Morning everyone, I think people are still straggling in because of the rain and so on but we're going to go ahead and get started and Without further ado, we'll bring John up for his formal remarks John Cam really needs no introduction in this space in human rights He is an American businessman and human rights campaigner and he's been active on China since 1972 He's the founder and chairman of the Duihua Foundation He's been the recipient of several awards including the Department of Commerce's Best Global Practices Award by President Clinton in 1997 and the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights by President Bush in 2001 and I think we can sum it up best by the way the New York Times decided to Comment on him. No other personal organization in the world including the State Department has helped more Chinese prisoners over his career And so without further ado I'd like to invite John to come up and give us some formal remarks, and then we'll go into question and answer after that. Thank you Hello, are we we all wired up? That's good. Well, thank you very much Chris. It's a real pleasure to be here at the Center And I've heard good things about this building but not until you actually come here and Take a look you appreciate now. I don't know if this is an improvement over the old building Well, you know, I have my speech and it's written up and I do that when I talk about sensitive subjects I If if there's to be any kind of official accounting of this It should be the speech, but I'm not going to sit here and read or stand here and read this speech instead I'm going to work through it Just as all of our teachers used to say tell them what you're going to say say it and tell them what you said and So I'm going to try to do that today And I'm going to try to keep it reasonably short, you know, I had an experience not too long ago where I was sort of getting right into the Substance of my speech when somebody stood up and walked out and I called out to him.  And he said well, I Have to get a haircut I'm going to get a haircut And I said well, why didn't you get a haircut before you came here to listen to me? And he said well before I came here to listen to you. I didn't need a haircut Oh Today I'm going to talk about China's human rights diplomacy and this These remarks are based on my own personal experience of working With the Chinese government For almost 25 years They are The remarks are based on my own observations Conversations trips. I've made over a hundred trips to China to engage the government and What's known as the unofficial dialogue on human rights? And so my remarks are based on that experience They do not reflect the views obviously of any government or any other organization, but my own Well, let's go back 25 years ago International reaction to the events of the spring of 1989 in Beijing and other cities a compelled China for the first time To defend its human rights record After initially rejecting all criticism as Interference in its internal affairs the country's leadership adopted a more nuanced approach Releasing large numbers of prisoners granting passports to relatives of dissidents Reaching an agreement with the United States on the export of prison-made goods that was in 1992 and Holding bilateral human rights dialogues Initially with Switzerland and the United States and then expanding that over the years Also China's foreign minister a signaled a willingness to consider visits to prisons by the International Committee of the Red Cross Now this nuanced approach Was approved by Deng Xiaoping Carried out by a cadre of professional diplomats in China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Assisted by the State Council Information Office with whom I worked closely And judicial bodies the Ministry of Justice public security And not state security, you know I When I go to Beijing, I don't see the state security ministry, but they see me So I'm not too worried about And of course overseeing overseen by members of the Standing Committee, and I should also say here and I omitted Not purposely but the role played by then party secretary John cement who embraced this approach In contrast somewhat to his successors the successful implementation of this strategy played an important role in China's successful effort to thwart sanctions and avoid censure Had China lost access to the United States market in the early 1990s It is doubtful that the economic miracle That we have seen would have taken place This is a very rough way of looking at it, but if you use US Department of Commerce statistics If you were to add up the surpluses that China has gained I stress this is Department of Commerce Roughly equivalent to To China's current foreign exchange holdings So that's and that's as you probably know in the range of three to four trillion dollars So making limited but timely concessions Has helped achieve other foreign policy goals as well Including successful state visits and the hosting of the Olympic Games Now in recent years China has walked back from these concessions made in the wake of Tiananmen these days prisoners are rarely a granted clemency prisoner lists are for the most part no longer accepted in bilateral dialogues and China's Ministry of Justice, which as you probably know runs China's roughly 700 prisons has shown no sign of Allowing the ICRC to exercise its mandate in The prisons it administers now if you've got any questions, please say them for the end But this is a good area to explore. You know what when I say the ICRC is mandate. Well, what does that mean? All right We can go into that later It is Too soon to conclude however that the Chinese government will not make human rights gestures To achieve foreign policy goals in the future Nor should we dismiss out of hand? the connection between internal reform and external advocacy a Lesson of post-Tanaman human rights policy is that the exercise of clemency is Good for China and is conducive To the broader acceptance of the country's peaceful rise as a Responsible power committed to upholding international standards of human rights in March of 1989 Lhasa erupted in protest and Marshall law was declared the next month in April Protests turned violent and they took place in Xi'an and Changsha On April the 22nd Students occupied Tiananmen Square They were joined by workers and other citizens as May drew to a close. Marshall law was declared in Beijing after a six-week standoff China's leadership sent troops to clear the square many died Thousands were detained events in Beijing led to unrest in Hundreds of cities across China Offenses committed After the declaration of martial law in Beijing and during unrest in other cities are known in the parlance of China's judiciary as Two disturbances cases now if Any if I reveal anything that you don't know today. It may be this This is what These cases are referred to by China's judiciary Two disturbances cases. I should note the cases that arise from the Changsha and the Xi'an protests are Not considered to disturbances cases in the spring of 1989 the People's Republic of China was not quite 40 years old It was entering its middle age Facing its worth worst political crisis its darkest hours Dante famously writes in the opening lines of the Inferno Midway in the journey of our life. I found myself in a dark wood With no direction forward the straight way was lost China had entered a dark wood. It had lost its way. I entered that dark wood with it Abandoning my business