Hong Kong, China, “Rendition” and Human Rights

By Jerome A. Cohen

Officials in Hong Kong are now planning to allow “rendition” (the Hong Kong-Mainland equivalent of  international “extradition”) of criminals to China. This would be a major change and a development that concerns Hong Kong’s special human rights protections.

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia have not finalized extradition treaties with China largely because of their concerns about the pervasive problems in China’s criminal justice system, including arbitrary detention, torture and other cruel treatment, coerced confessions, political prosecutions, unfair trials and capital punishment, especially for nonviolent crimes. For similar reasons Hong Kong—China’s Special Administrative Region—has not been able to conclude a “rendition” agreement with the PRC Central Government.

Hong Kong’s current plan to finally move towards a full rendition agreement with the Mainland must not violate the human rights protections that it acquired while still a UK colony under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The PRC promised to honor these protections after the former colony’s return to the Motherland. They include the non-refoulement principle, which requires governments not to expel any person to another territory if this would result in exposing him to the danger of arbitrary deprivation of life, or torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (and other serious violations of human rights, including, notably, expected violations of the right to a fair trial).   

My colleague Yu-Jie Chen and I have written an article on the human rights problems in Taiwan’s cross-strait “repatriation” agreement (also similar to an extradition arrangement but, like “rendition”, applicable to relations between governments of different parts of China) with Mainland China (see Yu-Jie Chen & Jerome Cohen, "China-Taiwan Repatriation of Criminal Suspects: Room for Human Rights?," Hong Kong Law Journal (2018), SSRN link here). The lessons learned from Taiwan’s experience with the Mainland should be of interest to those who are considering whether Hong Kong should strike a“rendition” deal to send fugitives to suffer the fate of those subjected to Mainland justice. Analogies to the protections provided in conventional international extradition treaties also must be considered.

Xinjiang and “re-education”

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here’s an excellent article by Sarah Cook, “The Learning Curve: How Communist Party Officials are Applying Lessons from Prior “Transformation” Campaigns to Repression in Xinjiang.”

It brings to mind earlier Chinese Communist Party efforts to transform Chinese citizens. Beginning with the start of the People’s Republic of China and especially in the early 1950s there was a genuine criminal justice effort to make “laogai” 劳改 (reform through labor or RTL) succeed in transforming those formally prosecuted by the regime. It is still, of course, the formal criminal justice analogue to “laojiao” 劳教 (re-education through labor or RETL), which started, at least under that name, in 1957 as a key aspect of the “anti-rightist” campaign. By that time, however, the efforts to impose “thought reform” on prisoners had already largely run out of steam as the emphasis of the captors shifted to conventional punishment and more realistic views of what that punishment might accomplish. 

Of course, Chairman Mao’s hopes to transform the young people of urban China and the Party’s bureaucrats into ”socialist new men and women” by shipping them off to the hardships of the countryside during the Cultural Revolution a decade later was an even grander vision destined for failure.

This long modern Chinese history makes me think of efforts in the U.S. to convert gay people into heterosexuals. It also makes me remember my brief wish to protect my first-born child against the evils of eating too many sweets by warning him: “Peter, if you misbehave again, we’ll make you eat chocolate”. But, not surprisingly, Peter liked chocolate and still does, as do I!!

Academic freedom in today’s China

By Jerome A. Cohen

Prof. Zhang Qianfan (source: Wiki Commons)

A constitutional law textbook authored by Professor Zhang Qianfan, a renowned Chinese constitutional scholar, has reportedly been pulled from book shops. Professor Zhang is a Peking University (“Beida”) reformer and a great person known to many in foreign, especially American, comparative law circles. He gave a fine talk at NYU Law School’s US-Asia Law Institute a year or two ago. It is very sad to see him and other distinguished Chinese colleagues, and their teaching and books, under attack.

I wonder what happens to the books withdrawn from the public. Will they be burned or thrown in the trash? Will Xi Jinping lock up the Beida law library again as it was in 1979 when Jim Feinerman, the late Tim Gelatt, Ellen Eliasoph and other future notables became the first American exchange students under the “Open Policy”? Will Chinese law professors and students again be cut off from foreign law teachers and lawyers, as I was cut off from them while teaching Chinese officials in 1979-81?

