THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER

Ten Questions About the "Boycott China" Initiative
by Bill Hewitt

1. Is the underlying premise of the boycott movement true?

The opening sentence at the boycott web site is a good place to begin - and end: "The prevailing argument that market forces and international trade would transform China into a democracy has by now been completely discredited." By whom?

The extraordinary changes in Chinese society that have taken place in the last 20 years are real, positive, and quantifiable. Most of the Chinese people enjoy more freedom of movement now than they have in the last 55 years and more of the taste of economic progress than they ever have. In spite of obviously oppressive conditions for many Chinese labor, human rights, religious, environmental and democracy activists, progress toward democracy continues.

Without going into an exhaustive explanation, let me just cite some examples. Suffice it to say that any number of scholars, journalists, jurists, and other people directly involved in this work can attest to the fact that progress is ongoing.

The work of the Carter Center in China, for instance, has been heroic. This has not been done, however, without the continuing participation of the Chinese government. The Carter Center reports that "... village elections occur in some 700,000 villages across China, reaching 75 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people." The Carter Center has been involved in training, monitoring, databasing, working with the EU and UNDP (and others), conducting national and international symposia, setting up two websites for continuing exchange of information, and working with the Chinese to further develop initiatives at the village level and higher, among other things.

The UNDP has projects in China on Public Administrative Reform, Integrity in Governance, Fiscal System Reform and Tax Management, Legal System and Judicial Capacity Building, and Village Official Training, among many others. The Asia Foundation and The Ford Foundation have robust programs underway in China helping to promote the rule of law and good governance.

A former top party official, in a popular and well-respected journal, recently called for formally limiting the party's leaders to a maximum tenure of 10 years, and wide-ranging measures to limit the party's powers, begin introducing popular election of government officials and protect freedom of speech and independent rule of law. Workers’ demonstrations are increasing throughout China and the government, as evidenced by Hu Jintao’s attention to this, are concerned. Yes, union organizers are still jailed, but these strikes and other demonstrations are not being shut down.

Change has come to China, largely because of the opening of the economy and the opening to the world. Change is ongoing and democracy’s advent is inevitable. This will be, in Wei Jingsheng’s term, "the Fifth Modernization."

2. Who would the boycott hurt (if it could be effective)?

The people in the factories making toys, electronic equipment, clothing, etc. are not the enemy. Now that the Chinese are producing real material gains for themselves, how can it profit anyone to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery? After decades of economic and political oppression by Mao and the CCP, culminating in such disasters as the famine produced by the Great Leap Forward that killed 30 million Chinese and stunted the physical and political growth of everyone, and the nightmare years of the Cultural Revolution, (not to mention the imperialism, warlord rule, war and brutal occupation by the Japanese, and civil war that preceded "Liberation"), the Chinese, frankly, deserve a break. To put it bluntly, the Tibetans are not, by a far cry, the only people to have suffered under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. It is historically shortsighted and morally wrong to separate out the plight of the Tibetans (and other ethnic groups) from the plight of the hundreds of millions of Han Chinese who have been victims of a terrible system.

3. Would the boycott effect the PRC leadership?

Actually, the CCP doesn’t benefit all that much from the 10% plus of the economy that is given over to the export trade. The Party, in fact, makes it more difficult for these businesses to operate than they ought because the tax breaks, political favors, and the banks’ money continue to go to the failing state-owned enterprises. The CCP continues to sink itself deeper and deeper into debt to support the SOE’s and the military. The export industries are, in a sense, a vanguard for democracy.

You want to hurt the CCP leadership? Organize a movement to get the Chinese to stop smoking. China accounts for 1.75 trillion of the 5 trillion cigarettes sold annually in the world. The government tobacco monopoly, the China National Tobacco Corp., is the most profitable corporation in the world, accounting for 12 percent of the revenue of the Chinese government!

4. Who benefits from the trade?

Consumers in Asia and the West. Companies and investors in Asia and the West. (Taiwan is the leading source of Foreign Direct Investment to China.) The factory workers and entrepreneurs who are producing these goods.
Is this the enemy?

5. Should we extend the boycott to tourism; should we ban Chinese students and researchers from coming to the West; should we shut down the considerable economic activity in Western services being delivered to China?

Tourist figures: For the year 2,000, the U.S. government’s Office of Travel and Tourism Industries reported that there were 452,741 arrivals in the U.S. from the PRC, including Hong Kong. There were, in 2001, 682,000 Americans visiting the PRC.

Students and researchers: There were 63,211 Chinese students in American degree programs for the 2001-02 school year. They represent 11 percent of all foreign students in the United States. Plus there are tens of thousands of Chinese students and thousands of scholars visiting the United States annually for conferences and exchanges.
 Services: The trade surplus with China in services reached $2.2 billion in 2001. As the WTO continues to kick in, this figure will grow - a lot.

There is, in short, a tremendous amount of business and income being generated for people here and in China - and in Tibet. Again, who does it hurt if we cut off this flow?

6. Doesn’t anyone on the boycott side think that the Chinese government might become angry enough to shut off the good work of the NGO’s that are beginning to make headway within Tibet? Has anyone considered the consequences for Tibetans if the Chinese government, for instance, shuts down the Tibet Fund’s Khawachen Assistance Program (KAP)?

We need to be working to grow this activity. We can and should be getting international agencies like Unicef, WHO, UNDP, as well as NGO’s to radically increase the amount of support given to Tibetans in Tibet.

7. Is it true that nobody cares?

It seems to be another central premise of the boycott initiative that nobody really cares and nothing is being done, therefore we have to organize "on our own." The evidence that important U.S. and international institutions care very deeply about what’s going on in China and Tibet is overwhelming.

Witness, for instance, the passage of the "Tibet Policy Act" into U.S. law. That the World Bank was turned from its course on the "Western Poverty Reduction" project was extraordinary - but it happened!

That we even have a "Congressional Executive Commission on China" is a testament to the hard work of Tibetan and Chinese human rights and democracy activists and concerned members of Congress. Both the CECC and the Tibet Policy Act aim to support the objective of responsible business practices in China and Tibet. This is not something that should be easily dismissed, as the boycott movement seems to do.

It seems to be the easiest thing to do to lump all business everywhere under the rubric of "evil-doing coconspirators with the CCP." The opportunity that has presented itself with the WTO accession for the institution of the rule of law and the potential for workers’ rights and better environmental practices is enormous. It is an opportunity to be exploited, not to be thrown away.

The advent of information technology in China, for instance, presents another opportunity for democracy to be incubated and grown. David Sheff’s book, China Dawn, reports on this. Why don’t we engage Bill Gates and Michael Dell on the subject of helping the Chinese people find more access to information - including the facts regarding Tibet?

Why in the world don’t we work with Congress and others to really promote better business, labor, and environmental standards for American and other countries' businesses operating in China and Tibet?

8. Is this dividing the fragile Tibet movement?

The boycott divides the Tibetan movement. It is clear that critical entities like ICT and the Tibetan Government in Exile itself have not embraced the idea, nor, it appears, have any large number of Chinese democracy advocates, nor anyone in government.

9. Has the boycott been remotely successful in any of its goals? (And is there a point where the movement says "We haven’t achieved our goals and we should change direction and refocus our efforts?")

Has there been much mention made of this in any of the media? Has there been any traction on this whatsoever? If there were, how in the world would you quantify it?

10. There is so much real, productive, positive work to do - why are so many activists wasting so much time and energy on a wild goose chase that will only undermine the Tibet movement’s efforts?

Sapping activists’ energy in ultimately vain pursuits is so counterproductive as to be almost tragic.