Protests: Don’t stirr Trouble, Comrade Jiang

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The party leadership might be concerned that Jiang Zemin’s death could lead from public mourning to an idolization of the deceased leader, and to more protests from there (rhymes with “past leaders were better than you guys at the top”).

Also, the party may want to serve a reminder of what it can do if it considers its rule threatened (rhymes with June 4, 1989).

While the current protests are heavily censored, June 4, 1989 was mentioned in yesterday’s main evening news, in a read-out Jiang Zemin obituary, even if n ot as “liu-si”, but rather as ījiǔbājiǔ nián chūn xià zhī jiāo:

As mayor and as municipal party secretary of Shanghai, Comrade Jiang Zemin led the cadres and masses in Shanghai to raise their spirits and to daring exploration, promoting great breakthroughs in Shanghai’s opening-up and its socialist modernization. The development and opening-up of Pudong was taking shape, he promoted party-building, and the building of spiritual civilization and of society saw major progress. As spring passed into summer in 1989, serious political crisis occurred in our country. Comrade Jiang Zemin supported and carried out the Party Central Commission’s correct decision to take a clear-cut stand and to fight against turmoil, and the correct decision to defend socialist state power, to protect the fundamental interests of the people, and to closely rely on the numerous party members, cadres and masses to vigorously protect Shanghai’s stability.
一九八五年，江泽民同志任上海市市长、中共上海市委副书记。一九八七年，江泽民同志在党的十三届一中全会上当选为中共中央政治局委员，并任中共上海市委书记。担任上海市长、市委书记期间，江泽民同志带领上海广大干部群众振奋精神、勇于探索，推动上海改革开放和社会主义现代化建设取得重大突破，浦东开发开放蓄势谋篇，推动党的建设、精神文明建设、社会建设取得重大进步。一九八九年春夏之交我国发生严重政治风波，江泽民同志拥护和执行党中央关于旗帜鲜明反对动乱、捍卫社会主义国家政权、维护人民根本利益的正确决策，紧紧依靠广大党员、干部、群众，有力维护上海稳定。
In 1989, at the 13th Central Committee’s fourth plenary session, Comrade Jiang Zemin was elected into the politburo’s standing committee, and the central committee’s general secretary. The same year, the 13th central committee’s fifth plenary session made  Jiang Zemin should become chairman of the party’s central military commission.  In 1990, at the 7th National People’s Congress’ third session, he was elected chairman of the People’s Republic of China’s central military commission.
一九八九年，在党的十三届四中全会上，江泽民同志当选为中共中央政治局常委、中央委员会总书记。同年，党的十三届五中全会决定江泽民同志为中共中央军事委员会主席。一九九〇年，在七届全国人大三次会议上当选为中华人民共和国中央军事委员会主席。

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Related

王丹：就算江執政 中國也不會有民主, RTI, Dec 01, 2022
Popular History Reader, July 31, 2012
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Jiang Zemin, 1926 – 2022

Wikimedia Commons – click picture for source

Jiang Zemin (江泽民), one of the CCP leadership’s many trained engineers, the man who invented the socialist market economy and the three represents, … Relatively untarnished by the June-4 crackdowns, he became the CCP’s chairman (or secretary general) in June 1989, by means of what official Chinese sources usually refer to as an “election”, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth CPC Central Committee.  Jiang had spent some time abroad, as a trainee at the Stalin Automobile Works in Moscow in 1955, and later worked in leading technical and party functions in trades as different as the automotive and soap-manfucaturing industries. His work turned more administrative and governmental some time after 1980.

In October 1992, he told the 14th CCP party congress that

To establish a socialist market economy we must do the following important and interrelated tasks.  First, we must change the way in which state-owned enterprises operate, especially the large and medium-sized ones, and push them into the market so as to increase their vitality and efficiency. This is the key to establishing a socialist market economy, consolidating the socialist system and demonstrating its superiority.

