China’s “Police Law”—An oxymoron?

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is an excellent report from China Change—China’s Little-Noticed ‘New Police Law’ Gives Vastly Expanded Legal Powers to Public Security Apparatus. China Change has done a terrific job in its exegesis, which is worth studying even though frightening.

The fact that this forthcoming new legislation authorizes what has been practice in many places and many respects does not diminish its significance. It is the embodiment of Xi Jinping’s insistence that everything be done “according to law”. It also illustrates how little this slogan means in reality when the law is so vague, broad and permissive as to pose no important restraint on the police. But for those who try to understand what is taking place in a non-transparent society these laws and regulations are useful in helping to confirm what practice already is, can be and is likely to become. China’s Orwellian developments make quite a contrast with the U.S. Supreme Court’s current and continuing struggle to accommodate police needs in an increasingly high-tech world without surrendering the power to restrain what police may properly do in a democratic country. 

Questions for Taiwan and the world at the decline of formal diplomatic relations

By Jerome Cohen

Last week Taiwan lost diplomatic relations with El Salvador, a long-time diplomatic ally of the Republic of China. Here is an interesting report on the statement of the President’s spokesperson in Taiwan openly recognizing that the end of the ROC’s formal diplomatic relations may be approaching. 

This will be an enormous challenge not only to the ROC but also to all those countries that wish to continue to have de facto relations with it, starting, of course, with the United States. Will more of their current policies and practices—for example, continuing resort to the embassy-like American Institute in Taiwan—suffice? How many countries will be willing to maintain this substitute for normal diplomatic relations once Beijing starts to apply the kinds of pressures on them that it has been applying on Taiwan, its remaining diplomatic allies and even the airlines and hotels that acknowledged Taiwan’s independent existence?

What imaginative strategies and tactics can the ROC employ to improve its situation and maintain and even strengthen its ties to the world in multilateral and bilateral contexts? Will it be possible to further develop the role of “unofficial” de facto diplomatic missions?

Are we on the brink of witnessing some attempted modification of the existing international system? Will some dangerous new formula emerge that may precipitate the cross-strait crisis that has long been postponed but that is gradually developing? An open establishment of a “Republic of Taiwan” might lead to war and might fizzle if not recognized by important states. What if Taiwan seeks to become a UN trusteeship or a U.S. territory, courses that have always been regarded as beyond the pale? Beijing may be stimulating radical thoughts on the part of those concerned to preserve what is usually referred to as “Taiwan’s vibrant democracy”.

Xinjiang & the Global Magnitsky Act

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is a terrific, comprehensive explanation from SupChina of helpful reports and articles about Xinjiang’s “re-education camps” . While China tries hard to conceal information, the materials currently available should prompt the United Nations and its human rights regime—including human rights treaty bodies, the Human Rights Council and its Special Procedures—to investigate and to condemn with confidence these atrocities in Xinjiang.

The outside of a newly built internment camp in Turpan, Xinjiang. Picture by Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Chin.

It also makes one ask: what evidence is necessary under the Global Magnitsky Act in the United States to apply sanctions not only against those who are actually carrying out these abuses, starting with Chen Quanguo, the Party chief in Xinjiang, but also against those in Beijing who are instructing Chen to do so? We all know who runs China today!

This reminds me of the time in 1964 that I had an opportunity to have coffee in Hong Kong with Zhang Guotao (Chang Kuo-tao), one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party who later split with Mao and remained in exile. I wanted to understand why Communist leaders had such mistrust of law and a genuine legal system. Zhang said that, while he did not know much about law and neither did Mao, perhaps he could give me an example that might help answer my question. In effect he then said: “If A kills B, no system would have trouble punishing A. But what if A merely tells B to kill C and B does it, how could a legal system punish A?” That, Zhang said, was probably the kind of thinking that underlay Mao’s mistrust!

The U.S. legal system usually is not troubled by such a simplistic challenge!

How to describe what's happening in Xinjiang?

By Jerome Cohen

Earlier this month, Josh Rogin wrote in the Washington Post­, Ethnic cleansing makes a comeback — in China, which provoked quite a lot of discussion, especially with regard to Rogin’s use of “ethnic cleansing” in describing China’s continuing campaign to abuse hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in “re-education camps“ in the Xinjiang region as well as other efforts to destroy the social and religious life of Uyghur communities.  