career in favor of human rights activism It is hard to imagine today how poor Underdeveloped and weak China was in 1989 its per capita income was under $500 And it actually dropped in 1990 trade was small Two-way trade with Belgium was greater in the United States than with China If you can imagine that And foreign investment was almost non-existent not to say nonexistent, but it wasn't much unlike today China had very few friends in the business community and that affected its ability to lobby against sanctions and Its military was weak Barely holding its own in the brief border war with Vietnam International reaction to what happened was quick and it was furious China overnight became a pariah There was an immediate and very sharp drop in China's popularity in the United States as recorded by the Gallup poll in February of 1989 72% of Americans had a favorable image of China Six months later in August 34% of Americans so a greater than 50% drop in favorability Now the the Gallup numbers actually show a strong correlation between human rights gestures or the lack of them and China's popularity The last two readings in the Gallup poll for 2013 and 2014 Have China China's favorability ratings stuck at 42% a mere eight points above where it was after 10 a month and China's image fell of course as the popularity of Communist countries in Eastern Europe threw off Communism so you had a situation where China was seen as one of the last communist countries While Europe Eastern Europe was becoming less communist of particular concern to China was the passage of a Resolution in the United Nations subcommission on the prevention of discrimination and protection minorities in the late summer of 1989 That resolution called on China to grant clemency to those jailed in the spring protests The resolution asked the Human Rights Commission To investigate the crackdown and this it was the first time That alleged rights abuses in a perm five country Were referred to the United Nations highest human rights body Immediately after the events of June 4th 1989 the US and EU imposed an arms embargo on China one that remains in place to the present day President George HW Bush imposed a variety of other sanctions banning high-level meetings prohibiting opaque TDA funding and so on but left intact China's most favored nation trading status Under the trade act of 1974 that status had to be renewed every year and Completely coincidentally that status had to be removed renewed no later than June 4th of every year So in the first quarter of 1990 a congresswoman Nancy Pelosi she was actually serving her first term She had been appointed with the death of Phil Burton and his wife But she actually was elected by her district to a full term first time in 1989 1988 so, you know Nancy Pelosi's political career began on the national stage With this effort to put conditions and she introduced legislation with George Mitchell to do this on China's MFN their legislation passed Congress both houses in 1991 and in 1992 in 1990 it passed the house, but it died on the floor of the Senate before it was voted on But the 91 and 92 US China policy act Both were vetoed by the president President HW George HW Bush a little bit of history That Vita was sustained in large part because a coalition Put together by then senator now ambassador max Baucus Voted to sustain the president's veto Early in Bill Clinton's presidency in May of 1993 he released an executive order Which in effect adopted the conditions in the Pelosi Mitchell legislation These conditions were divided into must meet conditions and so-called overall Significant progress so the must meet were that China had to substantially promote freedom of emigration under the trade act and To observe the terms of the MOU on prison labor the overall significant progress conditions were Significant progress and adhering to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Releasing and providing an acceptable accounting of those imprisoned or detained For June 4th and democracy wall protests granting access to international humanitarian and human rights organizations to China's prisons international human right international humanitarian organizations is code for ICRC Protecting Tibet's distinctive religious and cultural heritage and Permitting international radio and television broadcasts into China. So those that's the package of conditions in My own work. I chose to concentrate on the second of the significant overall progress conditions That is releasing an accounting of prisoners detained and imprisoned during the two disturbances and Democracy wall Later I branched out Working in such areas as Roman Catholics and Tibetans Well China's initial response to international criticism was was unyielding very hard and I got a dose of this When I first intervened on behalf of a young detainee in May of 1990 At a banquet on my way to Washington to testify at the first hearings. I Was accused of committing an unfriendly act? Crude interference in China's internal affairs that had hurt the feelings of all Chinese present I held my ground and I returned to Hong Kong From testifying at the first congressional hearings that Steve Solars held on May 15th and 16th 1990 And when I returned I was told that the detainee would be released and allowed to return to Hong Kong The initial hard-line reaction on the part of Chinese officials gradually gave way to a more nuanced approach in mid 1991 The response included a forceful argument that human rights should not be linked to trade as well as making limited human rights concessions in particular the release of prisoners as Noted the response was approved by Deng Xiaoping only Deng Xiaoping could have Overcome opposition to releases from the military and from conservative elements in the leadership As I mentioned this was overseen by the Standing Committee of the Politburo members including Juerong Ji and Lee Ray Huan both of whom I met in 1990 and 91. I met Lee Ray Huan in the Great Hall And it received fairly wide coverage in the media The strategy was managed by the State Council Information Office and implemented by the MFA Cooperation with traditional bodies. So by the time I next intervened on behalf of a couple of detainees in May 1991 the attitude on the part of Chinese officials had changed remarkably There was no talk of interfering in China's internal affairs and both were detained and they came down to Hong Kong again I want to stress that this approach was Embraced by Party Secretary Zhang Zemin In marked contrast to his successors Central to China's human rights diplomacy in the early 1990s Where the releases of prisoners detained during the two disturbances and the earlier democracy wall movement? Popular misconception is that these releases were only given or granted to a relatively small number of high-profile prisoners And that there were time for maximum impact on the MFN debate. In fact Large numbers of prisoners were granted early release in the aftermath of Tiananmen many with little or no publicity In part because Very few of their names were known Several releases were apparently not timed to the MFN debate And now I'm gonna we I'm going to reveal something which I don't think has been revealed before According to statistics published in the judicial records of Hunan province Approximately 1,600 individuals nationwide were sentenced to prison For offenses committed in the two disturbances now. I want to make clear here. I'm talking about people actually imprisoned Not detained or arrested not those sent to RTL not those who Were released having gotten credit for time served as you probably know in China Sentences are dated from the date of detention so if you are Held in detention for two years and you get a two-year sentence you're released and I know of several examples of that So 1600 The largest number of these prisoners Was in Hunan province? 