How Many Freed Dissidents Add Up to a Sound Human-Rights Policy?

When Wei Jingsheng, China’s leading dissident, stepped on to the Northwest Airlines jet ready to wing him into U.S. exile last week, it was no surprise that the U.S. ambassador to China, James R. Sasser, broke out the champagne. After all, Wei’s release was the result of long months of firm, quiet diplomacy. No less, it was a gift from Beijing for the legitimacy that President Bill Clinton had bestowed on Chinese President Jiang Zemin by according him red-carpet treatment at last month’s summit. It also seemed to demonstrate that Clinton’s “engagement” with China could yield results, leaving anti-China critics who cited Wei’s fate as proof that the president had abandoned principles for economic gain with egg on their faces. But does Wei’s release add up to a human-rights policy or does it simply play along with China’s cynical game?

Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, China’s human-rights abuses have been central to the erosion of congressional and public support for, first, George Bush’s, then Clinton’s China policies. In U.S. policy, human rights seem to take a back seat to security and economic issues. Then, a prominent dissident is released, usually into exile, to symbolize concern about human rights. Wei’s release fits this pattern. During the Bush administration, Fang Lizhi, an astrophysicist and outspoken critic of China’s political leaders, took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and, after long negotiations, was allowed to emigrate to the United States.

Of course, freedom for the long-suffering Wei, particularly in light of his grave health problems after 18 years in jail, is a humanitarian achievement. But Wei’s release raises far more questions than it answers. What of some 2,000 remaining political prisoners and the repression that has stifled political freedom throughout China? Do symbolic victories such as the release of well-known dissidents advance the broader goal of political liberalization?

If the administration views the release of Wei, or the likely pending release of student leader Wang Dan, as “checking the box” on human rights, it is mistaken. Equally mistaken are critics like conservative Gary L. Bauer, who compared Wei to Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov in admonishing Clinton to cancel last month’s summit if Wei was not released.

Then there is the puzzle of China’s hypersensitivity about releasing dissidents. Beijing’s resistance is curious because the record shows that when dissidents are exiled, their release makes instant headlines but the dissidents themselves soon fade away. Who in China or in the United States has heard from Fang or Tiananmen student leaders like Chai Ling lately? So why is it like pulling teeth to persuade Beijing that the right thing to do is to release dissidents from prison even when they agree to exile?

The short answer is that Beijing’s Confucian-Leninist leaders--who operate a system based on the rule of men, not law--are deeply insecure. They fear that personalities advocating democracy could undermine their personalized authoritarian rule. Given the preoccupation of most Chinese with making money, Beijing’s harshness seems a tad paranoid. But the lesson of Tiananmen is stability over civility.

The American emphasis on celebrity dissidents and breast-beating at public forums represents a concrete approach to human-rights issues: The administration can show its concern while personalizing the issue and giving human-rights groups a hero. But its focus on well-known dissidents also serves to increase their value in Beijing’s eyes, another reason why China acts paranoid.

The assumptions undergirding this human-rights approach reflect a flawed view of China. The administration has framed the issue as one of “engagement or containment.” Clinton contends that by engaging China, we will integrate the Chinese into the world community; confrontation would only isolate them. The president’s critics, meanwhile, act as if China is a brittle, authoritarian, adversarial monolith. Exerting pressure on China to release its leading dissidents is part of their broader effort to impose change from the outside, since internally generated change is seen as unlikely.

The reality of the situation is quite another matter. When Deng Xiaoping launched market reforms in 1979, he decided that China had no choice but to integrate itself into the world economy. Beijing is betting it can ride the tiger of modernization and maintain its political monopoly. For U.S. policy, the question should be not integration or isolation but, rather, on what terms China integrates itself into the international system.

What does this mean for human rights? Assuming that China is a dynamic society in the midst of unprecedented social change yields a quite different human-rights policy, one that can more easily co-exist with U.S. economic, political and strategic goals.

China’s economic modernization requires living with satellite TV, faxes, the Internet and talk radio. Its reforms and rapid economic growth, averaging 9% annually since 1980, have begun to unleash new social forces and the beginnings of a middle class. The role of the state in people’s daily lives is shrinking as the economy privatizes: Individuals now choose where to work, go to school, travel and be entertained. The decollectivization of agriculture has resulted in village elections with non-communists even occasionally winning. The need for a legal system has created laws allowing citizens to sue the government. All this doesn’t mean China is marching, wittingly or unwittingly, toward democracy, for Beijing’s model is authoritarian, market-oriented Singapore; tolerance stops at political expression.

But this more dynamic view of China suggests a human-rights strategy aimed at aiding and abetting social forces pushing for change within China. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the birth of a fledgling legal system and local elections, which may be expanded to the county level. China must next develop commercial codes, civil law and an independent judiciary in order to fulfill successfully its goal of modernization.

These are all essential ingredients for the development of a civil society and thus should be the focus of U.S. human-rights policy. One element of such a policy would aim to bolster the efforts of the USIA and groups like the National Endowment for Democracy to promote civil society; to aid rule-of-law programs; to help develop legal curricula in universities, and to broaden the exposure of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) to the workings of our legislative system. A second element would involve the president exerting hortatory pressure, as Clinton did during Jiang’s visit, and greater use of the Voice of America, which has a large audience and is perceived as having a measure of independence. Finally, quiet diplomacy is also essential to achieving practical results like more Red Cross visits to jails, the release of more dissidents and to apply pressure privately.

This is not a sexy or dramatic human-rights policy, nor would it yield sensational political trophies. Rather, it feeds off a strong belief in American values and patience. The experience of much of East Asia--Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand--is that economic growth eventually creates a middle class, which then presses for more accountable governance. U.S. human-rights policy should give these kinds of forces a steady nudge.*