Police patrolling the old town in Kashgar, Xinjiang. Photograph: Tom Phillips for the Guardian

Should we use ethnic cleansing to describe this horrendous situation? It is important to “rectify names” (zhengming), but there are so many aspects to this repression that it is not possible to find words that can adequately encapsulate it. What, for example, about reports that large numbers of Uyghurs from certain areas are being displaced and sent elsewhere outside of Xinjiang?

I personally believe, despite the views expressed otherwise, that we should not confine “ethnic cleansing” to its past notorious uses, for what is taking place is the attempted destruction of an ethnic group. This attempt has about as good a chance of success as the attempts to “convert” LGBT people to heterosexuals, and perhaps that is where we should look for better vocabulary!  

What can be done regarding Xinjiang’s mass detentions?

By Jerome A. Cohen

I have discussed Xinjiang’s horrific detentions on my blog. There should be more investigative reporting that looks into various important questions. We do not know all the types of detention resorted to. They may include: simply lawless detentions, i.e., not based on any regulations or laws; detentions authorized by some written document even if issued only by low level police; detentions based on special legal provisions under the new Supervision Law; detentions based on the usual Criminal Procedure Law; and detentions based on special provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, i.e., residential surveillance.

It would be difficult to convincingly argue that these detentions are consistent with the PRC Constitution if such arguments could be made before an impartial tribunal, which, of course, does not exist in the PRC. These detentions are very similar to those imposed for decades under “re-education through labor” (RETL), which, like several other notorious administrative detention procedures, finally had to be abandoned by the regime, at least in name. Yet similar detentions still take place under various rubrics such as “re-education” for drug offenders, prostitutes and their customers and political offenders who continue to be given “black jails” and other types of confinement.

We are purposely being kept in the dark about the unique, massive detentions in Xinjiang, which have confined many hundreds of thousands of closely-settled people on many specious charges. Perhaps the last time so many people have been detained outside the formal criminal process was in the 1957-59 “anti-rightist” campaign where RETL was first used.

Given the Communist Party’s domination of the judicial system, the legal impossibility of getting the courts to consider constitutional claims and the refusal of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, which, unlike the courts, is authorized to interpret the Constitution, to consider such claims, there is no prospect for challenging the Xinjiang measures domestically. It is worth noting, however, that what is being done should be understood as violating procedural rights under Article 37 of the Constitution as well as various freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, not to mention relevant provisions of China’s Criminal Procedure Law and other national legislation.

To be sure, the Xinjiang measures also violate public international law in many respects. China has signed but not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which plainly prohibits arbitrary detentions. The PRC has ratified the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Xinjiang actions are clear violations of these international treaties in many respects. Other international human rights violations can also be established. Relevant treaty bodies, such as the Committee Against Torture and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, should review the Xinjiang detentions in their dialogues with China, ask the Chinese government to provide accurate information and condemn violations in Xinjiang.

Additionally, other UN human rights agencies are the obvious fora in which to move, including the UN Human Rights Council, the UN independent human rights experts such the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and other special rapporteurs, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Unfortunately China has moved skillfully to dominate the UN Human Rights Council and the U.S. Government has certainly not risen to the challenge of effectively opposing China’s maneuvers. The departure of Mr. Zaid, the energetic and courageous High Commissioner for Human Rights, is greatly to be regretted.

Individual countries, of course, can take actions, which is why I recommend that the U.S. Government adopt Magnitsky Act sanctions against those responsible for Xinjiang, starting with Xi Jinping.

Various concerned countries can also act in concert outside the UN, for example excluding China from major economic and political meetings. It is a particular disgrace that Turkic, Muslim countries and their organizations have done so little to condemn China for what it is doing to their kinsmen.

There should also be many public protests by ordinary citizens, i.e., NGOs and popularly-inspired meetings in free countries whose people support human rights.

U.S. should impose Magnitsky Act sanctions against China’s human rights violators

Jerome A. Cohen

Amnesty has just issued a plea for urgent action on behalf of what remains of lawyer Jiang Tianyong. Amnesty’s announcement seems understated despite the large cap title. Jiang is exposed to more than the “imminent risk of torture and other ill-treatments”. He has in actuality long been suffering from such abuse that is designed to break him as a person, to destroy him both mentally and physically. And, as we know from many cases including those of Gao Zhisheng and Wang Quanzhang, this calculated campaign to end China’s human rights lawyering seems to be gradually thinning the ranks of human rights lawyers. The many, sometimes bizarre, procedural violations in Jiang’s case are a reminder of the realities of Chinese justice when it comes to those who challenge the regime. His captors should be investigated on charges of what may well amount to “attempted murder”.

