CBC: Chinese police free slaves from brickworks

BBC: More China brickwork slaves freed

NY Times: Reports of Forced Labor Unsettle China

It is incidents like this that make me think that we delude ourselves when we assume that Poverty and Terror are not linked.

It is the income disparity produced by any political system - whether cutthroat unregulated capitalism, corrupted communist bureaucracy or any other authoritarian regime - that eventually leads to classism and class conflict.

Our poverty has been largely exported through "free trade" (not at all free in reality) to developing economies that are duplicating the worse horrors of the industrial revolution in the West - most of which are conveniently forgotten on a generational basis.

The conflict over immigration in this country is splitting society along class lines even within parties in this country. And it is at the root of the essentially economic conflict between and within groups in the Israel-Palestine region as well.

Only international recognition of human rights with fair and enforceable isolation of violators could control such abuses. Publishing the abuses is only a first step. The USA, if it wants to become a "great" nation and live up to the best of its originating principles, will pursue secular means to reward workers fairly for working.

I am not surprised in the least by this news. We've known for years about China's horrible human rights record. What I am surprised about is the silence from those on the freedom-and-democracy loving Right about China's horrible human rights record, its military buildup, its support of dictatorial and genocidal regimes like those in Zimbabwe and Sudan, its unequal trade relations, and the fact that its government remains authoritarian, repressive and COMMUNIST.

Let's state that once again. China is one of the few remaining COMMUNIST countries in the world.

Does Cuba have slaves? Does Venezuela? Does Bolivia? No, but the W Gang's rhetoric on all three is more extreme than on China. Hell, there are probably people working in slave-like conditions in Saudi Arabia. But you won't be hearing any criticism of the Saudis either....

But then perhaps this silence, which points to ideological hypocrisy, may have to do with the fact that China is underwriting the massive borrowing that sustains the gross political, economic and social folly that is the Bush administration and its foreign affairs, including the War in Iraq, a/k/a Iraqmire.

For a few coins and/or to sustain devotion to their "Commander Guy," the Righties will obviously turn a blind eye to anything.

Well said, Fantomas. I couldn't agree with you more that the Bush administration has been practising ideological hypocrisy when it comes to China (although the US is not the only country to do so).

I doubt if many here agree with me, but I would LOVE to see an international boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing next year. Of all the countries that have been awarded the honour of hosting the Olympics, China is among the most undeserving (Germany 1936 and Russia 1980 also fall into that category). I know a boycott is not likely to happen, and I am trying to understand why many human-rights advocates don't support the idea. Most of them seem to think it would do more harm than good, ie that China's dictators will effectively portray a boycott as an insult to the Chinese people as a whole and whip up nationalist, anti-western sentiment among its huge population (perhaps even giving it an excuse to invade Taiwan). If that's the prevailing wisdom, then I guess I will just have to hold my nose and hope that some good can come out of the Olympics. Maybe some brave Olympians will publicly denounce the host country's dismal record on human rights, or perhaps TV cameras will be able to catch some international guests being man-handled by Chinese authorities for carrying signs with the simple message "June 4, 1989". China's failure to acknowledge any wrong-doing on that tragic day, its continued support for an even more brutal regime (and by association its culpability for the genocide in Darfur), its ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners within China and its interference with the group in other countries (even though I disagree with Falun Gong's views on homosexuality), its long history of suppression towards the people of Tibet, and its constant bullying of Taiwan...all of these I see as valid reasons for a boycott, but as I said, it ain't likely to happen, as long as the rest of the world turns a blind eye and sees China only in terms of its value as an economic giant and trading partner. Oh well, even if the dismal human rights record doesn't succeed in tarnishing China's image as an Olympic host, I can only hope that Beijing's equally-dismal air quality will do the job! Images of athletes with oxygen tanks rather than protesters with banners might be nearly as effective...

It is more than just "probably".

I don't know whether Carter's boycott did more harm to the Soviet Union or to the concept of international athletics as a bastion of "apolitical" values, but a protest sanctioned by the governments of the participating nations such as a human rights stickers as part of their athletes uniforms would certainly get a rise out of the Chinese and force them to display their version of "human rights" by banning that form of freedom of speech or publicly preventing those athletes from participating.

Either would shame them before the world as poor sports - an intolerable situation in the orient, as elsewhere in the world. The real challenge to China's policies will come when there is moral leadership in the White House, that leads the world to establish and enforce international standards of human rights. Nations have to be willing to sacrifice - often imagined - short-term economic interests to achieve real long-term economic benefit.

We have to lead on this one IMO. Just as we have lead in the opposite direction with illegal preemptive wars.