Based on Deng Xiaoping‘s concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics (中国特色社会主义), the socialist market economy (社会主义市场经济) focused on growth – something Deng kept emphasizing, sometimes against opposition from more conservative party leaders such as Chen Yun. Even Jiang is said to have come fully behind Deng’s all-out advocacy of growth once the paramount elder had made his inspection tour to the south (i. e. Shenzhen), garnering local support for his reform agenda, and proving that he was still China’s most powerful man, even if (mostly) from backstage.

Unlike his mentor Deng Xiaoping, he was no revolutionary veteran, and therefore lacked some or much of the traditional authority to head the party’s central military commission at the time. He led the commission anyway, and worked to make it clear that he was no mere civilian business promoter, according to a short news notice by German newsmagazine Der Spiegel in January 1995:

Those who criticize me for raising glasses with Western leaders must understand that this is tactics,

he told PLA officers in Chengdu, according to a central committee document the Spiegel said it had on hand.

I’m aware that the West remains our main enemy.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has remained one of the CCP’s slogans, even as Jiang’s (and Deng’s) propensity to growth lost favor among the fourth generation of party leadership, i. e. the previous (Hu-Wen led) politbureau. The term socialist market economy has become less frequently used. In June 2011, China Daily hailed the concept as evidence for the wisdom of the CPC and its able leadership of the Chinese people in their endeavor to build a prosperous, civilized, democratic and harmonious modern socialist state and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation only in June 2011, but left no doubt that the Deng-Jiang approach had been second stage in a three-stage development strategy, and that

Now we are striding forward toward the strategic objective of the third stage. From now to the mid-21st century, China will be in a period of in-depth development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, marketization and internationalization, an important period of strategic opportunities for economic and social development, but also a period with prominent social contradictions.

The three-staged approach referred to by the above China-Daily article of June 2011 had been spelled out by Jiang Zemin’s predecessor Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳), in 1987. Jiang was to replace Zhao two years later, after Zhao had been ousted in the process of the June-4 crackdown. Li Peng (李鹏), state council chairman at the time of the crackdown, and the Standing Committee of the “National People’s Congress” afterwards, referred to the third stage as a the one where

we will catch up with medium-level developed countries in terms of per capita GNP by the middle of this century, achieve modernisation by and large and turn China into a prosperous, strong, democratic and culturally advanced socialist country,

in January 2001, speaking to an audience in India.

The Hong Kong handover in 1997 added to the glorious picture of growth, this time in terms of political power. But appointing the former British colony’s tycoon Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) as the chief executive of the newly-created special administrative region (or having him “elected”) was probably one of Jiang’s leadership’s less lucky choices. In October 2000, enraged by Hong Kong journalists’ questions about if the CCP supported Tung’s candidacy for a second term, and if so, how that support could play a role, if Tung was really to be elected, Jiang told the questioners that they were “too simple, sometimes nayifu”. Tung, deeply embarrassed (by his fellow Hong Kongers, his boss, or both sides), was laughing in the background.

In his angry lecture, Jiang also advised the Hong Kong press people to learn from Mike Wallace, an American anchorman who had interviewed him about a month earlier, in the seaside resort of Beidaihe. It had been an unusual  interview, by CCP leadership standards, one that Jiang had visibly enjoyed, and one that had probably gone very well for him, in terms of public relations. Compared to his successor, he came across as a cosmopolitan, with a certain command of several foreign languages, including English, Russian, and arguably some German. When Spiegel journalists met with Jiang in 2002, they were greeted in German, with no accent.

Jiang had stated the need to deepen the reform of the system of distribution and the system of social security, in his 14th CCP party congress speech of October 1992, but that was basically that. If in essence, the objective of socialism was to liberate and develop the productive forces, to eliminate exploitation and polarization, and ultimately to achieve common prosperity, liberating the productive forces certainly came first. Growing divides between rich and poor didn’t appear to trouble either Jiang, or Zhu Rongji‘s (朱镕基) state council.