133 in all of this number 33 were imprisoned for counter-revolution 43 for robbery 57 for hooliganism As you probably know counter-revolution and hooliganism were removed from the criminal law in 1997 By March of 1993 more than half of these prisoners had been released Many before the expiration of their terms As some were released after their sentences were reviewed and reduced by courts Other provinces Including to John emptied their prisons of most two disturbances prisoners by mid 1993 According to our prisoner database Dwayne Hoa has received official information on 132 to disturbances prisoners of this number 70 were released early by means of sentence reduction parole or medical parole To the best of our knowledge Only one Two disturbances prisoner Remains in prison today throughout 1993 China released the remaining democracy wall activists serving prison terms for counter-revolutionary crimes Including in this order Wang Shijia Shu Wenli and Wei Jingxiong Starting with a list of more than 800 names As submitted by the US State Department prior to Secretary of State James Baker's November 1991 visit The Chinese government has accepted lists totaling thousands of names Since our establishment as a foundation in 1999 I was doing this work for nine years before I set up the foundation so We alone Dwayne Hoa has submitted lists with more than 5,000 names on them in recent months The Chinese government has refused to accept prisoner lists in human rights dialogues or during high-level state visits Though there have been exceptions Increasing demands on the Ministry of Justice to provide information on prisoners led the ministry to issue a notice on Establishing a reporting system on so-called important prisoners in April 1995 In February of that year 1995. I went to Beijing and I handed over a summary of the information I had received in 1994 To the State Council and the Ministry of Justice. I asked Well, what do you think and they replied that you have reported? Accurately what you were told and at that point I said look let's let's make a deal Throughout 1995 I will submit four lists of 25 names each this became known as the list of a hundred and You'll do your best To provide information and we shook up we shook on it. So it was an agreement And this list of two disturbances prisoners Issued by the Ministry of Justice in April of 1995 included two disturbances prisoners and Catholic underground Catholic clergy So the Ministry and the subordinate prison administration bureaus have from time to time updated this list And as I mentioned before in November 1993 China's Foreign Minister Chen Qichun stated that China would give positive consideration to request by the ICRC to visit China's prisons and At this point China was well aware of the terms of the ICRC mandate Although the ICRC has developed cooperative Relationships with the Chinese government and the goal of visiting prisons under its mandate has proven elusive Now to demonstrate its commitment to discussing human rights on the basis of equality and mutual respect China began holding human rights dialogues with Western countries and later Japan in 1991 first dialogues were with the United States and Switzerland But over time the number of dialogue countries expanded to nine at its universal periodic review held in Geneva in October 2013 China stated that every year It holds consultations and dialogues with 20 countries It was on the margins of these dialogues that China accepted until recently lists of prisoners About whom their partner in the dialogue wanted information So the State Council issued its first a white paper on human rights in China in November of 1991 and This was followed by white papers on specific topics like prison conditions religious freedom in Tibet issuance of white papers on human rights has become an annual affair as has the release of a human rights report critiquing the human rights situation in the United States and The latter is released as soon as possible after the issuance of the annual human rights report by the State Department and the very first report on Human rights in the United States was released in 1998 in tandem with other steps and I'm not saying that the only reason China held on to its MFN was because it was making human rights gestures by known I'm not saying that For instance, it certainly helped When China abstained on the use of force resolution in 1991 under Iraq war I find the parallels with Ukraine very interesting. So they abstained on both And also they began sending large buying missions to the United States and that helped But when you put this all together The successful effort to retain access to the US market Laid the groundwork For China's strong economic growth, especially after dung shopping southern trip In 1992 the package of reforms that followed that trip drew the attention of multinational corporations in Washington and that in turn led to their more robust lobbying efforts now the MFN debate was hardly the first time. Well, it was the first time, but it was hardly the only time that China used Human rights gestures to achieve foreign policy goals Just to give a few examples to influence the decision of the Olympic Committee on which city would host the 2000 Olympics China released most of the imprisoned Catholic clergy in 1992 and 93 To help ensure the success of state visits, and I give just a couple of examples But just to name one China released the Tibetan nun along song girl prior to Jiang Zemin's 2002 state visit and This I find At least as interesting as the whole MFN reaction after 9-11 Roughly from January of 2002 to March of 2005 In the wake of 9-11 China released large numbers of prisoners in the summer of 2001 What had happened was that Secretary Powell had gone to Beijing and If you look at the record one of the things that came out of that was a decision to resume the human rights dialogue And so in preparation for that Born-Craner who was in assistant secretary put together a list 91 names About 50 of which Dwaye Hwa contributed we concentrated only on counter-revolutionary prisoners This is part of an effort. I was undertaking to get that counter-revolutionary prisoners released under article 16 of the international Covenant on civil and political rights That article with actually the third paragraph states that Prisoners who have been convicted of a crime the penalty for which has been reduced Are to benefit? So I argued that the penalty for the crime of counter-revolution had been reduced in fact eliminated after 1997 and very interesting the Ministry of Justice told me at the time they agreed with my analysis But they pointed out that as in the United States Prisoners do not necessarily benefit From a reduction in penalties and you've seen a good example of that fairly recently with you know the crack cocaine cases Of course in the United States we have something called habeas corpus So if penalty is eliminated your lawyer goes to a judge and says, you know your honor China does not have habeas corpus so this three years plus of wide-scale prisoner releases ended in March of 2005 