“Freedom democracy for China; end one-party dictatorship”

Activists target China’s human-rights record with new ad campaign in Vancouver

By XIAO XU

Louis Huang sits next to an ad he designed at a bus stop in Richmond, B.C., on Aug. 11, 2018.
An activist group made up largely of Chinese immigrants is launching an advertising campaign in the Vancouver region to criticize China’s human-rights record, with an aim to raise awareness among people from that country who are now living in Canada.
The campaign began in late July with a bus shelter ad, located along one of the busiest roads in Richmond, B.C., but the Vancouver Chinese Human Rights Watch Group plans to purchase billboards and other forms of advertising to bring attention to poor human-rights conditions in China.
“The ad may raise awareness among people from the Chinese community and make them realize, in our country of birth, the human-rights situation is getting worse and worse," Louis Huang, co-ordinator with the group, said in an interview. 

"They may pay more attention to it in the future, which could push China’s human rights to improve.”
The Richmond bus ad features a picture of an eagle flying in the sky. 

It says “Freedom democracy for China; end one-party dictatorship” in English, and “End one-party system; build democratic China,” in Chinese.
Mr. Huang said he and his group’s more than 20 members, mostly immigrants from China, covered the cost of the ad. 

He said future ads will touch on topics ranging from jailed dissidents to the Chinese government’s foreign influence.
“We hope more overseas Chinese will have courage to express their opinions when they see these ads. Because they’re still afraid to discuss politically sensitive topics related to China, even though they are living abroad,” he said.
The Chinese consulate in Vancouver didn’t respond to The Globe and Mail’s interview request.
Mr. Huang, who moved to Canada in 2002, has been fighting for China’s human rights for about a decade. 

He said since Xi Jinping took power five years ago, the country’s human-rights situation has been worsening.
The group has previously protested outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver, urging the government to release activists and rights lawyers who have been held in custody since the nationwide crackdown in 2015 and then-imprisoned Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in jail last year.
Pitman Potter, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, said China has tightened its grip on freedom of expression, religious freedom and people’s private rights under Eleven’s leadership.
“There has been a dramatic increase of oppression in East Turkestan in particular, but also in Tibet," Dr. Potter said. 

“When you look at the social-credit system that basically keeps track of people’s behaviour electronically and create files on them … all those are recent indicators of very serious declines in human-rights conditions.”
Shawn Zhang, a Chinese-born UBC law student, has been using satellite images to track down suspected locations of camps in the East Turkestan colony of China, where scholars estimate hundreds of thousands of mainly Muslim people have been forced to undergo political indoctrination.
Mr. Zhang said the overseas Chinese community cannot be apathetic towards human-rights issues in China.
“If the overseas Chinese community did nothing to address the human rights conditions in our home country, we are communicating that we don’t care about the importance of human rights in our own," he said in an e-mail. 

"It is dangerous because when other people realize that you do not care about human rights, why should they protect you when your own human rights are violated?”
Guo Ding, a current-affairs commentator in the B.C. Chinese community, said Canada should champion human rights, but any foreign country can hardly change the human-rights condition in China.
“The change of a [country’s] system and social value has to happen within its own society,” he said.
Alex Neve, secretary-general at Amnesty International Canada, said members of Canada’s Chinese community who are actively involved in human-rights protection in China can play a significant role in improving such issues in China.
“The Chinese government clearly understands that their voices can be very powerful within the community," he said.
"It’s something very different to have your own neighbours and some of the community members who are speaking out of these concerns than it is to hear those criticisms or concerns raised from the outside of the community.”

The Quiet Death of 'Liu Xiaobo Plaza'

Just as China has one party, the United States has one party, when it comes to policy toward China: Whatever you do, do not annoy the CCP.
By Jay Nordlinger

Readers of National Review are well aware of “Liu Xiaobo Plaza.” 
We have editorialized in favor of it, and I have written about it from time to time. 
A bill has passed the Senate. 
It has apparently been killed by the House — the Republican House. 
Worse, it has been killed in silence, without explanation. 
Let me back up. 
Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese intellectual, democracy activist, and political prisoner. He has been imprisoned since 2008. Two years later, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (in absentia, of course). 
I wrote about this here. 
Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest for all this time: a brutal form of house arrest. She has no access to the outside world. No television or Internet. 
Guards make sure she is locked in, day and night. 
According to reports, she is in bad physical and mental shape. 
In the mid-1980s, Congress, with President Reagan, did something symbolic: They renamed the area outside the Soviet embassy in Washington “Andrei Sakharov Plaza” — in honor of the great Russian scientist and dissident (who was also a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize). 
Taking a page from the anti-Communists and freedom champions of that era, Senator Ted Cruz and others proposed “Liu Xiaobo Plaza” — an area outside the Chinese embassy named after one of the dictatorship’s most prominent political prisoners, and one of the greatest men in all of China. 
The Senate passed the bill, by unanimous consent, in February. 
Since then, it has gone to the House — to the committee chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), as I understand it. 
He has refused to move on the bill. 
The speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has refused to move as well. 
Chaffetz, I don’t know much about. It seems to me he had about 17 positions on Donald Trump during the recent campaign. 
Ryan, I do know something about: and he has long been a freedom champion. 
A Reaganite. An old-style Republican. 
In the vice-presidential debate four years ago, he ripped Joe Biden six ways to Sunday on this question of freedom. 
The Obama administration had betrayed our values, he said. 
This was particularly true in Iran, whose Green Revolution was essentially ignored by Obama, Biden & Co. 
Jared Genser is a well-known human-rights lawyer. 
He represents both Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia (pro bono). About two weeks ago, he had an article in the Wall Street Journal, urging Ryan to act. 
There has been no sign of action. 
Why? 
To my knowledge, neither Ryan nor Jason Chaffetz nor anybody else has offered a word of explanation. 
That is their right, I suppose. 
Even public officials can keep mum, if they want. 
But I think they owe the public an answer. 
I think the public — or somebody — should demand an answer. 
President Obama would no doubt veto a Liu bill. 
So? 
Is the House GOP’s view the same as Obama’s? 
So far as I know, the 2009 Nobel peace laureate (Obama) has never lifted a finger for the 2010 Nobel peace laureate (Liu). 
For decades now, I have said that, just as China has one party, the United States has one party, when it comes to policy toward China: Whatever you do, do not annoy the CCP. 
There are some honorable exceptions to this rule — George W. Bush appeared in public with the Dalai Lama — but not enough. 
My guess is, Republican donors don’t like the idea of “Liu Xiaobo Plaza,” because they want commercial relations with China. 
They fear that honoring a dissident will endanger commercial relations. 
I doubt this is so. 
The Free World has more leverage than it knows. 
I should say, too, that I’m all for commercial relations. 
In fact, I’m more for them than are most. 
But there are other considerations in life, such as standing up to a one-party dictatorship with a gulag. 
Standing up for the values and principles that constitute our heritage — that constitute our very reason for being. 
Evidently, “Liu Xiaobo Plaza” is dead in this session of Congress — killed by the House Republicans. 
If it is to come to pass, it must be revived in a future session: starting from square one. 
I hope that Speaker Ryan will have a change of mind. 
And that President Trump will sign the bill. 
Human rights are not all of foreign policy, heaven knows. But they are a component. 
And Americans are a peculiar nation, a peculiar people — not like all the others. 
Freedom has few enough friends as it is. 
If it loses us, it barely stands a chance.