no they aren’t, because there isn’t a free press in China, its all controlled by the party. their human rights record stinks and their labour and environmental laws are awful. but they do have lots of cash. all in all a model superpower for the 21st century

Prob not but a chance to showcase the potential food export business to emerging economies…give him a full irish and off with him.

You should talk. We forbid women their full reproductive rights in the Republic of Ireland, including the right to an abortion. Cloying hypocrisy.

Paul, your ignorance is astounding. You (and I) may not agree with it but this country had a democratic vote on the right to abortion in 1992 and again in 2002, which were both defeated.

China, which does not hold free democratic elections, has no freedom of the press; no freedom of religion; no freedom of sexuality; a ‘one child’ policy resulting in the deaths or adoption of millions of children; executes more people every year than every other country combined; persecutes minorities; and is attempting cultural genocide in Tibet.

Cop. Yourself. On. Paul.

I’m just surprised The Journal hasn’t even mentioned the issue of human rights in any reporting on the visit.

Jamie: there was no democratic vote on the right to an abortion in 1992 or 2003. There was a vote on whether we should rule out abortion in the Republic of Ireland in the event that the pregnant mother threatened to kill herself if she couldn’t get an abortion. The Irish people voted no to that measure.

Regarding the abortion referenda in 1992 and 2002, regardless of what the outcome was of what you describe as a “democratic vote on the right to an abortion” , the practical result would have been the same – no abortions in practice would be allowed in the Republic of Ireland. The only real democratic abortion referendum we had was the one in 1983 when we voted to give the so-called “unborn child” equal rights to those of the mother and put this into the constitution. The Irish people have never had an opportunity since to repeal that measure so as to allow our legislators to more freely legislate for abortion in the Republic of Ireland.

You haven’t responded AT ALL to the list of human rights abuses that I listed out. They’re ok are they, Paul?

Jamie: regarding your list of alleged human rights abuses in China, the last one, “cultural genocide”, appears to be pulled straight out of your ass. In fact, Tibetans are exempt from China’s one child policy and it is relaxed for the other official ethnic minorities in China. Tibetans enjoy a great deal of autonomy in the Tibetan autonomous region and in prefectures and counties in neighboring Chinese provinces such as Gansu, Qunghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.

Regarding your allegation of “persecuted minorities”, that is a broadsweep allegation that can be applied just about everywhere. One can argue that Irish travellers are persecuted because they are not recognized as an ethnic minority in the Republic of Ireland, unlike in the UK.

The one child policy in China has been a huge success. Without it, it is estimated that there would be 1.75 billion people in China today instead of the 1.35 billion that there is. Without it, the Chinese population would still be increasing rapidly. Instead, there are fewer mouths to feed, fewer people in shelter, which means that Chinese government planners can have greater success lifting more and more people out of poverty.

As for freedom of sexuality, I have no idea what you’re writing about there. Chinese people are free to choose their partners. There has been a annual gay pride event in Shanghai since 2009. Contrast that with many Muslim and southern African countries where people are executed or face penalties for being homosexual.

Paul, your cheerleading for the Chinese Government would be laughable if the situation there wasn’t so serious. “Alledged” human rights abuses… They have been documented by countless NGOs and backed up by eye witness accounts and survivors.

I never said the cultural genocide being perpetrated by the Chinese in Tibet had anything to do with their one child policy. Try reading the comments instead of tossing insults. Rather than it being ‘pulled out of my ass’ the term was in fact coined by the Dalai Lama, in an article where he blamed the recent cases of self immolation on the Chinese Government’s policies toward Tibet. Try reading something other than Chinese propaganda.

A one child policy by definition is a human rights abuse as it restricts one’s freedom to determine the size of one’s family. Forced abortions (of women in their third trimester), sterilizations and female infanticide are also common in certain regions. Nice of you to stick up for that practice.

Freedom of expression is heavily curtailed in China – the Government block access to content that doesn’t suit them and restrict news reporting and access. Freedom of sexuality may be tolerated in cosmopolitan cities but it certainly is NOT the case in rural provinces. It was considered a mental illness up until 2001.

