Baiting the Dragon - Freedom in China Summit 2006

When accused of human rights violations, it is a favorite argument to respond that the accuser has been a worse offender. Let's get one thing straight: abuse is abuse, death is death, and no one country is absolved of guilt by virtue of its better record. We're all guilty, I believe, to a greater or lesser extent, and we all need to keep an eye on our own governments as well as on others'. (Does that make you cross-eyed?)

Which side are you arguing for/against. You kind of lost me there.

I was only pointing out that China gets to be critisized, but can't defend itself. Even that failed 9/11 hyjackers whose name I can't spell got to speak at his own trial.

So, we should invite dictators to defend their record. So, oppressors and victims of repression should be put at the same level. A peculiar concept of freedom, democracy and rights. Let me say.

It is not as peculiar situation a situation as you suggest. It happens on a daily basis across the free world, and is one of the courner stones of a liberal justice system.

The day that an accused man cannot defend himself in an American courtroom, is the day that justice will die.

Nazi war criminals got to speak in their own defense, so did Saddam Husain. Why not Beijing too?

Because it wasn't a Nuremberg process. It was a political symposium.

How can you hold a serious symposium when only one side is allowed to present its agruments?

That sounds very soviet to me.

No, soviets - like chinese - didn't allow dissidents to speak.

You can't be serious, really. A symposium gives voice to people who can't speak in China and, instead of praising it, you criticize it saying that you want hear the voice of their oppressors. No, you can't be serious.

If you read my blog regularly, you will know that I often include a tail peace like this to raise doubts or create debate. It's part of my mission statement.

If people stop raising doubts, we stop looking at the world and asking 'is this right'. It doesn't matter what the answer is, but we must still ask the question.

"you can't be serious"

I'm quite serious.

China denies disidents the right to speak, now we are denying China the rigth to speak. How, exactly, does this make us better than them?

Are you kidding, no?

Have a good weekend. You need it.

It's common practice to invite Chinese reps to attend these panels, but they seldom attend any event where criticism will come up. As ACB would well know, Chinese officials would be hamstrung discussing human rights within the confines of the official PRC talking points on the subject.

Slim

While I accept your point, as you well know, when holding a gathering of this type it is pretty much standard practice to invite the opposition, knowing full well that they won't show up, just so that you can use the fact that they declined your invitation as propaganda against them.

Ergo, if they didn't brag about Beijing not wanting to discuss the issue, then they weren't invited in the first place.

That's a leap of logic I'm not willing to follow you on without knowing what the Hudson folks did. In most cases I've seen, which is a half-dozen or so such gatherings a year in the Washington DC area, Chinese are invited, do not attend and no propaganda points are made by the hosts, who are in fact serious about the undertaking.

You could accept, as China has difficulty doing, that some people who discuss human rights in a given country do so in good faith and, further, that how China treats its people is the legitimate business of the international community because China has growing clout and because China is a signatory to most of the rights treaties and protocols that the human rights community asserts Beijing is violating.

By your reasoning, you could say that since China NEVER attends international fora where it will face criticism, these events should not be held because they are not legitimate without Chinese participation. This circular logic will satisfy only the Communist Party --and in fact summarizes how China behaved at the old, now defunct UN Human Rights Commission.

That's a leap of logic I'm not willing to follow you on without knowing what the Hudson folks did. In most cases I've seen, which is a half-dozen or so such gatherings a year in the Washington DC area, Chinese are invited, do not attend and no propaganda points are made by the hosts, who are in fact serious about the undertaking.

You could accept, as China has difficulty doing, that some people who discuss human rights in a given country do so in good faith and, further, that how China treats its people is the legitimate business of the international community because China has growing clout and because China is a signatory to most of the rights treaties and protocols that the human rights community asserts Beijing is violating.

By your reasoning, you could say that since China NEVER attends international fora where it will face criticism, these events should not be held because they are not legitimate without Chinese participation. This circular logic will satisfy only the Communist Party --and in fact summarizes how China behaved at the old, now defunct UN Human Rights Commission.