Test Post Two

“China crushed by slave labour claims” “Forced abortions in Chinese villages” “Olympic labels produced in sweat shops”

These are all newspaper headlines from the last month or so. The following are quotes from New Zealand local govenrment officials over the same period.

“There are no human rights abuses in China – I have not seen them.” “The reason is obvious – we have important business interests in China.” “We must accept the way these people live.”

These quotes are one result of Amnesty International’s recent tour of New Zealand, which launches the organisation’s global campaign against human rights abuses in China. The tour’s main aim was to raise awareness of those abuses. And its main conclusion was that such awareness-raising is urgently needed: although a number of Mayors and Councillors and many members of the public supported the tour’s aims, a lot of misunderstanding remains.

A number of local officials believe, firstly, that the human rights situation in China does not need to change; and secondly, that local governments in NZ are not in a position to change it. These two beliefs need to be considered in more detail, not just because they are false but also because if taken seriously they would put a blot on New Zealand’s human rights record.

In a recent report, Amnesty International revealed that the Chinese government, despite promising to clean up its act on human rights, has showed little sign of doing so. Some freedoms have been won, including freedom of speech for foreign journalists in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics. But many freedoms remain under daily threat, and new ones have been lost.

Political activists face tighter constraints than before, and harsher penalties. “Re-education through labour” camps, where suspected opponents can be detained without trial for long periods, and where torture and other ill-treatment is commonplace, are as active as ever. Local journalists, like local activists, are at risk from attempts by the Chinese government to “clean up” the local stage in preparation for the great drama of the 2008 Olympics.

If all this is not public knowledge, it is largely because the Chinese government does not want it to be. In China you cannot read the abovementioned report on the Amnesty International website, because that site is blocked by government censors. It is no surprise that a government skilled at locking up political activists is also a dab hand at shutting up those who would otherwise report the abuses.

Headlines like those quoted above do make their way into New Zealand papers. They are shocking, but they are also remote, and they give the false impression that Chinese human rights abuses mean nothing to New Zealand except a new source of alarming foreign news.

In fact, Chinese abuses mean that the Amnesty New Zealand website, like its international equivalent, is blocked by Chinese censors. It means that at least one New Zealand journalist has been rudely shuffled out of a parliamentary press conference at the behest of Chinese authorities, and that Falun Gong practitioners have been asked to remove apolitical promotional material from Council premises.

In China, Falun Gong members suffer much more than exclusion from public events, but the pattern is clear: if Chinese authorities can hush up grave abuses in their own country by commiting mild abuses in New Zealand, then they will do so.

Chinese abuses in China are one reason for local councils to act, and Chinese pressures in New Zealand are another. What gives extra edge to the situation, however, and what motivated Amnesty International to spend six weeks chasing down Mayors from Invercargill to Kaikohe, is that many of the abuses in China occur at a local level.

“The mayor in a Chinese city is very powerful. If the mayor says something must be done, it gets done.” So said Peter Tennat, president of the sister-cities New Zealand. Moreover, local governments in China (unlike their New Zealand counterparts) are direct representatives of the central government. As the Mayor is to his city, so is the President of China to the Mayor. And if local government in China is closely linked to human rights abuses in China, is it not highly appropriate for local governments in New Zealand to get involved in the issue?

Well, perhaps not, if New Zealand Mayors and Councils have no special ties with Chinese Mayors, no way of channeling their views into the minds of local officials in China. But special ties do exist: NZ cities have “sister-city” relationships with a total of 28 Chinese cities, and these relationships form one of the broadest and most intimate point of contact between the Chinese and New Zealand govenrments. In 2006 alone, 40 000 Chinese officials visited New Zealand in 4000 delegations.

As in any friendship, the sister-city friendships bring certain responsibilities. “I believe in friendship,” said Hutt City Mayor David Ogden, “but I believe that friends should give eachother advice.” If two people are silent about eachother’s wrong-doings, then their friendship is dysfunctional. Surely the same applies to cities.

Of course, the strong presence of big business makes sister-city relationships into an odd sort of friendship. But at the very least NZ Mayors should try to find a form of criticism that does not lose out on trade with China. And to accept some trade losses would only be humane: while New Zealand Mayors worry about losing dollars, contracts and pretty ethnic ornaments, thousands of Chinese

Test Post One

“China crushed by slave labour claims” “Forced abortions in Chinese villages” “Olympic labels produced in sweat shops”

These are all newspaper headlines from the last month or so. The following are quotes from New Zealand local govenrment officials over the same period.

