By Peter James, Second Place Winner of our 2023 Human Rights Essay Contest
Every government system has its strengths, but certain strengths come with certain weaknesses. Communism’s weaknesses outweigh its strengths, and communist China is no exception. Winston Churchill famously noted, “Indeed it has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.1 Perhaps President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party should heed that truth.
But the CCP’s whole foundation and power rests on being antithetical to truth. Communism derives its power from control, and that control is threatened by inconvenient truth. The CCP’s authoritarian control necessitates cracking down on political dissidents. Otherwise, their government would slowly fall apart or gradually change away from communism.
In April of 1989, an estimated one million students gathered at Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protesting against the government’s restraints on freedom of speech.2 Because communism’s power is contingent on control, the Chinese government felt the need to terminate the political dissidents. In early June, Deng Xiaoping sent in the army to squash the protests which resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths and arrests.3 This involved soldiers and tanks opening fire on civilians, an injustice on par with war crimes.4 To give some perspective to the atrocity, about 3,000 people died due to the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th.5 The Tiananmen Square massacre is estimated to have resulted in three times the deaths of 9/11. But that death count is just an estimation, the CCP is antithetical to
inconvenient truths, so they restrict the international community from knowing about the atrocity and its details. Not only do we not know much about the death count, we do not know about the details of the arrests. There is an estimation of 10,000 arrests, but we may never learn information regarding the number or results.6 The chances of those victims seeing the light of day are slim considering China’s high conviction rate of 99.965%.7 One could argue that this past atrocity is not relevant, that China has progressed from this sinful past of the late 80s. But that argument is made of straw for many reasons: China to this day has not acknowledged that this massacre even occurred, China has not been transparent on the atrocity to its people nor the international community, and China to this day restricts any reproduction of the truth within its grasp– including the country’s internet, books, news, and even companies like TikTok.8
Why is that? Because communist China is against the truth. If they were proponents of truth, they would first be proponents of free speech. If China was for free speech, they would allow discussion and transparency on the massacre. Yet 34 years later, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed because the communist power still has control; control is its lifeblood and the quench for control will inevitably lead up to thousands of more human rights abuses in the future– all in the name of political stability. Truth is an eternal and intangible concept, the CCP is not.
To avoid future deaths and human rights abuses, the CCP should consider the US’ democratic republic and its strengths. And the international community should not consider appeasement because as long as truth exists, so too will China’s quench to restrict it no matter the means.
China’s human rights abuses are apparent despite their efforts to hide them. China is actively running concentration camps to control more than one million people of a certain religious-ethnic group.9 These concentration camps subject Uyghur muslim men, women, and children to “coercive population control methods, forced labor, arbitrary detention in internment camps, torture, physical and sexual abuse, mass surveillance, family separation, and repression of cultural and religious expression.”10
It took a war to end that type of injustice, so how many lives will it take to end this injustice in China? Only time will tell, and that is presupposing that this injustice will be stopped, and stopped over conflict.
China should look to the US government to avoid the abuses and bloodshed. The US has a constitution, and with it is the Bill of Rights. These documents recognize that we have certain unalienable rights, and the US government has to abide by their recognition of these rights. The first amendment recognizes the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and petition. The first amendment alone would overhaul the CCP’s reign if enacted and enforced. There would be no Tiananmen Square massacre or Xianjing concentration camps if China had a first amendment. That is why the CCP will never allow freedom of speech because it would give license to political dissidents, and political dissidents would overhaul their inadequate government. They would never allow the risk of overhaul for they fear the truth.
The US government makes mistakes. But the US is capable of handling inconvenient truths. In fact, the US thrives when truth is confronted. Needed change occurs when truth is embraced. The US had Japanese internment camps from 1942-1945, but these camps were ended following a Supreme Court decision of Ex parte Mitsuye Endo.11 The US avoids human rights abuses and bloodshed by having their protection enshrined by law. This peaceful process is made possible by the three branch system of government— each branch of the US government checks and balances the power of the other two branches. The judicial branch interpreted the law and applied the interpretation accordingly to the injustice of internment camps. Not only does the government check itself, but the government is beholden to the people. The people can freely criticize and improve the government. China cannot say the same. China does not have this peaceful and constructive process, rather China rules by force– violating human dignity in fear of truth.
Communist China’s certain weakness is truth. If a government has to diminish your human dignity to be in power, that is not a just government nor will it be a lasting one.
11 https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation#mitsuye-endo
10 https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses/index.html#:~:text=Documented%20human%20rights%20abuses
%20include,of%20cultural%20and%20religious%20expression.
9 https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses/index.html#background
8 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-ple
ase-beijing
7 https://www.chinajusticeobserver.com/a/what-is-the-conviction-rate-in-china
6 https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/asia/tiananmen-square-fast-facts/index.html
5 https://www.911memorial.org/connect/commemoration/September-11-2001
4 https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/asia/tiananmen-square-fast-facts/index.html
3 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516
2 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48445934
1 https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/