STP criticizes the former chancellor: Human rights must remain an essential aspect of the European policy towards China!

In contrast to the former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is convinced that questions of human rights must remain an essential aspect of the European policy towards China. "Europe is not demanding the observance of the human rights in order to impose Western values on China, but rather to ensure that international laws are respected," said the STP's Asia-consultant, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Friday. "The Chinese government was not forced to sign any international human rights agreements – but since the officials chose to sign the Anti-Torture Convention in Beijing, they should also ensure that there is no more torture by police officers in the People's Republic." On Thursday – during a TV-talk with Reinhold Beckmann – Schmidt had declared the European criticism towards China's human rights policy to be presumptuous.

"The importance of international laws concerning the relations between states should not be diminished," Delius criticized the former chancellor. "The world will not become safer if international laws are ignored. This would be a step back to the days of pure power politics. Anyone who – like Schmidt – approves of exceptions for the validity of global human rights, contradicts the Charter of the United Nations, which was accepted as fundamental basis of cooperation by 193 countries."

The STP also criticizes the former chancellor's undifferentiated view of China. "Schmidt suggested that the human rights issue was imposed on China from the outside. This is not true: in the People's Republic, there are thousands of human rights activists who are taking to the streets and advocating on behalf of civil rights in court or on the Internet," said Delius. In 2012, the authorities imposed arbitrary house arrests on 387 Chinese human rights activists, in order to silence the critics. Chinese human rights activists also documented 60 cases in which human rights activists were sent to mental hospitals to silence them. Dozens are detained in secret prisons or labor camps. "It is China's middle class – not primarily the Western World – that calls for an end of despotism, corruption and the abuse of power."

Schmidt's advocacy towards China's policy of demanding "non-interference" by other countries is grotesque – and it stands in sharp contrast to the everyday practice of China's relationships with its Central Asian neighbors. "Beijing imposes significant pressure on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in order to silence critical Uyghurs. Chinese diplomats even intervene in Germany, trying to suppress criticism towards Chinese politics," said Delius.