Anniversary parade in Tiananmen Square — From Xinhua News Agency
On Thursday, China marked its 60th anniversary of communist rule. The expected parades took place in Tiananmen Square as communist party officials cheered China’s growing position as an economic powerhouse its military might. But while the world watched the celebrations more closely than they have in the past, the publicity that the anniversary has garnered outside of China has been less than rosy.
Numerous news outlets focused instead on the contrast between how far China has come, but also how little progress has been made in areas such as human rights. While many Chinese have benefited from the economic progress that the country has made in the last sixty years – including a twenty fold increase in per real income – real freedom is something that most Chinese still lack. While education is an option for many citizens while it wasn’t sixty years ago, the freedom to use that education to advance rights in opposition to party policy remains a criminal offence.
Events in the past year highlight the social problems that China still faces, particularly in regards to ethnic minorities. From riots against Chinese rule in Tibet last year to riots between Han Chinese and Uighurs in July, there has been growing ethnic tensions throughout China. However it is normally what follows that defines China’s human rights policy: accusations, arrests, and imprisonment for those in the way of the official party line.
This contrast is impossible to ignore in any discussion about China, but it is also difficult to deal with diplomatically. Just hours after the US issued its official congratulatory message to China, the US House of Representatives passed Resolution 151 calling for the release of Liu Xiaobo, a dissident writer who was sentenced to three years in a re-education camp for his activities in promoting Charter 08, a petition modeled after the Czechoslovakia’s infamous Charter 77 which called for greater democratic freedoms and reforms. Charter 08’s release coincided with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and drew stark comparisons between the values embodied in that document with the current reality in China. But the subsequent arrest of Liu Xiaobo days before its release for subversive activities underscored how much China needs change in this area.
That point seemed to be lost on Chinese officials, who in anticipation of the approaching celebrations banned its citizens from large public gatherings outside of Beijing, watching foreign news stations, traveling to Beijing for court, and even getting divorced in order to not place a damper on their anniversary party. But citizens of Hong Kong, which while part of China enjoy greater freedoms due to its semi-autonomous status, responded by protesting China’s poor human rights record. Hundreds participated in a protest march through downtown Hong Kong while others went on a hunger strike to mark the anniversary. The Hong Kong Journalists Association published a petition signed by 1,350 journalists and academics in four major newspapers calling for greater press freedoms for mainland China and the vindication of Hong Kong journalists who have been arrested for reporting news on the mainland. Thus even while Beijing celebrated in classic patriotic style and ignorant to any negative criticism, people in Hong Kong marked the event by pointing out the exact paradox that the government refuses to acknowledge.
It’s undeniable that China is a rising power and barring unmitigated disaster, that will not change. The last sixty years has seen China overcome extreme poverty to become an economic powerhouse at the cost of human rights. At this point, it does not seem that the government will change this policy direction any time in the near future. But this incomplete transformation leaves many people wondering as China celebrates sixty, when there will be an anniversary that recognizes all of the needs of the Chinese people.