with the release of Rebia Kedir and that release contributed to the US dropping its country with resolution at the final meeting of the Human Rights Commission before it became the Human Rights Council and Finally just as a final example The American prisoner Jude Shau who was serving a 16-year sentence in Shanghai for tax evasion Jude was released on parole not medical parole parole Stayed with his mother in Shanghai and this was done to ensure George Bush's attendance at the opening ceremony of the Olympics 2008 you may recall European leaders were threatening to boycott and George Bush said no I'm going And Jude Shau was released The Obama administration has benefited from very few human rights gestures. All right most notably the American prisoner Shueh Feng who's the only American Serving a sentence for endangering state security in a Chinese prison. He has not been released Despite repeated pleas by senior American officials including President Obama vice president Biden and so on and Despite the fact that he has roughly one year left on a sentence eight-year sentence commuting sentences with just one year left is very common in China especially if the prisoner has demonstrated good behavior and Jew and Shueh Feng Has already gotten a sentence reduction for good behavior, so he is being well behaved Hopefully Despite the recent tensions between the two countries on human rights Shueh Feng Will be released his sentence commuted so he can return to his family his young family and his wife Prior to the visit of a Chinese state leader two years ago senior American official Asked his Chinese counterpart Which prisoners would be released to ensure? the visits success and the response was No one will be released We don't have to do that anymore So now let me say a few words about the present state China has relatively speaking de-emphasized the bilateral human rights dialogues in favor of Multilateral engagement at the United Nations China fielded a large team for its second UPR and Shortly afterwards was elected to a new term on the United Nations Human Rights Council Unlike in the human rights dialogues China has been willing to respond to requests for information from so-called special procedures of the Human Rights Council and at its UPR China claimed to respond to more than 80 percent of inquiries by special procedures And I have no reason to doubt this. I've been told essentially the same thing by the UN Human Rights Council Actually the Office of High Commissioner China also announced at the UPR that it would invite the working group on the issue of discrimination against women In law and practice before the end of 2013 and it did so And it pledged to invite three more special procedures to visit in 2014 The last visit prior to the December visit of the working group on the issue of discrimination against women Was actually November 2010. So it was a three-year gap between visits of any special procedure Over the last 12 months China has held human rights dialogues bilateral dialogues or consultations with the EU Germany the United States Switzerland Australia and the Netherlands after a hiatus of two years Reflecting Beijing's displeasure with the meeting between David Cameron and the Dalai Lama There will be a round of the UK dialogue next month and Probably around with the EU in around June hasn't been fixed The fate of the US-China human rights dialogue on the other hand is unclear. I Have heard dark mutterings that this year's round Will be cancelled On account of the meeting between the president and the Dalai Lama I Hope this will not be the case There is precedent in 1999 after the Belgrade Embassy bombing the dialogue was suspended But it would if it happens it supports the view That Beijing no longer sees human rights dialogues as a concession But rather as a favor I was advised I have been advised that a policy decision was made in mid 2012 to no longer accept prisoner lists on The margins of bilateral dialogues Recent discussions in Beijing indicate some flexibility in enforcing this policy But the age of submitting long lists is over China refused to accept a long list from the EU in June of 2013 Moreover the MFA has drawn a distinction between accepting lists and replying to lists If you get your list accepted the chance of getting a response is very small In recent years China has pushed back hard at Western critics through its human rights record Demanding and getting equal time to criticize their dialogue partners own failings Until recently such counterattacks took place behind closed doors But at the conclusion of the dialogue with Australia held in Beijing recently China's vice ministry strongly criticized Australian policy towards migrants So what's next I Expect in coming years China will place even more emphasis on working within the United Nations system and will continue to de-emphasize bilateral human rights dialogues and Consultations instead of rights dialogues China will more willingly engage in so-called legal expert exchanges Like the ones it holds with the US and the EU by focusing more on issues of law Sensitive cases can be raised as questions as opposed to criticisms The effect can be the same Those whose names are too often forgotten are remembered China will also be more willing to engage on issues of civil rights Rather than those Associated exclusively with freedom of speech and association Important reforms of the criminal justice system have taken place in recent years Like the reduction of torture and the improvement in access due process rights access by most detainees including those at risk such as juveniles and women as Was seen with the abolition of reeducation through labor the country will publicize its human rights reforms Much work still needs to be done to abolish other forms of detention without trial Like custody and education Legal education centers, etc. That have no basis in Chinese law China's officials are hampered by state secret laws in taking credit for what is arguably The greatest advance in human rights in recent years Well, at least in so far as most of the people in the world not the United States necessarily and that is the sharp reduction in the number of executions It should embrace transparency And let tell the world how many people are sentenced to death How many people are executed? Reforms of the one child per family policy and the household registration system have begun but here to Much work needs to be done Changes in China as in other countries come mostly from within propelled forward by acts of courage big and small by officials and members of civil society alike international concerned expressed as pressure or perhaps more Importantly engagement through dialogue Has contributed to reform of the criminal justice system whether in reducing the number of executions or In improving treatment of society's most vulnerable members like juvenile offenders and women in prison Dwayne Ho has worked closely with the Supreme People's Court and other governmental and non-governmental bodies In the latter two areas and you some of you may have gotten my our newsletter if you didn't get it you can find it on the website, but We held an international symposium on the rights of women in prison in Hong Kong at the end of last month We had a very good turnout nine countries 25 experts 30 observers Largest contingent was from China and I'd be very happy to tell you more about Our initiative in the area of women in prison if you're interested in closing