I spent that time in Beijing not as a visiting professor or scholar but as guest of the Beijing City Government, which was desperate to train its officials for joint venture negotiations with potential foreign investors. Yet Chinese law teachers and students were not allowed to get together with me, then the only resident American law teacher in China, even informally and socially. One criminal law professor did succeed in inviting me to give a lecture. I must have muffed the opportunity by talking candidly, since I never heard from him again and don’t know what became of him. By contrast, PRC Party secretaries and mayors invited me to lecture to hundreds of eager business officials all over the Eastern seaboard. Are we going to witness a return to that era?

I was very glad to see that Reuters quoted Professor Zhang Taisu of Yale Law School, my alma mater, in support of Zhang Qianfan, no relative I believe. Taisu, a brilliant economic historian-legal scholar who has just been promoted to full professor, has already begun to make good use of his permanent academic tenure. I am sure that many others of the remarkable cohort of Western academics now in the China law field will also want to be heard.

Conviction of Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang

By Jerome A. Cohen

Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for subversion. But, since we have not yet seen the court’s judgment and don’t know the details of his long detention, we cannot be certain what this sentence means.

Wang has been held in pre-trial and post-trial detention since July 2015, and detention time served is usually deducted from the sentence (with one-to-one credit for the days of regular detention and only half a credit for the days during which he was held in “residential surveillance at a designated location” or RSDL). This probably means that Wang can be expected to be released in April 2020 and perhaps even earlier, depending on how long he was confined in RSDL rather than regular criminal detention.  BUT the court may have deviated from the practice of giving credit for time already served prior to sentence, which would mean no release until mid-2023!

In light of the harsh sentences rendered to some other lawyers punished in the 709 crackdown, IF the court has followed the standard sentencing practice, it appears that the Chinese Communist Party/government has gone relatively (and unexpectedly) light on Wang. So many factors go into the sentencing decision. How has he behaved? What shape is he in? Has he made any apparently sincere commitment to abide by the secret promises usually extracted from a convicted person to be a “good boy” upon release? Has the Party decided to look lenient because of the intense world interest, the abusive and unusually lengthy pre-sentence detention Wang suffered and the current widespread international condemnation of China for its abominable misbehavior toward the three Canadians who are being punished in retaliation for Canada’s handling of America’s extradition request of the Huawei executive? 

Pressures on Wang not to appeal must be very great. Some convicted defendants decline to appeal because they know that the appeal process will not result in a favorable outcome and only extends the time they will remain confined in conditions that are often much more uncomfortable than the prison cell that awaits them once the appellate process has run its course. To be sure, we don’t know in what kind of shape Wang is mentally and physically and whether he has been subjected to any of the horrific “medical” treatment designed to break the will of so many political defendants. He may not be in condition to carefully weigh the wisdom of an appeal. If he is still capable of rational decision and retains his courageous determination, he may wish to appeal simply to avoid the inference that he accepts the decision as a correct and just one.

In any event it should be noted that only giving half sentencing credit for time served in RSDL is grossly unfair, since conditions tend to be more coercive than if the suspect is detained in an ordinary jail, even though an ordinary detention cell can be extremely uncomfortable. RSDL is not “house arrest” in one’s own home but in that of the secret police. I think double credit should be given for every day of RSDL until that vile detention practice is abolished, as it should be!!

The Code of Criminal Procedure limits RSDL to a three-month term that can be renewed once. Yet I have long suspected that police have meted out more than the maximum six-months RSDL term on some occasions by purporting to charge the hapless suspect with another “national security” offense that supposedly deserves their investigation. This may have occurred in the Wang case and perhaps the delay in issuing the judgment is related to an attempt to obscure that situation.

Wang Quanzhang, wife and son (Wang Quanxiu via AP)

Chinese detention of Australian blogger Yang Hengjun

Jerome A. Cohen

The Chinese government has confirmed it has detained Yang Hengjun, a naturalized Australian who is a famous blogger in China, in “residential surveillance.”

