Twenty Million Chinamen Can't Be Jailed
			By Peter Brodsky
	News Analysis
	China ratified the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a United Nations human rights treaty. The treaty guarantees citizens access to food, medical care, housing and education, and the right to form labor unions.  China's official announcement that immediately followed the treaty's passage suggested that it is not committed to Article 8, which grants the right to form and join free labor unions.
	The New China news Agency reported that the Chinese legislature will assume the obligations prescribed by Article 8 with relevant provision of China's Constitution.  Article 8 states that "no restrictions" may be placed on the right to organize, "other than those prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."  China has given no signs that it will interpret article 8 as a need to reform its human rights policies. The state-sanctioned All China Federation of Trade Unions prohibits the formation of independent Labor Unions. Nor does the Chinese Constitution recognize the right to strike
	However, the new law grants the United Nations to occasionally evaluate China's policies, including its labor practices. This will formally open the door to international questioning of the China human rights situation
	"On the one hand, the Chinese government is continuing to use its repressive measures.  On the other, it has to make some concessions to answer the international criticism," Xiao Qiang, executive director of the New York-based group Human Rights in China, told reporters.
	The Chinese hope that the ratification will influence two international votes. On March 19, in Geneva, a United Nations meeting on human rights will convene to decide whether to censure China for its continuing human rights violations. Also, China is hoping that in July, when the International Olympic Committee meets, the 2008 Summer Games will be given to Beijing, a prize that China believes would affirm its growing international prestige
	A spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, Zhang Qiyue, said the treaty "has a profound meaning" for China.  "We have found the right path suited to China's circumstances in promoting and developing human rights," Zhang said.
	China continues to indicate that it will not sign what is considered to be the more important and more sweeping of the two United Nations human rights conventions, the Convention on Civil and Political Rights. The accord enshrines rights in which Chinese rulers have, thus far, shown no interest, like universal suffrage, freedom of association and freedom to live where one chooses.
	China has repeatedly jailed scores of people for independent labor activity, and it has refused any "technical assistance" from the International Labor Organization to improve its labor practices.  Police continuously use a procedure which is now central to the debate over human rights in China.  Crimes that can not be worded to match official language are punished by what is called "Labor Re-Education."  "Education" means simply that the offender is locked in a cell and struck with electric prods or beaten.  Afterwards the offender must write a self-criticizing statement issuing that he has been re-educated.  Official figures show that nearly 300 such camps currently exist. They hold some 260,000 Chinese, political dissidents.
	On February 27th, one Chinese official publicly disparaged a request by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, that China close labor camps where people are detained without trial, sometimes for years. China responded that U.S. treatment of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, was appalling and an unwarranted detention of an innocent man. Chinese government officials added that the U.S. has no authority to comment on "detention without trial."
	As Chinese legal practices are subjected to international scrutiny under the new law, the labor re-education system has emerged as one of the most blatant violations of international standards, including the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a doctrine that China has signed.
	Washington's Asian Division of Human Rights Watch told China that it should clarify its commitment to the recently signed treaty by releasing jailed labor organizers and accepting an offer by the International Labor Organization to help bring China's labor laws into compliance with world standards. China refused.
	The U.S. State Department has concluded that despite seven years of actively developing American economic engagement with China, the human rights situation has only worsened with "intensified crackdowns" on political dissenters and "any person or group perceived to threaten the (Chinese) government."
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