TRANSCRIPT: KOH 1/13 BRIEFING ON U.S.-CHINA RIGHTS DIALOGUE
(Human rights integral to U.S.-China relationship)Washington -- Human rights are integral to the bilateral relationship between the United States and China, according to Harold Koh, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.
At a January 13 press briefing on the recent human rights dialogue between the two countries, Koh said that the U.S. side "forcefully raised our concerns about the current human rights situation in China, including the recent disturbing and counterproductive arrests, trials, and sentencing of democracy activists for the peaceful expression of their political beliefs."
The January 11-12 talks were the first since January 1995, when the Chinese government terminated what had been four years of dialogue, Koh noted. The talks were revived upon agreement between President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin at their summit last June.
According to Koh, the U.S. placed its specific concerns in the context of China's decision last October to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. "We urged the earliest ratification of that instrument, and urged China to apply consistently and universally to all Chinese citizens the fundamental principles embodies in international human rights instruments," Koh said.
Specifically, the U.S. side focused on the treatment of prisoners, prison labor issues, policies for prisoner release, and possible legal reforms that "might promote large-scale improvements in human rights," Koh said. The U.S. delegation also expressed its concern about the repressive conditions in Tibet, he said.
"We called on China to release not just individual prisoners but also entire categories of prisoners, including those detained under now repealed laws on counter-revolutionary crimes; those detained for the peaceful exercise of their religious and political beliefs; and those detained after the crackdown on demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989," he said.
Koh reported that the Chinese side did not argue, as they have in the past, that human rights is strictly an "internal affair." In addition, their assertions that "Asian values" are distinctly different from that of the West were much less vigorous, Koh said. "In fact, they spoke about the universality of human rights," he said.
According to Koh, the Chinese delegation expressed its concerns about what China perceives as poor prison conditions in the United States, the unequal racial composition of the U.S. prison population, and the U.S. use of the death penalty.
Koh said that the United States "repeatedly pressed for the principle of mutual transparency in exposing our human rights practices to one another."
To further that transparency, the United States extended and the Chinese delegation accepted an invitation to visit the Justice Department to discuss human rights protection with officials in the Civil Rights Division and the Bureau of Prisons and to attend a criminal trial held in the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. The Chinese side also agreed to travel to Cumberland, Maryland on January 13 to spend the day visiting a federal prison.
Following is the official State Department transcript of the briefing:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the SpokesmanFor Immediate Release
January 13, 1999
99/26ON-THE-RECORD BRIEFING BY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR
HAROLD HONGJU KOH
ON
US-CHINA HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUEWashington, D.C.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Good morning. I've been asked to review our official dialogue on human rights with China. This was our first human rights dialogue between the two countries since January 1995. Official bilateral human rights talks between our two countries took place every year from 1991 until the Chinese Government terminated that dialogue four years ago. At the end of the June Summit in Beijing, Presidents Clinton and Jiang agreed to revive those talks, concluding that -- and I quote -- "candid dialogue is an important element for resolving differences."
In that spirit, over ten hours of direct discussion, we discussed a broad range of human rights issues. We forcefully raised our concerns about the current human rights situation in China, including the recent and disturbing and counterproductive arrests, trials and sentencing of democratic activists for peaceful expression of their political beliefs.
We had a significant and substantial discussion of the recent arrests, imprisonment and sentencing of democratic activists Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin, Wang Youcai and several others. I told the Chinese delegation in direct and unambiguous terms that we regard this recent crackdown as steps in the wrong direction. We stated our firm conviction that China must take decisive steps to reverse this crackdown and improve the human rights situation in China.
As Secretary Albright noted last night in her remarks at the Chinese Embassy, Americans do not regard organized and peaceful political expression as a crime or a threat; rather, it is a right that is universally recognized, protected by international covenants, and fundamental to the freedom and dignity of every human being.
