Behind China's veil

China has made unbelievable advances since they adopted a new platform in the 1980s, from a strict Maoist Communist platform, to one which integrated open trade agreements - generally referred to as Party-State-Capitalism.

It is important, however, to keep in mind that while China has made incredible advances economically, and astounding progress in morphing their nation in the last several decades, those advances have NOT been in the realm of human and civil rights.

On the surface, if you look at the contemporary picture, it appears as if the Chinese people are enjoying all the perks that we enjoy in democratic nations, but behind the scenes that is NOT the case.

Here are some critical points to keep in mind:

• Amnesty International notes that repressive laws and policies restrict freedom of expression, association, and assembly, and that people who organize or participate in peaceful protests can be arrested under broad charges like “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

• Human Rights Watch reports that there is effectively no independent civil society and that the government does not permit freedom of expression, association, assembly, or religion.

• Chinese people can gather socially, commercially, and culturally, but cannot freely gather for political, religious, or civic purposes without state oversight. The government’s priority is maintaining control and preventing any form of collective action that could challenge its authority.

• China’s constitution nominally guarantees freedom of assembly, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) places “social stability” above individual rights, and that priority shapes enforcement.

• Independent NGOs and human rights organizations consistently report that public gatherings—especially those not organized or approved by the state—are often suppressed.

• International human rights reviews describe China’s overall rights environment as poor, with regular violations of freedoms of speech, movement, religion, and assembly.

• Moreover, China has the largest surveillance network of any nation, with cameras watching its citizens at every turn. These cameras, along with the major apps used by the people, are, in conjunction with the big IT companies who own and operate those apps, providing a constant influx of information about the location and activities of EVERY citizen with a phone, of which there exists somewhere on the order of a BILLION phones in use. The CCP, the regime, stores and analyzes this information to form a digital profile of each citizen, and feeds that into what they call the Social Credit System or SCS, a system which rates the behavior of its citizens and shows on their phones - a sophisticated system of likes or dislikes, but numerically represented. Everyone rates everyone. If you take a Uber, you rate the driver, but the driver also rates you. If you cross the street on a red light, the security cameras catch this and this information is fed into the Social Credit System and affects your rating, which can actually affect your credit rating financially if your overall rating is inadequate. Essentially, the Social Credit System is nothing more than a behavioral monitoring and control system, but one which the Chinese people do not control, but quite the opposite, the regime uses it to assess behavior and conformity as well as tracking one’s every movement.

• When you see promotional videos coming out about how “safe” China is because the cameras prevent theft and crime, realize what is really going on behind the scenes.

• George Orwell’s book, 1984, is a complete reality in China - a totalitarian system of overwatch and control.

This is not intended to diminish the incredible advances made by the Chinese people, who ARE the REAL power in that nation, but rather to pull back the veil so there is no misperception about what is going on in China.

The Chinese regime, the CCP or Chinese Communist Party, are not the only culprits in this arena of human and civil rights violations. Try to publish or say anything in Russia against Putin’s regime or his outright invasion of Ukraine and his state police will be at your door faster than you can say Vodka. In North Korea if you dare to speak out against Kim Jong-un, you will probably be executed; and in Iran, the “Supreme Leader” deals with protests against his suppressive regime by mowing them down like cattle in the streets.

China is different, however, because China is progressive and it is an important part of global markets, interacting with many nations in open-market trading; whereas Russia is rapidly regressing back into its old-world and Stalinist ways at the hands of an insane dictator; while North Korea is simply the largest prison nation in the world, surrounded by a massive military, and Iran has not achieved significant progress because of its repressive regime which holds it back for decades now.

Nonetheless, when you see all the promotional videos coming out of China, which abound on YouTube, showing how cool and “normal” life is in China, keep in mind that no one is telling the full story, because the people making those videos, whether they are working for the CCP or even privately, cannot come out openly and tell the truth about the violation of their human rights without facing dire consequences.

The CCP’s objective is to keep the Chinese people corralled and toeing the line and while the quality of life for the Chinese people has undoubtedly improved over the past two decades or so, they are NOT free people - they are living in a social construct designed to keep them under State CONTROL.

Freedom is a human and civil right, and to that end, any constraints put on freedom is a contradiction of the very concept of civilization.

If you want to believe in aliens, Elvis or twenty-two gods, if you want to protest against a sitting government or fight inequality, its YOUR RIGHT - and no one, no agency and certainly no government, should have the power to shackle or dictate those rights.

Réal Laplaine

Author and human rights activist

www.reallaplaine.com