The PRC’s actions in this case—including failure to inform the Australian embassy within three days of his detention and the reason for detention, and failure to provide consular access—are in plain violation of the required consular protections under the China-Australian consular agreement.

“Residential surveillance” sounds comforting but the version now so much in vogue in the PRC is not the original residential surveillance that might be considered similar to “house arrest” in other countries but “the designated location” version (RSDL) that Ai Weiwei’s illustration of his personal experience has done so much to expose. It is absurd to call it “house arrest” or claim it is similar to “home detention”, as Australia’s Defense Minister recently said mistakenly. Actually, Ai Weiwei’s theater and art show a tough, endless regimen that is nevertheless milder than that to which too many others have been subjected. RSDL frequently constitutes impermissible torture that violates both Chinese and international law.

If we go to China in the current circumstances, those of us critical of certain PRC actions now risk six months of RSDL for “investigation” of charges of possibly violating China’s “national security”. So far, as we have just seen in the PRC’s latest reaction to the Canadian-American Meng Wanzhou case, foreign critics of PRC “hostage justice” have only been attacked for “interfering with China’s sovereignty”. If we now dare to visit China, will we, like hapless blogger Yang, be detained for possibly “interfering with China’s national security”?

Normalization of Sino-American Relations: 40 Years Later

By Jerome A. Cohen

In light of the 40th anniversary of the normalization of US-China relations, many are reflecting whether the US made the right decision 40 years ago. As an advocate for and participant in the process of normalization, I offer my thoughts in this piece, which is in part a response to the prevailing ill-advised argument that the US should not have engaged China:

• Jerome A. Cohen, Normalization of Sino-American Relations: 40 Years Later, ChinaFile, Jan. 9, 2019. (The Chinese version is available at BBC Chinese: 观点：中美建交40年美国是否失策 谁是最大的赢家？.)

China-Taiwan Relations Re-examined: The '1992 Consensus' and Cross-strait Agreements

By Jerome A. Cohen

Given the recent dueling speeches of Xi Jinping and Tsai Ing-wen, readers might be interested in my forthcoming article co-authored with Yu-Jie Chen on the “1992 Consensus” and cross-strait agreements (Our assessment of the “1992 Consensus” can be found in Section I).

This article was completed in December 2018, but the New Year speeches of Xi and Tsai only vindicate our analysis about the divergent views of the “1992 Consensus.” Their speeches, together with the response from the Kuomintang (KMT) rejecting Xi’s proposal of “One Country, Two Systems,” make it ever clearer that there was no genuine “consensus” about sovereignty issues disputed by the PRC and ROC governments. Notably, Xi Jinping’s remarks, linking “One Country, Two System” with the “1992 Consensus,” depart from China’s previous implicit practice not to publicly challenge the KMT’s position of “One China, Respective Interpretations.”

Canada, China’s Schellenberg’s retrial and Beijing’s calculating maneuvers

By Jerome A. Cohen
On December 29 a Chinese appellate court ordered a retrial in the drug-smuggling case of a Canadian citizen named Schellenberg on the ground that the trial court’s sentence of 15 years of imprisonment was too light.

This is a clever move on the part of the PRC Government. Ostensibly the case has no relation to the Canadian extradition arrest of the chief financial officer,Meng Wanzhou, of the major Chinese technology company Huawei. Yet the court’s action adds significantly to the already great pressure on Canada brought to bear by the PRC’s recent arrest, detention and investigation of two other Canadian nationals for unnamed supposed national security crimes, leaving it open to the PRC to impose the death penalty or the death penalty with a two-year suspension or life imprisonment on Schellenberg at any time that might suit Beijing over the next few months or even years. Absent strong international protest against this obvious further PRC effort to distort its own justice system for political ends, I think there will be no final sentence in the Schellenberg case until the extradition case is resolved.

