China’s double standard

Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
June 26, 2007

Communist China has done it again. Desperate for new sources of energy, the Chinese are moving into an oil-rich nation eschewed by others.

In this case, however, the country in question is not a state-sponsor of terror or other pariah state. Rather, it is Iraq, a country the United States has gone to great lengths to make a member in good standing of the Free World — free, among other things, of the influence of those like China that had close ties to Saddam Hussein.

Yet now, according to the Financial Times, the Iraqi government last Friday “revived a contract signed by the Saddam Hussein administration allowing a state-owned Chinese oil company to develop an Iraqi oil field.”

The deal to develop the al-Ahdab field in Iraq was signed with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in 1997 and was valued at the time at $1.2 billion. What is more, the FT reported Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani announced “Baghdad welcomed Chinese oil company bids for any other contract in the country through a ‘fair and transparent bidding process’ to be laid out in the new oil law under discussion in Iraq’s parliament.”

Part of the impetus behind the free Iraqi government embracing CNPC — China’s largest state-owned oil company and an instrument for its partnerships with the world’s most odious regimes — is a harsh reality: China is one of all too few investors who appreciate the strategic opportunities inherent in securing a foothold in Iraq today and are able to accept and mitigate the risks associated with doing business there.

Another consideration has to do with the matter of Iraqi sovereign debt to Communist China dating from Saddam Hussein’s time and estimated to be worth as much as $10 billion. China has insisted the successor government in Baghdad is responsible for its predecessor’s liabilities.

The Financial Times noted Friday a seeming breakthrough occurred during a visit to China last month by Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani. Beijing announced “a ‘large margin’ of Iraqi debt would be canceled, although no specific figures were released.” As communists are fond of saying, this is hardly a coincidence, comrade.

China President Hu Jintao (R) and his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani are seen in Beijing in this 21 June 2007 file photo. China is committed to economic and political reforms, but change should “adhere to a correct political direction”, Hu said in a keynote speech published on Tuesday ahead of a Communist Party meeting. REUTERS/Teh Eng Koon/Pool 
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 China used the leverage of a promise to forgive what is, as a practical matter, uncollectible Iraqi debt to secure renewed access to Iraqi oil.

There is a special irony to China’s adamancy on the subject that successor governments are responsible for their predecessors’ sovereign debts. After all, American and other investors are estimated to hold Chinese sovereign bonds issued by pre-communist regimes worth roughly $260 billion — bonds the People’s Republic of China has, to date, refused to honor. While British holders of such Chinese bonds were given a discriminatory settlement back in 1987, their American counterparts have been left holding the bag.

Now, though, U.S. legislators are considering a resolution that could induce China to be more forthcoming. House Concurrent Resolution 160, introduced last month by Rep. Lincoln Davis, Tennessee Democrat, and others on both sides of the aisle, would deny the PRC access to the U.S. capital markets until such time as, among other things, Communist China “fully honors repayment of its outstanding defaulted public debts owed to United States citizens.” 

Such a penalty for China’s effective default would be a first. Until now, there have been no material costs to China for reneging on these debts. Its bond ratings were unaffected. Neither has there been any impediment to the PRC’s ability to bring to American and other international exchanges various “bad actors” — often state-owned companies, like CNPC, Petrochina and Sinopec, engaged in activities inimical to vital U.S. security, economic and/or human rights interests.

In the absence of any serious, let alone sustained, effort by the executive branch and the Congress to resolve this corrosive bilateral problem, is it any wonder that there has been no satisfactory resolution to other financial abuses by China? These include: Beijing’s manipulation of its currency; its underwriting of the genocidal regime in Sudan; and China’s worrisome financial (and other) ties with Iran, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and North Korea, etc

The adoption by both houses of Congress of legislation like H. Con. Res. 160 should be but the first of several steps taken to induce the PRC to clean up its sovereign debt. For example, as legislative and other measures are developed to counter China’s currency manipulation, provisions should be included requiring Beijing to make good on its defaulted sovereign bonds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and other credit-rating agencies should be required to take into account China’s defaulted bonds in their ratings and disclosure requirements. And targeted financial sanctions against the PRC should be promulgated in the event China continues to ignore its longstanding financial commitments.

Last, but not least, American and other vendors should be encouraged to settle accounts with China by using the legal tender of Chinese sovereign bonds. In this fashion, Beijing can be held accountable for its debts, with minimal impact on trade and other relations.

