to further China's political democratization.

WY: In the 1980 elections, quite a few university students who ran for office were elected, but none of the candidates you fielded from factories succeeded. Do you feel this is because the electorate looks up to intellectuals, or are there other reasons for this?

FSQ:I think that a major reason was that the university students at that time, including Hu Ping and Xu Bangtai [who both stood for election in Beijing], did not form a distinct democratic opposition group, which the CCP would not have tolerated. However, the workers who stood for election, including He Depu, Wang Yifeng and I, were clearly dissident elements who stood outside the official political system, which was intolerable to the CCP.

WY: You certainly must have many impressions about the experience of running for office. Could you discuss them?

FSQ:There's a body of thought which says that the general educational level of the Chinese people is too low, so that Chinese are unable to accustom themselves to a democratic way of life, which is why our country cannot achieve a democratic system. However, our Chinese factory workers proved in the course of the elections that they possess the ability to exercise power democratically. During the entire electoral process our factory had no experience of personal verbal attacks on anyone. Thus, I feel that Chinese workers absolutely possess the capability for a democratic way of life, and that political reform is quite feasible.

In addition, I feel that, even if elections in China are still largely elections in name only, are still imperfect, they still have the advantage that they can serve to nurture the people's political self-consciousness and educate them about democracy. When I took part in the elections, I tried to mobilize every kind of energy and capability. I found that not only the energy of repressed opposition forces could be mobilized, but also I later tried to fully mobilize the energies of those who others considered backwards workers. I also feel that even sham elections under a one-party dictatorship can have very positive practical results. The election of so many university students in the 1980 elections is proof of that.

SHANGHAI'S DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT

WY: How did the birth and development of the Shanghai democracy movement differ from the experience of Beijing?

FSQ:The development of the democracy movement in the two cities is very similar. Beijing had Yu Luoke; Shanghai had Wang Shengyou. [Yu Luoke was executed during the Cultural Revolution after his diary was confiscated and found to contain heterodox opinions; Wang Shengyou was arrested for writing political letters and was executed in 1978. Both cases became causes celebres demonstrating extremes of political persecution and people who stood up to it.] The timing was also similar in both cities. During the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing, the Shanghai democracy movement began to develop.

The scope of the movement in Shanghai at that time was very large. In 1978, people gathered in the tens of thousands; the demonstrations by educated youth [who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution and wanted to return home to the cities] blocked the railway lines. It is because of the show of force by the large numbers of educated youth in the streets that almost all such people were eventually able to return to Shanghai.

The launching of the two movements was also very similar: the magazines were published, there were public discussions and big character posters were put up. At that time, I and some friends published a magazine called The Voice of Democracy.

After they began arresting people in Beijing in 1979, they arrested people in Shanghai, and the atmosphere became very repressive. Shanghai at that time also had Democracy Walls, one on the People's Square and one on Huaihai Road. The one on the People's Square was destroyed first, and then the one on Huaihai Road. Thus all at once a public movement came to an end. But the movement continued in Beijing.

WY: When the movement was crushed in 1979, what activities did you choose to pursue in that suddenly oppressive atmosphere?

FSQ:Facing suppression in 1979, I decided to resume publication of The Voice of Democracy with the third issue. In that issue we reported on the persecution of Ni Yuxian [a Shanghai Democracy Wall activist]. Once it was printed, the Public Security officials immediately came to close down the magazine, but I had already managed to send a number of copies out. The essays in the magazine were pasted up on the Xidan Democracy Wall in Beijing. When my situation in Shanghai loosened up a bit, I seized the opportunity to publish the fourth issue, and, using connections, sent it to the homes of some high-ranking cadres. In this way I managed until 1981, when, after the sixteenth issue, the magazine was shut down.

At that time Lin Muchen's Seagull resumed publication. Also a number of other publications appeared, including Rose Island and The Promising Generation. I was arrested in 1981, and Lin Muchen after me. At present, although the democracy activists have been suppressed and the democracy movement is comparatively inactive, still the whole society, every layer, has continued to develop and go forward.

WY: What did you Shanghai activists who had had experience in earlier movements do during the 1989 democracy movement?