This drug prosecution was a weird, political case even before the Canadian extradition issue arose, taking the trial court over 32 months to impose sentence after the trial hearing. This usually only happens when there is immense behind the scenes lobbying over the inadequacy of the evidence and/or the diplomatic pressure brought by the foreigner’s government.

That the appellate court’s action in the Schellenberg case, which is unusual in itself, is related to the Canadian case is confirmed by the Chinese propaganda agency’s surprise invitation for some foreign media to attend and publicize the appellate court hearing. That certainly wasn’t done when the case was first tried in 2016 or when the defendant was finally sentenced in November this year, before the Canadian extradition was initiated. 

Canada-China legal war

By Jerome A. Cohen

Some observers think the US-PRC trade war is a good thing since it stimulates some reforms in the PRC economic system. It may be that the Canada-PRC legal war will prove a good thing if it stimulates some reforms in the PRC legal system.

At least it is stimulating world attention to China’s legal system. Until now most of that attention has been bad for Beijing’s image. The PRC is seen to be interfering in Canada’s domestic legal system in absolute contravention of Beijing’s constant proclamations of its own sovereign rights when it is confronted with cases involving foreigners. Moreover, its own legal system is also seen to be dreadful and grossly unfair when the PRC itself handles cases involving foreigners — vague charges against apparently fine people who can be held for many months incommunicado without access to lawyers, family and friends and subject to coercion of various kinds that leaves no marks but stimulates public TV confessions.

The invitation of PRC propagandists for foreign journalists to attend court proceedings in Dalian against alleged Canadian drug smuggler​ is designed to counteract this situation. Here it shows that not all Canadians are fine people and that their violations of Chinese law can amount to more than minor visa violations, and indeed involve drug smuggling, which has always raised grave concerns today and in the past in both societies. And this case, held in open trial, will try to show that Chinese justice operates in a respectable way that treats Canadians fairly in terms of international human rights standards. It will also, presumably, present the justification for what could be a very long sentence that may not be immediately announced, adding to Chinese pressures upon the Canadian Government, since even the death penalty could be in the offing.

Human Rights Lawyer Wang Quanzhang's Secret Trial

By Jerome A. Cohen

Wang Quanzhang, who has been detained incommunicado since July 2015, was reportedly tried today in a secret trial that neither his wife nor supporters could attend.

Wang Quanzhang and his wife Li Wenzu, with their child. Credit: Li Wenzu, via Associated Press

I didn’t have the good fortune to know Wang Quanzhang but I know what he stands for and what the public martyrdom that is his trial symbolizes. Wang, of course, represents the best, yet vain, efforts of many valiant Chinese human rights lawyers to establish the rule of law in an increasingly repressive Communist system. Like so many of his colleagues, Wang has been crushed after losing his freedom for more than 1,200 days. The wonder is that it has taken his captors such an impressively long time to prepare the secret trial.

In a year when “justice” has been chosen to be the world’s most prominent word, what we are allowed to know of Wang’s so-called trial is a brief but potent demonstration of “injustice”. Yet Chairman Mao once said that we should never underestimate the educational value of negative examples!

What’s going on with Huawei, China, Canada and the US?

I’ve been following the intriguing story about the US effort to extradite from Canada Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of Huawei’s founder. The case raises many Interesting questions, including why the US Government chose Canada, why it chose to initiate the action at this time, what coordination actually occurred within the USG, how did the Canadian government analyze the situation before acting and what actions will the PRC take other than those already reported.

On the coordination on China policy within the US Government, it remains unclear whether this move is part of a well-thought out, overall carrot/stick policy, a move by hardliners trying to torpedo any possible agreement with the PRC or a move by Justice, Homeland Security and State (and Treasury??) simply to pursue an independent track relating to law enforcement despite its impact on the trade negotiations.

There may well have been poor and thoughtless USG coordination in this case, but at least one report indicated that John Bolton knew this was coming (while another report has said no one who attended the Trump-Xi dinner knew before that occasion). One cannot eliminate at this point the suspicion of mischievous interference with the Sino-American effort to resolve the trade dispute.

