Why I always feel compelled to qualify criticisms of China

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Why I always feel compelled to qualify criticisms of China….

Whenever I write articles critical of China, there comes a point, usually when I’m almost finished, that I run into a wall. Scrawled across the wall is the taunting graffiti of my conscience that begs the question:

…and the US?

Nearly every criticism I level against China regarding its abuses of civil liberties or its demands that the world play by its rules (or they’ll boycott your movies and/or products) force me to acknowledge that the US often does quite the same thing, to some extent. The double standards the American government often demands of the international community are becoming worrisome to many of us, and some of the Bush administration’s less-than-savory attempts to fight terrorism have generated substantial indignation both in- and outside of the US.

Obviously, the level of dissent in the US vastly outweighs that found in China, and, while the government has attempted at times to silence certain individuals, I know of know instances where the government has descended upon a group of protesters with force or silenced and intimidated grieving parents after, say, a natural disaster.

What really gets under my skin, though, is that the present administration’s penchant for authoritarian-style tactics in fighting for freedom is undermining the US’ credibility around the world in trying to resolve disasters like Darfur, Burma, etc. The “One Percent Doctrine” might help root out some terrorists (though we’ve never been given proof that it has), but it also does a lot to tarnish the image of the US, which in turn leads to more people willing to participate in “terrorist” actions and cripples the US in its diplomatic forays.

Oh, and we created a new failed state, which is great for fomenting terrorism.

That said, you can imagine my glee in reading that the current tactics being implemented in Guantanamo Bay, the beach resort from hell, were actually lifted straight out of a study on Chinese torture of captured American soldiers during the Korean War.

In case you didn’t catch that, I’ll let Scott Shane take it from here [all emphasis mine]:

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

I mention this for two reasons. First, as a disclaimer. Nearly every article I write about China usually includes something along the lines of me acknowledging that the US is responsible for egregious offenses and that I view neither China or the US as “evil places.” This is no different. I am not villainizing the US here, nor China in other places.

Second, it’s to emphasize the deleterious effects that the Administrations cavalier methods have had on the US’ soft power. The platform from which we once spoke, imperfect as it may have been, when declaring our opposition to human rights abuses and injustice around the world has been hatcheted by our own actions since 9-11. Allowing the world to look us right in the eye and ask, “Who are you to talk to me about abuse? How was it different when you did it?”

Most Visited Article Pages

How long should we wait for democratic reforms in China?

Does the US encourage China's militarization of space?

The importance of Tourism in Taiwan

Continuing Talk of Education in Taiwan, the US, and France

Discussions with the Strawberry Generation

The Global Generation Gap

Willing to fight for Independence?

Learning that there is no "mainland"

The Culture of Cute

Tech and learning Chinese

Taiwanese media: the bad side of freedom