given that our current president (oscar arias) won the nobel prize for peace and given our tradition (?) of defendants of human rights, the whole ditching of taiwan and welcoming of china came as a bit of a surprise to me. if you go to wikipedia and look for info on china's human rights, you will find this:
- china admits to lacking laws to protect civil rights
- although china has signed many agreements on improving their human rights, there is basically no change on their attitude towards torture, arbitrary detention and religion
- china has the highest number of death penalties in 2005
- china has made profits using its executed prisoners to have their organs harvested for transplants and sold there and abroad
- china is known for its intolerance of organized dissent towards the government
- china has got what can be called a regime of spatial and social apartheid towards rural chinese, keeping them in a subordinate status
- china's one-child policy contributes to female infanticide, abandonment and sex selective abortions
- when it comes to workers' rights, the criticism aims at minimum wage violations, long work hours, and inappropriate actions towards workers by management
- china has got very tense relations with the dalai lama, another nobel prize for peace winner... which makes you wonder what our president thinks of that... but more important than that, what do you think about it?
is this the country we want to have commercial relations with? is this the example to follow? are we blinded by all the money that china is pouring into this country and the central american region? where are we heading?
more about human rights in china can be seen here:the beautiful picture can be found on north sullivan's page on flickr.
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