"History has already proven that it is futile to apply pressure against China." Though the words evoked the decrees issued by once proud dynasties that long ago turned to dust, they had a particular bite last Saturday as intoned in Beijing by Premier Li Peng. "China will never accept U.S.-style human rights," he said after an afternoon of chilly talks with U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher. But what if Washington revokes China's most- favored-nation trade status? What if America restrains trade? The Chinese leader sniffed, "China can live without it." He noted that the Chinese expect to import $1 trillion worth of goods annually by the year 2000. If America wants to opt out, he said, "the U.S. will suffer no less than China."
The Chinese have always bristled at Washington's threat of revoking MFN, but last week Beijing insisted more emphatically than before that it did not care . if the U.S. used trade as a weapon. Beijing contended that the entire human- rights argument was an unjust cultural ploy to put China on the defensive. Said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry: "The Chinese government cares deeply about human rights. There are no saviors on the question of human rights. The Chinese people will save themselves." The Americans disagreed. "It's not a matter of talking about American values or Chinese values," said Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. "We're not telling China to be like America. We're talking about universal rights. And arbitrary arrests or torture. It's got nothing to do with normality. There are universal rights in the U.N. charter."
Human rights are not an abstract notion to Wang Dan. He risked death when he stood up for them in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and then spent 43 months in prison for his leadership role in the pro-democracy movement. Undaunted and unrepentant, the student activist was released last year. Two weeks ago, the police were back: they picked him up, questioned him for 24 hours and told him to get out of Beijing. Wang ignored them, and last week he was hauled in again. Police warned him that his political activities were antisocialist and illegal.
Wang responded by publishing an open letter to the National People's Congress, the parliament that assembled last week for its annual two-week session. He assured the NPC that "a democracy movement is not a movement to overthrow the government," and he called on parliamentarians to debate "the protection of individual political rights and innate human rights." Wang says he will begin investigating rights abuses, and is prepared "even to be arrested and sentenced."
That could easily happen now that Beijing is in the midst of a pre-emptive crackdown on anyone who it deems is out to embarrass China. It is almost routine for security police to take leading activists out of circulation when high-visibility political events are scheduled, and last week there were two of them: the opening of the NPC and Christopher's arrival. During the Secretary of State's visit, the Chinese posted uniformed and plainclothes police around the homes of dissidents and their sympathizers.