By Tímea Perignáthová, Second Place winner of the 2024 Human Rights Essay Contest – Graduate Division
- INTRODUCTION
The principle of national sovereignty rightly represents a cornerstone of contemporary international relations, particularly championed by conservative political movements that rightfully recognize the importance of subsidiarity – the governance of affairs at the most proximate and appropriate level of social organization. This serves against excessive supranational interference. However, the sanctity of national sovereignty cannot be an impenetrable shield when confronted with long-term, systematic and severe violations of human rights on a whole-country level. The universality of human dignity constitutes a moral imperative that surpasses geopolitical considerations, and its violations thus cannot and must not get unnoticed by the international community. Contemporary Western intelligence and human rights documentation provide compelling evidence of the Chinese Communist Party performing a systematic genocide on the Uyghur people, severely oppressing all religions, and violating freedom of speech and privacy. These transgressions against fundamental human rights touch the whole society. Historical precedent demonstrates the transformative power of sustained international engagement in dismantling totalitarian regimes. It was the interest of the international community which among other elements finally brought the desired liberation of Eastern European nations, including the Slovak nation, from Soviet hegemony. The Slovak experience offers particularly instructive lessons for contemporary American foreign policy towards China, particularly in promoting human rights. This essay will advance the thesis that American policy on promoting human rights in China must encompass two essential components: first, clear and firm condemnation of the human rights violations; and second, the prioritization of religious freedom as the fundamental freedom from which other human rights emanate.
- THE PROBLEM
The US government maintains comprehensive documentation of systematic human rights violations perpetrated by the CCP, establishing an empirical foundation for policy intervention. First, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs has formally categorized the treatment of Uyghur populations in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region as constituting “genocide, state-imposed forced labor, and crimes against humanity,” representing the most severe classification of state-sponsored persecution under international law. The Uyghur workers have no privacy, free will, they work long hours and receive minimal compensation. Living completely isolated, they face indoctrination and experience forced linguistic assimilation through compulsory learning of Mandarin. Second, while the current Chinese Constitution nominally guarantees freedom of religious belief, empirical evidence demonstrates all religious groups are urged to adapt to socialism. “Leaders of Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam are expected to align their teachings and customs with Chinese traditions and pledge loyalty to the state.” Religious leaders suffer severe prosecution to promote CCP’s priorities up to a point that they are silenced, intimidated and directly attacked. The government regulates religion by investigating places of assembly, limiting online religious content and neutralizing of any potential opposition groups. Third, the Chinese widely experience violation of freedom of speech. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China characterizes Chinese freedom of expression as a privilege selectively granted to ideological elite, rather than a universal right. State authorities maintain comprehensive censorship mechanisms and systematically suppress public discourse through surveillance and punishment. Any individual engaging in public criticism the CCP risks it all because “there is little doubt that Chinese authorities would prosecute them for subversion.” While the United States has implemented economic countermeasures including targeted tariffs and prohibition on forced labor imports to protect the economy and national security, American foreign policy requires explicit condemnation of these documented human rights violations. There is a need for intentional transcendence of economic opportunism and creative ways how to ensure economic growth without relying on cheap labor in China. Only such mindset will allow the government to put more emphasis on true protection of human rights in China.
- CLEAR AND FIRM CONDEMNATION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
The United States have long been considered a defender of universal human rights within the international community. This authority enabled the country to have soft power influence globally. In order to maintain this moral leadership and credibility, the foreign policy needs to be more vocal about the human rights violations. It is also a signal to other current and potential perpetrators that authoritarian and totalitarian regimes will not be tolerated, ignored or normalized. Economic measures against China need to go hand-in-hand with moral justification, otherwise the public support might be lost. The United States should consider taking strict measures against their own politicians, security forces, and businesses which indirectly or directly assist the communist regime in China. The United States loudly condemned socialism in Slovakia following the international dissemination of intelligence regarding Father Štefan Polák’s violent assassination in his home by state security apparatus in 1987 – an extrajudicial killing that exemplified the systematic persecution of religious leadership under communist regimes. American media provided extensive coverage of the 1988 Candlelight manifestation, a peaceful religious assembly where Catholic citizens came together to pray for religious and civil rights, only to face violent suppression through hydraulic dispersal tactics and in many cases subsequent incarceration. This historical precedent demonstrates the importance of the governmental support of free media and independent journalism which could play a key role in condemnation of the human rights violations in China, too. Citizens should employ innovative digital strategies to circumvent state censorship mechanism, ensuring that accurate information regarding systematic persecution penetrates the Chinese information environment. The government should also provide support to existing American organization dedicated to Chinese human rights advocacy.
- ACTIVE PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ABOVE ALL RIGHTS
The United States should actively protect religious freedom in China. It addressed the most fundamental dimension of human existence – the relationship between the individual and his creator. This freedom has ontological primacy because it provides a basis for human dignity without which the protection of human rights is pointless. It encompasses the deepest questions of purpose, ultimate reality and morality as such. It is rightly referred to as the “first freedom” because it sustains other fundamental rights. Individuals need to be granted the liberty to form ultimate convictions about reality and ethics, which totalitarian regimes like China intentionally suppresses. The US should take inspiration from the Church in Slovakia which always took clear stance to the totalitarian regime. This attitude granted courage to dissidents and believers to continue fighting internal and external fights for their rights and the end of socialism. Despite facing severe prosecution by the Communist Party, Catholic Church in Slovakia remained the only strong opponent of the regime. This serves as an inspiration to the US in promoting human rights and the end of communism in China.
- CONCLUSION
American foreign policy toward China must transcend narrow economic calculations and embrace a comprehensive human rights framework centered on explicit condemnation of documented violations and the prioritization of religious freedom as the foundational liberty from which all other rights emerge. Only through such principled engagement—grounded in moral authority rather than strategic opportunism—can the United States maintain its credibility as a defender of universal human dignity while fostering the conditions necessary for the eventual transformation of Chinese society. The choice confronting American policymakers is not between pragmatic accommodation and idealistic confrontation, but between the short-term convenience of moral silence and the long-term imperative of human freedom. History demonstrates that principled stands against totalitarian oppression, though costly in the immediate term, ultimately serve both moral imperatives and strategic interests by creating a world order consistent with human dignity and democratic values.
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
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