“There are no human rights abuses in China – I have not seen them.” “The reason is obvious – we have important business interests in China.” “We must accept the way these people live.”

These quotes are one result of Amnesty International’s recent tour of New Zealand, which launches the organisation’s global campaign against human rights abuses in China. The tour’s main aim was to raise awareness of those abuses. And its main conclusion was that such awareness-raising is urgently needed: although a number of Mayors and Councillors and many members of the public supported the tour’s aims, a lot of misunderstanding remains.

A number of local officials believe, firstly, that the human rights situation in China does not need to change; and secondly, that local governments in NZ are not in a position to change it. These two beliefs need to be considered in more detail, not just because they are false but also because if taken seriously they would put a blot on New Zealand’s human rights record.

In a recent report, Amnesty International revealed that the Chinese government, despite promising to clean up its act on human rights, has showed little sign of doing so. Some freedoms have been won, including freedom of speech for foreign journalists in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics. But many freedoms remain under daily threat, and new ones have been lost.

Political activists face tighter constraints than before, and harsher penalties. “Re-education through labour” camps, where suspected opponents can be detained without trial for long periods, and where torture and other ill-treatment is commonplace, are as active as ever. Local journalists, like local activists, are at risk from attempts by the Chinese government to “clean up” the local stage in preparation for the great drama of the 2008 Olympics.

If all this is not public knowledge, it is largely because the Chinese government does not want it to be. In China you cannot read the abovementioned report on the Amnesty International website, because that site is blocked by government censors. It is no surprise that a government skilled at locking up political activists is also a dab hand at shutting up those who would otherwise report the abuses.

Headlines like those quoted above do make their way into New Zealand papers. They are shocking, but they are also remote, and they give the false impression that Chinese human rights abuses mean nothing to New Zealand except a new source of alarming foreign news.

In fact, Chinese abuses mean that the Amnesty New Zealand website, like its international equivalent, is blocked by Chinese censors. It means that at least one New Zealand journalist has been rudely shuffled out of a parliamentary press conference at the behest of Chinese authorities, and that Falun Gong practitioners have been asked to remove apolitical promotional material from Council premises.

In China, Falun Gong members suffer much more than exclusion from public events, but the pattern is clear: if Chinese authorities can hush up grave abuses in their own country by commiting mild abuses in New Zealand, then they will do so.

Chinese abuses in China are one reason for local councils to act, and Chinese pressures in New Zealand are another. What gives extra edge to the situation, however, and what motivated Amnesty International to spend six weeks chasing down Mayors from Invercargill to Kaikohe, is that many of the abuses in China occur at a local level.

“The mayor in a Chinese city is very powerful. If the mayor says something must be done, it gets done.” So said Peter Tennat, president of the sister-cities New Zealand. Moreover, local governments in China (unlike their New Zealand counterparts) are direct representatives of the central government. As the Mayor is to his city, so is the President of China to the Mayor. And if local government in China is closely linked to human rights abuses in China, is it not highly appropriate for local governments in New Zealand to get involved in the issue?

Well, perhaps not, if New Zealand Mayors and Councils have no special ties with Chinese Mayors, no way of channeling their views into the minds of local officials in China. But special ties do exist: NZ cities have “sister-city” relationships with a total of 28 Chinese cities, and these relationships form one of the broadest and most intimate point of contact between the Chinese and New Zealand govenrments. In 2006 alone, 40 000 Chinese officials visited New Zealand in 4000 delegations.

As in any friendship, the sister-city friendships bring certain responsibilities. “I believe in friendship,” said Hutt City Mayor David Ogden, “but I believe that friends should give eachother advice.” If two people are silent about eachother’s wrong-doings, then their friendship is dysfunctional. Surely the same applies to cities.

Of course, the strong presence of big business makes sister-city relationships into an odd sort of friendship. But at the very least NZ Mayors should try to find a form of criticism that does not lose out on trade with China. And to accept some trade losses would only be humane: while New Zealand Mayors worry about losing dollars, contracts and pretty ethnic ornaments, thousands of Chinese