I know Jiang but have never cooperated with Wang Quanzhang, whose case appears to be even more outrageous. After three years of absolute silence about Wang’s fate the Party has reportedly decided to finally bring him to “trial” in the near future but his mental and physical condition are both in doubt, and he has not been allowed to retain his own lawyer but must accept a government-selected one.

Despite Chinese Government maneuvers to gain control over the international human rights institutions and the current relative indifference of the U.S. Government to human rights issues, greater efforts must be made to try to stop the PRC campaign against human rights lawyers. One important, if largely symbolic, response would be for the U.S. to impose Magnitsky Act sanctions against those Chinese officials who are directly responsible for executing this notorious campaign, starting at the top of the Communist Party.

“In China, they call it a political camp but really it was a prison in the mountains.”

By Jerome A. Cohen

(Photo credit: AFP; the 41-year-old said she had been tricked into working in one of the camps)

Here’s a valuable AFP report on Xinjiang, China’s 'reeducation camps' in spotlight at Kazakhstan trial. There have been occasional references to the mass detention of Kazakhs as well as Uyghurs but this report tells more. It is especially interesting to learn much new information through the medium of a public trial allowed to be held in Kazakhstan despite the politically explosive nature of the charges for the country and its dictatorial government that functions under China’s shadow.

In China a similar case, IF a formal criminal prosecution is used instead of simple arbitrary detention, would usually be closed to the public on grounds of national security. In this case, by contrast, Kazakhstan held an open hearing, apparently attended by foreign media, in which the accused had the benefit of an active defense lawyer who was allowed to question his client extensively. The court, for political reasons, might have curtailed the scope of the testimony to avoid discussion of the Chinese “re-education centers” but instead properly allowed the questioning to take place in order to make clear the background of the defendant’s resort to false travel documents. The defendant, who seems to have made an excellent witness, aptly summed up the terrible Xinjiang situation when she said: “In China, they call it a political camp but really it was a prison in the mountains.” !!! 

Liu Xia’s release: half-way house toward freedom

By Jerome A. Cohen

Liu Xia arrives at the Helsinki International Airport in Finland on July 10 (Jussi Nukari/AP)

Here is an excellent statement by the UN HR High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Liu Xia’s release. Liu Xia is now physically free but still enslaved mentally since her brother Liu Hui has been intentionally kept hostage. Liu Hui was convicted of fraud in 2013 and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He’s been released under medical parole, a lesser criminal law restraint, which can be revoked by the authorities at any time. So for Liu Xia her release is a half-way house toward freedom, really a new form of restriction, another ingenious type of detention-equivalent administered by a PRC that spawns new types of detention almost every day, as the Xinjiang “re-locations” illustrate.

Liu Xia’s restricted release is certainly a case of China responding to outside pressures—enormous pressures of various types including those generated by human rights groups. The PRC, like the rest of us, tries to turn a vice into a virtue and make the best of a difficult situation. They still have Liu Xia’s brother to trade and what about the missing human rights lawyers and the hundreds of thousands lawlessly locked up in Xinjiang? There’s a lot of material to work with any time they feel the need to get better press by releasing some people without actually reducing their repression.

Is America too Dangerous for Chinese Visitors?

By Jerome A. Cohen

The warning to Chinese tourists recently issued by the Chinese Embassy in Washington is only the latest evidence of Beijing’s concern about gun violence and robbery in America. This worry has marked our exchanges since the start of the Sino-American détente following President Nixon’s February 1972 visit to the Promised Land. In May-June 1972, as part of a three person team from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) that was invited by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to tour the country for a month, I helped to negotiate a reciprocal visit to the U.S. by representatives of the Academy. Our hosts were happy to discuss a possible trip but understandably concerned about their personal safety in America. They had been reading accounts in the People’s Daily for years about the dangers of gun violence and robbery in our cities and wondered how a relatively small private organization like FAS could provide adequate protection to their group. I assured them that the Chinese news reports were generally slanted and exaggerated and that there was nothing for Chinese visitors to worry about.

