By Fang Jue

April 11th, 2005 (boxun.com)

China' s human rights situation has still been a concern to the world. The long puzzling question is: After nearly 27 years of economic reform and opening policy, why Chinese political rights have not significantly improved? My answer to this is: China¡¯s reforms have never included democratic reform. And the democratic nations have not been pushing China towards democracy when interacting with the communist regime.

The core of people¡¯s political rights is to choose the regime formation and government leaders through universal suffrage.

In China, all levels of government leaders, from the lowest administrative chief of a township to the highest President of the nation, all are hand picked by the leading groups of the Communist Party, not through a direct and free election.

Since 1980, the direct election in China has been limited at the lowest delegate to a township people¡¯s congress and the lower delegate to a county people¡¯s congress. The delegate to a municipal, provincial and national people¡¯s congress has been appointed by the Communist Party leading groups.

In comparison, most of nations in the world, including many developing nations that economically and educationally lower than China, have gradually adopted the general election, which the citizens could choose each level of government leaders and congress members. In both of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, they stated that weather citizens have the universal suffrage is an essential indicator of political rights. We can see from this, Chinese political rights are severely lacking behind most of nations in the world. Chinese political rights are grossly not fitting the international standard of human rights. Unfortunately, many western nations seem to do not fully notice the severity of the human rights problem that affecting 1.3 billion people.

It is exactly because Chinese people are unable to choose their regime formation and government leaders through free election, they could never establish a political system that would respect human rights; they could never establish a law system that would protect human rights; they could never establish a judicial system that would safeguard human rights; therefore they could not truly enjoy the freedom of speech, freedom of belief, and freedom of association. This is the fundamental reason of why human rights situation in China could not substantially improve for so long.

Few years ago, China started direct election on the members of village committee. Some westerners took this as a sign of China¡¯s progress in political reform towards democracy. This view may be a misunderstanding. According to China¡¯s related laws and regulations, the village committee is not a level of government. It is merely the self-management organ by the village residents. The village committee doesn¡¯t have any political functions and play no role in China¡¯s political lives. I would tell those who concern this issue: China¡¯s regime system has 5 levels, which are central authority, province, city, county, and township. The village committee is not in the regime system. Therefore, direct election on the members of village committee is not equal to universal suffrage.

The key issue of China¡¯s democratic reform should be to push for direct election of government leaders in each level, and to push for direct election of delegate to people¡¯s congress above township and county levels. This is the foundation to improve China¡¯s human rights situation. I also would tell those who concern this issue: more and more Chinese are accepting the idea of universal suffrage. More and more Chinese in the future will be pursuing the universal suffrage.

Although the Chinese government symbolically signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1998, it has never presented the covenant to China¡¯s highest legislature to get it ratified. It shows that the communist regime does not want to implement the covenant. Its main apprehension is the covenant stipulates the universal suffrage for all countries¡¯ citizens. The international community should urge China to ratify and implement this covenant, which signed 7 years ago.

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(The writer, Fang Jue, is a political activist in the United States from China.) _(²©Ñ¶×ÔÓÉ·¢¸åÇø·¢¸å) (boxun.com)