A defining feature in totalitarianism that has been presented in the ideal type is the concept of a terror apparatus, and, despite the worst period of terror occurring under the control of Chairman Mao, present day China still has many aspects of terror in society. Perhaps one of the most prominent aspects of such terror tactics is their human rights abuses. This has made China a topic of criticism across the Western world. Human rights abuses are an aspect of authoritarianism as well, but the Chinese government is incorporating such abuse as an intricate tool within their terror apparatus.
The country signed the International covenant on Civil and Political rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
…show more content…
(ICESCR) in 2001 . This was merely a statement to the rest of the world as the U.S. Department of State Bureau report by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (issued March 11, 2008) states, “serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the user of forced labor, including prison labor… the government continued its coercive birth limitation policy, and in some cases resulting in forced abortion and sterilization” . Since then, there has still been no state responsibility for human rights violations, and there are no laws against war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity . Organ procurement practice in China is a great human rights violation. Before 2010, over 90% of organs used for transplants in China were taken from prisoners. In 2014, the Chair of the China Organ Donation and Transplant Committee and Former Vice-minister of Health, Huang Jiefu, released that China would no longer be harvesting organs from prisons, but since then, there have been no changes in China’s organ donation laws. This continued practice not only violates international ethics standards, but also neglects a fundamental human right. Organ harvesting is done without the consent of either the prisoner or their families while these prisoners still alive . This remains completely legal, and is a terrorization of prisoners. It also serves as a deterrent for society, and sends a strong message that if one commits an act that sends him or her to prison, he/she could be subject to this very legal practice. China is in strong favor of the death penalty, and they use it to politically silence anyone who does not adhere to their strict views. In 2007, more Chinese citizens were put to death in China than all other country combined . In terms of politically silencing citizens on a smaller scale, for example, an Internet blogger named Hu Jia was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for his campaigns concerning AIDS and other issues such as the need for multi party democracy that are distasteful in the CCP’s opinion . This is one of their ways as stated in the ideal type of totalitarianism, that they eliminate any competing sources of thinking and action in civil society. With the elimination of any freethinking in civil society, the party exercises a greater grasp of total control.
A prominent example in China is with China’s Nobel Peace Prize-winner Liu Xiaobo, who was attacked by the CCP and imprisoned. Xiaobo is one of the authors of Charter 08, a manifesto that called for human rights and democracy in China . He was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Christmas Day in 2009. Xiaobo has been targeted by the CCP since the Tiananmen Sqaure Massacre on June 4, 1989, and had been sentenced to 21 months in prison for his organization of protests. In 1996, he was forced to spend three years in one of China’s “re-education through labor” camps as punishment for his pro-democracy writings, and upon release he upheld his views on China. He eventually disappeared in 2008 and later reported to be in prison . When Xiaobo was first incarcerated, the CCP erased Charter 08 from all Chinese websites. The international community was infuriated by the imprisonment of Xiaobo, and despite many external efforts from international agencies for the repeal of his imprisonment, Xiaobo has yet to be released from prison . Charter 08 was perceived as a threat by the CCP, and the Xiaobo case thoroughly demonstrates the lack of human rights discourse in China. Human rights abuses are one of the more totalitarian tendencies in China, and do keep people very fearful. The party has on multiple occasions made examples of those who speak against the party’s interest in civil society, and Chinese citizens are aware of the consequences if they speak too freely. The Party is making a statement: if you speak in society against the party ideals, they will terrorize you and turn you into an example among the many other examples for the rest of society to
see.
Rae Yang’s Memoir “Spider Eaters” is a poignant personal story of a girl growing up amidst the political upheaval during the establishment of People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong’s Communist leadership. Yang describes the fascinating journey of her life from her early years as the daughter of Chinese diplomats in Switzerland to a student in an elite middle school then a fanatic Red-guard and eventually a laborer in a pig farm. Her experiences through the revolution serve as an eye-opener and lead to her eventual disillusionment of the Communist revolution in China. There are many factors that contributed to her growing discontent with communism such as the anti-rightist movement which was an effort to rule out any criticism against the government, corruption and violence of the party leaders who abused their power and continued to exploit the peasants, the false claim of proletariat dictatorship used merely to eradicate bourgeoisie and further the interests of party members.
Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution of which it was built upon has perennially been in question. For example, in a 1999 issue of the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious scholar claimed that all of China’s tragedies are ‘sustained by a mistaken belief in the correctness of the 1949 revolution’ and that the future progress of China depends on the recognition that the revolution was a failure. However, the CCP government was certainly not perfect and its most significant failures were its political failures such as the Anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution and also economic failures such as the great leap forward. Millions of peoples were falsely accused and persecuted during the political movements of the Mao period as the CCP focused on class struggle instead of economic development during the period and tens of Millions of peoples died due to starvation as there were widespread food shortages during the great leap forward movement.
In many real and fictionalized totalitarian societies, children live apart from their families. I believe that dictatorial leaders enforced this living arrangement because they don’t want parents to influence their children, to make sure people are loyal to the society, and to maintain everyone equal. They do this so that they have total control over their society.
A totalitarian government is place that no person should ever be forced to live in because this type of government controls almost every aspect of its citizens’ lives. The dictators controlling these kinds of government’s take away people’s basic human rights, brainwash kids into showing no loyalty towards their families, and imprison or execute all who might be a remote threat to their party. The government then controls the remaining population with the fear of being arrested by secret state police regardless if they have committed, or planned to commit, a crime. The leaders of these societies have no regard for the wellbeing of anybody but themselves, and once they come to power, it is usually too late to stop what happens next.
