China often claims that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China, citing shared roots. However, the political systems and human rights practices on both sides of the Taiwan Strait differ drastically. A recent report from a human rights organization shows that China ranks at the bottom of several human rights indicators, while Taiwan stands out, performing above the average for many countries.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a human rights group based in New Zealand, invites human rights workers and scholars to assess the human rights situation in countries around the world based on internationally recognized human rights standards and publishes scores. China scored only 1.9 points for basic human rights such as freedom of assembly, association, and expression, surpassing only Saudi Arabia, but tied with Bangladesh for second-to-last among the 38 countries assessed. China also scored only 2.3 points for personal integrity rights, such as freedom from arbitrary arrest or enforced disappearance, surpassing Mozambique and Kenya and ranking third from the bottom among the 37 countries. The report points out that China's respect for basic human rights and personal integrity is significantly below average, particularly for fundamental rights such as citizen participation in politics, which scored only 1.9 points, indicating that many people in China do not enjoy the political freedoms and rights they deserve.
Taiwan, by contrast, ranked second and first in fundamental human rights and personal integrity, respectively. Taiwan also achieved perfect scores in indicators such as respect for the death penalty and religious belief. The report noted that this demonstrates that the majority of Taiwanese enjoy political freedom and fundamental human rights, and that Taiwanese citizens are more empowered than in other countries.
Human rights ratings on both sides of the Taiwan Strait differ dramatically. Human rights groups: This reflects the difference between authoritarian and democratic systems.
Pan Jiawei, head of East Asian affairs at the Human Rights Assessment Initiative, told this station that China's scores on some indicators were not the worst, which was related to the wars and publicized extrajudicial executions in some of the countries being assessed. However, due to limited access to information, extrajudicial executions in China are very similar to the oppression of Uyghurs and Tibetan monks in Xinjiang. Information can only be provided by their families and scholars abroad, and it is difficult to collect data on actual extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances. Therefore, the problem of human rights violations in China may be underestimated.
Pan Jiawei said that the huge difference in the scores of China and Taiwan in various human rights indicators is related to the polarization of the political systems on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Pan Jiawei said, "The biggest difference between China and Taiwan is the existence of democracy, which is also the difference between totalitarian and democratic systems. Taiwan has a parliament, civil society, and journalists to oversee the government. The president and vice president are elected every four years, and there is a rotation of political parties. It is a fully functioning democratic system. Taiwan will not allow anyone to be forcibly disappeared without a public explanation. But China is a totalitarian state. Xi Jinping can amend the constitution to perpetuate his term, maintaining one-party dictatorship for many years. Civil society and the media cannot monitor human rights violations. If any human rights violations occur, the outside world will never know about it."
China's human rights violations are far more serious than the report assesses. Human rights lawyers: Chinese people's right to assembly and participate in politics should be rated zero.
Wu Shaoping, a Chinese human rights lawyer living in the United States, told this station that the report shows that China is almost at the bottom in many indicators, and the scoring direction is close to the facts, but it fails to reflect the true situation in China in terms of assembly, political participation, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests. China's score on human rights has been overestimated.
Wu Shaoping said: "The 2019 Xiamen Conference was just a meeting. Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi have been sentenced for over 10 years, which shows that China has no right to assembly, association, or participation in politics. Especially since Xi Jinping came to power, the problem of abuse of public power in China has expanded from political cases to ordinary cases. Arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances are becoming more and more common. Lawyer Gao Zhisheng has disappeared and his whereabouts are still unknown. In recent years, many people have become victims of distant-water fishing and mental illness. The methods of torture and abuse of those detained and under residential surveillance are beyond your imagination. They (the authorities) can do it. The cases exposed now are just the tip of the iceberg of human rights violations in China. China's human rights index scores should all be zero."
Wu Shaoping stated that information opacity not only affects outside assessments of China's human rights situation, but also misleads outsiders who use official data to assess the quality of life of Chinese people, often through official, embellished figures. He noted that under China's authoritarian system, there is a serious inequality in the lives of the powerful and the general public.
Wu Shaoping said: "Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, the powerful enjoy privileges in education and medical care that ordinary people cannot obtain. For example, during the epidemic, government officials and their families were given priority to obtain masks and medicine. During the lockdown, they were not forced to stay at home like ordinary people and had freedom of movement. People I knew were living with military families at the time. They had an abundant supply of rice, oil, vegetables and other food, and they couldn't eat them all, but some grassroots people had to go hungry. There are also differences in education and employment rights. Without background, it is impossible to get a job in a state-owned enterprise."
Wu Shaoping said that there is no freedom of the press in China and the Internet is strictly controlled. The human rights violations that the outside world knows about in China are just the tip of the iceberg. He believes that apart from North Korea, it is difficult to find a country in the world with more serious human rights violations than China.