I Would like to remind China's leaders of The benefits the country gained by releasing political and religious prisoners China's use of clemency through the 1990s and into the middle years of the last decade Encouraged the view that China was moving in the direction of greater restraint tolerance and humanitarian treatment of prisoners The exercise of clemency is not a sign of weakness But a sign of confidence and strength In the words of Shakespeare Mercy is mightiest in the mightiest It is an attribute to God himself When mercy seasons justice Thank you You want to take questions or should I just No, I'll do it. Okay well, thank you John that was a fantastic presentation as Stated in the flyer that everybody hopefully got today one of the reasons why we established the reality check series is To take on issues that are controversial or are poorly understood in Washington or perhaps are not getting enough attention in the community And I think your very thorough presentation is kind of checked all three of those boxes So I appreciate you doing that in a very balanced way. Let me seize the powers of the chair to ask you the first question And then we'll move on to the audience. I'm struck by the comments you made about how There's a sense developing Among Chinese officials that you know those days are past in terms of these targeted releases and so on and the Comment by the one official in particular is quite striking that they don't have to do that anymore What is your sense of the policy implications for the United States's approach to human rights dialogue? With China given that new reality. I'd appreciate your views on that Yes, well as I mentioned in May of last year The European Union tried to hand over one of these big lists 200 names and they were rebuffed very strongly It was a very fractious meeting I understand between the two sides, but in the end the Chinese side refused to accept the list Along comes the United States We we go out to Kunming for the dialogue and there to the Chinese side resisted Accepting the list I understand in the end the list was accepted But only because the US Used an argument which is very I think in line with China's own Positions over the years. Well, you know a dialogue is just what it says and the US had been presenting these lists Since 1991 and now how can one partner in the dialogue unilaterally state no more? So I think that argument carried the day But let me say this if in fact this year's dialogue is canceled. I think that Will pretty much put an end To the United States submitting lists unless The US makes it a condition of the resumption of the dialogue and then again China may say well, no In 1999 Well, we had the Belgrade bombing the dialogue was suspended it began again But then in 2003 the United States canceled the dialogue on the grounds that not enough had been accomplished In the previous rounds and it took was it five years To get it started again. I should also point out that Canada also took the step of Suspending its dialogue on human rights with China and they have yet to be able to resume So I would say that if in fact the next round of the dialogue it does not take place The chance that the United States is going to be able to hand over a large list is Remote now as I mentioned there are exceptions And I've been working with various countries to see if we can figure out a way to do this And I do think the approach should be one of Stressing legal matters so instead of Cases of concern You hand over a list of issues of interest and Under each issue you have a few examples Okay You can use your imagination there are plenty of possible Issues and cases That's one way Secondly, I Understand that I've been told that In in the event of high-level state visits Then a small lists of cases can be accepted By the geographic department concern, so as you know we're in what's called made us a and so if a you know vice president or the president goes to China and Chinese will the Chinese side will accept a list Well, and finally I have been told that Not as a policy decision, but on personal grounds Chinese government is willing to accept lists from me, so I've continued to do that and In the past year I received detailed information on 50 cases Okay, we'll open it up to the audience now as per usual CSIS practice if you would please Identify yourself when asking your question, and please do ask a question rather than deliver a speech We'll take the first one Yes, ma'am right here Can you wait for the microphone, please? Thank you Thank you so much. It's an honor to hear you I'm Ruth Kurtz power retired foreign service officer many tours of duty in Beijing and two questions My actually ties into what you said at the end mr. Com As you know, you know not only State Department, but many NGOs other organizations Universities etc. Have conducted a lot of exchanges with legal persons and personalities in China And we often wondered I was involved in some of them. Is there really an impact? You know judges come over and senior scholars come over and bright young Academics come over to the United States in the legal field, but what is the impact in China? Your last remark was if there is a way through legal dialogues and stressing the intellectual framework of law Exists then perhaps all these all these programs have great merit. The individuals have been wonderful I've had the privilege of meeting them, but I often wondered in the end is Are they heard when they go back whether it's a Humphrey fellow whether it's a judges exchange are they heard and second totally unrelated question was when you talked about the The prisoners who were released after Tiananmen Is there any impact on their lives if they've been to disturbance? Former prisoners or do they just live their life as anyone else in China? Thank you. Well, let me let me take the last question first because the first question is going to require a little bit of Speech-ifying on my part in in in China there's a police term known as Zhongyan Renco, which I translate as Important population or targeted I call a targeted population and Zhongyan Renco is a term that Well, you might think of it as the usual suspects so people who have served sentences for counter-revolution or Endangering state security among others are added to the list of targeted population Zhongyan Renco and These people are kept under a close watch by the security people Also, as you no doubt know that in China you have a supplemental sentence of deprivation of political rights and That can be as long as eight years. I've seen eight year sentences of DPR But typically it's in the three to five year range and For people who have DPR There are a whole bunch of things. They are not permitted to do They can't give speeches give interviews. They can't run for public office They can't work in state-owned enterprises, etc so the answer is, you know, no once you have served time for Political cases political offenses Your life is never normal again never And that said there are plenty of examples of people who have come out of prison and who have become successful business people Private enterprise and they travel abroad and You know they they seem not to have been terribly affected now with respect to the first In roughly 2005. I made a strategic decision to move into areas other than what I had been working in At first I started working on death penalty. I chaired the plenary session at the third international conference on the abolition of the death penalty in Paris and I My approach to reducing the number of executions I'm opposed to capital punishment my approach has been to publicize our estimates of the number of executions and And that is because I know for a fact that many people in the Chinese government are embarrassed by the large number of executions and Have made a commitment to reducing it and they have I Estimate that in 2002 there were 12,000 executions and In 2012 there were 3,000.  