Another trend however did – the growing influence of a qigong-related, or buddhism-related religious organization, Falun Gong. In reaction to an incident in Tianjin, a massive silent protest involving over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners or supporters was organised in Beijing on April 25, 1999. The CCP leadership declared Falun Gong an “evil cult” in July, 1999, and started a lasting crackdown, initially supplemented with extended evening news propaganda featuring allegations against the organization which were hardly more “scientific” than the “evil cult” itself. Here, too, Hong Kong’s unfortunate chief executive Tung Chee-hwa was walking on eggshells, trying to please both his superiors in Beijing, and the public in Hong Kong.

When Jiang stepped down as the CCP’s secretary general in November 2002, he had held the post for more than thirteen years. He relinquished state chairmanship in March 2003, and the party’s central military commission chairmanship in September 2004.

Jiang Zemin was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, in 1926. He is survived by his wife Wang Yeping (王冶坪, also born in Yangzhou), and by two sons, Jiang Mianheng (江绵恒) and Jiang Miankang (江绵康).

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Related
» Jiang Zemin’s Health Matters, July 8, 2011
» Tiger on the Brink, New York Times, about 1998

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Most headlines in during Jiang’s life after retirement came from Falun-Gong affiliated media. The close interest from these quarters was no coincidence.

The OHCHR’s “Xinjiang Assessment” causes Beijing a practical Headache

^{Probably one of China’s vocational schools (click picture for source)}
There have probably been few high-ranking UN officers who know better what human-rights violations are, than Michelle Bachelet, the 7th United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who left office yesterday, after presenting the OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China. And if there were statistics, it could well turn out that many of those who attacked her for being slow  (or worse) in publishing the OHCHR Assessment were close ideological neighbors of those “Chicaco Boys” who had Ms Bachelet – and her mother – tortured in Chile, in 1975.

Every paragraph of the Assessment is worth to be read carefully. It provides information about how China’s “judiciary” and extra-judiciary systems work. China itself has no face to lose anymore, but the report also contains a line that must have been really severely contested between the OHCHR and Beijing, because of the practical effects it may have on Chinese officials:

The information currently available to OHCHR on implementation of the Government’s stated drive against terrorism and “extremism” in XUAR in the period 2017- 2019 and potentially thereafter, also raises concerns from the perspective of international criminal law. The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.

It is unlikely that any criminal “tigers”, i. e. high-ranking officials, will ever be arrested because of human-rights violations in their capacity as Beijing’s henchmen in Xinjiang – but lower-ranking “flies” have always been a different story. To maintain its system of terror and intimidation, Beijing must keep its “flies” assured that they will be protected by the mighty Chinese Communist Party.

That’s how the OHCHR report may provide a glimmer of hope for Uyghurs, and how it may cause a headache for Beijing.

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Note

“The Journey never ends”, M. Bachelet, August 31, 2022
“Firmly opposes”, PRC Mission, August 31, 2022

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Forgetful Fury

There’s a lot of talk about China feeling uneasy about Russia these days – which may be so.

But don’t expect China to support any measures that could topple Russia’s regime. For one, they need Russia on their side if they try to invade Taiwan: politically for sure, and militarily (in terms of arms supplies or other kinds of technical support), probably. Also, it is generally useful to have a permanent backer at the UN Security Council (if the Chinese ambassador there forgets his smelling salts, for example, and passes out at a critical moment for feeling uneasy, next to Russia).

If you know China’s North Korea policy, you’ll know it’s Russia policy even better. North Korea is a disaster zone with missiles, and Russia is a gas station with missiles, working warheads, and veto power. And with tanks, obviously, but that doesn’t matter to China.

If China did anything that toppled Russia’s regime, it would be inadvertently.

But there’s another reason for China’s reservations, too. China’s regime is much worse than Russia’s. It’s fascinating how easily the hell named Xinjiang has been forgotten on the international scene. Do those who ask China to condemn the invasion of Ukraine really know who they are talking to? Do they want to prove the obvious, because they know the answer? Or do they hope for a moderating effect of Beijing’s unease, on Moscow’s killing spree?