FSQ:In 1989, at the time of the democracy movement, I was still serving a period of deprivation of political rights. Furthermore, all someone who had been labeled a "counterrevolutionary" like me had to do was get involved in political activities, and I would immediately face severe repression, which could in addition have had a negative impact on the movement. Thus, my friends and I gave priority to getting to know people in the movement, and keeping ties to those actively involved. At that time Lin Muchen and Hu Kesi often got together with friends for meals at the "Cocoa Tree" bar to follow the situation and exert their influence. In fact, the efforts made at that time were useful for the revitalization of the movement in 1992 and 1993 in Shanghai.

WY: Could you tell me about your feelings about being abroad and your activities here?

FSQ:My decision to go abroad grew out of the feeling that I could no longer be of much use inside the country. No matter what I did, my activity would quickly be crushed, and my family would be destroyed. The goal of going abroad was to protect my family and continue my democracy work. Now I realize I was too simplistic: the economic pressure of life abroad is very great. It's very hard to both support a family and work for democracy.

There is an enormous degree of freedom abroad, and so I have resurrected the publication Responsibility in the form of an occasional, non-periodic publication. I hope to bring out an issue every 20-30 days. I am publishing this magazine as if I were publishing an underground magazine in some hidden corner of China. Responsibility in its present form has six pages an issue. I send it first to Tokyo and Hong Kong, and people carry it into China. Those who receive it can easily reproduce it and send it on to others. I send about 60 copies every time. After sending it out, I check how many people receive it, and a great many say they do. The magazine relies on friends inside China. My greatest hope is that in the future my major source of articles will be writings from China.

Wang Yu is the editor of the Chinese section of China Rights Forum. This article was translated by Elizabeth A. Cole.

Copyright (c) 1997 China Rights Forum.
Published by:
Human Rights in China
350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3309, New York, NY 10118, U.S.A.
Tel: 212-239-4459 Fax: 212-239-2561
hrichina@igc.org
http://www.hrichina.org/

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VII. WHAT ABOUT BAO TONG? DAI QING? READ THE WASHINGTON POST FOR MAY 11, 2000!

Dissidents Back China's WTO Entry; Trade Status Said Essential For Improved Human Rights by John Pomfret

05/11/2000
The Washington Post
FINAL
Page A01
Copyright 2000, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved
BEIJING, May 10 -- As one of China's most prominent dissidents--enduring tapped phones, police surveillance and restrictions on everyday freedoms-- Bao Tong could be expected to urge a hard line against the government in Beijing. But Bao has this message for the U.S. Congress: Pass permanent normal trade relations with China. Do not use it as a lever to try to improve China's human rights situation. Hasten China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Pull China as much as possible into international regimes that over time, Bao believes, will force it to adhere to standards that it has long finessed by arguing that China is exceptional.

And Bao is not alone. A broad array of dissidents, environmentalists and labor activists in China appear united in their support of congressional passage of the permanent normal trade relations act.

"It is obvious this is a good thing for China," Bao said in an interview. As part of a landmark trade agreement ushering China into the WTO, the White House has urged Congress to do away with annual reviews and grant Beijing permanent normal trade status. Such status would guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets as products from nearly every other nation. But in the United States, the "Seattle coalition" of unions, human rights groups, environmentalists and church groups have combined their lobbying firepower to oppose the move.

From here in China, their intellectual counterparts are looking on in dismay. "I appreciate the efforts of friends and colleagues to help our human rights situation," Bao said, "but it doesn't make sense to use trade as a lever. It just doesn't work."

"All of the fights--for a better environment, labor rights and human rights--these fights we will fight in China tomorrow," said Dai Qing, perhaps China's most prominent environmentalist and independent political thinker, who also served time because she opposed the 1989 crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square. "But first we must break the monopoly of the state. To do that, we need a freer market and the competition mandated by the WTO." To China's liberals, the arguments made in the United States about China appear simple and not really to the point. Some Chinese liberals interviewed said they believe American labor unions are using concerns about workers' rights as a smoke screen to hide a protectionist agenda. Others said that in the boisterous battle in the United States, China's complexity has been lost. Still more expressed consternation that Chinese exiles such as Wei Jingsheng, who spent almost two decades in Chinese jails forsupporting democracy, have come out against the trade status.