If China can use sovereign debt owed it — even debt incurred by previous governments as despicable as that of Saddam Hussein — to euchre freedom-aspiring Iraqis into making strategically momentous concessions, the least the United States can do is ensure the Communist Chinese are held to no lesser standard. Sauce for the goose, after all, must be sauce for the Beijing duck.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.

The China Puzzle

International Herald Tribune
Editorial
June 22, 2007

The “Chinese miracle” has been the biggest economic story for several years now, a tale of a nation rising from the ashes of a Stalinist command economy to become the world’s premier trading partner. But China reminds us with distressing regularity that the progress has been selective.

The latest reminders are reports of slave labor in Chinese factories and the discovery that some of the popular Thomas the Tank Engine toys manufactured in China have lead in their paint. Before that, it was the contaminated dog food, the stubborn support of Sudan for its oil, the regular reports of human rights abuses, the huge economic disparities between city and country, the controls on the media.

Why rehearse these faults now? Because governments and companies tend to become so seduced or intimidated by China that they won’t hold it to high standards of human rights and business ethics.

Western companies have been so anxious to transfer manufacturing to China’s cheap factories that they have been happy to close their eyes to what else goes on over there – just as Google or Yahoo were happy to assist in repressing information to get a toe into the Chinese market, or as Washington and other Western capitals compete in trying to please visiting Chinese leaders. The ultimate source of China’s failings is a Communist Party that has jettisoned worn-out Marxist economic theories but clings to its authoritarian rule on all other fronts, creating a dangerously unbalanced behemoth.

This is not an argument against trading with or investing in China. Globalization can be a potent force for democratization. But human rights violations cannot be relegated to untouchable internal affairs. Just as the world has not hesitated, rightly, to lambaste the United States over issues like Guantánamo Bay, it should not be shy about systematic and widespread violations of human rights in China.

China’s unreformed political system fosters corruption and an undue focus on short-term economic gains, which will lead to more internal inequities and injustices and more tainted exports. A politically reformed China would be an even more formidable economic power, but a less destructive one.

Not Your Grandfather’s China

By Dan Bloom
Letter to the Editor
The Taipei Times
June 8, 2007

Friday, Jun 08, 2007, Page 8

To the American people and the US Congress:

It’s time to open your eyes regarding the basic agenda and very real threat posed by communist China — that country you love to put on an exotic pedestal festooned with technicolored tourist photos and pretty Chinese movie stars.

Let’s not mince words: China is a dictatorship ruled by an aggressive Communist Party that does not believe in human freedom, human dignity, morality or the pursuit of happiness.

Stop your love affair with communist China. Wake up and smell the Starbucks being roasted by Chinese chauvinists inside the Forbidden City tourist trap. China is out to squash the US and will use every means possible to attain this end. This is not your grandfather’s China. This is the Chinese Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China.

But it is a not a “republic” and it is not run by the people or for the people. It is the old Soviet Union in Chinese clothing.

China is not our friend, by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, Gong Li (鞏俐) is gorgeous, and Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) is slim and beautiful, but don’t get distracted by China’s Hollywood exports. Don’t be fooled by the 2008 Beijing Olympics “show.” China’s leaders, like the leaders of the former Soviet Union, are bent on world domination. Fly too close to Hainan and they’ll threaten to shoot your planes down.

No amount of friendly smiles and warm handshakes will change their agenda. It is not a free, democratic country and never will be, at least not as it is currently set up.

Did someone say pet food? Did someone say toothpaste? Do you remember who dumped dangerous chemicals into a Chinese river and didn’t alert residents living downstream? Who burns coal in coal-fired power plants as if there were no tomorrow? Does the term “acid rain” ring a bell?

China is a country that covers up SARS and bird flu. Global warming? China’s leaders never heard of that Western concept.

God? There is no God for China. China is one of the most godless nations on Earth. So why is the US sucking up to China?

This China you so love to do business with is dangerous. This China needs to be confronted.

Wake up, America. China is polluting the world, and not only with carbon dioxide emissions and other atmospheric pollution.

If you hated the old Soviet Union, you should hate the current People’s Republic. Different clothing, same evil empire. There should be no compromise with this state.

China is a threat to the American and European way of life. Darfur? You know the drill.

Stop kissing the ground the Chinese government stands on. Tear down that Great Wall of lies and deception full of state-sanctioned cover-ups and fabrications.

The US needs a transparent and democratic China. And the Chinese people are up to it. But Americans seem to be turning a blind eye.

China promises action on slave labor claims

By Chris Buckley

HONGTONG, China (Reuters) – China has promised a sweeping crackdown on a slave labor scandal in a poor part of the country where poverty and unbridled growth have made work abuses commonplace.