Throughout the two days, we placed our specific concerns in the context of China's decision last October to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. To quote the Secretary, we urge China "not only to embrace it in word, but to observe it in deed." We urged the earliest possible ratification of that instrument, and urged China to apply consistently and universally to all Chinese citizens the fundamental principles embodied in those instruments. We told them that even before China ratifies the covenant, the international community will be looking for it to act in accordance with a fundamental spirit and principles in that treaty. We also told them that complying with the spirit of that treaty was in their self-interest, because no nation can become a fully respected member of the international political and economic community without displaying genuine respect for international standards and human rights norms.
Turning to particular issues, we focused on the treatment of prisoners, prison labor issues, policies for prisoner release and possible legal reforms that might promote large-scale improvements in human rights. We agreed on the importance of projects to obtain accurate information about the situation of prisoners, such as that of American businessman, John Kamm, who has sought clarification from the Chinese Government of the status of prisoners. In this spirit, we also encourage the creation of an official human rights channel between our two governments to regularly exchange information on prisoner names, conditions and health, to follow up on past concerns. In our discussions of medical parole, we emphasize the right of those released to choose whether to remain in China and raised the cases of prisoners reported to be in poor health.
Our talks focused on international and domestic investigations into China's Laogai conditions, prison-labor produced goods and credible reports of the sale of human organs taken from executed prisoners. We raised specific and credible questions from Members of Congress and the Department of Justice that have not been answered to date. We expressed deep concern about violations of human rights arising from coerced implementation of China's family planning policies.
We called on China to release not just individual prisoners but also entire categories of prisoners, including those detained under now repealed laws on counter-revolutionary crimes; those detained for the peaceful exercise of their religious and political beliefs; and those detained after the crackdown on demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
We pressed them to reform their laws on criminal procedure, criminal law and administrative law to meet international due process standards. We urged them to modify their laws on state subversion and reeducation through labor, which have led to the unlawful detention of many individuals.
My colleague, Bob Seiple, the Secretary's Special Representative on International Religious Freedom, participated in the dialogue after returning Sunday night from Beijing. Bob and I noted that current Chinese practices violate both international and Chinese law protecting the right of religious freedom and the right to manifest one's beliefs. We focused on China's requirements that all religious faiths and places of worship be registered with the government. We focused on restrictions of religious expression, detention of individuals for peaceful expression of religious beliefs, and raised concerns about specific religious prisoners, including Bishop Su Zhimin, Li Qinghua and Xu Yongze, among others.
Yesterday we turned to Tibet. We expressed strong dissatisfaction about the little progress that has been made in this area since June, when President Jiang told President Clinton that the door to dialogue and negotiation between China and the Dalai Lama remained open. We protested restrictions on religious freedom, mistreatment of Tibetan prisoners, the implementation of a re-education campaign aimed at Tibetan monks and nuns, and other policies threatening the preservation of Tibet's unique language and culture.
We encouraged them to provide access to Tibet for journalists and human rights groups to ensure accurate information, and urged the release of a number of individuals, including Jigme Sangpo and Chandrel Rinpoche. We inquired about the condition of the boy who has been designated by the Dalai Lama as the Panchen Lama, and asked that China allow an outside observer, preferably myself, to visit him.
In sum, our exchange was full and frank, addressing candidly our disagreement on human rights while highlighting steps we could take to narrow such differences. There was general agreement that more could be done by both of our countries to work cooperatively to advance women's rights against violence and discrimination.
We discussed how our governments could better cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson. We pressed repeatedly for the principle of mutual transparency in exposing our human rights practices to one another. In that spirit, we invited the Chinese delegation to visit the Justice Department to discuss human rights protections with officials of the Civil Rights Division and the Bureau of Prisons, to attend a criminal trial here in the U.S. Federal Court, and to visit a federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland.
These visits were not just show-and-tell; they encourage a policy of opening our government institutions to one another and demonstrate that societal stability and vigorous law enforcement and penal policies can be maintained alongside vigorous protection of the basic human rights of defendants and inmates.
At the end of the dialogue, the US side made a number of proposals for both official and non-official exchanges to deepen this human rights channel, which the Chinese side said it would consider. Both sides agreed to hold the next official human rights dialogue in China in the second half of the year.
