China’s emergence as a new economic power may be threatening human rights and freedom in other countries, speakers at the International Human Rights Forum in Taipei said yesterday.
“Twenty years ago, the world condemned the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] regime for its crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstrations,” said former presidential adviser Ruan Ming (阮銘), a one-time CCP official who was forced into exile in the late 1980s for promoting political reform.
“Now things are a little different, with Beijing and Wall Street working to bring a new economic order to the world: China makes the merchandise and Wall Street invests,” Ruan told the forum, hosted by the Memorial Foundation of 228.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
Ruan said US economists were increasingly interested in the profits to be made by investing in China, while overlooking human rights abuses there.
“In fact, in addition to exporting goods, the CCP is also exporting ideas against human rights, freedom and democracy,” he said, citing as examples China’s support of the authoritarian regimes in North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Iran and Cuba.
“This crisis of democracy is not just a crisis for Taiwan, but for the entire world,” he said.
Exiled Chinese democracy activist Wang Dan (王丹) said “the CCP is trying to tell the world that the economy is more important than remembering Tiananmen Square.”
“It’s the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square [Massacre], yet no one seems to care much,” he said. “This is especially apparent in Taiwan.”
He called on Taiwanese to support Chinese democracy activists in countering the CCP regime.
For many, “human rights” and “freedom” are abstract concepts, World Uyghur Congress president Rabiye Kadeer said.
They think they will never have to face political persecution as long as they do not participate in political activities, but an authoritarian government can affect all aspects of life and even destroy an entire people, she said.
“Over the past 60 years since China occupied East Turkestan [also known as Xinjiang], its violation of the Uighurs’ civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights has never stopped,” Rabiye said in a statement.
She was unable to attend yesterday’s forum because it conflicted with a World Uyghur Congress meeting in Washington.
“While Chinese immigrants continue to pour into East Turkestan, the Uighurs are faced with the crisis of becoming a minority in our own land and [watching our] culture die out,” the statement said.
“Uighurs are arrested for no reason, religious practices are banned. We face discrimination in terms of economic activities and education and we’re even discouraged from using our language,” it said.
Political commentator Paul Lin (林保華), another panelist at the forum, said that in 1954, Uighurs accounted for 75 percent of the population in Xinjiang, but today are believed to make up less than 50 percent of the population.
Lin said that studies in Japan indicated that China’s nuclear tests in Xinjiang had killed more than 190,000 Uighurs, while affecting the health of another 1.3 million locals and 270,000 Japanese tourists who have visited the region.
“China often accuses the Uighurs of being terrorists, but I wonder who the real terrorists are,” Lin said.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
RSS