China's atrocities must end

Right Reason
    By Matthew G. Alexander

Friday, Oct. 1 marked an ignominious anniversary indeed. Fifty years ago that day, the People's Republic of China (PRC), one of the most barbaric regimes ever to menace the earth, was founded. Under its auspices, more people have perished than under Hitler and Stalin combined, yet the PRC elicits reactions and attitudes in the United States that are positively perplexing.

The atrocities that the Chinese Communists have perpetrated are well-documented. They have, among other things, crushed unarmed protesters with tanks, sent dissidents off to so-called re-education and slave labor camps, and forced abortions upon or murdered women who have defied the government's draconian one-child policy. The Communist regime smashes the religious sites and arrests the clergy of those faiths that refuse to submit to the state. When Catholic priests and bishops are incarcerated, for example, their jailers tempt them with seductive women in an attempt to get them to break their solemn promises of celibacy. Despite the fact that these actions are antithetical to the principles on which the United States is founded, the policy of American government and business in recent years has been one of "constructive engagement."

The ends for which this policy aims—more freedom and humane rule within China through capitalism and greater Western exposure—are noble. But the policy stumbles where it fails to produce any meaningful non-economic reform. Through free trade with the United States, China has certainly prospered and the government has taken steps to liberalize the country's economic structure; however, the nation has made no effort to improve its human rights record. During this year alone, we have seen the repression of the peaceful Falun Gong religious sect and the rounding-up of alleged criminals before the anniversary celebration, some of whose only crime was being Catholics who were loyal to the pope rather than to Chinese oppressors.

In the face of this evidence, the United States should abandon its failed policy of free trade and open engagement. Instead, this nation must assert its moral authority as the lone superpower, the leader of the free world, and the winner of the Cold War. Through its example, America must state emphatically that there is no place in the community of civilized nations for China's brand of barbarism.

Not only does the United States government have to re-examine its approach to China, but so must many private citizens, including those at Yale. When informed of the misdeeds of the Chinese Communists, often in excruciating detail, a commonly heard counter-argument is the disturbing admonition that this is simply a different culture, so one must not impose Western values on the Chinese. This assertion is flawed on several levels. First, Marxist-Leninism is an ideology of distinctly European origins. When Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong and his followers adapted the system to Chinese circumstances and co-opted many aspects of Chinese culture to solidify their power, they freely acknowledged the fact that they were part of a world-wide Communist revolutionary movement, and indeed were following in Josef Stalin's footsteps.

On a more fundamental level, the relativistic position fails because human rights based on the idea that the individual human person has intrinsic worth and dignity apart from the state and the collectivity are not specifically Western values. Though they have been emphasized and explored by the Western intellectual tradition, human rights are universal values that transcend cultures. Individuals do not have rights because we in the West deem it so; on the contrary, these rights are very real, rooted in the natural law that we discover through our conscience and common sense. Even if the Communist regime denies it, Chinese people have dignity by virtue of their very humanity. It is just as evil for the Chinese government to arbitrarily kill one of its citizens as it is for the United States or Great Britain to do the same.

The real danger in this sort of widespread relativism is that we may bequeath to our descendents a society that lacks the moral courage to oppose totalitarianism—and its associated horrors—out of an exaggerated sensitivity to cultural differences. It is a trend both foolish and dangerous. Unfortunately, we are already seeing its effects within China.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• Lessons for city renewal lie in the past, 9/24/99
• Yale's Co-op policy: waging war, 9/10/99

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