The last point would be the likeliest. But it doesn’t look like a gamechanger either.

Be mad at Moscow, if you have to, but don’t be forgetful.
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Related

We cannot even die for a cause like them, Uyghur Times, March 2, 2022
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Shortwave Logs: Nov 2 – Nov 12, 2021

Radio Poland provides Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusan and German listeners with news and press reviews about current affairs, on medium wave, 1386 kHz, mainly from 04:00 to 05:30 GMT and from 15:30 to 17:30 GMT. As there are no more transmitters on shortwave or medium wave available in Poland, these broadcasts are transmitted from a medium wave station in Lithuania. The Lithuanians also carry a Russian-language program for the Western areas of the Russian Federation, and a program by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda), also in Russian and for the same target area.

Radio Polands English service can be found online.

Radio Poland QSL card from the 1980s

The shorter the days, the better these programs should be audible throughout central Europe, and possibly beyond.

Improving propagation with the start of a new solar cycle draws me to shortwave and AM radio again. A few logs of the past few days are listed underneath, received some 30 kilometers southeast of Bremen, NW Germany.

If the recorded stations don’t show, click “read more”.

Freq	B’caster	Lang	Ctry	Time	Date		Quality
(kHz)				GMT			S	I	O
1386	Radio Japan	Rus	LTU	17:30	2 Nov		3	4	3
1386	Radio Poland	Ger	LTU	17:00	2 Nov		4	4	3
3955	KBS World	Ger	G	20:00	4 Nov		4	5	4
4850	PBS Xinjiang	Kaz	TKS	02:00	5 Nov		3	5	3
4885	Clube do Para	Por	BRA	02:36	3 Nov		3	4	3
6040	RRI Romania	Ger	ROU	15:25	10 Nov		4	4	4
6130	PBS Tibet	Eng	TIB	17:31	6 Nov		4	5	4
6170	Voice of Korea	Ger	KRE	18:00	2 Nov		3	4	3
7265	Radio Japan	Jap	D	05:10	11 Nov		4	5	3
7390	New Zealand	Eng	NZL	12.59	8 Nov		3	4	3
7780	R: Argentina	Ger	USA	21:00	10 Nov		4	5	3
11725	New Zealand	Eng	NZL	12:57	8 Nov		4	5	4
11780	Radionacional	Por	BRA	01:45	3 Nov		3	5	3
12045	CPBS	Chi	CHN	10:00	5 Nov		4	5	4
15160	AWR	Mon*)	GUM	12:20	7 Nov		3	4	3

Countries as ITU codes:
Lithuania (LTU); Great Britain (G); Turkestan (TKS); Brazil (BRA); Romania (ROU); Tibet (TIB); North Korea (KRE); Germany (D); New Zealand (NZL); USA (USA); China (CHN); Guam (GUM)

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Notes
^*) Mon is a language spoken in Burma and in neighboring countries
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Tendencies: Germany’s next China Policy

China didn’t feature prominently in Germany’s 2021 federal election campaign – at least not at the surface.
Somewhat underneath, and not really overreported in the German media, are donations and sponsorships that benefitted the political parties – or one or two of them – in the run-up to the Bundestag elections on September 26.
The picture, according to statista.de (quoting Germany’s federal parliament administration and only recording donations of more than 50,000 Euros):

CDU/CSU (center-right):	3,340,860 Euros
FDP (neoliberal):	2,055,454 Euros
Greens (ecological):	1,790,548 Euros
AFD (right-wing, neoliberal):	100,000 Euros
SPD (social democrats):	50,000 Euros

This is not the full picture, of course. Donations from 10,000 to 50,000 Euros will probably only appear in the political parties’ annual accounts, likely to be published around a year and a half after they happen.
Also, [Update, Oct 8: committed event] “sponsoring” [of party congresses, for example] amounts don’t need to be published in detail – there is no way of knowing who donated, and which amounts.
Still, the above-50,000 statistics give us an idea: the social democrats were considered dead in the water. That, at least, was a general belief into August this year, and that’s as far as the statistics go. Some corporations and lobby organizations may have tried to make up for their negligence when the SPD began to soar in the opinion polls.
Before we get to the China issues, let’s take a look at the 50,000-plus donations in relation to the actual votes for the parties.