Canada’s willingness to make the arrest is also notable and must have been the product of extensive negotiations within the Government and with the U.S. Yet whoever did the final calculations on the Canadian side may now regret that decision because of the increasingly severe damage to Ottawa’s relations with Beijing, although Canada has on a number of occasions stood up against the PRC on international law matters.

What the independent Canadian courts are likely to do with the extradition request may be another matter. Without detailed knowledge of the case presented, prediction is always hazardous but it is unlikely that the request will fail, although some able Canadian lawyers may argue that the matter is “political” rather than legal and therefore inappropriate for extradition. I felt confident that bail would be granted with restrictions on Ms. Meng’s activities since bail was granted to Mr. Lai Changxing of China after he illegally fled to Canada to avoid, at least for many years, being prosecuted in China for being allegedly the greatest smuggler in Chinese history!

What I find attractive in the Canadian Huawei case is the attention it has directed not only to the extraterritorial application of criminal law but also to extradition treaties and relevant domestic legislation, procedures and court adjudication as well as related problems of rendition, deportation, repatriation and ad hoc interstate negotiations that increasingly confront China, the U.S. and others. Hong Kong and Taiwan also struggle with these issues in relation to Beijing.

Of course, the USG might have sought Meng’s extradition from China itself, even in the absence of a US-PRC extradition treaty. It is not necessary for two countries to have a bilateral extradition treaty in order to achieve extradition or a similar result such as through deportation. Informal negotiations often accomplish extradition or the equivalent goal. The US does have an extradition treaty with Hong Kong, where Ms. Meng undoubtedly spends a lot of time, but Beijing would plainly have ordered the Hong Kong Government to deny cooperation, as it did not long ago in a less important case, for the first time in the twenty-year history of  the US-HK agreement.

It is laughable that Global Times should call this lawful, official international process “hooliganism”. The PRC is notorious for real officially-authorized “hooliganism”. And now, in its retaliation against Canadian nationals in China, the PRC is again demonstrating its zest for abusing criminal justice!

Taiwan-Japanese Relations and a Rock!

By Jerome A. Cohen

Aerial view of Okinotorishima, Japan. (source: 国土交通省関東地方整備局, Japan)

Taiwan and Japan, despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations, have just signed another agreement and four MoUs on commercial and various matters, in the context of closer ties since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taiwan in 2016. I wonder what is going on in the quiet negotiations between Taiwan and Japan over the more sensitive Japanese claim that Okinitorishima is entitled to an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles and therefore Japan can restrict Taiwan fishermen from large and rich areas.

The 2016 Philippine arbitration award against China could be invoked by Taiwan in support of its opposition to the EEZ claim but it may be impolitic for Taiwan to do so in light of its need for Japan’s support in other matters (additionally, the arbitration award is not legally binding on Taiwan since Taiwan was not allowed to be a party to the arbitration proceeding, and Taiwan has therefore rejected the arbitration award).

Japan and Taiwan will probably try to work out a compromise on this issue before the 2020 presidential election in Taiwan in light of a possible KMT return to power that would oust Tsai’s DPP administration. The KMT administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (2008-16) was openly hostile to Japan on this fishing rights issue. The EEZ claim, giving Japan control over the resources of a huge sea area, has implications that go far beyond fish and is based on tiny islands not much larger than a king-size bed!

Worldwide scholars' statement on Xinjiang's mass incarceration

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here's a statement [https://concernedscholars.home.blog/; PDF here] signed by a very large number of scholars and China specialists worldwide to protest Xinjiang's “re-education” camps that detain hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs. The statement also offers suggestions for action by governments and academic institutions around the world.

China, Xinjiang and UN Human Rights Review

By Jerome A. Cohen

Source: AP (Uyghur protesters outside the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Nov. 6, 2018.)