In December 1972 I had the pleasure to greet the Academy delegation at Boston airport, its first stop. After a good lunch at its Boston base—that proletarian hostel the Ritz Hotel, I suggested that we launch the visit with a stroll down Boston’s then most elegant street. I knew that the Academy’s interpreter, who had taken good care of us in China, was eager to visit a camera shop and thought we might stop at one during our stroll. The chief of the delegation agreed once I told him there would be no safety issue and that I would honor his request that we spend no time visiting stores to discover “the sugar-coated bullets of the bourgeoisie”. Amazingly, as our group entered the second block of our walk, we suddenly witnessed the only cops and robbers chase I have ever seen, with a uniformed policeman chasing someone while shouting “stop, thief” and brandishing a pistol. Our group was stunned and instinctively huddled together as we watched the policeman chase the suspect into the nearby Bonwit Teller department store. I don’t think my credibility ever recovered, although the rest of the trip went smoothly!

The urgent need for stronger foreign opposition to China’s human rights violations

By Jerome Cohen

The essay by Rian Thum and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, The Dark Side of the Chinese Dream, deserves the widest attention. The problem of how to alert the world to gross violations of human rights while coping with the broader political actions of the perpetrating state is not a new one, of course, in regard to China and other dictatorships. We have long faced a similar challenge regarding North Korea.

It also reminds me of the late 1930s when growing international concern over the foreign political actions of Hitler helped to obscure the domestic horrors he was increasingly committing and to diminish the foreign reactions to those horrors that might have otherwise been expected.

With respect to China’s continuing atrocities, it is time to consider how to heighten the awareness and willingness to protest of the foreign governments and businesses that interact with Beijing. Much greater pressure has to be applied to the national politicians who influence the actions of their  governments. Social protests and boycotts against the multinational corporations that court the PRC and yield to its demands may be necessary to get their attention. Popular condemnations even at athletic events may be desirable. Of course, it behooves the United States Government and the American people to cure our own human rights abuses. “Do as I say, not as I do” is never an attractive or effective posture.

'Easier to die than live': #LiuXia, widow of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, cries out for help in phone call https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/05/02/easier-die-live-liu-xia-widow-chinese-dissident-liu-xiaobo-cries-help-phone-call/

George Staunton, W. A. P. Martin and the transmission of foreign law

By Jerome A. Cohen  

Here is a good NYT interview with historian Stephen R. Platt about his new book, “Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age.” It highlights the sad end to George Staunton’s remarkable career relating to China. That career began early with Staunton’s participation in the historic Macartney voyage to Peking in 1793 at age 13 when he reportedly impressed the Emperor with his newly-acquired Chinese language skills.

The high point of Staunton’s career, at least for those of us interested in the Chinese legal system and its interaction with the West, came with his 1813 publication of the first English translation of The Great Ch’ing Code. Having tried wine and women, if not song, to pass the time during the boring off-season in Macao while waiting for trade with the Mainland to reopen, Staunton made good use of the assistance of Chinese colleagues to produce this monumental work. It was stimulated by the recognition that successful business with foreigners requires familiarity with their legal system.

Staunton’s precedent was cited by missionary W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良) in the early 1860s in his campaign to persuade the authorities in Peking to translate Wheaton’s then leading Western text on public international law into Chinese. Martin believed that it would not only lead the heathen to Christ but, more practically, also help the Chinese cope with overzealous Western diplomats and traders whose demands were often couched in terms of international law. Some of the foreign diplomats living in China opposed the project for this reason. As Immanuel Hsu’s excellent book on the topic pointed out, the Chinese Government indeed successfully invoked the law of the sea principles recorded by Wheaton against Prussia even before the translation was published.

Sponsorship of China’s political advertising in the U.S.: The example of Tung Chee-hwa

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is a report from a few weeks ago, “Chinese Communist Propaganda Group Paying for Vox Posts”, noting that the Vox has received funding support from the China-United States Exchange Foundation, whose chair is Tung Chee-hwa, the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Photo: a screenshot of the website of the China-United States Exchange Foundation

How should the media in various countries deal with political advertising—and more subtle forms of financial support—for China’s views and actions is an important issue. But we should not neglect the broader aspects of the problem—how should the independent academic and policy organizations on whose China research the media depends deal with their needs for financial support? In what circumstances is it acceptable or even desirable for them to receive the support of China-backed organizations?