Blue: donations >50,000
Red: actual votes
(relations, no numbers)

This doesn’t mean that the SPD wouldn’t like to get donations, and grassroot donations can make a difference too, but it is obvious that the industry didn’t bet on the social democrats and the left party.

China issues in the campaign

Hong Kong’s political activist Ray Wong, now living in German exile, German sinologist David Missal and other activists and human rights groups put a “China elections check” online for those who were interested in the party’s positions concerning China.
They asked each political party represented in Germany’s incumbent federal parliament, the Bundestag, eight questions, and according to the organizers, only the AFD didn’t respond.
That said, the CDU/CSU were “neutral” on seven out of the eight statements.
All eight statements can be considered a demand Missal, Wong and the organizations supporting the project would subscribe to.

The parties’ positions in detail

Statement 1

–

Statement 2

–

Statement 3

–

Statement 4

–

Statement 5

–

Statement 6

–

Statement 7

–

Statement 8

–

Political parties by rates of agreement, neutrality or disagreement with / towards the statements, in descending order (respectively)
Party / party group agrees with the statements (pro)
The Greens		6
SPD		4
FDP		3
The Left		3
CDU/CSU		0
Party neither agrees nor disagrees with the statements (neutral)
CDU/CSU		7
FDP		5
SPD		1
The Left		0
The Greens		0
Party / group doesn’t agree with the statements (opposed)
The Left		5
SPD		3
FDP		0*)
The Greens		2
CDU/CSU		1
________ *) corrected (Oct 8), down from 3

Outlook

At least for now, the CDU/CSU’s chances of heading (or even just joining) a government coalition have deminished, as both the FDP and the Greens are currently moving closer to the SPD, with some unfriendly noise especially from the CSU, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party.
This would mean that exactly the three parties that find most common ground with the Wong/Missal statements would be in government.
The picture would become much friendlier for pro-China lobbyists if the tide turned again,in favor of the CDU/CSU.
The proof of the pudding is the eating, and the industry will almost certainly become more generous with its donations to the Social Democrats, but for those who want to see a government with clear-cut positions on Chinese crimes against human rights, the trend isn’t looking bad.
The CDU/CSU didn’t really care, and documented that publicly.
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Related

Germany after the federal elections, Sept 27, 2021
Guanchazhe flatters Austrian Supernova, April 7, 2018
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Update: DPRK Institute of International Studies on Development as a Human Right

The following is an update to yesterday’s blogpost on the same North Korean article, but from a different source (Voice of Korea’s German service).
The KCNA article has actually been online since yesterday, although not as prominently as by Voice of Korea who put it right after their daily news bulletin.
As KCNA doesn’t use permalinks, I have copied and pasted their content in English and Chinese, as follows. I’m not aware of the original article’s wording (which can also be found on KCNA’s website), but the English and Chinese versions, with the same content in all paragraphs with about the same emphasis, both adopt a style as seems most fluent in the language they use.

“DMZ – another Chance for Peace”,
a 2019 calendar co-published by
KBS World Radio and the
DMZ Ecology Research Institute,
sponsored by “the CDF of
Korea Communications Commission“