Following calls for action by top leaders, the Ministry of labor and Social Security pledged to send a team to central China, where state media have said up to 1,000 minors may have been forced to work in slave-like conditions in brick kilns.

Labourers work at a brick kiln in Baokang, central China’s Hubei province June 16, 2007. China has ordered an urgent investigation into a slave labour scandal in a poor part of the country where poverty and unbridled growth have made hardship commonplace. (Stringer/Reuters)
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The local authorities in Shanxi, one of two provinces involved, said they would punish government officials for dereliction of duty unless all of the abused workers were freed within 10 days.

But in this hard-scrabble corner of China, where power is often the key to resources and wealth, people also pointed to official complicity in the trapped workers’ plights.

“The officials said that we were illegal and so they came for money but they didn’t do any more than that,” said Zhang Mei, the wife of one kiln owner detained by police.

“They wanted the money,” she said from the confines of her home, just meters from the notorious kiln, where rooms once housing workers were strewn with ragged bedding covered in dust and scraps of steamed bread, probably their staple food.

Reports of abducted children have emerged as parents have spoken out about their desperate search for loved-ones.

Zhang Xiaoying, whose 15-year old son was tempted by the promise of fat wages just as the family battled to pay hefty medical bills, is one of the luckier parents today.

Her boy, from her native Henan, escaped just last week, after months toiling in a Shanxi kiln.

Asked how she felt when he returned, she said:

“I felt bad because I see he had suffered so much. He worked 16 hour days in the kiln on a meager diet of noodles and steamed bread,” she said.

Fifteen year old Chen from northwest China’s Gansu province, watches TV (not in the photo) at a temporary dormitory of a brick kiln in Linfen, north China’s Shanxi province June 16, 2007. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA)
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“He would have run away earlier but he had no money and they wouldn’t give him any wages.” Zhang asked that her son’s name not be disclosed.

GOVERNMENT PROBLEM

Villagers in Shanxi’s Hongtong county described a mixture of poverty, opportunity and widespread indifference as behind this latest scandal.

A resources boom in this dusty corner of rural China has thrown up new opportunities for wealth, but also for exploitation of poor, often ill-educated farming families.

Many locals said they were unwilling to do the harsh work of making bricks and so bosses turned to people from even poorer parts of China to labor longer hours for little or no pay.

Some also said the same officials now presenting themselves as heroes for rescuing workers had long neglected conditions in the often unlicensed kilns.

Zhang said prime responsibility for abuses at the kiln in Hongtong lay with a sub-contractor, known as the “gang boss,” who had found the workers and controlled them directly.

“We really didn’t know they weren’t getting money,” Zhang told Reuters.

Xinhua later said Heng Tinghan, 42, was the focus of a nationwide manhunt.

Zhang, whose modest home had a wall hanging of late Communist helmsman Mao Zedong as one of its few decorations, said her family was mired in debt and being shunned by neighbors.

Slaves released in China after more
than a year of forced labor. (Getty
Images)
**********************

The snowballing scandal threatens to stain the ruling Communist Party’s promises to build a more harmonious and just society.

Conditions for mostly migrant workers at kilns and privately-run mines across resource-rich central China have been far from ideal, as the Chinese media has exposed in recent days.

State television has reported owners of primitive brick kilns ran their operations like prisons in Shanxi and Henan provinces with fierce dogs and thugs who beat minors at will.

One owner accidentally killed a child with a shovel and buried the body at night, state TV said.

Some of the workers, mostly young males, were shown to have festering wounds on their black feet and around their waists, presumably from burns from the kilns where they worked without receiving any pay.

Xinhua said on Saturday that police had so far rescued 548 people from Shanxi and Henan following raids on brick kilns and iron and coal mines. It previously said as many as 120 suspects had been detained.

For some who were aware of the conditions at the Hongtong kiln, the unfolding details were par for the course in a nation where free-wheeling capitalism and extreme poverty have few limits, despite the ruling Communists’ promises of liberation for laborers in a workers’ paradise.

“They were dressed in rags, covered in mud and dust. I don’t think I ever saw them change clothes,” said Zhao Gulou, a local farmer who saw some of the workers try, but fail, to escape.

Asked how he felt about witnessing such conditions, he said:

“We didn’t have any feelings, it’s none of our business. It’s up to the government.”