No salesman for PRC views could be more attractive and persuasive to Americans than C.H. Tung, who proved more effective in the U.S. than he was in his native Hong Kong during the period he was the SAR’s Chief Executive. On behalf of one organization or another, CH has offered and provided funds to various U.S. think tanks and other research groups.

As long as no strings are attached and there is public disclosure, I am not bothered by such support, and indeed it can be very important in making possible the continuing work of useful research organizations. How long such support will continue if the recipient’s products don’t square with PRC objectives is worth examining. And, of course, CH’s sponsors will not support research organizations that have already demonstrated critical views of PRC policies.

Years ago, when I was urging the Council on Foreign Relations, where I have long worked part-time, to consider opening a branch in Hong Kong, I talked with CH about the possibility of his joining in this effort. He was enthusiastic until I noted that, of course, membership would have to be open to people with all points of view, including the famous democratic veteran Martin Lee!

CH seems to have a long-standing preference for avoiding Martin’s outlook. I recall, when CH was the SAR’s chief, I suggested to him that the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee, which advises the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, be developed into a serious forum for fairly considering the proper interpretation of controversial clauses of the Basic Law. This would be somewhat akin to what the role of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the House of Lords had been concerning Hong Kong legal issues in colonial times. His swift reaction was to reject the idea because that would only give “guys like Martin Lee” another opportunity to make trouble!  

Israel’s Ties with China

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is a very useful update on the complex Israel-China relationship, What’s Behind Israel’s Growing Ties With China?. It makes me recall the period 1979-81 when, long before the establishment of diplomatic relations between them, Israel was already secretly providing arms to China. Many of us who then inhabited the Peking Hotel knew what the lonely Israeli arms merchant, Shaul Eisenberg, who so often ate alone in the hotel restaurant, was up to.

 I was told at the time that Israel had enacted a special law exempting Eisenberg (or his company) from income tax on his China profits. His cooperation with Beijing undoubtedly laid the groundwork for gradually increasing Israeli-PRC contacts that led to the preparation for diplomatic relations. My awareness of this process crystallized when in the early ‘80s Peking University asked me to find it a Hebrew teacher and the money to support the teacher. Most of the small group of first students ended up working for Xinhua in Israel or in other relevant pursuits of the Israeli-PRC normalization (Xinhua is the New China News Agency, often used as a forerunner of formal diplomatic relations).

Perennial problems with corruption cases in China

By Jerome Cohen

There have recently been increasing signs of popular dissatisfaction with judicial handling of corruption cases in China. Of course, corruption cases are politically sensitive in every country and often involve influential defendants as well as accusers. Chinese courts are generally weak and unable to withstand political pressures to go along with what the Party-state demands. How can they overcome the instruction of the Party discipline and inspection teams and now the Party-run government supervisory commissions? It is much harder to vindicate rights in China’s corruption cases than in ordinary criminal cases, even if the case really involves only corruption rather than the continuing, if non-transparent, political struggle, local or national.

Thus far specific legislative improvements do not have much effect in Chinese practice. Moreover, it’s like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The new supervisory system does not offer significant protections against the arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention and torture that mark the criminal process even now, almost 70 years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The fear that the current corruption investigation system engenders in the business and bureaucratic elites is undoubtedly slowing economic development. Certainly, democratic countries that are the principal hiding places for absconding corrupt elements are very reluctant to return fugitives to a country that plainly will not allow them a fair and independent criminal process.

China should face up to the need for genuine reforms in the administration of justice from the moment of detention through the appeal procedure. China should consider establishing special procedures for the handling of cases of returned suspects that could inspire the confidence of foreign countries and provide a model for reforming the regular criminal process.

Kim Jong Un’s third trip to China!

By Jerome A. Cohen

Today’s Washington Post reports that Kim Jong Un has made a third trip to China for meetings today and tomorrow. He ought to get a commuter ticket and is beginning to look like a Chinese yoyo! John Fairbank must be smiling from the grave at this blatant resurrection of the Sinocentric world.