Pyongyang, September 27 (KCNA) — Kim Jin Hui, a researcher of the Institute of International Studies of the DPRK, released the following article:	朝中社平壤９月２７日电　朝鲜国际问题研究院研究员金真姬发表了署名文章。文章内容如下：
Shortly ago, UN human rights experts in a joint statement noted that the U.S. unilateral sanctions seriously impede the economic development and the improvement of people’s living standard in many countries and violate their rights to development, stressing “the right to development is a human right that can not be forfeited.”	前不久，一些联合国人权专家发表联合声明谴责，美国的单方面制裁对许多国家的经济发展和个人生活改善产生严重影响，国家发展权遭受威胁，并强调了“发展权是不可剥夺的人权”这一点。
“The right to development is a human right that can not be forfeited” – this is a definition stipulated in the “declaration of the right to development” adopted at the 41st session of the UN General Assembly on Dec. 4, 1986.	“发展权是不可剥夺的人权”，这是距今３５年前的１９８６年１２月４日召开的第４１届联合国大会上通过的“发展权利宣言”中明文规定的定义。
According to the declaration, the world human rights conference held in June, 1993 adopted the “Vienna declaration and action program” which recognized the right to development as a part of human rights.	根据这一宣言，１９９３年６月召开的世界人权大会通过了承认发展权是人权一部分的《维也纳宣言和行动纲领》。
Despite the lapse of several decades since then, the right to independent development, a due right of a sovereign state, has not been prioritized as a true human right in the international arena but been ruthlessly infringed upon by the U.S. unilateral, illegal and outrageous interference in the internal affairs of other countries.	从此已过数十年，但作为真正人权的主权国家的堂堂权利——自主发展权仍在国际舞台上不被重视，却因美国的单方面非法内政干涉行为一直惨遭蹂躏。
Due to the blockade by the U.S., Cuba has suffered damage amounting to 1 trillion US$ for the past 60-odd years.	６０多年来持续的美国的封锁活动导致古巴遭受竟达１万亿美元的严重的经济损失。
Despite the ever-worsening global health crisis caused by COVID-19, the U.S. pressurized the foreign companies trading with Cuba into refusing to provide the latter with artificial respirators indispensable for treatment of COVID-19 patients last year. Worse still, the U.S. toughened the restrictions on the shipment of supplies to Cuba to badly hurt its public health and people’s life.	美国不顾肆虐全球的大流行传染病事态，去年再次施压与古巴交易往来的外国公司拒绝交付古巴疫情防控所需的制氧机。近期还采取措施极力限制对古货运，对该国保健领域予以严重打击，也对民生造成重大障碍。
The U.S. has stretched out its vicious tentacles to politics, economy, military, culture and even daily life in Venezuela, Syria and other countries, crippling their overall economies and stymieing their normal and peaceful development.	委内瑞拉、叙利亚等诸国的情况也是如此，因为伸向政治、经济、军事、文化乃至民生领域的美国的黑手，整体经济陷入萧条，主权国家的正常和平发展受到严重侵害。
The gravity of the issue lies in the astonishing situation that such ruthless violation of the right to independent development is perpetrated under the pretext of “preserving human rights.”	粗暴蹂躏主权国家自主发展权的此类行径，公然打着“维护人权”的旗号，这就是事态的严重性所在。
The U.S. has trumpeted “human rights” more loudly than any other countries in the world.	世上再也没有像美国那样大谈“人权”的国家。
The U.S. has never missed the chance of criticizing other countries for their “human rights performance”, releasing the “country reports on human rights practices” every year to find fault with other countries as if it were a global human rights judge.	美国一有机会无端指责他国“人权问题”，自封为国际人权判官，每年发表“国别人权报告”，对他国人权状况说三道四。
In July this year the U.S. Department of State set the “promotion of human rights and democracy” as a priority task of the U.S. diplomats in different parts of the world and issued an order to examine all means available for performing the task, thus betraying its sinister intention to more intensively and openly meddle in other countries’ internal affairs through “human rights diplomacy.”	今年７月，美国国务院把“人权和民主增进”提出为被派往世界各国的美国外交官员的优先课题，并指令研讨在执行过程中能够运用的一切手段，从而显露出了要更加露骨地加大通过“人权外交”的内政干涉力度的居心。
No wonder, the U.S. abuses the “human rights issues” for putting political pressure on the anti-imperialist independent countries.	尤其，美国把“人权问题”当做镇压反帝自主国家的政治手段。
Not content with criticizing the legally elected Belarusian government as an illegal one engrossed in “violence and oppression,” the U.S. incites the anti-government forces to rebellion. It also engages in a vicious attempt to make a dent in China’s political stability by taking issue with it over Xinjiang and Hong Kong affairs.	美国污蔑合法选举的白俄罗斯政府为专事“暴力镇压”的非法政府还嫌不够，唆使反政府势力制造内乱；还粗暴干涉中国的新疆和香港事务，企图破坏中国的政治稳定。
All these facts clearly prove once again that “human rights” touted by the U.S. are nothing but a trick to easily realize its wild ambition for dominating the world.	一切事实再次清楚地表明，美国所说的“人权”老调只不过是企图轻易实现其称霸世界野心的诡计。
The U.S. is the most heinous human rights abuser in the world that severely disturbs the normal and peaceful development of sovereign states under the pretext of “human rights”.	美国就是打着“人权”旗号，严重阻碍主权国家正常和平发展的世上最可恶的反人权犯罪国家。
Unless the U.S. hypocritical moves under the cloak of “human rights protection” are smashed, it is impossible for each country to achieve its independent development and to build a free, prosperous and new world.	没有粉碎美国虚伪的“维护人权”活动，就不能实现每个国家的自主发展，更不能建设自由繁荣的新世界。
Now many countries resolutely stand against the U.S. human rights farce for curbing their development.	目前，许多国家坚决抗衡阻碍本国发展的美国的人权侵害行径。
The U.S. “human rights protection” racket is bound to end in vain. -0-	美国的“维护人权”活动势必遭到失败。（完）