I mean the international community is weighed in heavily as well as domestic Forces, of course, you probably know the biggest case right now is the case of Lee and a woman Convicted of murder murdering her husband who was a brute and a serial wife abuser Boasted of abusing his three previous wives. Well fourth time unlucky He came after her and he had brutally abused her repeatedly and he Unfortunately for him he was drunk and she grabbed the rifle out of his hand and Proceeded to dispatch him After which she dismembered the body She was sentenced to death at the end of 2011 The appeal was rejected at the end of 2012 and the Supreme Court is still considering it, which is more than a year later That gives me hope That her death sentence Might be commuted in fact that would be a tremendous victory for the rights of women Who are being abused? Which as you know the Supreme People's Court? Just gave a press conference in which it released the statistics that 25% of Chinese women suffer abuse in their marriages and One in ten homicides is directly related to domestic violence So if she in fact has her sentence commuted that will send a very strong message And will propel forward Passage of a law on domestic violence, which is now being considered by the National People's Congress and in fact There were officials from the Chinese Supreme Court at our international symposium One of the topics of which was domestic violence, and I believe that what those officials heard Was important to this consideration finally I Think I can think of really no better example of how international exchanges on human rights Have contributed To important Domestic legal reforms in China than juvenile justice in 2007 I hosted the visit to the Bay Area of a Chinese prison inspector and It was really a quite an eye-opener for me as well as for him. We went into San Quentin and That you got to see that to believe it But as we visited the detention center under the well adjacent to actually The San Francisco juvenile court this official said well, do you you know John? Reforming the juvenile justice system is a key priority of the Chinese government. I said I didn't know that he said well, why are you? Why don't you meet with your friends in the Supreme Court? Well indeed and it it was in the legal plan as a top priority to reform the system as you know one of the unintended consequences of China's economic reforms and growth has has in fact been a very sharp rise in the number of juvenile offenders And a majority of them, especially in the coastal areas are the children of migrant workers It it's amazing it mirrors very much the history of juvenile justice reform in this country in the late 1800s 1890 when immigrants from Italy Other countries came to the United States. They didn't speak the language. They couldn't get into school and That's very similar in China. They come in from Sichuan to Shanghai. They don't speak the local language They can't get into school. They turn to crime So the numbers were just soaring In China so the government Took upon itself to reform the system. So they began to work with overseas organizations governments what have you and Dwayfall was chosen and we worked with the Supreme Court, what's known as the working group on juvenile courts, they came to this country and 2008 and Went around the country came here to Washington met with Justice Kennedy who is perhaps, you know a towering figure in The history of juvenile justice reform in the Roper decision he changed his vote to make execution of individuals For crimes committed before the age of 18 unconstitutional. So that was a wonderful session So they returned to China wrote up their report it Circulated at high levels and then they asked us to visit China in 2010 and again we went around we had seminars we visited prisons and courts and then in 2012 as We were preparing to host another delegation out comes the draft criminal procedure law and I Was astonished Virtually all of the major reforms in the juvenile justice system in China were introduced Through international exchanges and in particular What you will see in that law Mirrors the American system We have something called diversion in this country, you know and just as the name implies you try to divert The juvenile from the path to prison I won't go into all the details, but it's called diversion in China They called it postpone prosecution and the concept is the same you reach an agreement with the DA's office That you will do this this this and this over a six-month period. You'll stay away from those bad people you'll stop drinking and smoking pot and You will be tested And I've been on these visits by the way With police teams and they show up unannounced at the juvenile's house and you know, he's tested and He's checked out they go into his room Etc. Etc. And if after six months you honor your side of the agreement your Records are sealed, which is a misnomer. They're actually expunged China is adopting sealing of records it has adopted diversion It is adopted behavioral and psychological assessments at all stages of adjudication It is put in place more protections, especially for female juveniles. They can no longer be interrogated by male officers Now all these things are features of the US system. I can think of no better example Than the impact of international human rights exchanges on China's laws than the reform of the juvenile justice system Thank you Gentlemen in the pink tie here. Hi. Thanks for doing this. Sean tanda and a reporter with AFP I just wanted to expand on Chris's question a bit when you're talking about that lists are no longer That you don't expect lists to be part of the the process anymore But why do you think that is do you think it's just a rising and sense of confidence by China vis-a-vis the United States? Is it because there's nothing transactional now? There's not Olympics coming up more broadly What do you think are the reasons why this trend is becoming true? Well, I think there are a number of reasons some have to do with the personnel the current I mean really the resistance to accepting lists began with the Appointment of the current Minister of Justice why she is now the longest-serving Minister of Justice in the history of the People's Republic And she very much didn't like this I am told that party secretary who's in town Also didn't like it Didn't like this list thing also. I think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs You know got to the point where? You know they were accepting lists with hundreds of names and One of the complaints was you know, we have some other things to do Then to run around and collect all this information for you folks another problem was I would say the wording of the lists Now in contrast to I must say the way Dway-Hua does lists some of these countries would ask about a prisoner in terms that Well, the Chinese side felt was insulting You know, it was sort of the old When did you stop beating your wife kind of question? So all kinds of allegations would be made about