Wei, along with exiled dissidents Harry Wu and Wang Xizhe, have emerged as some of the most effective opponents of the trade status in recent weeks, lobbying undecided members of Congress to vote against the legislation. They argue that the increased presence of U.S. companies in China will not create conditions for higher standards for labor and human rights.

Chinese dissidents and liberals in China say a fundamental issue divides them and some exiles abroad.

"Some of these people want things in China to get as bad as possible, and denying [the trade status] and WTO accession would accomplish that goal," said Bao. "This is not a tactic that I approve of." They note that other prominent dissidents in the United States, such as Wang Dan, who has a better understanding of international economics, support the normal trade status. The liberals who have remained in China agree that U.S. businesses and trade groups are exaggerating when they claim that free trade and Western capital naturally lead to a freer society. But, they say, opponents of China's accession to the WTO and the granting of permanent normal trade relations are equally muddleheaded when they claim that denying China access to American capital will force China to improve working conditions and human rights. "American consumers are a main catalyst for better worker rights in China," said Zhou Litai, one of China's most prominent labor lawyers who represents dozens of maimed workers in the booming southern metropolis of Shenzhen. "They are the ones who pressure Nike and Reebok to improve working conditions at Hong Kong- and Taiwan-run factories here. If Nike and Reebok go--and they could very well if [the trade status] is rejected--this pressure evaporates. This is obvious."

To them, the either-or argument in Washington over whether China's human rights situation has improved or deteriorated sounds bizarre. Yes, they say, Chinese people have more rights now than they have had since Communism came to China in 1949. But the power of the police is still supreme and capricious. The party leadership views itself as extremely brittle so it lashes out--often violently--at any perceived threat.

Last Saturday, for instance, Bao went out with his wife and daughter for a meal. Instead of a nice dinner, they got a new demonstration of what life is like for a dissident figure in China.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Bao recalled, 10 men in plainclothes surrounded them and ordered Bao into an unmarked car. Bao, who was jailed for seven years for opposing the Tiananmen crackdown, refused to get in. So, he said, they picked him up by the head, waist and feet and shoved him into the vehicle. As his 68-year-old wife attempted to intercede, they pushed her to the ground.

"Who gave you the right to do this to me?" Bao said he asked the men, who forced him to return home but did not jail him. "The government," answered one man. "The party," replied another.

"I think that what Americans don't understand about China is that there is still a battle here between opening to the West and closing to the West. This fight is not over. The other battles are extremely important, but we have got to fight today's battle today," Dai said.

Like Bao, Dai is a nonperson in China. A writer of vigorous prose in Chinese, she has been banned from publishing here and from participating in any organizations and is not allowed to have a job. When she sought to lend her name to a tree-planting project, the organizers were informed that her name must be struck from the list. She is sometimes followed, and, like Bao, her phone is tapped.

Despite her troubles, and, Dai argued, because of her troubles, she feels permanent normal trade relations and China's WTO entry make obvious sense. "One of the main economic and political problems in China today is our monopoly system, a monopoly on power and business monopolies. Both elements are mutually reinforcing. The WTO's rules would naturally encourage competition and that's bad for both monopolies," Dai said. "We have a time lag with the West right now. We've got to confront our most pressing problems first." Obviously, Dai noted, WTO's effects in China will not be immediate. Western economists say, for example, that China will set up non-tariff barriers to American products, fudge on its legal obligations and dance around its market access pledges.

"The idea is to begin the process," she said. "This is a work in progress." Dai, Bao and others also speak with concern about the potential downside of the trade status's rejection, bolstering what national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger has called China's "dark forces." There is a growing strain of resentful nationalism in China today, something that President Jiang Zemin taps into from time to time. The balance between this strain, which is alternatively encouraged and reined in by the party, and people who want China to stay open to the West is fragile.

"Look," said Zhou, the labor lawyer in Shenzhen, "our situation here is different than in the United States. Here, Taiwanese businessmen will spend $1,000 on their girlfriends but won't give their workers a buck. To me, WTO and [the trade status] at least mean that U.S. and other Western companies will continue to engage in China. That's a good thing, not a bad thing, for Chinese workers."

Staff writer Matthew Vita contributed to this report from Washington.

Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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