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“Voice of Korea” comments on the “Path to the Development of Choice” as a Human Right

North Korean foreign radio’s German service read out an article concerning human rights on Monday. As I haven’t found it online yet, I’ve translated it into English to post it here.
This will be a rather unreliable translation as the broadcast was on shortwave, and I may have misread one or another passage of it.

This starts with the author’s name itself. “Kim Jin-ji”^*) is my phonetic perception only. The German language makes a difference between male researchers (Forscher) and female researchers (Forscherin). Based on the language used by Voice of Korea, Kim is a female researcher.

But first, some (likely) context to make sense of the North Korean broadcast.

From the South: KBS World Radio, broadcasting in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese

Earlier this month, South Korean foreign radio’s (KBS World Radio), in its weekly program on North Korean issues,  touched upon the United Nations general assembly session, scheduled to begin on September 14. The North Korean nuclear issue and North Korean human rights issues were expected to be major topics there, according to KBS.

UN secretary general António Guterres had presented a report in August, on the situation in North Korea, KBS said, and he had shown concern about North Korean prevention measures against COVID-19 that could affect the country’s food security. The UN member states were likely to make another call for resolving the nuclear issue.

Against this background, KBS took a closer look at the criticism of North Korea of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The article read out by Voice of Korea today isn’t related to Afghanistan, but appears to follow the same script.

As far as North Korea’s criticism of America’s Afghanistan policies are concerned, KBS quoted political commentator Choi Young-il:

In the wake of the Afghan incident, the international community denounces the U.S. in light of human rights concerns. This is a great opportunity for North Korea to counterattack. By bringing up the human rights issue involving the U.S. preemptively, the North is condemning the U.S.

and

Countries in hostile relations with the U.S. blame the U.S. for the crisis in Afghanistan and mention the human rights issue. North Korea is moving fast to join them. It might feel pleased to attack the U.S. with no other than the human rights issue, but it has nothing to gain practically by doing so. By using this issue, North Korea may want to create a communication channel with the U.S. Also, it wants to tell the U.S. that North Korea is different from Afghanistan and the U.S. cannot deal with the North in the same way it handled Afghanistan. Pyongyang probably wants to say that it is a nuclear weapons state and it is far more powerful than Afghanistan, so the U.S. should negotiate with the North on an equal footing.