Anything to say about the 200,000 (minimum estimate) people being detained without trial?

You obviously don’t have any problem with extensive use of the death penalty, even for non-violent crimes and political prisoners. You should be ashamed if you think that’s ok.

You keep deluding yourself, Paul.

So let’s get this straight. I am taken in by Chinese government propaganda whereas you take your information from a reliable source, the Dalai Lama a.k.a. Tenzin Gyatso, who heads up a Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala in India.

Ah sure, Ahmed Chalabi headed up his own Iraqi government in exile in Washington DC until George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq to get rid of Chalabi’s enemy, Saddam Hussein in 2003. Before that war, Ahmed Chalabi was telling us that Saddam Hussein was developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction and provided so-called evidence. Some of us thought he was a source of objectivity too, the US government certainly did – until 6 months after the US invasion of Iraq when it was reported that Saddam Hussein had abandoned all his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs just after the first Iraq war in 1991.

I never said I take my information from the Dalai Lama – I simply stated that it was he who coined the phrase ‘cultural genocide’. I prefer to take my information from news agencies that are not State controlled and independent NGOs on the ground. There are plenty of survivors’ records out there if you care to look.

Your example of Iraq is nonsense and out of context. TIbet is an occupied country, Paul. Up to 1 million Tibetans and thousands of monasteries were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The bogus invasion of Iraq in 2003 is not comparable. No NGOs or international organizations (the UN or the IAEA) believed for one minute that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons. The US acted unilaterally until it rounded up a coalition of the willing. I’m certainly not into getting personal on message boards but comparing Tibet to Iraq makes you look foolish.

Engage with what is being discussed. Stop trying to weasel out of the issues I raised in my last post with poorly considered comparisons. If you can’t answer directly then maybe you should reconsider your vehement support for the Chinese Government’s human rights abuses.

You’ve been putting words in my mouth. I vehemently support China’s human rights abuses? I never wrote any such thing. I am cheerleading for the Chinese government? I never wrote any such thing.

Right from the get go, you have made a number of claims about China for which you have provided no specific sources. You give as a general source non state controlled news agencies and independent NGOs on the ground but you give no specific sources so it is impossible to verify your claims. The only specific source you give is the Dalai Lama for your claim that cultural genocide is being attempted in Tibet. The Dalai Lama, heading up his Tibetan government in exile in India, is hardly an unbiased source.

Your assertion that forced abortions, sterilizations and infanticide is common in certain areas of China is scare-mongering. 

Your claim that freedom of sexuality was a mental illness up to 2001 doesn’t make sense. Presumably you mean homosexuality was a mental illness up to 2001. In which case, so what? Buggery was a criminal offense in the Republic of Ireland until 1993. Your point is that China is 8 years behind the Republic of Ireland in social development?

I am certainly not going to be criticizing China’s alleged human rights abuses. Who should be criticizing them? The Chinese! And the overseas Chinese. I am foreigner. From the Chinese perspective, I am a foreigner. I have lived in China for the past 5 and a half years. I am a guest here. 

Lectures by western governments to China on alleged human rights abuses is a waste of time in my view. As Xi Jinping said in the US a few days ago, China will democratize at its own pace and not at a pace and timetable dictated by western powers.

Also, there is more freedom of expression in China than you think. It is not a black and white issue. For example, take environmental issues such as pollution, there is a great deal of discussion in the Chinese media about these issues and even criticism of the different levels of government. Contrast that with the US corporate media. The whole discussion in the US still hasn’t seemed to have gotten past the “are human beings responsible for global warming?” part. Clearly we are, as the overwhelming scientific consensus says we are. But the US media is still bogged down on the existential question whilst the rest of the world, including China (thank goodness, with 1.35 billion people!)  has moved on to more fully discussing and proposing solutions.

I wonder will it be Lyons tea or Green tea?

Top shout. You beat me to it. Perhaps we could give this lad a cue card and make comparisons.

Yes that’s the way our morals has gone.open our legs for investment from the chinese and shut up about human rights.Our world has gone to shit.

