Silence on Tibetan talks is golden Francesco Sisci Asia Times / La Stampa (28.01.2010) / HRWF (01.02.2010) On Tuesday, Beijing reopened the thorny and controversial talk with envoys of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan god-king. Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari (the Dalai Lama's right-hand man), Kelsang Gyaltsen, and three other officials of the Tibetan government in exile reached the Chinese capital, it was announced from the Dalai Lama's the headquarters in Dharamsala, India. Unlike previous occasions, the Tibetans did not release press statements, and no one leaked news of the contact the first since talks at the time of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games in 2008 ended in stalemate. The news blackout and the fact that the Chinese have agreed to the talks without pressure from domestic or international groups casts a positive light on their prospects. The Uyghur revolt in Urumqi, the capital of China's western Xinjiang region, last July seems to have contributed to the reopening the contact. Then, groups of Uyghurs, a Turkic minority, killed dozens of Han Chinese (the ethnic majority in China). The violence and cruelty of that protest proved to Beijing that the Tibetans were a milder and a more reasonable lot. Silence from diplomats is considered in Beijing to be a guarantee of reliability. Talks between Beijing and the Vatican have been held for years and have registered significant progress by maintaining complete press silence on the political content of the talks. Last week, China held high-level discussions to assess the situation in Tibet and to consider new projects to boost social and economic development in the region. Beijing may also hope to set on a better course the expected controversial meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, whom China blames for masterminding demonstrations in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, which ended with the death of many people in 2008. Beijing has bitterly opposed such meetings in the past. However, now the two sides seem to have reached a compromise - Obama will meet the Dalai Lama privately and Beijing will tone down its protestations. Besides the present prudent optimism, there are huge differences between the parties. The Dalai Lama and Beijing do not agree even on the meaning of "Tibet" or "autonomy". According to Beijing, "Tibet" is the actual Tibetan Autonomous Region, which according to the Dalai Lama is less than half the territory of "historical Tibet" covering about a quarter of all China. By "autonomy", China means maintaining the current administrative regime that is heavily dependent on Beijing. The men of the Dalai Lama think of the autonomy offered by Mao Zedong in the 1950s, which, according to Beijing, belongs to the past and to history. Among Tibetans there is still, unchanged over time and history, deep faith in the Dalai Lama, but Beijing is unwilling to buckle under religious pressures. Xinhua, the official news agency, announced a gigantic development plan in recent days that would allow the Himalayan region to leapfrog to the average per-capita wealth level of the rest of the country by 2020. This means a huge infrastructure plan that will increasingly integrate Tibet with the rest of China, even if may not suffice to "buy out" the souls of Tibetans faithful to the Dalai Lama. "This time we are really focusing on improving livelihood, whereas previous policies were mostly concerned with industry and infrastructure," reportedly said Luorong Zhandui, a specialist in development economics at the China Tibetology Research Center. "Without human capacity, Tibet will always fall behind and need others to take care of it," said Luorong, who did not attend the forum but advised the government to include all Tibetan areas in its policy deliberations. The Tibetan front, from Beijing's perspective, appears divided, despite the common faith in the Dalai Lama. There is seething tension between those in Dharamsala who have been in exile since 1959 and the Tibetans in Tibet - although their common opposition to Beijing may unite them. Moreover, the Dorjie Shugden Sect, considered heretical by the Dalai Lama, yet counting possibly up to 800,000 followers, has introduced further divisions among Lamaist Tibetans. The members of this sect are more inclined to cooperation with Beijing. In any case, Beijing wants a solution with the Dalai Lama and does not want to be held hostage to the people in Lhasa who built their political and economic careers by waving the banner of war on the Tibetan insurrection. In other words, Beijing, wanting peace and development in Tibet, has two opponents. One is the group around the Dalai Lama, which wants a tough clash with Beijing and hopes the ensuing widespread pandemonium will create something positive for them. The other is the group of Chinese officials in favor of a crackdown in Lhasa, who can maintain and promote their power by keeping alive the flame or ghost of an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet. In fact, the two groups have convergent interests. In theory, there may be a balance between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, but China certainly is not prepared to make concessions on its interpretation of "Tibet" or "autonomy." This creates a new and very sensitive space for compromise that will need time and attention to be true and genuine. Meanwhile, it is unlikely that the two parties will reach an agreement in the short term. We are near the end of the Chinese lunar year, which ends on February 13. Most likely, the Chinese have for now only the mandate to study and understand the true intentions of the other party. "You can't say there will be a deal, but you can say a better understanding," Khedroob Thondup, a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile, reportedly said. With one-child policy, China 'missing' girls By Cheryl Wetzstein Washington Times (27.01.2010) / HRWF (28.01.2010) Website: http://www.hrwf.net http://www.willyfautre.org Email: info@hrwf.net When Chinese officials created the country's one-child-per-couple policy in 1978, they intended to contain the country's burgeoning population for the sake of economic