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By: Kristi Cuschieri Japan &# 038; China Making big news recently was President Clintons visit to China. One important item on his agenda was the human rights issue. Violation of human rights became more of a problem after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It happened in 1989, where pro democracy students in Beijing were shot down. Even though this happened about nine years ago, the rapid police reactions to modern protests show how sensitive the bloody incident still is. Human rights have been defined by the United Nations and condensed into a document called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
China is violating these rights in many different ways. While many Chinese want the communist government overthrown, others are resisting change, mainly because they are well off, while the rest of the civilians are not happy with the present government. Proclaimed after World War II, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (or UDHR) sets out to define the human rights, which are fundamental to the self-respect and development of every human being. These range from economic rights, such as the right to work and to an adequate standard of living, to political rights, such as freedom of opinion and expression. They also include civil rights, such as equality before the law, and social or cultural rights. The UDHR proclaims that all these rights belong to all people.
Consisting of 30 articles the UDHR has a number of rules and regulations, for example: Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person, Article 4 No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. As you can tell, especially from the fourth article the UDHR is not always followed. Not all the nations take the UDHR seriously. China for one has often been accused of not upholding these human rights.
In China citizens do not enjoy basic freedoms. The government restricts free speech, free assembly and freedom of worship. Amnesty International estimates that 2, 000 people are in Chinese jails because of political crimes. About 230, 000 people are in labor camps and police, and police can still sentence people to work in labor camps without a trial first.
A book was recently published called The Law Against Extorting a Confession by Torture, which documents that many people are tortured and injured while they are in police custody. In 1993 alone, 126 people were killed by police during interrogation, 115 people in 1994, and 64 others were seriously injured or killed during these two years. Sometimes people would admit to crimes that they did not commit in order to stop themselves from being tortured. The criminal system in China is full of injustices. Besides tortures and beatings, illegal arrests and illegal entries by police into private homes and offices take place all the time.
People live in fear. These are all violations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There have been attempts by the Chinese people to demolish communism and start a democracy. Police detained nine people in the city Hangzhou for trying to register the Chinese Democratic Party, on June 25 th. The Chinese Democratic Party would challenge the Communist Partys monopoly on power. It was formed and publicly announced by a group of activists on the first day of President Clintons 9 -day tour of China.
Nevertheless a week after Clinton went home, China rounded up the activists who had been actively fighting for democracy and human rights before, and during his trip. Before Clintons visit Chinas President Jiang Zemin made sure that the media was censored and the supervision was increased, he wanted to check for the spread of decadent ideas. Dissident groups, which are those who disagree with the government but dont take any action, who were exiled said that the rounding up of all pro-democracy activists shows that President Clintons strategy to persuade China to improve human rights was a failure. Head of the Washington-based Free China Movement Lian Shengde said, The Chinese government will not work with the free world to improve human rights because they are a brutal communist dictatorship. China currently has a communist government, which may affect the countrys economy in the future. Economically China is rising now, but that rise might stop because the people are tired of the Communist government gaining all the capital from, and having all the control of the trade.
When people work, under a communist government they do not have any incentive to try to do better, because their status and pay will remain the same. Even though China is not having huge economic problems now, absence of human rights may lead to them in the future. China is changing but there are still powerful forces that are resisting change. The party leaders dont want to change the way that things are now because they are doing well. If a democracy takes over then they might lose some of their power and money.
While the civilians want to change the government because they are the people who are doing all the work and do not even have basic human rights. A democracy for the civilians means more opportunities to make their lives better, and the ability to have a say in what goes on in their government. A chance to bring more freedoms into their lives, such as being able to voice their own opinions, read, write, and watch whatever they want to, without it being censored. The Chinese culture is an ancient one that dates back thousands of years. People still practice Tai Chi and Acupuncture, which started millenia ago. Change in China comes slowly, this also will include human rights.
What are human rights? What are the qualities that make us human? Human rights are the protection of individuals against oppression; the preservation of basic rights and freedoms for individuals. In China, the rights of the people are not being respected. The Chinese people do not have the basic freedoms that we in the US take for granted... These freedoms include being able to voice our own opinions, write or read what we want to, and freedom of assembly.
Most of the powerful party leaders are completely resisting change because they are happy with their lives and financial status. While the people are tired of the Communist government and are ready for a change Japan In the late 1890 s Japan was sometimes known as a world economic superpower. Other people often looked at Japanese methods of management as a model to follow. Today unfortunately Japan seems to be in an economic slump. This drop in economy is not only Japans problem, but it is threatening the stability of Asia.
This problem was caused by the fact that Japan still operates like it did in the 1950 s and 1960 s. Also a double economy of strong exporters and weak domestic regions have evolved, creating enormous distortions. The value of the Japanese yen is also falling because of this economic problem. When the yen fell it put many Japanese banks in debt. In the 1950 s and 1960 s, Japan was a poor, newly industrialized country. During these times the Japanese came up with a strategy for catching up with the West, to use industrial policy and selected use of import restrictions.
That strategy worked for then, but now the Japanese leaders need to change the strategy. Back in the 50 s and 60 s they were promoting merchandise such as electronics that had high market value, but now they are promoting things like cement and glass that are not big selling merchandise. It is felt that Japans political leaders are slow to recognize how bad this economic problem really is. They are slow to react to the pleas to take action from the Japanese people, from neighboring countries, and the rest of the world. The Japanese yen is dropping and as a result its exports have become cheaper so Japanese exports are piling up in markets overseas. However, the real problem is that while the yen is putting pressure on the rest of Asia, it is making Japans high-quality exports more competitive.
On the other hand Japans cheaper exports are piling up in markets overseas, especially the United States. The rise of Japanese merchandise in the United States has also created an over production problem for the US. The production is slowing because of the cheap imports that are flooding in. This means that the American companies need to lay off employees because there is not enough work to do.
A new forecast expects the US growth average to only be two percent for the rest of 1998, this is less than half of the annual growth the US used to have. Even with this problem the American consumers need for goods is keeping the American economy from falling also. The yen fell from 140 yen to a dollar to 141. 7 yen to a dollar. That is not a tremendous difference, but recently the yen reached a new low of 146 to the American dollar.
A credit rating agency announced that it was giving Japan a negative credit outlook. Japanese banks have been burdened by the huge amounts of bad debts ever since the collapse of the bubble economy of the 1980 s. As the bad debts grew, Japanese banks have had to face enormous pressure from the international banking institutions to increase capital to cope with the debts. In order to do this, banks have called loans from Japan and throughout Asia. That caused a immense credit crunch, which led to a sharp drop in the Japanese yen, it also helped push Japan into the economic slump. In the beginning of July, the Japanese government approved an ambitious plan to try to solve the countrys banking crisis.
It was a move designed to convince investors that Japan is serious about changing the banking system, in order to get rid of this huge debt problem. Some banks are facing as much as one trillion dollars in debt. Politicians want to secretly use money from the public funds to pay off this debt, but that is the same as making the Japanese citizens pay off the governments debts, which is not a honest thing to do. Currently Japan is in a major economic slump, caused mainly by lack of reform. The value of the yen falling was the basic problem that got a lot of the world involved. The continuing fall of the yen has brought new pressure on to the economies in Asia.
The huge debt that the Japanese banks stumbled into added to the already existing problems. Japans leaders did not seem as if they even recognized how unfavorable this economic problem really is. It is also a conflict that has had a chance to spread worldwide, and as already slowed down the production in the US. This problem really shows how an economic problem can become so big so fast.
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