Eugene: as opening our legs to “America” aka the USA is morally upright? The USA is bombing 6 countries, killing civilians, and violating international law. China isn’t. Like us, its military interventions abroad amount to UN supervised peace keeping operations. Let’s go where the money is – China not the USA.

“Let’s go where the money is”! Jesus. I’ve heard it all. China, the lesser of 2 evils. Holy cow!

Reada: we wouldn’t even be changing existing government economic policy. We’ll just be targetting a new country to invest here and opening up their market to our products and services.

Why is it that half the Irish try to emanate des bishops sour attempt in negotiating a culture.

Sid: Re Africa, regarding Chinese investment in Africa, ask the people for whom it matters – the Africans. They’ll say they welcome it and they’ll say that they prefer it to USA and European “humanitarian” intervention.

Paul, throughout this thread you’ve constantly brought up Africa.

China has bought huge tracts of land in several countries in Africa so that food can be grown and brought to China; the people who farmed that land have been displaced with nowhere to go…….. if there is a famine in any of those countries, do you think that China will stop bringing home the produce on the land they own? So local people will starve to death, whilst tonnes of food is exported to their “lord & master” – sound familiar at all?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/ethiopia-evicts-thousands-from-farms-180496.html

China invests on a no-strings basis (their money, their rules) however, that does allow despots & dictators to disregard their own people. The devastation caused environmentally are horrendous. People defacing their land with poisons such as mercury, Sulfuric Acid, Cyanide etc for gold/diamond/mineral etc which means that the land is completely useless after the resources have been extracted. And not to mention the localised wars in various African countries over conflict minerals, diamonds etc.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/11/03/chinese-investment-in-iran-one-step-forward-and-two-steps-backward/
http://inventorspot.com/articles/conflict_minerals_cell_phones_fuel_genocide_congo_44096

It’s estimated at the moment that 10 elephants are killed a day for ivory export to China; At the current rate, elephants will be extinct shortly.

http://www.biglifeafrica.org/content/china-ivory-demand-spurs-elephant-slaughter-news-article

If African leaders respected their own peoples, they’d use the resources of the continent for the people of the continent. Instead they choose to live the good life and have a laissez-faire attitude to the general population. After all it’s the wealthiest continent, in natural resource value, on this planet.

However just because Africa choose to do bad deals with China does not mean that we have to. China is a huge market for us to get into and export to. When we have a good mutually beneficial relationship with China, that might be the time to start raising concerns – if you want successful conclusions, you don’t barge in at the beginning if you need to talk to someone about something, regardless of the situation.

Sheila: Throughout this thread, I constantly brought up Africa? No I did not. I only brought it up once.

Paul, you brought it up in 3 comments including this one; and the other point you got involved with was about abortion!! not that you shouldn’t comment as much as you want – is that the only part of my post that you’d like to address?

and as I scroll down, I notice a few more, then also comments about the Magdelene laundries

Sheila: Oh good grief! Before you commented, I only brought it up once. I wasn’t constantly bringing up Africa, like you falsely claimed.

Yes. The Chinese are lovely people. I’ve met quite a few. But their government are another matter entirely.

What begging bowl is this you refer to?

*We* don’t look after our own, Reada. At least 70,000 citizens have emigrated in the past 4 years. Thousands of women go abroad for an abortion because they can’t get it in Ireland. 450,000 or so signing on in the Republic of Ireland and the government thinks it can create about a 100,000 jobs in the next 4 years.

I know we don’t Paul. We are too busy apologising for being Irish. I still don’t think we should ignore human rights issues abroad either but the falling over ourselves to attract foreign money is pathetic. To the other reply – read up. The EU has the begging bowl out to China. It’s been making me sick for ages.

Reada: Apologizing for being Irish? Bertie Ahern was castigating the Irish for being so apologetic for years. Back in 2007, I think it was, he suggested that those who were predicting a hard landing for the Irish economy commit suicide.

Perhaps, we should be more critical of ourselves. In fact, that is the patriotic thing to do.