Let me conclude by saying, as a newcomer to the government, I appreciate that words like "dialogue" are often read as diplomatic code for joint speech-making. I will say that what transpired these last two days in over ten hours of direct discussion was dialogue as normal people understand it -- intense discussions in which participants speak bluntly, tell one another things they do not want to hear and advise them on how they could and should do things differently. The atmosphere was frank, the comments were candid.
The success of our dialogue will be measured by China's actions, not just its words; and we'll be watching those actions closely in the weeks ahead. At this point, I'm happy to take your questions.
Q: Could you characterize the Chinese response to the issues that you raised? Also, was this a one-way street, or did China raise issues concerning alleged abuses in the United States?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Taking the second part, they did raise issues, but not in the kind of detail, or with the kind of specifics that we did.
Q: Could you name them?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: They raised concerns about our prison conditions, the racial composition of our prisons. They raised concerns about the administration of the death penalty in our country, and a number of other points. We conceded that though our country is not perfect, we showed them means by which we have been working on these matters.
They raised, for example, the style in which we have ratified our international human rights conventions, and administered them through the US Government, and we demonstrated to them how we are going about doing that. We went into some detail about the US executive order, which President Clinton signed on December 10, that would implement human rights treaties throughout the US Federal Government.
Q: You talked about things -- telling each other things you didn't want to hear. Is there anything beyond what you told George that you didn't want to hear from the Chinese?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I didn't want to hear their claims that the facts were wrong. We have a lot of facts on our side that we put forward to them. They came back with contrary facts. Some of them I do not believe to be correct. However, what I did say to them was: We welcomed their explanations and the detail of information that they were providing to us; and that, indeed, we welcomed this kind of information on all the cases on which we were seeking answers. Our view is that transparency is good. The more information they give us, and the more justifications they give us, the better.
Now, I should also say that we did not simply talk about facts, we talked about standards. For example, with regard to the recent arrests, their claim is that the people who are arrested are guilty of subverting the government. They made various allegations and provided information to support that argument.
We said that under international standards, whether someone is subverting the government requires some sort of connection between what they do and the chance that the government will actually be subverted. So what we are trying to do is to direct their attention to the very treaty that they had signed to suggest that it had an international standard for evaluating their own conduct, and suggest their conduct had failed to meet that standard.
Q: The Chinese have signed several covenants -- the covenant on torture, on -- (inaudible) -- economic rights -- and they feel completely free to turn around and violate all the principles of it. Did you get a sense from them that they understand the importance of these covenants, or is it something that they do just because it's timely for them to get something else; it's a means to some other end which has nothing to do with human rights?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, as you know, I'm an international law professor on leave, and I take every opportunity to clarify the meaning of these treaties and the obligations that they impose.
I think we made it very clear, that if they thought that signing these treaties was a paper act and that there are no expectations that arise from those treaties, that that's a misperception. We made it clear that what was at stake was not just pure issues of law, but also a reputation for living up to treaties that would extend into other arenas in which they would like to make international treaty commitments. We made it clear that, as we evaluate our own conduct under these treaties, we'll be evaluating their conduct under these treaties.
I think an important thing, which I'd like to emphasize and which is raised by your question, is that most of the discussions that are had about human rights between high officials of our two governments are necessarily brief, intermittent. A few issues can be raised and discussed, but not at the depth and range as we were able to do it.
Not only that, we had officials participating from many different agencies -- not just the State Department, but also the NSC, the Justice Department. We laid out a unified position on how the recent steps have imposed obstacles to our bilateral relationship. I don't think that it had been made so vividly clear to them, how much the different pieces of the American Government, as well as public opinion here, is joined in a belief that the recent actions are wrong and ought to be reversed. The message that was sent, I think, was unified and unmistakable.
Q: Did you explain to the Chinese side how their latest crackdown is putting pressure on the US Government to get back to perhaps re-launching the Geneva resolution that it dropped last year? If so, if that subject did come up, what did they say about it?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, we talked in two terms. We talked about how their actions are being perceived by parts of this country over which we don't have a lot of control -- the media, Congress and others. We also talked about how it is being perceived by the US Government, and we said it was the same perception: These actions are wrong and ought to be fixed.
