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KMT ignores rights,
just like CCP
By Chiu Hei-yuan 瞿海源
As the Bo Xilai (薄熙來) case continues to unravel, a professor at the Beijing
Institute of Economics and Management, Wang Zheng (王錚), has demanded that she be
permitted to meet with Bo as allowed by Chinese law.
She has done this because Bo’s case is not being handled by the country’s
judiciary, but by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) disciplinary committee,
which has also detained Bo. Wang has stressed that the Chinese constitution does
not give the CCP any special rights to deprive individuals of their freedom.
She has twice submitted an open letter to National People’s Congress Chairman Wu
Bangguo (吳邦國) demanding that the country be ruled in accordance with the law.
The CCP continues its one-party rule of China and it is astonishing to see a
simple professor daring to criticize a party that rules the country like a
criminal gang or an evil cult. Maybe less astonishing is that after national
security “invited” her for tea, Wang has not been seen or heard from again.
The CCP continues its suppression of intellectuals who voice dissenting
opinions. This is not a big surprise. However, when taking a closer look at the
CCP’s totalitarian rule, lack of understanding of concepts such as human rights
and rule of law, and its constant, forceful rejection of domestic and
international calls for it to respect these values, a comparison with the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government can be made, as they behave in
similar ways.
The difference is that the KMT no longer directly leads the government or sets
government policies. However, it does forcefully reject or ignore calls for the
protection of human rights.
After the government signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR) two years ago, many domestic laws should have been revised to
guarantee the rights enshrined in the two covenants. However, because it still
has not completed this process, the government to this day continues to deprive
the public of their rights — in violation of the two conventions.
Regarding capital punishment, a serious human rights violation, the ICCPR
provides anyone who has been given the death penalty with the right to ask for a
pardon. Still, the government has not written an amnesty law that accords with
the covenant and continues to carry out executions in violation of it.
As for the revision of other laws not in violation of such major rights as the
right to life, the government still procrastinates, postpones and generally
seems unable to amend them to comply with the two covenants.
For example, the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法) violates both covenants, but the
Ministry of the Interior says only that the law and its sub-laws are being
revised, and that it will “eliminate negative perceptions from the martial law
and authoritarian era and highlight the spirit in which the government is
implementing the ICCPR and the ICESCR, as well as constitutional guarantees for
the freedom of association.”
In the end, all it means is that the act and its sub-laws have not been revised,
and the government continues to deprive the public of their freedom of
association by enforcing old laws.
Is there really any substantive difference between this neglect to revise the
law to guarantee civil rights and the CCP’s insistence on one-party rule and
ignoring the rule of law and human rights?
Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of
Sociology.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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