mistreatment that the Chinese side did not like but yes there's also the point that Well just as the senior official said we don't have to do it anymore and that is the case There really isn't anything on the horizon That China necessarily wants to the extent that is willing to do this I said though that doesn't mean that's always going to be the case that may change but As it stands right now The days of the big lists are over Now if you're gonna pursue this and I think it's worthy of pursuit. We're gonna have to play this a lot smarter You can't you know, you got to focus on those cases you think that are most important You've got to phrase your lists in a certain way you should embed the requests in points of law and If you do all that I think in fact you can manage to raise cases and again, look The Human Rights Dialogue is not the only venue for discussing human rights. You have a strategic and economic dialogue and and Actually, one of the reasons I hope that the Human Rights Dialogue is not cancelled or suspended is that Those issues can in fact be addressed there Leaving time in the strategic and economic dialogue to talk about other things like North Korea Little things like Syria, you know, these are the kind of issues that would get more attention Then will otherwise be the case So it's not necessarily. I think a good idea for China to do this But I do think it's highly likely that the They can hardly suspend the UK for two years and Do nothing in response to the president's meeting with the Dalai Lama. So I'm kind of resigned to that We will I will continue to carry on. I'm not a government Although it's Tina Rosenberg put it in that article, you know, well not in the article. She saw come on John They treat you like a government Yes, ma'am, just wait for the microphone, please. Thank you reporter from the Voice of America and My question for Mr. Kim. So what do you say about China's human rights now under Mr President Xi Jinping's administration given that the China the party titans sort of titanists Control our internet and freedom of speech. Thank you. I have always been reluctant Frankly, I think it's intellectually dishonest To make a sweeping generalized statement about human rights in China To state year after year as you see that human rights has deteriorated in China over the last year Which I have seen repeatedly and reports by governments and NGOs Well, you know, if human rights is deteriorated year by year, where is it now? I mean, that's the old limbo dance, you know, how low can you go? In fact, the truth is this human rights in China moves forward and backward at the same time in Different places at different paces. That's the truth I've just told you how juveniles have benefited in fact in 2013 the percentage of youth who were given non-custodial Punishments in other words, they didn't go to prison Rose from 42 to 46 percent. Well, when you're dealing with a hundred thousand young people and that's 4,000 people who were spared prison and I believe that the number of executions went down There are other examples this reform the abolition of reeducations through labor as I pointed out there are other forms of detention without trial and yet in every one of those areas you see legal reformers Working to abolish them as well. You may have seen recently for instance that in Hunan The police came up with this reprimand centers After public outcry the provincial government outlawed them So we we see this now at the same time curbs on freedom of speech and expression continue and In some respects have gotten worse That's one of the problem areas But it is simply it's it is simply not the case that the overall situation is deteriorating When I first came to Washington to work on human rights. It was at the time of the first MFM debate. I remember distinctly members of leading NGOs including Chinese NGOs and government officials and Members of Congress is saying with some certainty that the Chinese government was going to collapse It was It would be over within six months In fact, I think somebody even wrote a book to that effect the coming collapse of China. Well, guess what they haven't The Chinese government has proven to be far more resilient than their critics once believed. Why is that? well, yes in part Because the government has delivered the economic goods. No question No question about it at the same time. We ignore at our peril recognizing that in some areas in Fact the government has carried out improvements in human rights and Due process legal protection of rights in the CPL the criminal procedure law Almost all detainees with the exception of endangering state security and a couple of others have access to lawyers within 48 hours Okay interrogations are taped There are important movements in a positive direction in China. So now For the majority of Chinese people The majority the great majority of Chinese people young people women their rights are being protected more than in the past and That is one of the reasons why the Chinese government has Proven to be so resilient if in fact the rights of the Chinese people were getting worse year after year I don't think in fact the Chinese government would have proven to be so resilient And when we have dialogues with the Chinese It's very important to recognize where there has been progress at the same time as We point out where more needs to be done. This is very important. It's Unfortunately our approach is to say oh we recognize you've you really made a lot of advances in feeding and clothing the people and I have to tell you Chinese officials with whom I work feel that's really condescending They don't need the United States to come here, you know to come over there or come here and tell them that they know that You know what you need to do is to say okay in in in respect of civil and political rights Right. Here's where I think you're doing you're making some progress. Here's where I think you're not and You know and you can say the same to us and let's work together to help each other All right instead of using dialogues to beat each other up Used to be we did most of the beating now. They've gotten real good at beating us up too. So it becomes this kind of a Mutual confrontational session and I you know I wrote a story for my newsletter a couple of newsletters ago in which I it was a Human rights dialogues and exercise in insanity Which you know Einstein's definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result I Understand some of my friends in the State Department. We're not too happy about that But as I made a point at the end of the at the end of the article I still come out in favor of the dialogues Anyway, thank you very much for that Right here in the front. Thank you. My name is Yang Jian Li. Hi, Yang Jian Li, how are you? I am Tiananmen survivor and the former political prisoner of China from 2002 to 2007 actually mr Zhang can work on my case as well. So I didn't have The privilege and honor to meet you in person until today. So I want to take this opportunity to thank you Thank you and My question is when it comes to human rights reform policy There's a general assumption in the international community That if a country take a strong human rights stance on human rights with China China will Retaliate economically with its rising economical power My question is if these as you see a valid assumption or Just an antestate assumption Well, well first of all, it's a nice nice to meet you and Welcome home That's a good question