growth, national security and environmental preservation. But Chinese boys now outnumber Chinese girls by the millions, and the impact of the lopsided sex imbalance is starting to spill beyond China's borders. This phenomenon of "missing girls" has turned China into "a giant magnet" for human traffickers, who lure or kidnap women and sell them - even multiple times - into forced marriages or the commercial sex trade, says Ambassador Mark Lagon, who oversaw human rights issues at the State Department during the administration of President George W. Bush. "The impact is obvious. It's creating a 'Wild West' sex industry in China," Mr. Lagon said. In China, "an entire nation of women" is missing because they were aborted before they were born, said Reggie Littlejohn, founder of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, a nonprofit anti-sex slavery group. "This is gendercide." To grasp the magnitude of the human-trafficking problem in China, it's important to have a reliable tally of the "missing girls." Recently, the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Services (CASS) predicted that 24 million Chinese men might not be able to find brides in 2020. However, previous estimates put that number in the 30 million to 50 million range. In fact, a 2009 study in the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal) said that in 2005, there were 32 million extra Chinese men under the age of 20 - and that 1.1 million extra males were born in just that year. "Sex-selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males," said study authors Wei Xing Zhu, Li Lu and Therese Hesketh, who urged China to enforce its laws forbidding abortions based on gender. Chinese officials plan to enforce those laws, as well as try to change Chinese "son-preferential ideologies," said a 2007 report from a Chinese academic institute. A "Care for Girls" campaign is already under way in Chinese districts that have especially large imbalances in their sex ratios, Shuzhuo Li, director of the Institute for Population and Development Studies at Xi'an Jiaotong University in China, wrote in that report. Preference ideologies" will be very difficult Chinese parents believe they must have a son to carry their family name, inherit family properties, support them in their old age and host their funeral ceremonies. Tradition says children belong to their father's lineages, and daughters become part of their husband's families. Because of these ancient beliefs, China's one-child policy forces couples to choose between "their future retirement and the lives of their daughters," said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, a nonprofit pro-life group who has been tracking the one-child policy since the late 1980s. Chinese officials repeatedly reaffirm the one-child policy, but also appear to be tinkering with it. For instance, last summer, faced with a stunningly anemic 0.88 children per woman birthrate in Shanghai, officials announced that certain couples could have a second child. But this week, the Beijing News had to back off a similar story for Beijing's couples. The paper had reported that an official with the Beijing family- planning commission said the panel was considering allowing couples to apply for a second birth permit even if only one spouse was an "only" child. Currently, both spouses must be "only" children to get a second permit. The Beijing News report was swiftly retracted via Xinhua News Agency, a government news agency, which noted that the "journalist who wrote the original false report had already apologized" to the official. A second, unnamed Beijing family-planning official reminded Xinhua that birth-planning is "a fundamental policy" and "requires stability and continuity" to succeed. Meanwhile, multiple alarm bells are going off about China's demographics The massive population is "graying," which means there will be many elderly people with far fewer workers and family members to support them. There is also the specter of millions of young, unmarried, restless and unfettered Chinese men and how that might explode into civil unrest. But the most immediate and horrifying consequence of China's "missing girls" is that it is fueling a growing trade in human beings, especially girls and women, say those who are fighting it. The State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report downgraded China to its Tier 2 "watch list," because it is a "source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation." While women from many countries are being captured or trafficked into China, North Korean women are especially vulnerable. Neither China nor North Korea "seems to want to protect that population," Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said in June when the TIP report was released. "China's approach to human trafficking is strictly an iron-fist, law-and-order approach," said Mr. Lagon, who is now the executive director and chief executive of the Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization that fights international sex slavery. If North Korean women protest or try to flee their forced marriages or prostitution houses, they can be "repatriated" to North Korea, said Mr. Lagon. Upon their return, they are treated like criminals and are likely to be beaten, imprisoned or killed, he said. Laura Lederer, a former State Department official who now is part of Global Centurion, a nonprofit group fighting sex slavery, said that the sex imbalance in China is leading to a "new tsunami of demand." "We need to be working on this on the front end," she said, calling for high-level enforcement in anti-trafficking laws. As for the trafficking victims, Mr. Lagon urged Americans who suspect illegal activities to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hot line, which is operated by the Polaris Project. Sex trafficking is a heinous human rights violation, and people may instinctively want to turn away from the issue, he said. But "it's inspiring" to see how people can escape and survive even the worst situations. "It doesn't have to be a dark subject if you are exposed to those who are fighting for dignity," he said. Media report about "second child" policy untrue Xinhua/ CriEnglish.com (25.01.2010) / HRWF (28.01.2010) The family planning authority of Beijing said Monday that media report about the city considering loosing control on second-child was inconsistent with the facts. An official with the municipal committee of population and family planning told Xinhua that the journalist who wrote the original false report had already apologized to the interviewee. The official said that the family planning is China's basic national policy, and that stability and continuity of the policy should be maintained. He called for attention to China's cause of population and family planning and for efforts from all walks of life to support the family planning authorities to do a good job. Early Monday some media reported that Peng Yuhua, deputy head of the municipal committee of population and family planning, said the authorities were doing research on moderately lowering the threshold for "second-child". The reports said probably Beijing would allow any couple, if either the husband or wife was an only child, to have a second child. According to the reports, the regulation that a woman should bear her second child at least four years after her first baby's birth was expected to be lifted. China adopted the "one-child" policy at the beginning of the 1980s to contain the fast growth of its population. Beijing now allows any couple, if both husband and wife are only child, to have their second baby. China: When abortion is not a choice We are very pleased to present you an article of the Washington Post inspired by our expert Reggie Littlejohn who created a partner organization the US "Women's Rights Without Frontiers" She was also one of our guest-speakers at the conference on human rights in China that we organized last year at the European Parliament in Brussels. Website: http://www.hrwf.net http://www.willyfautre.org Email: info@hrwf.net By Kathleen Parker Washington Post (11.11.2009) - One of the few incontrovertible assertions one can reasonably make is that no one supports forced abortion. Yet, coerced abortions, as well as involuntary sterilizations, are commonplace in China, Beijing's protestations notwithstanding. While the Chinese Communist Party insists that abortions are voluntary under the nation's one-child policy, electronic documentation recently smuggled out of the country tells a different story. Congressional members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard some of that story Tuesday, two days before President Obama was slated to leave for Asia, including China, to discuss economic issues. Among evidence provided by two human rights organizations, ChinaAid and Women's Rights Without Frontiers, were tales of pregnant women essentially being hunted down and forced to submit to surgery or induced labor. Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China's one-child policy "causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth." I met Littlejohn for breakfast the day before the hearing. A petite wife and mother -- as well as a Yale-educated lawyer -- Littlejohn gave up her intellectual property practice in San Francisco after a life-altering illness to become a full-time activist for Chinese women. She is remarkably buoyant, considering the knowledge she has absorbed. Action, she says, is her way of coping with the unconscionable. Here's the question Littlejohn insists we consider: What really happens to a woman who doesn't have a "birth permit" and has an "out of plan" pregnancy? The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development. Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: "What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?" ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure. "Xuexia" wrote: "Actually, you should have punctured the fetus' skull." Another poster, "Damohuyang," wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and "would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days." To be clear, some of the doctors online expressed concern for the rights of the child. Others, however, worried only about potential legal ramifications. Technically, it is illegal in China to kill a baby, one is relieved to learn, but family-planning imperatives sometimes prevail. According to a 2009 State Department report, monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets, creating what amounts to bounties on the unborn. As recently as July, officials of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission said that the one-child policy " will be strictly enforced as a means of controlling births for decades to come," according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency. The violence of these procedures doesn't only kill the child in some instances. In two of the cases described in a document leaked this past August, the mothers died, too. Those who dissent, meanwhile, are persecuted. Such has been the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng, who is serving a four-year sentence after exposing 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong province, in 2005. Named by Time magazine as one of 2006's top 100 people "who shape our world," Guangcheng, who is blind, was severely beaten and denied medical care the following year, according to an Amnesty International report. The one-child policy has created other problems that threaten women and girls. The traditional preference for boys has meant sex-selected abortions resulting in a gender imbalance. Today, men in China outnumber women by 37 million, a disparity that has become a driving force behind sex slavery in Asia. Exacerbating the imbalance, about 500 women a day commit suicide in China -- the highest rate in the world, which Littlejohn attributes in part to coercive family planning. Obviously, the United States is in an awkward position with China, our second-largest trading partner and the largest holder of our government debt. But Littlejohn hopes Obama will "truly represent American values, including our strong commitment to human rights." She is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China. On this much, both sides of the abortion issue can agree: Forced abortion is not a choice. Averting our gaze from China's horrific abuse of women is. kathleenparker@washpost.com back to top