Pursuing foreign direct investment isn’t putting out a begging bowl, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Ireland could do with this & is ideally placed for China.

Just as well you answered it yourself, Paul… No one else would.

Magdalen Laundries don’t exist in Ireland anymore. Civil and human rights abuses take place in China everyday. That clearly doesn’t bother you though.

So are you saying that because we were abused by ourselves it is now ok to go looking for investment from a country that is doing the same thing? If so you’re a joke Paul.

Jamie: you miss my point. I know the last Magdalen laundry closed in 1996. Many of the survivors are still alive though and many of them want a meaningful apology and compensation from the religious orders that ran those laundries. Those religious orders refuse to give either of these things. The Irish government sits on the fence.

In 1993 the Sisters of Charity sought and got permission from the Irish government to exhume and reinter the bodies of 133 women inmates in unmarked graves in one of their properties. That, in and of itself, is a scandal and a human rights abuse.

But, there’s more. It turns out that a total of 155 bodies were finally exhumed. That’s 22 people that the religious order couldn’t account for at all. So what is that? A case of Oirish inefficiency? No, that is a human rights abuse.

Now, let’s say this took place in China. Good grief, there would be people posting here in the comments section, drooling at a mouth, spouting sanctimonious outrage at this latest instance of human rights abuse from China.

It is the merest truism that as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, I am concerned about the human rights abuses that take place in my own country.

Reada: the USA abuses human rights and we are perfectly happy to ask them for investment. Their government is bombing 6 countries in defiance of international law and killing innocent civilians. Read about their drone campaign in Pakistan for example. They are committing disgusting war crimes as reprehensible as those committed by Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.

Paul. Look in the mirror. You’re calling some sanctimonious. Why are we arguing among ourselves. As I’ve said before, who needs masters when the slaves are so eager to whip each other??

Reada: Where am I being sanctimonious? The Republic of Ireland seeks investment from the USA which violates human rights on the international stage. All I suggested was that we also seek investment from China. I thought I was being pragmatic, not sanctimonious.

Paul. It’s just interesting that you linked up with commentators who care equally with the injustices you listed. You raised very valid points, points that might have been more appropriate for a religious thread rather than a Chinese one. That’s all. The fact Ireland suffered abuses of its own should, morally, make us less likely to deal with a country with a record like china. I just don’t understand why you’re keeping it up???

Paul, I’m not missing your point. You are arguing about a dreadful occurrence that happened in Ireland’s past. Yes, there are issues that remain to be sorted out but it is certainly not condoned on a National level by our Government.

Comparing this one instance to the ongoing gross human rights abuses that take place in China and are perpetrated by the Chinese Government TODAY is utter nonsense.

Do you live or have business interests in China, Paul? Sounds to me like you are desperately trying to convince yourself of something and there must be a reason for it.

Jamie: I live in China and I have lived here for the past 5 and a half years – which is irrelevant.

Reada: Ireland suffered abuses? There is not -ed- about it. Ireland still suffers abuses. Enda Kenny said in his Cloyne speech last year that the Catholic church is covering up the physical and sexual abuses of unfortunates in their care right up to the present day. Many of the survivors of the Magdalene laundry human trafficking operation want a sincere and heartfelt apology from the religious orders that ran them and they want compensation. Instead, the religious orders refuse to meet with them or their representatives. The Irish Government appears to be happy with this.

What I have always found annoying  is the tendency of social conservatives in developed world western countries to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in their own countries whilst turning to “Big Bad China” to sound off in outrage about alleged human rights abuses there.

The abuses in Ireland I mention above are not religious abuses, by the way, they’re human rights abuses.

You complain that I’m off-topic. You wrote about human rights abuses in China in the comments section here even before I arrived. Isn’t that going off topic? I merely suggested that since the USA also engages in human rights abuses internationally the Irish government should feel no compunction doing business with China, something you seem to have a problem with.  The Republic of Ireland seems to have no compunction about doing business with the USA. As I’ve pointed out, human rights abuses take place within the Republic of Ireland so perhaps it is a case of birds of a feather flock together.