U.S.HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE PRESSES 60TH ANNIVERSARY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 000755 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/23/2034 TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL CH NO SUBJECT: U.S.HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE PRESSES 60TH ANNIVERSARY PARDON PROPOSAL Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Aubrey Carlson. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Well-known human rights advocate and Dui Hua Foundation head John Kamm (AmCit, please protect) is urging China to implement a special pardon to mark the 60th anniversary of the PRC's founding, Kamm told human rights officials from 16 foreign missions in Beijing in a March 12 meeting. Kamm told PolOff March 18 that PRC officials have not responded enthusiastically to his proposal. (Note: A March 20 article in a PRC-owned Hong Kong newspaper advocating a special pardon may signal internal discussion of the idea within China.) The United States, Kamm advised, should engage China to improve human rights conditions in areas of mutual concern, such as death penalty reform and juvenile justice. Kamm reported receiving responses to prior inquiries about human rights cases, including information that American Citizen Dong Wei may be considered for a one-year sentence reduction. The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize could go to a Chinese citizen this year, said Kamm (who serves as a special advisor to the Norwegian committee responsible for selecting the recipient),although several factors, including the status of a proposed bilateral free-trade agreement and the Sino-Norwegian Human Rights Dialogue, may influence the award committee's decision. According to Kamm, Peking University Professor Wang Jisi (protect) is writing a report to China's top leadership that asserts that U.S. policy toward China is "not yet set." End Summary. 60TH ANNIVERSARY PARDON: TEPID RESPONSE, DEBATE ONGOING? -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) During a March 12 meeting with human rights officials from 16 foreign missions in Beijing, U.S. human rights advocate and Dui Hua Foundation head John Kamm said he continued to urge China to implement a special pardon to mark the 60th anniversary of PRC's founding. Advocacy efforts were most effective when they complemented domestic efforts, Kamm said, noting he was trying to build upon and promote domestic Chinese support for a special pardon. Kamm said he had discussed the special pardon idea with PRC officials and scholars. All remaining June 4 (i.e., Tiananmen) prisoners and all prisoners convicted of the former crime of "counterrevolution" could potentially benefit from the pardon. Kamm said he had urged Chinese officials and scholars that there were numerous precedents in Chinese history for granting special pardons, and that a pardon would bolster China's image internationally. The 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC on October 1, 2009, would mark a particularly significant milestone in Chinese tradition, and would be an especially appropriate occasion for a special pardon, Kamm asserted. ¶3. (C) MFA and Supreme People's Court (SPC) officials did not express "enthusiasm" for the special pardon idea during recent meetings, Kamm told PolOff March 18. Similarly, several scholars criticized the pardon proposal during a March 9 lunch hosted by the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai. For example, Tong Zhiwei, a constitutional law scholar at East China University of Political Science and Law, said the special pardon idea was only being debated among criminal lawyers, and reliance on historical precedent was difficult because past pardons had targeted political prisoners, whereas Kamm's 60th anniversary pardon was potentially much broader. Fudan University U.S.-China relations expert Pan Rui added that it would send a bad signal if pardons were extended to officials sentenced for corruption. Kamm noted that criteria for a pardon could be flexible, focusing, for example, on those prisoners who were oldest and had served most of their sentences. Tong took interest in the constitutional aspects of a possible pardon, which he felt had not yet been sufficiently considered. (Note: Dui Hua researcher Joshua Rosenzweig (AmCit, please protect) told PolOff March 20 he hoped that the publication that same day of an article supporting a variant of the special pardon idea in the PRC-owned Hong Kong newspaper "Ta Gong Bao" was a signal that, despite the tepid response of MFA and SPC officials to date, the special pardon idea "has not been killed off yet.") Kamm said his pre-Olympics "push for a special pardon" had been a "mistake," because China had seen it as external interference in its domestic affairs; by contrast, he averred, this time around there was domestic PRC support for a 60th anniversary pardon. AREAS FOR ENGAGEMENT: DEATH PENALTY, JUVENILE JUSTICE BEIJING 00000755 002 OF 003 -------------- -------------- ¶4. (C) The United States should engage China to improve human rights conditions in areas of mutual concern, Kamm advised, identifying death penalty reform and juvenile justice as possible areas for cooperation. Exchanges covering death penalty cases could address review proceedings, prison visits and discussions with death penalty activists. Since the United States had not outlawed capital punishment, it might have opportunities to engage China on death penalty due process issues in ways that were not available to European countries that had banned the punishment outright, Kamm stated. The doubling in juvenile crime during the past five years, combined with China's increased interest in developing its juvenile justice system, presented another opportunity for the United States to engage with China, Kamm declared. Dui Hua recently had hosted an SPC delegation studying U.S. juvenile courts, and Kamm urged European countries to open their doors to Chinese juvenile justice officials. The MFA and the SPC supported Kamm's dialogue initiative on juvenile justice, he reported, though no dates for further exchanges had been scheduled. PRISONER RESPONSES: FORM OVER SUBSTANCE, MOSTLY -------------- -- ¶5. (C) Kamm reported that he had received several lists containing information in response to his prior inquiries about human rights cases. Most notably, Guangdong officials had informed Kamm that American citizen Dong Wei (imprisoned and convicted on charges of "stealing state secrets") might be considered for a one-year sentence reduction. On March 17, MFA officials gave Kamm additional responses to inquiries in a number of high-profile cases. MFA officials "made a big deal" over the fact that MFA gave Kamm a list, but Kamm said much of the information on the list was "not remarkable." Between 2005 and March 2009, Kamm had only received one response to requests for information on prisoner cases. Information for some prisoners (Hu Jia and Shi Weihan, for example) was dated, raising questions about how much effort officials had expended in responding. Kamm added that although he had not been permitted to access a Chinese prison since 2003, a Shanghai official had said he could visit Ti Lang Qiao Prison when he next came to China and once renovations of that prison had been completed. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO ONE OF CHINA'S OWN? -------------- ¶6. (C) In a March 12 meeting with A/DCM, Kamm said the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize could go to a Chinese citizen. Kamm, a self-described "special advisor" to Norway's Nobel Peace Prize award committee (comprising politicians from Norway's five leading political parties),said the committee did not want to award the prize to a Chinese citizen in 2008 due to the Olympics but might be more inclined to do so this year. Kamm himself had put forward the names of three Chinese, including HIV/AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, outspoken political reform advocate and former Zhao Ziyang advisor Bao Tong, and SARS whistleblower Jiang Yanyong. Kamm said he was also advocating as one possibility splitting the Nobel Peace Prize among three Chinese people, including a person like Deng Pufang (Deng Xiaoping's son),who would be acceptable to the Chinese and would represent issues for the handicapped; a "sensitive but acceptable" activist like Gao Yaojie representing AIDS issues; and a "dissident" like Hong Kong-based China labor activist Han Dongfang. Kamm said the Nobel committee had never seriously considered awarding the prize to Hu Jia last year and would not award the prize to him this year, because Hu was in jail and thus subject to retaliation. (Note: Kamm said Hu's prison conditions had improved shortly after the Chinese learned he had not been nominated in 2008.) Kamm also asserted that the Nobel Prize would not go to pre-Tiananmen-era democracy activist Wei Jingsheng, who had been unsuccessfully nominated "many times" previously. ¶7. (C) Factors that might influence whether the Nobel committee selected a Chinese citizen in 2009, according to Kamm were: (1) whether Norway runs for a UN Human Rights Council seat, which would require China's support; (2) the status of the China-Norway Human Rights Dialogue (which is not going well, according to Kamm); (3) decreased opportunities for China to influence Norway (China has been implicated in efforts to bribe Swedish officials into awarding Nobel prizes in other categories to Chinese nationals, which will inhibit contacts between China and Norwegian committee members); and (4) the status of a proposed China-Norway free trade agreement. During a BEIJING 00000755 003 OF 003 follow-up meeting with Kamm on March 18, Kamm reported that during a March 17 meeting at MFA, IO Human Rights Division Deputy Director Yao Shaojun had asked Kamm if the Nobel Peace Prize might go to rights activists Liu Xiaobo, Hu Jia or Wang Bingzhang. Yao reportedly told Kamm he hoped the prize would go to a Chinese citizen, suggesting that Deng Pufang would be a "good choice." WANG JISI ON U.S. POLICY, CHARTER '08, CENSORSHIP, TIBET -------------- -------------- ¶8. (C) Kamm told us that Wang Jisi, Dean of the Peking University School of International Studies, had said during a meeting in Beijing that, based on his recent trip to the United States he was writing a report to China's top leadership on U.S. policy toward China. According to Kamm, Wang planned to report that the new U.S. administration's China policy was "not yet set." Wang also told Kamm that China was still investigating Charter '08 signers, who remained "at risk" for retribution. In the face of the government's investigative efforts, some signers were apologetic, some neutral, and others defiant, claiming their constitutional rights to freedom of expression. Commenting on an increasingly restrictive media environment, Wang said he was writing his report to the leadership on a stand-alone computer not connected to the Internet, lest he be put at risk by hackers who might access such sensitive documents, which had happened recently to other officials and scholars. Chinese propaganda department officials issued warnings via telephone, Wang observed, which created "looseness" in the application of their edicts. These officials, Wang told Kamm, were weak and lacked enforcement power, so their targets were sometimes able to "escape bad consequences." ¶9. (C) Turning to Tibet, Kamm related that Wang had reportedly met recently with former NSC Asia Director Mike Green, who said he had recently been granted an audience with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama reportedly told Green that he thought PRC President Hu Jintao personally "hates" him, but he believed that Vice President Xi Jinping might be more "moderate" toward Tibet should he succeed Hu as China's top leader in 2012. The Dalai Lama reportedly told Green that he had known Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, when the elder Xi was a leader of the United Front Work Department, and that Xi Zhongxun had been "more open" toward the Dalai Lama and Tibetans. (Note: Personal representatives of the Dalai Lama requested a meeting with Xi Jinping during their November 2008 talks with the CCP's United Front Work Department. However, UFWD Executive Vice Minister Zhu Weiqun, according to a transcript of the exchange provided by the Tibetan side, shot down the request, reminding the Tibetans that Xi Zhongxun had told a visiting delegation of the Dalai Lama's representatives in 1982 that "Tibet cannot be a nation" and high-level autonomy was impossible.) It thus appeared that both Hu Jintao and the Dalai Lama were engaged in a "waiting game," Kamm observed, in the hope that the other would "depart the scene" (Hu waiting for the Dalai Lama to die, the Dalai Lama waiting for Hu to step down),in hopes of a "more favorable situation" afterward. PICCUTA