The Chinese have repeatedly tortured, imprisoned, and murdered Tibetans all for what they claim is national unity. While the oppression of the Tibetan people began in the 1950’s with the invasion of China, it continues just as strongly today. From religious oppression and unfair trials to the torture of nuns and monks, the Chinese abuse even the most reverent aspects of Tibetan culture. Political prisoners, whether they are monks, nuns or lay people, are tortured with utter disregard for human rights. Chinese laws have also been established to eradicate the Tibetan people entirely. Women often must endure forced abortions and sterilization due to Chinese birth policies. Through all of these crimes against humanity, China repeatedly commits acts of genocide as established by the United Nations.
In 1985 one fifth of the worlds population was living under military controlled governments (Harper's Index Book), and it may around half now since China so brutally squashed its citizens' move toward democracy (Harper's Index Book). The reunificat...
...ghur rights, as human beings, being violated, and who's responsibility is it to make sure that rights aren’t violated, as well as if China is living up to its responsibilities as a world power, to take care of its people.
Communism is a system of government, a political ideology that rejects private ownership and promotes a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of all property and the means of production, where by all work is shared and all proceeds are commonly owned. Communism is practised in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. However most of the world’s communist governments have been disbanded since the end of World War II. Soon after the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II, Communist forces began a war against the Kuomintang in China. The Communists gradually gained control of the country and on the 1st October, 1949, Mao Zedong announced the victory of the Communist party and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. China has been ruled by the Communist party ever since.
In many real and fictionalized totalitarian societies, children live apart from their families. There can be many reasons for them doing so. It could be because they want to brainwash them and don’t want their thoughts to be skewed from the belief of their families. And it could also because they don t want them to have any special connections to any other people to replicate a feeling of equality amongst all people. It also causes them to have no sense of individuality. Also, by separating the child at birth it prevents the parent from growing any feelings such as love towards the child. By separating the children from their families at birth it sets them up in a position to be taught without questioning the way the society wants them to believe.
For a historian, the 20th century and all the historic events that it encompasses represents a utopia with endless sources of inspiration for the analysis of political figures, events and their consequences. Political figures such as Benito Mussolini of Italy, Adolf Hitler of Germany, Mao Zedong of China and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union are all names we are familiar with due to the time period that they influenced; this time period after the trauma and atrocities of World War I and the Great Depression led to completely new forms of government in Europe and beyond. These “manifestations of political evil”, commonly known as totalitarian states, should not be considered as mere extensions of already existing political systems, but rather as completely new forms of government built upon terror and ideological fiction. Therefore, this was also a time in which political philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, the author of the standard work on totalitarianism, “Origins of Totalitarianism”, could thrive. When looking at totalitarianism as a political philosophy, two initial questions have to be dealt with: what is totalitarianism and what kind of effect it had on countries ruled by totalitarian regimes. The reasons for its occurrence have briefly been mentioned above, although there are much deeper ideological, social and economic reasons including imperialism and anti-Semitism. In order to fully understand it, we must also contrast it to other political systems like authoritarianism and dictatorship, which are similar to a certain extent, but lack crucial elements that are in the core of totalitarian ideology. Out of the many examples of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, Communist China and the Soviet Union stan...
China is a communist country, whose citizens face many difficult situations while trying to fight for their human rights. According to the “Freedom Rankings” from the database CountryWatch, China is not a free country. Specifically, the Political Rights and Civil Liberties are in their maximum numbers; this means that these rights are confiscated from the people. Therefore, freedoms of press, expression, speech, religion, and movement are all severely limited in China. The government has also kept a close watch on art in China.
people on to the side of the CCP. The CCP’s victory was also down to
The topic of democracy in China is a highly controversial topic. Although China has not democratised, it has done well in the global situation amongst its democratic competitors. Since the path to democracy is different for each country, we cannot expect that China would follow the same path or same model of democracy as the western nations. This essay will look at what democracy is and how it can be placed in a Chinese context as well as looking at the proponents and opponents of democracy in China. It will also look at whether China is democratising by focusing on village elections, globalisation and the emergence of a civil society. These specific topics were chosen because they will help provide good evidence and arguments to the topic of democratisation in China. The main argument in this essay will be that although China is implementing some changes that can be seen as the beginning of a road to democracy, there contribution should not be over estimated. China still has a long way to go before it can be considered that it is democratising. The small changes are good but China still has a long road ahead of itself to achieve democracy.
The book 1984, written by George Orwell, focuses on a man named Winston Smith. Winston lives in a society where citizens are taught to hate each other and children are told to betray their parents. Fear is a part of every person’s daily lives and as if that was not enough, citizens are kept busy for the entire day so that thoughts of rebellion or things other than their leader “Big Brother” are kept at bay. If a person is to go against the rules set forth by “Big Brother” and his party then torture or worse would be implemented. This novel, written by George Orwell clearly displays how to maintain a thriving totalitarian society.
Citizens fear to make one wrong movement, they would instantly face consequences since they are living in a dictatorial place where complete subservience is required. In a totalitarian society, citizens do not get to enjoy or experience individual rights on the daily basis like any other normal human being. These people do not have a personal or private life since the government controls every aspect in that category. The government even goes to the extent of controlling your thoughts, desires and feelings. A substantial example of a totalitarian society was when the world faced the anti Semitic dictator, Adolf Hitler.