For Kim Jong Un to do this, without more than talk of a reciprocating visit by Xi Jinping, the stakes and pressures must be very high! For those who debate the importance of personal diplomacy this series must have great interest. Tune in tomorrow! 

Settling law of the sea disputes: international law is better than gunboats!

By Jerome A. Cohen

Subi Reef, May 2015, by United States Navy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s a piece from the WSJ on French warships asserting freedom of navigation in international waters in the South China Sea—The French Navy Stands Up to China. It may be helpful to emphasize that the location of the ship, airplane, other object or person in question is indeed a critical fact in these disputes. It’s like the secret of success in the hotel business— “location, location, location.”

More broadly, we also should not overlook the obvious, yet seldom-mentioned, fact that the disputing nations have peaceful means at their disposition to settle their many conflicting claims to territory, maritime boundaries and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) interpretations. Negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and adjudication are all set forth in the UN Charter, and UNCLOS and other pieces of international legislation provide details regarding the possibilities. It is not good enough for the U.S., China, France and others to employ gunboats to vaguely raise their claims in a threatening manner.

The Philippines, in its stunning arbitration claims against China, did try to resort to law and a decision by some of the world’s acknowledged independent legal experts in order to defend itself against a much stronger power. The durability and significance of the UNCLOS tribunal’s monumental arbitration award against China is now being tested, especially by a Chinese Government that is seeking to undermine the award in multiple ways.

The U.S. should ratify UNCLOS and subject itself to the UNCLOS compulsory dispute resolution procedures, as other states have. It would be good if Vietnam, Malaysia and other claimants were to challenge China to settle their disputes over who owns the Spratlys before the International Court of Justice. It would be good if Japan, whose Foreign Minister did challenge China to settle their Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute in the East China Sea before the ICJ in 2012, would also challenge some of China’s law of the sea actions and interpretations via the UNCLOS dispute resolution procedures, in the South China Sea as well as the East China Sea. And Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and others should also resort to those procedures to settle their various maritime claims. France should also explore its legal possibilities for contributing to peaceful settlement.

Since the U.S. has shamefully not ratified UNCLOS, that treaty’s procedural options are denied to Washington, which can only coach from the sidelines. In the long run Asian states may want to develop their own regional institutions for handling these problems, but they can do a lot even now. Gunboats are not the only weapons. We can and should make better use of the “weapons” of international law to help settle increasingly dangerous disputes.

Trump-Kim summit: possibility of North Korea’s developing a credible legal system?

By Jerome A. Cohen

With all the speculation about what positive outcomes might emerge from the Trump-Kim Singapore Summit, we might include the possibility that steps might well be taken to establish a more credible legal system in the DPRK, if only to enhance its economic development and its felt need to establish business cooperation with other countries that have until now understandably shunned the North.

There is no doubt that there has long been DPRK interest in developing a credible legal system, at least for the purpose of attracting foreign business. Both from 1998 to 2001 at Beijing University and in 2013-14 at Hong Kong University, with the collaboration of the Asia Foundation, my NYU colleague Dr. Myung-Soo Lee and  I organized, on behalf of our US-Asia Law Institute, a series of occasional small training programs for North Korean business officials eager to learn how to attract foreign trade and investment to their country. Also, in 1998 I twice took foreign investors that had successfully done business in China to Pyongyang for preliminary business discussions.

While North Korean economic officials had considerable experience with ordinary export/import transactions, they seemed totally unprepared for the complexities of Foreign Direct Investment projects. When at the start of our 2013 sessions I asked the group what they wanted to learn, their initial response was “Why doesn’t Coca Cola want to invest in Korea?” I replied, my head in my hands, by saying “Where to begin?”

Although the North was generally super-cautious about not letting us know the fruits of our labors, I know that our 1998 effort did produce an international commercial arbitration law, and I believe the DPRK did subsequently establish a law firm in Pyongyang to advise on foreign-related business after we spent a couple of days visiting Chinese and foreign law offices in Beijing.

Business law inevitably introduces the notion of government under law. Although the North Korean officials were incredulous about the glamourous offices of one of China’s leading international law firms, they were really stunned when a less prosperous government-owned law firm told them that one of their functions in representing Chinese people was to sue the government for arbitrary violations of administrative law. The chief Korean delegate’s reaction was: ”We don’t have that concept in our country.” Yet we know from infrequent recent reports that some Pyongyang residents have protested against arbitrary actions by the secret police and that their government has tried to improve the situation..