Thanks for the clarification, Sportinlife.



I like the idea of boycotting the Beijing Olympics, which have led to the bulldozing of acres of longstanding neighborhoods and the forced relocations of hundreds of thousands of people, but as painful as it is to say it, our current government has ZERO credibility in the world, and would be utterly hypocritical in taking this stance against China.

The Bush Gang is being financed by China! They are not going to call out their financial masters, and really, who would take them seriously? Those billions that are being blown in Iraq are not coming from thin air.

And the US and US corporations are quite aware of the slave labor conditions over there. They want the money and JUST DON'T GIVE A DAMN. Think about how worked up the right was over the Soviet Union. Does anyone think that China is not a power to be reckoned with? That its nuclear arsenal, immense military, roaring economy, and complete disregard for human rights and support for terrible regimes all over the world are not problematic? Why are they so silent? I mean, they were hysterical about Saddam Hussein, and now want to bomb Iran, a semi-democratic country, off the map, but don't say a peep about China. Just ask the Japanese if China isn't a country to worry about.

So perhaps some other country should take the lead in launching the boycott, though I think we'd have to spend a good while finding one that wasn't somehow implicated. Canada maybe?

The Chinese people are wonderful. The communist government there is dictatorial and violate basic human rights. Slavery is a global crime from Africa to China. I think it is appalling that next year the olympics will be held in China. China is an authoritarian state that subjugates its citizens. And non Han Chinese ethnic groups such as the Tibetans and Muslims are oppressed by the Chinese nation.

The boycott issue is a tough one. I would not condemn the US for invoking one against the 2008 Beijing Olympics just because of the fact that it would be hypocrisy on our part. There is little punitive action we can take against any international criminality that would not be hypocritical to some extent at this point unfortunately.

But inaction should not be the only alternative.

But you know, even non-sports fans remember Jesse Owens embarassment of the Nazi regime in 1936. Who remembers that Reynaldo Nehemiah might have set a record in 1980?

Could a boycott of Hitler's Olympics have been any more effective than Owens embarassing them?

Interestingly, the pollution caused by China's hyper-development may be their best ally in the games unless they manage to shut down all industry upwind of the facilities (which I've read they may actually do). No other athletes will have trained in that atmosphere. Could the effect be as great as altitude?

FIFA recently banned official soccer playoff matches at high altitude causing a firestorm of protest from certain highly placed officials (pun intended) in countries at high altitude. Competing in Beijing may be hazardous to the health of athletes who operate at unusually high aerobic levels. Every edge counts in sport.

Wonder what Michael Medved would think of China's "free market" of labor.

I thought it appropriate to revive this thread since there is none about the recent disturbances in China's Xinjiang province involving the Uighurs. It is becoming more common in the foreign press, if not the USA-dominated networks, to use the language of the US's civil rights movement for African Americans that peaked during the late 1950s through the early 70's. While not all of the terms are used in the linked article I will quote some I've read from elsewhere. The majority Han have been accused of "racism" for treatment of Uighurs who were "transported" (essentially bused) to the cheap-labor hungry province of Guangdong in an attempt at forced "assimilation" that essentially failed due to that very racism. It appears that the imported Uighurs in Guangdong celebrated the least event with traditional "dancing" that the Han's found peculiar and "lively" but harmless until there were so many Uighurs that the frivolity (and no doubt the economic competition as well) became an annoyance. The modern convenience of the mobile telephone facilitated a difference that has lead to faster communication of the news of the murder of two Uighurs thousands of mile away back to their home province, thus stimulating the recent violence. A Uighur woman standing in front of a "bus" in Xinjiang to protest the detention of her husband was reminiscent less of Tiananmen Square than of Rosa Parks who refused to get off a bus. Because they are nominal muslims we tend not to see the similarities here. But I think they are becoming apparent elsewhere. The bottom line is that wealth disparity will generate a willingness to use any angle by any group to arbitrarily decrease competition. This is a global phenomenon that will continue to be exascerbated by the economic slowdown that such disparity inevitably creates. Uighurs are not China's only racial and economic "minority".

The prosecutions, trials and sentencing in the Uighur province are coming to a head. And though the authorities are attempting to maintain an appearance of equal justice for all regardless of ethnicity, there is no independent authority - or even a fourth estate in this case - to monitor Chinese justice.

Consequently is it hard to know evaluate the quality of justice in the current legal procedings.

The treatment of China's minorities - especially the muslim Uighurs - will have consequences for the Chinese and possibly the world given China's growing economic and social influence.

Be it successful or not, and long-term or short, their behavior may influence the way other rulers choose to apply justice.