On Nov.6, the People's Republic of China underwent its third UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which is a peer review at the Human Rights Council of China's human rights record. Each country, ridiculously, only had 45 seconds to speak! All eyes were watching if China's mass incarceration of Muslims in Xinjiang and related repression outside the detention prisons would be criticized. Many countries did speak out, including the U.S., Canada, Germany and the UK. The only Muslim country that raised this issue is Turkey. It is shameful that Muslim countries and their regional organizations have done so little to date. The PRC cleverly lined up a large number of sycophant states to sing its praises and take time away from states that wanted to be critical. (All UPR-related documents are here at the UN's website.)

The PRC has moved relentlessly to increase its influence over the Human Rights Council while the U.S. has withdrawn from it. Accordingly, many countries, including developing and authoritarian countries that rely on China's economic ties, lavished high praise on China's human rights achievements, instead of treating the session seriously.  But there are a few other UN possibilities for condemning the PRC’s misconduct in Xinjiang and elsewhere, for example, the recent criticism of the PRC by the committee that reviews violations of the racial discrimination treaty. Other treaty review committees can also become relevant forums. The UN Working Group on arbitrary detention is another institution that quietly—too quietly—frequently condemns PRC violations against individuals..

Demands by the High Commissioner for Human Rights to send special rapporteurs to China on one mission or another have occasionally been acceded to by Beijing after very long pressure and have resulted in withering criticisms of the PRC’s dictatorial suppression. I don’t expect Beijing to allow any such scrutiny over Xinjiang soon, but it depends on how much international public opinion becomes informed on what is taking place. There are many opportunities for regional groups outside the UN to embarrass the PRC for its human rights oppression, for example, NATO, the EU and the various Western countries’ economic policy meetings. 

NGOs and academics have become much more active. As one of the organizers of the recent protest by public speakers promising to criticize the PRC for Xinjiang atrocities, I mention this in every public appearance, as do many of the over 250 China watchers who have taken the pledge. I hope there will be a multiplicity of the above efforts.

Cornell, Renmin University and Academic Freedom

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here’s a good article containing Eli Friedman’s thoughtful explanation of what led to the break with his labor colleagues at Renmin University in Beijing. As he predicts, we will see more of these problems as the impact of Xi Jinping’s repression becomes more severe. 

Yet, as Eli recognizes, these are not new problems, only more apparent and numerous in the “new era”. Previous incidents of interrupted Sino-American academic cooperation have often gone unreported. Some were caused by changes in the Party leadership at a given institution or changes in local government policy. The U.S. side would often seek to find some compromise that would save the cooperation. In each case it would be necessary to balance the pros and cons of continuing with the original Chinese partner, and sometimes it was possible to find a better opportunity at another Chinese institution if the tipping point came at the initial place. 

In view of today’s increasing repression, these problems have become more challenging, and Eli has done a public service by ventilating Cornell’s experience and reaction. 

My Sept. 12 talk at Yale on “Law and Power in China and its Foreign Relations”

Jerome A. Cohen

I gave a talk last month at Yale’s Paul Tsai China Center [link here]. It’s about an hour long, and tries to contrast the differences between PRC theory and practice regarding domestic and international law. It also started with a protest against what the PRC is doing against Muslims in Xinjiang.

Jerome A. Cohen ’55, a professor at NYU School of Law and founding director of its U.S.- Asia Law Institute, discussed China and foreign relations on September 12, 2018. The event was hosted by the Paul Tsai China Center.

Provisional Agreement between Holy See and China on the appointment of bishops

Jerome A. Cohen

Today's English language announcement—simple but fascinating in its nuances—seems to be on the track that many observers have envisaged. It is designed to minimize the concerns of both Taiwan and Cardinal Zen and to give Beijing a continuing incentive to do better. If implementation disappoints the Vatican, it can, without significant embarrassment, not move on to a more conclusive agreement. We should scrutinize the Chinese text.

One of my favorite Chinese phrases is "Xuyao yige guocheng" (Everything requires a process), which in this case can certainly be rendered as "Rome wasn't built in a day".

