LABOR NGO CONCERNED ABOUT SECURITY OF PRC-BASED

C O N F I D E N T I A L HONG KONG 000880 SIPDIS NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/CM E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/15/2033 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL PINR CH HK MC SUBJECT: LABOR NGO CONCERNED ABOUT SECURITY OF PRC-BASED ACTIVITIES Classified By: E/P Chief Laurent Charbonnet. Reasons: 1.4(b,d). ¶1. (C) On May 7, Han Dongfang (strictly protect) and Robin Munro (strictly protect) of the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin (CLB, strictly protect) discussed ways to strengthen USG outreach and monitoring of CLB projects (funded by the USG) on the mainland with visiting Embassy Beijing laboff and Congen poloff. Though CLB has extensive contacts among labor activist groups on the mainland, Han and Munro asked that the USG be extremely careful when approaching CLB partners on the mainland, because much of their work is based on sensitive, personal relationships with local government officials on politically-charged issues such as collective bargaining. ¶2. (C) Han and Munro said their efforts were at a "turning point" after fifteen years of preparatory work and were showing practical results. For CLB,s collective bargaining project, they have been working with two Chinese partners: the Shenzhen-based Lao Wei Law Firm, whose director, Duan Yi, is also Chair of the Shenzhen Lawyers Association Labor Law Committee; and the Qingdao Xin Shimin Zhi Jia (Qingdao New Resident,s Center),operated by Chen Mingyu. These partners make it possible for CLB to influence China's only legal union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU),and empower workers to defend their legal rights. Han said he recently wrote a speech on collective bargaining that was channeled through a Shenzhen-based law firm to the head of the Shenzhen ACFTU, who later delivered it to union officials during a conference there. Han and Munro said that if the USG support or funding for the law firm's activities, including via CLB, became known, then the ACFTU would have to back away from the entire project. (Note: Laboff noted that according to other China-based USG grant recipients, the ACFTU has a strict policy against involvement in any USG-funded projects. End note.) ¶3. (C) Our contacts also said that CLB and its partners are regularly scrutinized by the local security authorities on the mainland. Munro told us that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently withdrew his visa (which it earlier approved),as well as those of many others planning to attend a forum on collective bargaining to be held on the PRC mainland. Munro claimed that "the security breakdown in Tibet" probably led the MFA to disapprove all visa applications to attend the forum. He added that all invitees except him were later re-approved to attend; he alone was denied entry. ¶4. (C) Laboff noted that the USG,s interest in monitoring CLB,s and other USG-funded projects in China was not just to ensure that the projects were proceeding as planned. Laboff said an equally important factor is that such projects, and the organizations that carry them out, are invaluable sources of information about labor rights trends in China, where such information can be very difficult to obtain. CLB, poloff and laboff agreed that a good way to balance the need for discretion with the need to communicate would be to avoid unclassified e-mail or telephone contact on any potentially sensitive issues between the Embassy or mainland consulates and CLB, and communicate instead through classified channels via Congen Hong Kong following face-to-face meetings between CLB and USG officials. CLB said their mainland-based partners would be amenable to meeting with mainland-based US diplomats as long as the meeting requests themselves were based on good reasons that would not arouse the suspicion of local authorities. Han gave the example of the Embassy Beijing,s recent nomination of Chen Mingyu for an IV program as a good reason for a meeting. Munro said that he anticipated the collective bargaining project would generate enough publicity of its own in China that the mainland-based US diplomats would be able to discuss the projects with them without arousing the suspicion of local authorities or revealing the source of funding. Cunningham