(Additional reporting by Vivi Lin in Beijing and Nao Nakanishi in Hong Kong)

Outrage as China Slave Scandal Deepens

by Dan Martin

BEIJING (AFP) – More than 1,000 people, many of them young children, have been forced to work as slaves in a brutal human trafficking ring in China that has shocked and outraged the nation, police said Friday.

More than 450 people have already been rescued in recent days from brick yards and coal mines across two provinces in central and northern China that were run with exceptional ruthlessness, they said.

Many of the child-slaves were forced to work in brick-
making.  More than 1,000 people, many of them young
children, have been forced to work as slaves in a brutal
human trafficking ring in China that has shocked and
outraged the nation, police have said.(AFP/File/Liu Jin)
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Media reports described freed workers, some as young as eight, as having been beaten, nearly starved and forced to work long hours under appalling conditions, apparently with the involvement of some local police and officials.

At least one man was beaten to death, according to a confession by a brickyard boss on television, with other reports saying the slave trade had been going on since at least March — and perhaps for years.

“So far, we have rescued more than 200 people including over 40 children,” an official with the Henan provincial public security department, who gave only his surname of Dang, told AFP by phone.

Local Chinese Police evacuate a man tht was held and
worked as a slave for over a year.  According to police,
he was fed nothing but bread and water. Picture taken
May 27, 2007. REUTERS/China Daily

“They were abducted and sold to brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan provinces.”

Li Fulin, vice-director of public security in Shanxi, said in a statement that separate police raids there had freed another 251 people.

Officials in both provinces said investigations were continuing in a bid to free hundreds more believed to be enslaved.

“It is hard to estimate the number of missing people before the investigation finishes, but there are probably more than 1,000,” Dang said.

The scandal has caused alarm among the highest ranks of China’s ruling Communist Party, with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao issuing orders on Friday to deal with the situation, the China News Service reported.

胡锦涛 Hu Jintao

However no comments from the two leaders were immediately released.

Henan police told AFP at least 120 people had been arrested in the crackdown, which was sparked after distraught parents launched an online plea for help in finding their children.

Up to 35,000 police were involved in a four-day campaign in Henan to investigate 7,500 kilns for slave labourers, Xinhua news agency said, while officials in Shanxi vowed to launch a similar crackdown.

Many of the labourers were abducted off the streets of cities in the region and sold to factories and mines for as little 500 yuan (64 dollars), the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Parents said in the Internet statement that they had personally gone to dozens of the brick kilns, finding filthy, starving workers, many with untreated injuries inflicted at the hands of their captors or burns caused by dangerous working conditions.

State television aired disturbing images of abused and emaciated workers living in squalid conditions at a brick factory in the city of Hongtong in Shanxi province.

Workers said many of them tried to escape but most were caught and brought back. Vicious dogs were used to stop workers breaking out.

A brickyard supervisor, Zhao Yanbing, confessed on camera to beating one worker, a man in his 50s, to death for not working hard enough.

The revelations have sparked nationwide disgust, and editorials in state newspapers on Friday called for investigations into allegations that local bosses were guilty of collusion.

“How could officials in the area have connived with such audacious and appalling behavior to allow this situation to arise under their very eyes?” asked the People’s Daily, which is the main mouthpiece for the Communist Party.

One of the brickyards was run by the son of a local Communist Party boss, the nation’s main union body said in comments carried in the state press.

The scandal adds to other embarrassing revelations this week about the plight of Chinese workers, including reports that children were being used to make merchandise for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In another scandal, more than 500 children were found working ultra-long hours for up to six days a week in a light industry factory under a so-called “work-study” programme authorised by their school.

China denounces anti-communism memorial in U.S.A.

By SCOTT McDONALD, Associated Press 

BEIJING – China criticized the United States’ “Cold War” thinking Wednesday after President Bush attended the opening of a Washington memorial for those killed in communist regimes.

Bush had said Tuesday that that the Victims of Communism Memorial was dedicated to tens of millions of people killed in communist regimes including China, the Soviet Union,  North Korea and Vietnam, and that their deaths should remind Americans that “evil is real and must be confronted.”

China’s Foreign Ministry responded Wednesday evening, saying Beijing had protested to the United States after the inauguration of the bronze memorial and Bush’s comments.

“There are political forces in the United States who still think in Cold War terms and seek to provoke conflicts between different ideologies and social systems,” ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.

Although China has embraced capitalist ideas and reforms for its economy, the government remains firmly under the control of the Communist Party, which allows no political dissent.

“We resent and oppose the U.S. acts and have lodged strong representations with the U.S. side. The U.S. should stop interfering in the internal affair of other countries,” Qin said.

