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Originally Posted by anya
You are correct that there are several interpretations given if you look on the net. I guess I would go along with ' Universal rights to which every person is entitled because they are justified by a moral standard that stands above the laws of any individual.' Clearly then you are left with the question as to who decides what these rights are. I am happy to go along with Amnesty International. It deals with these same rights through out the world and hence can be seen as a general standard for all
Yes, and this does get widespread media attention here. If this happens in the US it is on our headlines here in the UK. The Rodney King incident in 1992 gave rise to riots when the police were let off by the jury ignoring the evidence. These things are bad and people get well upset about them, but at the present time they are not the norm. If they were there would be a lot more marches and publicity and people working for them to change.
I don't agree this is an internal issue. This is an issue about human rights and so is of interest to us all due to us all being human.
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The problem is how the Western Nations do this. Whenever China has problem with 'human rights', the Western Nations have no second thoughts to use the Media to shame China. Second, these Western Nations only care about 'human rights' of the people who are backed by Western NGO's, like the Tibetans and activists like Hu Jia. There were numerous protests by the Chinese that has no political motivation that it was not harshly cracked down, nor do the West have any interest on them, as an example that cindy6 posted about.
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We don't see Chinese cops manhandling their own citizens here in the UK, but if they do and human rights groups get to hear about it then it is correct to note it, in the same way as it is correct to note what is happening in Guantanamo Bay and any other abuses that it finds in any country in the world.
I accept that China is not used to this, but if it is going to become part of the International community it cannot avoid it, just the same as every other nation cannot avoid it.
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Believe it or not, the chinese government does change for the better. Unfortunately, this is not what the West advertise.
Sun Zhigang's brutal killers sentenced
This is another incident that the Western Nations didn't care about.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Conflicts mar Guangdong dream
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You are right that these issues were not given much mention on the news and I think that was wrong. I have to be honest though I would have thought China would have been pleased about this as it would have brought more attention and interest about the situation in Tibet.
Well this could be what you have been seeing, but I doubt if this is how most people with any level of education would view things.
There are though some fundamental differences. These are so strong that they cannot be left alone...and I guess they belong to a person's right to choose how they live their lives - hence the support for free Tibet, people's rights to speak their minds and their rights to be treated in a humane manner. As I said these are Internationally accepted norms and all countries which do not live by them will be criticized.
That is not to say there is not a wealth of good in China and that that there are not things which the world could benefit from, it is just that some things are just so basic you cannot pretend they are not happening...wherever they are happening, in China or anywhere else.
China is going through a sort of non violent revolution at the moment. That includes beginning to have contact with the outside world. In the next 20 years China like other countries will change a great deal. None of us knows how this will happen, but it will.
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The problem is that the Western Nations don't see eye-to-eye with most of the Chinese citizens on what they want on democratic reforms and human rights issues. The West uses its political muscle to support the Tibetan protesters and the Free Tibet movement, whereas most of the Chinese citizens against the Tibetan protesters and the Free Tibet movement because they are considered splittists. Most of the Chinese Citizens sees human rights issues with the 2 mentioned above, yet the West didn't feel it is important enough to flex their political muscle on this issue. They also know what are the environmental issues like what cindy6 mentioned earlier, again, the West didn't flex their political muscle on that issue also.
I think if the West can help China to get rid of the corruption within China, it would be a giant step towards to a more democratic country.