The Age (Australia): Too Close To The Bone (Photo)
Prime Minister John Howard recognises, correctly, that China will be vitally
important to Australia over the next half century, and has, rightly, done all he
can to assiduously cultivate good relations with that country. But the Government has naively thought it possible to dodge having to deal
with the more unsavoury nature of what, despite some progress on human rights,
is still a politically repressive regime. In pursuing the relationship, the Government has put its head in the sand
about the nastier side of China - and hoped the community would too. Then out pops Chen, appealing for political asylum and highlighting China's
dark side. It is a side Chen claims to know a good deal about. He says his job at the
consulate in Sydney focused on monitoring the activities of Falun Gong and other
dissident groups in Australia. His May 25 letter to the Immigration Department
seeking political asylum said: "My spirit is severely distressed for my sin
of working for the unjustified authority in somewhat evil way, and my hair turns
white quickly in the last four years for frequent nightmares." [...] His appeal threw the Government into a funk. It could only be bad news, just
when the bilateral relationship had a new glow, with Howard's successful visit
to China and the go-ahead for negotiations on an Australia-China free trade
agreement. It is unsurprising and quite reasonable that Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer rejected Chen being given platinum membership in the asylum club - what
is known as "territorial" asylum. Does anyone think that, after all this, Chen will be, or could be, sent back
to China?" That went, famously, to Vladimir Petrov, and also to a Ukrainian 18-year-old
in a red bikini who, in 1979, swam ashore from a Russian cruise ship in Sydney
Harbour. Territorial asylum was closely associated with the Cold War. Reserved for the
most serious cases, it is also a foreign policy statement - a declaration that a
person has come from an unfriendly country. This, obviously, is not the
situation with Chen. A territorial visa was unnecessary and would have been
provocative to the Chinese. It is not this refusal that is the problem; rather, it is the Government's
failure to properly and expeditiously give Chen appropriate protection. It
dithered, delayed and, when the affair broke open publicly, dissembled. Chen was quickly told he wouldn't get territorial asylum and must apply for
some other sort of visa if he really wanted to stay. Then there was a hiatus.
Downer and Foreign Affairs hoped the whole thing would go away - by Chen going
away. For once, Immigration isn't the villain. In Parliament this week, the
Government will be pushed on what Downer and his department said and did, and on
contacts, including by Immigration, with China's embassy and consulate. Eventually, an alarmed and desperate Chen went public last weekend. The
Government was caught in the spotlight, looking flustered. Downer and
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone contradicted one another over what had
happened. Downer argued there had been no application for political asylum. This
relied on the arcane point that you can't actually apply - the minister has to
take the initiative. The Government tried to make Chen sound like anyone else
seeking a protection visa. But, obviously, Chen is different from the 1000 or so Chinese who annually
apply while in Australia to stay here. (In 2003-04, 77 were granted protection
visas. The Chinese mostly come on regular visas and then apply. There is not a
high rate of overstayers among Chinese.) As a diplomat, Chen is automatically
special. The Government should have been upfront about that, and dealt with his
status at once. It is nonsense that his case is still being processed. The processing must
either be a farce or a disaster: a farce if it is assumed this is just going
through the motions, a disaster if he was told to return. Does anyone think
that, after all this, Chen will be, or could be, sent back to China? Hardly.
Tony Abbott and Peter Costello said as much during the week. "He is at no
risk of being sent back to China," Abbot said. If there was any doubt when
Chen approached the Government, there can't be after his public statements
since. So why not finalise his case at once? Chen's claim had a ripple effect. It flushed out Hao Fengjun, a former
officer with the 610 security bureau, who, in Australia on a tourist visa
earlier this year, applied for protection. Then came news of an unnamed former
state security official, witness to a man being beaten to death in China, who
has already been granted refugee status. Hao detailed persecution of dissidents in China. He also said he backed
Chen's claim of large numbers of informants in Australia, and told how the
activities of Falun Gong adherents here are reported back to China. This was a
further glimpse of a side of China that the Chinese don't want exposed and the
Australian Government would prefer not to have to confront. ASIO will examine whatever information Chen and Hao have, although there is
no great sense of excitement about it. It is not expected to relate to the high
end of Chinese espionage in Australia, and, in that sense, it is not so much
about "spying" on Australian secrets (strategic or economic) as about
Chinese pursuing other Chinese (which, while not acceptable, is just not as
interesting to our intelligence bods). It is well known that the Chinese watch and harass in Australia those
associated with Falun Gong and other dissident groups. In recent years, Australian authorities have warned Chinese officialdom
several times about overstepping the mark. Both the Australian and Chinese Governments have a strong interest in
preventing the Chen affair putting a serious dent in relations between the two
countries. Getting Chen's future settled fast would help. But that still leaves the issue of how the Government responds on the wider
matter of China's abuses of human rights. These are documented in a recent Amnesty International report covering 2004.
It said that there was progress towards reform in some areas, "but this
failed to have a significant impact on serious and widespread human rights'
violations perpetrated across the country. "Tens of thousands of people continued to be detained or imprisoned in
violation of their fundamental human rights and were at high risk of torture or
ill-treatment. "Thousands of people" the report said, "were sentenced to
death or executed, many after unfair trials." What is being highlighted in the political flow-on from the Chen affair is
the weakness of the Australian Government's stance on human rights in China. Not that the public has seemed too worried. Apart from the Greens' Bob Brown,
there hasn't been the same agitation in Australia as in the US, where activists
on both left and right have been vocal about Chinese behaviour. Falun Gong plaintiffs are now challenging in the ACT Supreme Court the orders
Downer signs that authorise police to stop its members holding banners and
making a noise outside the Chinese embassy. Downer has done this since 2002, under an international convention that
protects the dignity of diplomatic missions. Imagine if protesters could be stopped from holding banners outside the Lodge
or Parliament. In 2003, after Bob Brown and his Greens' colleague Kerry Nettle interrupted
President George Bush's address to the Australian Parliament, the two senators
were banned from the following day's parliamentary sitting that heard President
Hu Jintao. The Chinese had threatened that their President would not speak if
there was danger of an incident. A few years ago, Australia used to co-sponsor a resolution at the United
Nations Human Rights Commission. It replaced this with a dialogue with China on
human rights. The net result has been to play down the issue. In a May 2004 submission to a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's human
rights dialogue process, academic Ann Kent, from the Australian National
University's law faculty and a specialist on human rights in China, argued that
the dialogue was neither transparent nor effective. She said China made it a precondition of the talks that Australia didn't
co-sponsor resolutions and Australia insisted the dialogue shouldn't disturb
bilateral ties. "The result of these preconditions is that, every year, Australia
approaches the bilateral dialogue with its hands already tied behind its
back," she wrote. "It has no bargaining power: it is able neither to
invoke the possibility of international disapproval nor to apply sufficient
Australian pressure for fear of destabilising the relationship." Kent volunteered the submission but was not, despite her expertise, invited
to give evidence. It's no good the Government pretending, to itself or China, that the China
relationship can be all-round easy. Yes, we should do everything possible to
achieve close economic ties. But we should not let that compromise our voice as a liberal democracy that
holds, and, when appropriate, asserts, important human rights values.
Canberra's bumbling in its handling of Chinese diplomatic defector Chen
Yonglin is a direct result of a lack of clarity, realism and forthrightness in
the Federal Government's China policy.
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