His statement did not mention Bush by name.

Despite tussles over trade issues, relations between the countries have generally been good recently, especially in cooperating on trying to shut down North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

However, China also denounced Bush the week after he met with a prominent Muslim activist and outspoken critic of Beijing’s rule in the far western Xinjiang region, calling the meeting a “blatant interference” in Chinese affairs.

Bush met exiled Chinese activist Rebiya Kadeer on the sidelines of a conference on democracy in the Czech capital, Prague, after praising her in a speech.

The memorial has been more than a decade in the making, and aims to honor memories and educate current and future generations about communism’s crimes against humanity.

Bush spoke on the 20th anniversary of one of President Ronald Reagan‘s most famous moments — a speech at the Berlin Wall in which he challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

It was the ultimate challenge of the Cold War, and the wall fell in 1989 as communist rule collapsed in East Germany and Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.

China’s Reform Debate Surfaces in 2 Essays

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 26, 2007; Page A14

BEIJING, May 25 — China dropped another hint of internal debate over political reform Friday, publishing commentaries saying the country should shun European-style democratic socialism.

The brief articles, by a pair of established Beijing academics, ran side-by-side in People’s Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper. Both argued that China could borrow useful policies from democratic countries but should remain faithful to the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” that has been official doctrine here since the 1980s.

“The path of democratic socialism is not able to save China,” said Xin Xiangyang of the government-sponsored Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “Only the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics can make China flourish.”

By contesting the idea that democracy would be good for China, the commentaries suggested that some party members are pushing for political reforms to match the dramatic economic loosening that has taken place over the last 25 years.

Any sign of doctrinal differences has become particularly sensitive as leaders maneuver for advantage before the 17th Party Congress this fall. There, President Hu Jintao hopes to cement his hold on power, analysts say, and anoint possible successors in the party hierarchy. In particular, he appears ready to name his own loyalists to positions of power to replace the holdover proteges of former president Jiang Zemin.

In a likely manifestation of the maneuvering, Shao Hua, the widow of Mao Zedong’s late son Mao Anqing, published a front-page article in the May 18 People’s Daily heaping praise on Jiang for what she described as warmhearted concern for the legendary Chinese leader’s descendants. Political observers in Beijing saw the article as noteworthy because, amid the effusive praise for Jiang, it never mentioned Hu.

Whether on doctrine or personnel, most differences of opinion within the party have remained private, forcing analysts to look for indirect indications of what is happening behind closed doors.

But occasionally there is no mistaking the debate. Early this year, a pair of essays in party-sanctioned intellectual publications — one by Xie Tao, a former Renmin University vice president, and another by Zhou Ruijun, a former People’s Daily editor — openly called for democratic reforms as the best way forward for China.

Xie specifically referred to Northern Europe‘s democratic socialist systems as a source of inspiration.

Both essays had particular weight because they were published in party-establishment journals and authored by respected former officials with long-standing party credentials. They were daring because both suggested that part of China’s current problems stem from the Communist Party’s refusal to relinquish its monopoly on power.

Premier Wen Jiabao issued the first public reply Feb. 27 in a front-page People’s Daily article, saying China should have democracy as a distant goal but is not yet ready for it. His argument was that China should not adopt European-style democracy but that, one day, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” would include China’s own version of democracy.

The publication of Friday’s commentaries suggested that Wen’s rebuttal has not silenced the debate and that the party leadership is still eager to douse any enthusiasm Xie and Zhou may have ignited.

“It is out of the question to mix up the distinction between democratic socialism and the creation by Chinese Communist Party people of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” said Cao Changshen, a professor at prestigious Peking University.

Communist China and Vietnam: Running the Same Dishonest Human Rights Playbook

By John E. Carey

Peace and Freedom
May 6, 2007

Media watchers and human rights advocates often express bemused frustration at the way Communist China, Communist Vietnam and the United States conduct international relations. Before each and every big summit or meeting of heads of state, each of these nations reach for a time-worn playbook.

China and Vietnam typically release some dissidents, offer news reports about freedom of religion and tell their media to be more free and open. This is a kind of appeasement to the U.S. and the many international Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) like Amnesty International that monitor and publicize activities outside the international norms.

The U.S. often responds to these overtures with talk of reconciliation, the progress being made in China and Vietnam on freedom and human rights, and the hope of all Americans for a new tomorrow.Sometimes the U.S. even offers some incentives, concessions and inducements. These are typically accepted with much gratitude, pomp and ceremony.

