Chin Jin.The West is going the way of China.Patriot Act,Preventative Dentention ,legalised assassination and now The defence Authorisation Act.They also got rid of the Posse Comitatus Act in the US that stopped the Military from policing the US people.

They now want to censor the Internet.We have John Howard's Sedition laws which are much like the Patriot.All they have to do is broaden the definition of a terrorist to include us.It is happening in the USA right now.

Well you see, Chin Jin, here's the problem.

"If one sincerely wants to prompt China to improve its human rights record, one should fundamentally aim at prompting a change to China's current political system. Only if China undertakes political reforms and becomes a democracy can its human rights record begin to improve."

Only China can turn China into a "democracy".

Any and all attempts by "the West" to introduce it to other nations has a pretty abysmal record, I think you would agree, whether the introduction has been through conquest, annexation, invasion or bribery.

And let's face it, the only weapon we have is the perpetual tut-tutting and finger-wagging that typifies the current preferred approach. It just makes us all look like maiden aunts at a rave.

Frankly, if human rights are a problem in China, the 1.4 billion Chinese are just going to have to sort it out for themselves.

I agree,

In the end, the Chinese people will have to sort this matter out for themselves. However, it is important for the West to continue to raise the issue of human rights whenever and wherever. There are people in China who are deeply concerned about human rights.

No matter how ineffectual we are in getting the Chinese government to improve its record, at least brave advocates for human rights within China will know that they are not alone. We should persist.

This is important, for it is these lonely people who will be the leaders of China one day when the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party collapses under the weight of its own selfish illegitimacy.

China is part of the world economy. Their economy depends to a large extent on selling to the rest of the world and buying from the rest of the world. If nations with a different view of human rights from that of China would refuse to trade in any way with China until China's attitude towards human rights changed, the attitude would change. Would capitalists give up cheap labour? Would consumers give up cheap goods? Would Australia's mining companies give up an outlet for their products? Of course not. If they would they could change the human rights situation in China.

Pericles wrote:

>>Frankly, if human rights are a problem in China, the 1.4 billion Chinese are just going to have to sort it out for themselves.>>

Agreed.

And this does not apply only to China.

Right now the best thing for Western countries to do about Syria is - nothing

Ah but Stevenlmeyer,they've found large quantities of oil/gas off the coast of Syria,lebanon and Greece.The oil/banking imperialists are not going to let that slip out of their grasp.They already own Greece.Syria is the recalcitrant one who must be saved from their oil oppression, err they meant,given their freedoms back.

Dear me. Reading the article I predicted there'd be at least one silly bugger to pop up and decry the west as being just as bad as China if not worse. Congrats Arjay.

(The fact that A) you're able to continue posting your diatribes and B) nobody's dragged you out for a beating ought to be enough to make my point).

I concur that change has to come from within China, but that's not my chief concern. My concern is that Western countries do not remain resolute when faced with Chinese demands, and that we often behave as if we can't criticize.

Sure we can. And we should. We criticize our own inept governments all the time. We can and should criticize foreign governments that are exceedingly opaque.

When the Chinese government cracks down on foreign companies operating in China, we remain meek. When they give advantages to local businesses, we say nothing, for fear of being frozen out.

In terms of trade, I personally think we ought to consider modifying our trade policies to mimic Chinese policies, which would be a better incentive for them to reform. If they subsidize, we peg our subsidies at a proportion of their subsidies. If they impose tariffs, we peg tariffs at a proportion of theirs. If they have requirements for transfers of intellectual property (this is a particularly common requirement) then we figure out an equivalent.

But, we mandate that our restrictions will fall in line with theirs.

We should also be harsher on our own companies which are complicit in human rights abuses. Companies who sell intellectual property that will be used for things such as monitoring people over the internet and so forth, ought to face repercussions in their home countries.

Don't try to change China directly, but don't let them change us.

Mr Hennessy has a point: even though it might seem pointless to continue talking about human rights to folks to whom it's all greek, it's still important to do so - better to light one candle than curse the darkness. There are people who care deeply about human rights in China, because without human rights, nothing else makes sense.

Economic freedoms are frail and temporary, but without the rule of law buttressed by the will of the people, eventually the illegitimacy of the current ruling elite will one day collapse under the hypocrisy of its own corruption and thuggery. But South Africa can serve as an example of an authoritarian nation that did a u-turn when it saw the writing on the wall, and ceded power to the people. Burma seems to be another. There is hope. We can only pray.