Nothing to gain? In fact, by criticizing the U.S., North Korea may not only draw some (desired) attention from Washington, but it may also be able to become part of a broader front against Western or international sanctions. There may be some common denominators that may be rather easily found between Pyongyang and the rest of the world, such as a rather negative take on Afghanistan, or on the nefarious American blockade of Cuba. Emphasizing indignation shared with otherwise distant countries may provide icebreakers to soften North Korea’s international isolation.

From the North: Voice of Korea, broadcasting in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish

Now, here is Monday’s readout by the Voice of Korea’s German service (my translation into English).

Kim Jin-ji Kim Jin Hui^*), researcher at the Institute for International Issues, published an article titled “The Inhumane Crimes that obstruct the Path to the Development of Choice”. The article says,
Not long ago, the UN human-rights experts issued a joint declaration. They claimed that by the unilateral sanctions of the U.S., the economic development of many countries and the improvement of individual lives were sharply affected and that the states’ development rights were harmed. They emphasized that development rights were a human right that nobody was allowed to rob. Development right is a human right that must not be robbed. This definition was in the proclamation about development right that was passed on December 4, 1986, at the 41rst UN general assembly.
After this declaration, the World Human Rights Congress in June 1993 adopted the Vienna Declaration that recognized development right as a category of human rights.

Dozens of years have passed since, but in the international arena, the right of the development of choice, a dignified right of the independent state, isn’t cherished as a true human right.
On the contrary, they were seriously harmed by the unilateral and illegal interference of the USA into the internal affairs of other countries. By more than sixty-year-long blockade of the USA, Cuba suffered enormous economic damage of more than a trillion U.S. dollars. Despite the global spread of COVID-19, the U.S. once more pressurized foreign companies trading with Cuba and made them refuse supplies of oxygen machinery that are necessary for treatment of the malign disease. Recently, they have adopted maximum measures for the restriction on goods supplies to Cuba which was a heavy blow to Cuba’s health system and which has created great difficulties for the peoples’ lives. In other countries, too, like Venezuela and Syria, the evil influence of the USA on politics, economics, military, culture and even everyday life stalls the entire economy and seriously impedes the normal and peaceful development of the [unreadable] state.

Great concern is caused by the fact that such actions that gravely harm the right of independent states on the development path of their choice are committed exactly under the guise of protecting human rights. The U.S. are a country that read most loudly about human rights. On every occasion, they make unfounded accusations of violations of human rights against the other countries, and publish an annual report on the human rights situation of the countries as if they were an international human-rights judge. There, they give negative accounts of the human-rights situations in other countries. In July of this year, the U.S. department of state made promotion of human rights and democracy the number-one duty of the U.S. diplomats in many countries of the world and gave instruction to take all kinds of means to their achievement into consideration. Thus, the Americans revealed their dark intention to interfere even more strongly and more openly into other countries’ internal affairs. In particular, they consider the human rights issue a means of political pressur on anti-imperialist and [unreadable] countries. They refer to the legitimate Belarusian government as an illegal regime busy with reprisals and repression, and incite anti-government forces’ internal insurgency.

They also like to mention the issues of Xinjiang and Hong Kong in China, and try to destroy this country’s social stability. All facts show clearly that the vocal human-rights campaign of the USA is just a ruse to easily achieve their global-rule ambitions. It is exactly the USA who are the greatest violators of human rights worldwide that, under the guise of human rights, seriously impede the normal and peaceful development of the [unreadable] states. If the hypocritical ploys of the USA for the protection of human rights aren’t thwarted, neither sovereign development of the countries nor the building of a free and flourishing world can be expected.

Many countries take firm action against the human rights violations of the USA that impede their development. The ploys of the USA for the protection of human rights will certainly be thwarted.

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Updates/Corrections

^*) Her name is Kim Jin Hui – her article as translated into English and Chinese by KCNA news agency can be found there.
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