As soon as the summit ends and the Communists get what they wanted, the door on human rights in the Communist world slams shut so fast it almost catches Uncle Sam’s red, white and blue coat.

Last July, we at Peace and Freedom began to monitor every international news report that mentioned the word “Vietnam.” We did this because Vietnam was holding many political prisoners without charge. One prisoner in particular came to our attention. Mrs. Cuc Foshee, an American citizen since 1970, had returned to the land of her birth, Vietnam, to visit relatives. She was arrested by the Communist government and held without charges, trial, or access to a lawyer.

Many other NGOs were developing detailed lists of human rights abuses and other irregularities inside Communist Vietnam. But the results of our international media review of Vietnam that started in July 2006 offered great insight into the workings of the word.

From the state controlled media inside Vietnam, all the news was rosey. Freedom of speech and religion were on the rise, dissidents were set free, the economy was booming, the shrimp were bigger than ever and they even jumped into fishing boats when called.

The free media in the rest of the world could not always see though the smoke and mirrors offered by Communist Vietnam but the NGOs and human rights groups were able to balance the outrageous lies from Vietnam with some factual and frightening stories.

The interest in Vietnam’s human rights record and activities grew in intensity as the year progressed because President George W. Bush had indicated his intention to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in November 2006.

The thought of the President of the United States visiting Hanoi offered the photo opportunity of the decade for Communist Vietnam. The Communists were hoping for something of a Victory Lap to celebrate Vietnam’s progress since Saigon fell to the Communists in 1975.

Vietnam was also seeking some very real goodies. Entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Permanent Normal Trade Relations from the U.S. would add fuel to an already burning Vietnamese economy almost ablaze with new investments and opportunities.

The Vietnamese Communists made several concessions and pronouncements of good behavior in the run-up to the APEC conference. Thankfully, Mrs. Foshee and others were set free and came home after years or months in prison.

And in November, Vietnam began to reap every gift imaginable. The photo opportunity of President Bush in Hanoi before a regal looking bust of Ho Chi Minh appeared on page one of every major newspaper in the world. Vietnam got WTO and in a few months PNTR. The “trifecta” was achieved.

After November 2006, Vietnam started the largest and most severe repression of human rights in recent memory.

Next month, the President from Vietnam will visit the United States for the first time. Human rights activists are already wondering if the usual play book will be used by both sides or if the U.S. will actually press Vietnam on human rights, as promised. The world awaits the outcome.

Now we look to China.

Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Summer Games by the International Olympic Committee. As part of the deal, China agreed to make progress in several human rights areas.

Now, NGOs and human rights organizations are already saying that China is falling short of its commitments on human rights.

Even though there is virtually no chance of human rights issues impacting China’s Summer Games, China’s international media charm offensive is in high gear.

We have seen China responding by hopping like a bunny to all kinds of criticism from around the world. China has announced new, more liberal rules for the media. China has made all kinds of pledges from stiffer self imposed environmental and global warming goals to renewed actions on freedom of religion.

China even replaced the Foreign Minister, who did not speak English, with the former Ambassadore to the United States who speaks English like a Princeton man.

China is making some real improvements in human rights and other areas of international interest, but there is much work yet to do for a China desiring acceptance by the law abiding world community.

The issues for China are great and some seemingly small.

When President Hu Jintao Visited Sudan last February, his presence violated the sanction of the U.N., the E.U. and others wanting to seal the Sudan from aid or trade until improvements in the situation that many have called genocide in Darfur could be assessed.

During President Hu’s visit to Sudan he offered economic aid and more investment in Sudan’s oil industry. Darfur was not mentioned publicly at all.

The United States has complained to China for decades that many in China violate international laws and standards on intellectual property rights such as copyrights and trademarks by producing “knock offs” of everything from Rolex watches to major motion pictures like the blockbuster “Titanic.”

These violation cost business and owners in the west tens of billions of dollars a year.

But the copyright infringement discussion pales in importance to China’s vast array of human rights abuses.

As we get closer to the Olympics next summer, one can expect some saintly behavior and some angelic pronouncements from China. But after the last gold medal is awarded we caution everyone against saying anything negative about their communist Chinese Olympic hosts.

We doubt that there will really be a new playbook.
**
In response to this article we heard from a man who went though Communist Vietnam’s “re-education system” after Saigon fell in 1975. He spent 12 years in “re-education” and admitted maybe he was a slow learner.

He wanted to tell us that two months before a scheduled visit to his camp by Human Rights Watch, the Communist government prepared the camp and those under “re-education” with the greatest intensity.

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