We said that we were considering a range of responses, and that one of them, which is currently under discussion, is Geneva.
Q: Did they have any response to that possibility?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I think they noted it, took it seriously and are mulling over a response right now.
Q: Did you provide the Chinese with a list of names of prisoners that the United States wants to see released? And can you give us a sense as to how long that list is; how many names are on it?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Yes, we gave them a list. The exact count I don't know. We gave them a whole range of them in the course of the official discussions, and then also presented a number of other cases. These are cases that include not just the most highly publicized cases, but others on which we've received credible information.
I should say that with regard to a number of the individual cases, they sought to present clarifying information. One of the values of the dialogue is to have a channel for information. The dialogue, I think, not just serves to deliver messages and register complaints, but it also allows us to follow up on past messages that have been delivered, to clarify misunderstandings, to propose joint initiatives, and build on what I think are genuine desires within the Chinese Government to undertake various kinds of legal reforms.
Q: In addition to the potential of re-launching the Geneva resolution, were there any other examples that you are able to cite in which the US Government said, either you show us tangible progress on x, y and z, or we will do such and such?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, one thing is, I'm planning to go there. I asked for permission to see the Panchen Lama. I asked to go visit the prisons that they asked for. I asked to bring others with me. I should say that this was an aspect -- at least the aspect of my going to Beijing to continue the dialogue with which they agreed.
I think that this is the issue of transparency which is -- as long as this dialogue proceeds and they know the same concerns are going to be raised again regularly, and at this level of depth, they have to make a response.
Q: When you say you're going to ask to see the Panchen Lama, are you talking about the Panchen Lama that the Chinese Government has recognized or the one that they refuse to recognize?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: The one they refuse to recognize.
Q: Mr. Koh, a predecessor of yours went to Beijing and raised human rights issues, and the result was a lot of bad news for human rights activists in China. Do you have any indication that raising all of these issues is not going to cause setbacks to human rights activists in China, as have previous efforts by people in your position?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I think human rights activists in China, including some of those who were affected or involved in the incident you describe, are all pressing for our more active and aggressive participation on their behalf. I don't think there's any dissent about that.
Q: But do you see any evidence that, on the basis of these talks, the Chinese are going to act positively on any of the things that you've raised?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I think that the talks are designed to start a process going again which had been stalled. The point is to make it clear that we are monitoring what they are doing. We're examining their justifications; we're pressing them for change; and we're going to be following up.
Q: Right, but was there any indication that they're listening, that they're going to do something? Did they promise anything? Did you get any concessions at all?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: We put proposals on the table and they're looking at them. The dialogue ended yesterday and, as I said, the success will be measured by how the results play out over the course of the next couple of weeks.
I think that the proposals that we tabled, they simply took back. Others in their government are going to have to help them formulate their response.
Q: What did they tell you about the Panchen Lama, and how did they react when you asked their permission to visit him?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: They said that he was fine -- we know where he is and he's fine. I said, well, then -- and they said, we assume you trust us on this point. Then later when they said that I could come to Beijing, I said, and I'd like to see this boy. Then they said, that's not necessary; and I said, well, don't you trust me -- having invited me back, I'd like to take this opportunity to verify it. So this will be one of the matters that will continue to be under discussion.
Q: Do you have fears for his condition? How old is he now? What is your understanding of where he's being held and under what conditions he's being held in?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I don't have a lot of information on that. He disappeared a few years ago. He's still a very young boy.
Q: And do you have any idea where they're holding him?
ASSISTANT SECRETRAY KOH: I don't have that information right now.
Q: Is it a prison; do you think it's a prison? Do you think it's a tenement, house arrest?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I'm not going to speculate. That's why I wanted to actually meet with the boy.
Q: And they did agree to let you come back?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: They agreed to let me come. They agreed that I could come and continue the dialogue; and my intention is to not just continue the dialogue, but to follow up on verifying various of the pieces of information that they provided.
Q: When will you be going?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: The second half of 1999.