a Lot depends on the overall environment All right, if you're having a very productive relationship in in some areas You can perhaps take a stronger stand on human rights, and then you might Otherwise do So if you have a very notice for instance when the president met with the Dalai Lama on That very day the United States was engaged in a high-level military exchange. It was not affected at all So it's a really it's a hard one to read. I mean the military to military relationship seems to be doing better The trade side. Well, we still have plenty of problems, but trade is is is growing On security issues. Well, they are too. It's a mixed bag I think a lot depends about you know the context of the whole relationship some countries Are are able to Take stands that might be stronger than others For various reasons a lot happen a lot has to do of course with what's going on in terms of domestic politics in China and I'm sorry to say that we often don't know what's going on and The relative strengths of the different personalities And that affects things for instance if the Ministry of Justice if the minister retires after nine years And someone else comes in that may be that may make a difference I Think every country has to follow its collective conscious Sometimes it doesn't help to be a little too soft Other times it doesn't help to be a little too hard. You got to find the right balance and it's really comes down to leadership I think initially the Obama administration just says it did with another Superpower wanted to reset the relationship and As you will recall a secretary Clinton Famously said and I'm here. I'm just paraphrasing that well, we you know, we will raise human rights, but we can't let it interfere with other Objectives of the administration an honest answer, but it may have sent the wrong message Recently I I I note Somewhat a stiffening of the of the spine I think you're going to see U.S. Taking stronger positions than it did in the past I Was very interested to see President Obama refer to China's record on religious freedom at the national prayer breakfast publicly That had not happened before So and of course the meeting with Adelaa Lam was the first of what three years So we're in and of course the emphasis put on visas for journalists both In the bite Biden meetings and then Obama's meeting with she In Brussels this is I think something new So I actually see the administration becoming more forceful Ironically at a time when in many respects we do need China's help Then necessarily in the past for instance on Ukraine Well, Syria, but North Korea certainly We do need China's assistance in these areas and yet at the same time We're taking I think a stronger position in many respects on human rights. So thank you for your question Right here in the front Thank you very much for most enlightening lecture and for your many decades of dedication to human rights and the hundreds of political prisoners You have helped rescue. I'm Greg Scarla the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington, D.C. Congressman Solars whom you mentioned in your lecture was a founding board member and former co-chair Ambassador Winston Lord is a very active member of the board of our organization One of the toughest issues we face is the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees by China Especially in cases where these refugees came across South Koreans Christian missionaries or in cases where North Korean women became pregnant with Chinese men along the road of defection They face conditions of extreme danger torture imprisonment in political prison camps sexual violence forced abortions What would your advice be to our organization and other organizations that are trying to enlist China's help after all if We managed to persuade China that this help on this issue would be aligned with China's international obligations under the 1951 refugee convention to which it adhered in 1982 if we managed to get some Chinese help on this issue This would certainly be a tremendous step forward Possibly the greatest step forward we've ever seen in this area of North Korean human rights Well, thank you for the question and thank you for the very good work. You're doing in this area I am of course familiar with the committee Well, let me just recount a couple of stories for the sake of Giving you some flavor. Yes, I certainly have discussed this Matter with the Chinese government and in fact, I was asked by the UN committee whether or not I would oh I think intercede is too strong a word but to To approach the Chinese government to ask for assistance and and of course I said I am bought bought Please understand something The influence that Beijing exerts over North Korea is extremely limited very very limited and getting more and more limited and Now you saw I think recently the execution of Kim Jong-un's uncle He was very much a man who was closely associated with the Chinese government and he and all kinds of other people have been Executed and there's a history of this as you know and the DPRK there have been over the decades this Pro-Russian pro-Chinese faction, you know seeking influence. Well, if what has happened is any measure of that I would say right now The Chinese faction has been essentially eviscerated So you start with that Who is China going to talk to? Well, the people who just gotten rid of their faction So, you know one other point years ago when I was in Geneva I Went out to lunch with a pretty senior Chinese official and he said to me, you know, we have let between three and four hundred North Koreans Leave the country and for other destinations and by the way what I'm about to say I have heard on on many other subjects We get no credit for it None and yet we are risking this relationship with the North Koreans But nobody recognizes that We've let so many out and and so there was that sense of frustration but actually On one other thing I happen to know That a very senior Chinese leader has asked the assistance of an international humanitarian organization to help on Issues with North Korea, you know, they almost shot down a Chinese airliner recently They fired a missile and it came within I don't know half a mile or a quarter of a mile of a Chinese airliner So the relationship there is not good it really is not good So can China do more well to your point sure It can and I believe over time they will I think there's some people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who have very good knowledge of dealing with the North and That over time I am actually quite optimistic that China will take a stronger position they haven't yet they haven't yet and I'm waiting to see how they're going to ultimately react to the report They do things differently Certainly, but I don't know if you're aware of this but At China's UPR in October as you may know states parties countries have time to make statements recommendations and this time there were 137 countries each making statements for 50 seconds The DPRK delegation rose To condemn China's reeducation through labor System and called for it to be abolished so That is I think pretty telling it's You know, it's I I think rather unusual for North Korea to criticize China's human rights record and not a little bit of What's involved in that so that's all to the point. I think we we overstate China's influence on Okay, well in the interest of time. I think we're gonna call it there. Please join me in thanking John for his fantastic presentation