Policy Perspective
Christopher Cox, Chairman
The Trial of Wei Jingsheng
December 12, 1995
"Didn't we arrest Wei Jingsheng? We arrested him and
haven't let him go, yet China's image has not suffered."
Introduction
On December 13, 1995, the government of the People's Republic of China will put China's leading advocate of democracy, Wei Jingsheng, on trial for "sedition." The trial speaks volumes about the abysmal state of human rights and the complete and utter denial of political freedoms in the People's Republic of China.
Brazen Assault on Democracy and Human Rights
Wei Jingsheng is China's foremost dissident. He is thought to have earned the personal enmity of Deng Xiaoping by demanding that Deng's "Four Modernizations"--agriculture, industry, science, and defense--be augmented by a Fifth Modernization--democracy. Wei's magazine Exploration repudiated not just Maoism and Leninism but Marxism itself. He has spent fourteen and a half years in some of Communist China's most brutal and remote Laogai camps, much of the time in solitary confinement. His alleged offense was "counterrevolutionary" activities--in reality, leading the Democracy Wall Movement that took its name from the wall near the Forbidden City where activists used to display their pro-democracy manifestos. In an effort to secure international favor as the International Olympic Committee was considering the People's Republic of China as a possible host for the 2000 Olympic Games, Wei was paroled just six months prior to completing his 15-year sentence. He promptly began to speak out again, calling on the Olympic Committee to punish Beijing for its abysmal human rights record by denying it the 2000 Olympic Games. Shortly thereafter, in April 1994, Wei disappeared. For the past twenty months, the Communist authorities have refused to tell anyone, including his family, his whereabouts. It is now public that Wei will be put on trial, beginning December 13, 1995, for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Despite the fact that the sum total of his offense against the Communist government is his unyielding support for democracy and human rights, his likely punishment will be a minimum of ten years' imprisonment, and perhaps death. The Chinese Communist government may return him to the Laogai, China's notorious gulag. Or they may expel him after imposing a draconian sentence--the same option used against Harry Wu. The Communist regime is no doubt responding to Wei's humiliating nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the Olympic Committee's decision not to site the 2000 Games in the People's Republic of China. The Wei case demonstrates the nature of "justice" under the Communist order. Wei was arrested twenty months ago, without warning or explanation, and held incommunicado. Then the Communist authorities conducted an investigation of Wei. Then, and only then, the Communists announced the charges against Wei and set the date for his trial.
Sham Trial
The trial in China's Intermediate People's Court will be anything but the "open" proceeding announced by the Communist government. It will not be public; it will merely be open to the immediate family of the accused, together with a few observers and journalists selected by the Communist Chinese authorities. American and European diplomats' requests to monitor the trial have either been rejected or gone unanswered. And the Communist regime has refused to allow a distinguished international legal team, including former U.S. Attorneys General Nicholas DeB. Katzenbach and Richard Thornburgh, to participate in Wei's defense. International observers believe that the verdict is entirely preordained. Wei Jingsheng, like the heroic students of Tienanmen Square, is living proof that China's people are not indifferent to democracy and human rights, content with lawlessness, dictatorship and corruption. On December 13, Wei Jingsheng will be the defendant, but it will be China's Communist dictatorship that is on trial.
Implications for U.S.-P.R.C. Relations
Wei's trial is yet another direct test of the United States' resolve to work for an improved human rights situation in the People's Republic of China. It comes at a time when relations between the two countries are supposedly improving after the crises precipitated by the unofficial U.S. visit of Taiwan's President, Lee Tung-hui, as well as the outrageous arrest and trial of Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu this summer. The trial is a bold move on the part of Chinese Communist hardliners, who clearly believe that the U.S. and other democracies will do nothing--that once again, as Communist leader Deng Xiaoping said in December 1986, Communist China's "image" will not suffer if it imprisons Wei Jingsheng. This brazen assault on democracy and human rights comes at the same time that Communist China is trampling on religious freedom in Tibet by attempting to impose its own choice as Panchen Lama. When official Buddhism selected Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the new Panchen Lama--the second most important religious figure in Tibet--the Communist government rejected the selection, and arrested the religious leader who headed the search committee. The real Panchen Lama has been abducted by the Communist government, which has forced the selection of another child, Gyaincain Norbu, the son of Communist Party functionaries. Communist Chinese militancy in the East Asia region mirrors its disregard for international opinion in the Wei case. The Communist Chinese government has continued its hamfisted efforts to intimidate the electorates in Hong Kong and Taiwan through blatant threats. Governments throughout East Asia were shaken by Beijing's decision to conduct military exercises and a test of six nuclear-capable missiles 100 miles north of Taiwan, in a none-too-subtle attempt to influence Taiwan's recent elections. And the Chinese government has continued its attempts to intimidate the Phillippines and other neighboring countries in an effort to press its territorial claims to the entirety of the vast South China Sea. Last February, China seized and occupied a reef 70 miles within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. Any of these developments, taken singly, would be cause for alarm. Taken together, and now capped by the outrageous "trial" of the leading Chinese voice for democracy and human rights, these events must occasion fundamental reevaluation of the U.S. relationship with Communist China.
Conclusion
The detention and trial of Wei Jingsheng is only the latest and most striking case of the Chinese Communists' systematic infringement of political freedoms, individual liberties, and human rights. House Republicans wish to make clear that Communist China's "image" will suffer--grievously--unless and until he is freed.
After a summary "trial" in Beijing, Communist China's Intermediate People's Court today sentenced pro-democracy activist Wei Jingsheng to 14 years in prison. Wei's alleged crime was sedition: conspiracy to overthrow the Communist Chinese government. His sentence marks the beginning of a second 14-year ordeal for Wei, who has previously served a similar period in prison--part of it in some of Communist China's most onerous forced labor camps. Under today's sentence, Wei will also be formally deprived of political rights for three years--an ironic punishment, given that he was arrested for exercising the most basic of political rights, freedom of expression.
By completing the proceedings within a few short hours, the Communist regime exposed the trial for the sham it was. More eager to avoid international scrutiny than to serve justice, the regime abandoned any pretense of due process, providing the culminating evidence of the mockery of justice that is the Chinese Communist legal system:
-- Wei was under arrest for 21 months without any charge.-- He was denied the services of an eminent team of international attorneys, including two former U.S. Attorneys General.
-- His trial date was announced publicly only five days ago. And 36 hours before his trial opened, his attorney had not yet been shown the specifics of his indictment or the evidence against him, rendering it virtually impossible for the 45-year old electrician to prepare a defense.
-- And now, Wei has only ten days to appeal the sentence.
By conducting this parody of a trial, it is the Communist Chinese government that today stands convicted -- of flagrant abuse of the Chinese people's human and political rights.
Created by the House Republican Policy Committee,
please send comments to tcremer@hr.house.gov.
Last updated August 20, 1996
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