It will be interesting and significant to see whether, in legal aspects as in others, the DPRK will finally follow the paths of China and Vietnam. 

Taiwan’s peaceful use of Taiping Island highlights China’s militarization in South China Sea

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is a very good essay by Steven Myers of the NYTimes on “Island or Rock? Taiwan Defends Its Claim in South China Sea.” The draftsmen of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) could have spared the world a lot of confusion had they done a better job. Obviously Taiping Island is an island not only by the definition agreed on in UNCLOS but also in our common vernacular. But Article 121 of UNCLOS should have made it clearer that it deals with two types of islands—those entitled to a 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and those that are not. By calling the latter mere “rocks” the draftsmen set the stage for misunderstanding by the general public concerning the decision of the arbitral tribunal in the Philippines-China dispute since any observer can see that Taiping Island is an island in the commonly understood sense. As the tribunal concluded, however, Taiping Island is not an island entitled to an EEZ in accordance with the criteria stated in Article 121. If every small island were allowed an EEZ, it would produce chaos and conflicts in maritime affairs.

The best part about the Myers story is its emphasis on the peaceful uses to which Taiwan is putting its occupation of the island, in contrast to the militarization by China of features that it has occupied, some of which are not even properly subject to identification as islands at all because, in their natural state, they are not above water at high tide as Taiping Island is.

As Beijing began its artificial constructions on and militarization of these always submerged or low tide reefs and tiny islands – much tinier than Taiping Island, it had tried to assure the world that it was taking these actions largely for non-military purposes, thereby inspiring some of us to suggest that it demonstrate its peaceful intentions by allowing other states to share the use of these features and thereby avoid the crisis that Chinese military bases would inevitably induce. I also suggested that Taiwan open Taiping Island to a variety of international activities. Sadly, at this point, the multilateral option—always unlikely—now seems to be definitively off the charts, leaving the U.S. and China to search for other possible ways to resolve their emerging clash of interests.

What is happening in Xinjiang?

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here's a campaign launched by the Lantos Foundation and Uyghur NGOs. Bravo for their efforts to highlight the stunning, outrageous detention of hundreds of thousands of innocent Uyghurs in Xinjiang. But why is the international academic community largely silent about the current atrocities??? I hope that journalists are silently working to confirm the few reports that are published about what has to be the worst current abuses being committed in China, which says a lot! 

Who are the targets of the round-up? What are conditions in the concentration camps like? How long are people being held? What is the content of their “re-education”? What happens to those who are released? How many are transferred to the formal criminal process, either to “residential surveillance at a designated location” or to the regular detention, arrest, indictment, prosecution and punishment after “trials”??? What should be done to alert the world and to mobilize vigorous responses?  What are foreign governments doing in public and behind the scenes? I am proud of the U.S. Government’s very recent condemnation of Beijing’s shameful measures. Do the Turkic/Muslim countries feel no special obligation to speak out and act?

China sends Uyghurs to re-education camps as a “preventive measure”

By Jerome Cohen

Here is a Radio Free Asia report on the hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs who have been detained in “re-education” camps. The number detained may have reached one million, according to the estimate. This is far beyond the number of those who were retained for “re-education through labor” (RETL) at any given time in what were supposedly the last years of that notorious punishment. As I recall, there were usually said to be about 300,000 detained for RETL at that time.

We need to know much more about who has been recently detained in Xinjiang, for what reasons, by what procedures, for how long, for what type of “education” etc. Is it really true that people under 40 are being preventively detained without any basis for suspicion other than the fact that, because of their relative youth, they might be susceptible to evil thoughts and actions? This is a horrendous situation that makes a mockery of the Party’s claim that it is pursuing the “rule of law”. It invites comparisons with the early years of Hitler’s attack on the Jews.

It also makes me think of Lee Kuan-yew’s Singapore. Until the early ‘80s, when he changed his views, Lee prohibited Singaporeans under 40 or 45 (I forget which) who had been educated in the PRC from returning to Singapore, regarding them as security risks. Lee also resorted to preventive detention, but on a very limited scale and with respect to people who had at least demonstrated what he regarded as “left wing” sympathies. I hope those of us who observe developments in China will not look away from this ugly, worsening phenomenon in the Central Realm.