Q: The second half of '99? And, sorry, just one more, they did not agree to let you see the Panchen Lama?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Let me say this: The one thing on which they agreed was that the dialogue would resume, and that I would head it, and that it would be in Beijing. Then the other pieces of that, we have on the table. I should also say that until I get on the plane, it's not going to be -- there's no guarantee. But we agreed in principle that it should proceed.
Q: Are human rights going to be part of the package deal or expectations for the Chinese around the time for the Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's visit in April? Also -- (inaudible) -- talked about you'd like to have NGOs to go on your delegation when you go over. How are you going to win the NGOs back to your camp?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, on the first point I prefer to say that human rights are integral to the bilateral relationship. That was a point that was made by every US Government official that appeared and spoke directly to the Chinese. It's not a marginal concern of ours in the bilateral relation; it's central to the bilateral relationship. It affects the entire atmosphere of the bilateral relationship. I think you heard Secretary Albright's statement last night, which also made that unambiguous.
With regard to the second question, which I've forgotten at the moment.
Q: Can you elaborate on the NGOs dialogue?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: We have proposed that NGOs accompany me to Beijing in the second half of 1999, both for participating in discussions with government officials, and also in pursuing issues of rule of law and human rights. That's one of the proposals that's on the table.
Q: Did the Chinese argue during this dialogue that some of the principles which the United States holds just don't apply to them?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I think there's an interesting advance. They did not simply assert that everything was an internal affair, as has been done in the past. Our response to that, which they appeared to accept, is that by committing themselves to these international instruments, they accept international scrutiny on human rights standards. That was one reason that we placed so much of the discussion in the context of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
An argument which they asserted, but not vigorously, was that Asian values somehow are different. In fact, they spoke about the universality of human rights. I think, I personally asserted that as an Asian myself -- or an Asian-American -- I never saw any inconsistency between Asian values and universal human rights.
So I think that this is a part of what Secretary Albright said last night, when she said that 20 years ago there was nothing to discuss on human rights; they were like two ships passing in the night. Here, we agreed upon a number of basic principles, and then proceeded to discuss areas of difference. That was the basis on which the discussion proceeded.
Q: Picking up on what the Secretary said last night, I don't know if either last night or today you spoke with some of the Chinese officials that you had been in talks with. Can you give us any sense of their reaction, if any, to her remarks last night?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I have actually not talked to any of them since the speech, although I was there. I will be seeing some of them again today.
I don't think they have any basis to be surprised by what they heard, given that the message that was given there was exactly the same message that we were delivering. They had just gotten ten hours of that message. So I think to hear it from the Secretary may have reinforced the message, but it wasn't a new message.
Q: Did you discuss the case of Hua Di, the research fellow from Stanford University?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I didn't hear that.
Q: The case of Hua Di.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: We'll get back to you on that one.
Q: Talking about your trip to Beijing, when Mary Robinson was there, one of the big problems that she had was access. She had a long list of things that she wanted to do, places that she wanted to go to; and the Chinese pretty much picked and chose where she was given access to. Did you have any conversation with them about getting access to what you want to see when you're in China? They're big on symbol, very little on delivering substance in terms of that. So did you have any conversation about that?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I think they'll obviously be negotiating the context of the trip. I just think -- and this is based on my experience before I became a government official -- that the more that outsiders come in, the more that transparency is the principle, the more access people get.
I just came back from Kosovo, where we asked to see a detention facility and a hospital, and asked to speak privately to prisoners, patients and doctors and were allowed to do so. Before I went, somebody said to me, that's never going to happen. I think, as they say, a lot of life is just showing up. I think Mary Robinson started the ball rolling on this, and we're going to continue it rolling to the extent that we can.
Q: Are you willing to -- or have you told the Chinese that unless you are given access to, for instance, the Panchen Lama, unless you're able to visit prisons, unless you're able to do the other things on your list, that you won't go?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I think I've answered that -- the dialogue doesn't resume until I get on the plane.
Q: I'm sorry --
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: The dialogue doesn't resume until I get on the plane, and I'm not going to go there to have a dialogue which I consider to be meaningless, or to go there and not have a meaningful discussion of the issues that we began to discuss here.