Xinjiang Initiative

From today’s South China Morning Post [click to view in browser]

Muslims in Xinjiang are facing human rights abuses: time for China scholars to break the silence

By Kevin Carrico and Jerome A. Cohen

Since 2016, Xinjiang’s ongoing “re-education” campaign against local Muslims has expanded into a vast system of concentration camps, currently estimated to hold nearly 10 per cent of the area’s roughly 11 million Uygurs, as well as many of the smaller Kazakh minority. Prisoners are detained not because of any crime, but because of their ethnicity, their Muslim faith, their seemingly irreconcilable difference from China’s ethnic Han majority.

Countless lives have been destroyed, as people are held indefinitely in these camps, without due process. Detainees are pressured, under the watchful eyes of guards, to abandon their religious beliefs, and sing songs and repeat slogans praising the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping. Families have been torn apart. In some cases, they have no idea where relatives are held: people simply disappear.

At this intersection of indefinite arbitrary detention, political indoctrination, family destruction and forced eradication of customs, an entire culture is being erased. These are horrific developments that should have no place in the 21st century.

What can be done? The silence of most China specialists is disturbing, yet also unsurprising. Those of us who know China best have many reasons to rationalise not speaking out. Doing so risks the wrath of a rising power that is determinedly hostile to criticism, and that closely monitors what scholars say and write about sensitive topics. Yet, none of these reasons should be sufficient to warrant silence in the face of crimes against humanity.

To encourage greater awareness and discussion of the ongoing abuses in Xinjiang, with more than a hundred other scholars, authors, artists, and other public speakers, we have begun a “Xinjiang Initiative” – pledging to use our public platforms to speak for those who suffer but cannot be heard.

Participants pledge to use every public event in which they appear to remind their audiences that roughly a million people are being held in extra-legal internment camps, and that these detentions are solely due to detainees’ ethnicity or religion. Participants are also encouraged to share personal stories of detainees to put a human face on these inhuman policies.

If you have a public platform to raise awareness of this appalling repression, please join us. Information about the Xinjiang Initiative, how to join and a list of signatories to date is at www.xinjianginitiative.org.

Kevin Carrico, lecturer, Macquarie University, and Jerome A. Cohen, director, New York University US Asia-Law Institute

China, Vatican and Taiwan

By Jerome A. Cohen

The Vatican is reportedly discussing an agreement with China on the status of China's Catholic Church and appointment of bishops. If an agreement is concluded, would that indicate the Vatican’s severance of its diplomatic ties with Taiwan?

Every one of Taiwan’s remaining formal diplomatic relationships has its distinctive features, but the Vatican’s is the most special, of course. I assume that ROC diplomats are working hard to separate a Vatican-PRC agreement on “only religion” from other matters.

The ROC on Taiwan, of course, has a huge amount of experience on how a government, by necessity, often has to make agreements on “cultural and economic” matters with governments with which it does not maintain formal diplomatic relations, and how such agreements can often be used as a cover for political, legal and other contacts as well. We should not forget that the PRC, for the first three decades of its existence until “normalization” of its relations with the U.S. in 1979 and especially in the ‘70s, broadened and strengthened its relations with some other governments despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Perhaps the Vatican’s second step beyond the current one will be to establish a special type of “liaison office” (lianluo chu) in Beijing, adopting a religious variation of the American office established in Beijing in 1973, six years before “normalization”! International law is rich in flexible examples, and the Vatican has made many unusual arrangements with various states.

I got a kick out of the ROC representative in Rome’s saying that it maintains a “smooth flow of information” with the Vatican. Was this supposed to be illustrated by the Vatican representative in Taiwan’s refusal to comment when asked questions by the local media?

Professor Albert Chen’s forthcoming fifth edition on China’s legal system and my Foreword on Xi Jinping’s “ruling the country in accordance with law”

Dear Friends,

Professor Albert Hung-yee Chen of the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law is going to publish the 5th edition of his outstanding book, An Introduction to the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China (link to 4th ed.). I highly recommend it to students of the Chinese legal system.

I have written a Foreword for this new edition to offer a brief reference to the current depressing legal scene under Xi Jinping’s rule. My Forewords for three previous editions, as early as 1992, discussed the then developments of Chinese law. Read together, these remarks sketch out a trajectory of more than two decades.

Best,

Jerry