I think we also set a precedent in this visit for openness. We showed them our courts; we showed them our prisons; we showed them how we do prisons. We were honest and open about things that we think we don't do well. That was in part, I think, to make it clear that institutions that value human rights, even if not perfect, have nothing to hide by letting outsiders view the system.
I should say, too, that they were genuinely interested. They were genuinely interested in the trip to the courts; they were genuinely interested in going to the prisons. The issue which I think was probably most common between us was, how do you administer a system of law in a very big country; just how do you do it as a matter of logistics? I think on that, there's a lot of possibility for joint discussion.
Q: Did they raise this Asian rights issue with you -- you mentioned it briefly, I just wanted to be more clear. Did they say, we have a different system; our system works for us and it's different from your system? Communal consensus instead of individualism?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I think I've answered that question. Without having to get into the details, the point was made and the point in response was, Asian values are not inconsistent with universal values and I'm living proof of that.
Q: No, but did they raise the issue?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I think I've said enough on that.
Q: I was wondering if you could say whether you discussed specifically the relative merits of having an opposition party in China and what their reaction might have been if you did discuss that.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, we told them that a country of their size and power has nothing to fear from the lawful and non-violent dissent of those who would attempt to engage in lawful political organizing. We discussed the value of vibrant, peaceful expression. So I think that we made our point on this pretty strongly.
Q: Did you get any sense that they were receptive to the idea?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I guess the question of receptivity is over a range of encounters. I spent, really, the last two days with them from morning until night. There were ten hours of formal discussions; there were about ten hours of visitations; and then there were working meals and other events. I think I saw a receptivity in various corners at various points in that period.
Q: Just wondering about -- are you satisfied with the content of talks or are you more satisfied about resuming a dialogue with the Chinese?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Say it again, I'm not sure I --
Q: Are you satisfied with the content of the talks, or are you satisfied with the fact that you resumed the dialogue with the Chinese?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, I understand that the fact that this dialogue proceeded was not entirely uncontroversial, particularly from the point of view of the media. So the question in my own mind is, did the talks permit the kind of messages to be delivered, the kind of information to be received, that we desired? From that perspective, I would say very much so.
We delivered our messages in very unambiguous terms. We requested information; we requested follow-up; we pressed for action. We made quite clear what action we were requesting, and we made proposals to deepen this channel and source of discussion. As I said in my remarks, we'll see; we'll see what the response is.
Q: Can you tell us how your dialogue is proceeding in relation to the rule of law talks that we heard so much about six, eight months ago when the Secretary and the President went?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: The rule of law talks -- or actually the rule of law basket of the Beijing Summit, led to the creation of a number of symposia that would occur to talk about a number of issues. The first one was about the legal protection of human rights. It included not just individual issues, but also structural issues. That was held at Airlie House with both governmental and non-governmental officials from both sides back in December.
I also participated in those talks, and I must say that the openness and frankness of those discussions and the degree of joint questing to try to address some of these questions about rule of law at the structural level was impressive.
I think it's fair to say that China wants to move forward. It wants to reform its legal system. It has had reform of its criminal procedures; it's had reform of its criminal law; it's had reform of its administrative law. Problems remain, and they're interested in knowing how to go about doing it. A lot of the discussions focused on that question.
So, I think that -- and this is the larger point -- a real change and real improvement of human rights in China will come through systemic reform. In this country, we did not have real protection of criminal rights -- criminal defendants' rights -- until after the due process revolution of the '60s. That is something which affects everybody who is brought as a defendant before a court, not just a few highly publicized cases. So, I think that we want to address this question, not just from the perspective of individual prominent names, although we have tremendous concern about these names and want to do everything we can for these individuals. I think the broader question is, how does China address issues in which it knows it has a problem?
I would just mention two particular areas that we focused on, again, which I mentioned in my remarks. One is counter-revolutionary crimes. They've repealed the law of counter-revolutionary crimes, and there are large numbers of people being held for those crimes. We've received, from a variety of sources, a sense that, on a case-by-case basis, they might be willing to review those sentences. The question is, how ought that to be done? If this were to be carried out, it would lead to a very sweeping result, we would hope.
Another area is with regard to reeducation through labor. Here, the issue is whether somebody can be sent to a labor camp for three years and reeducated. One of the issues under their legal system is, is this criminal or is it civil? Now, I don't think we should simply say that this is some sort of ruse on their part to justify a system which is inherently repressive. In our own country, we had a juvenile detention system which claimed to rehabilitate children, that didn't give them much in the way of due process. That was challenged before the courts and was finally revised and recognized to be a frank depravation of liberty. Once that revelation came about, juveniles who were sent into those facilities got due process rights. So we had a lot of discussion about the commonalties between our situation and their situation.
Q: There are more talks today, correct?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: No, today they're going to visit a prison.
Q: Okay, so no more dialogue with them? Nothing else is on the table?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: No more dialogue.
Q: Another prison?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: No, on the first day we went to see the Justice Department. We talked to the Civil Rights Division officials about how they enforce our civil rights laws. The message, I think, of that meeting was that it's possible to have aggressive and vigorous criminal and civil enforcement of the laws, along with aggressive rooting out of civil rights violations. Indeed, the message the civil rights officials delivered was: If state and local officials are abusing civil rights, we pursue it -- the government pursues it.
We also talked to prison officials who talked about the structure and running of our prisons, and what they're seeing today is the large picture as it plays out in an actual prison.
Q: I thought that you had said that you're going to the visit to the prison just a few minutes ago. Anyway, one of the rationale for engaging China is that doing so would bring human rights reform. Would it be more likely to bring human rights reform? That was one of the big arguments for President Clinton going to Beijing and for him entertaining President Jiang here. Can you point to any tangible progress on the human rights front since those reciprocal visits?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Let me put it in these terms. One is the point of having dialogue as one of the tools for dealing with China's human rights situation. What I would say is this: There are a range of tools that are possible; and what I said in my confirmation hearing for this position is, that we would apply an inside/outside approach. Namely, we would use mechanisms of pressure and we would use mechanisms of persuasion.
As someone who studied what makes individuals, countries, obey the law, it's usually not just sanctions, frankly, because countries of equal power often don't respond to sanctions from other countries of equal power in the way you might like. You have to use an inside and outside approach.
Now, we've used a whole range of tools, and we're going to continue to use them. One of the tools here is dialogue, which is telling them what we think of their practices, telling them what standards we measured against, urging them to make changes, finding areas in which we think we have common interests in promoting legal reform; and then to the extent to which they're genuinely seeking help, helping them. I think we're talking about a long process of reforming a country which is quite different from ours, and making it view human rights and its role in its society in a different way.
Q: To follow up on Sid's question, and continuing with that analogy of the tools, what other tools outside the tool of dialogue have you or the US Government been using to put pressure and to encourage China to reform human rights? Sort of as a sidebar to that question, is there any example of progress that the US Government can point to -- any single example of progress in human rights that we have seen since President Clinton's trip?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Well, of course there are examples of progress; the question is how fast is that progress. Releases of prisoners is progress. Responses and openness are progress. But we have to keep pressing. We're in this for the long haul. I think that there is a tendency here to think that our policy can reap all the results that we want overnight.
I think there's some fine line to be drawn between trying to get quick results and trying to get long-term, systematic results. My own view is a process by which we're pushing as much as we can, delivering the same message over and over, using tools of persuasion to promote change, is the only way to go. I mean, just think about the way that you deal with someone with whom you fundamentally disagree and try to get them to change their conduct. Do you simply say, if you don't do this, we'll threaten you with this? That may work in some senses, or it may work when they're near you; but the fact of the matter is, it does not fundamentally change the way they do their conduct. It has to be a concerted effort, not just by us but by other law-abiding and human rights-loving countries, to try to change an internal approach. That requires, I think, a combination of pressure and persuasion. That requires many tools, and we've just exercised one of them. We'll see the results as they come along.
Q: Thank you.
(end transcript)
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