In a recent speech in honour of the Burmese opposition leader Aug San Suu Kyi, David Miliband said the UK should be on the side of what he called the 'civilian surge', those pushing for greater freedom and democracy in authoritarian states. Furthermore, the foreign secretary argued that being on the side of democracy abroad was not only a matter of values and morality but also one of self interest and pragmatism. "In countries such as China seeking a stable path to political reform," he said, "it's important to recognise that democracy is not a threat to instability but a way to guarantee it."
So far so excellent. But how does a country like the UK go about putting this into practice? What does it mean for the UK to be on the side of a "civilian surge" in a sovereign foreign state? Miliband has a chance to provide us with answers to these questions during his visit to Beijing this week.
China in 2008 is a good test case for Miliband's new foreign policy. There is considerable momentum for reform within China - a civilian surge for Miliband to get behind. There's also a repressive authoritarian government which, as Human Rights Watch has documented extensively, is suppressing dissent with brutal effectiveness. The Beijing Olympics provide a unique opportunity for concerned outsiders to increase their leverage and step up the pressure on the Chinese government.
So far so excellent. But how does a country like the UK go about putting this into practice? What does it mean for the UK to be on the side of a "civilian surge" in a sovereign foreign state? Miliband has a chance to provide us with answers to these questions during his visit to Beijing this week.
China in 2008 is a good test case for Miliband's new foreign policy. There is considerable momentum for reform within China - a civilian surge for Miliband to get behind. There's also a repressive authoritarian government which, as Human Rights Watch has documented extensively, is suppressing dissent with brutal effectiveness. And the Beijing Olympics provide a unique opportunity for concerned outsiders to increase their leverage and step up the pressure on the Chinese government.
If Miliband was serious about supporting a civilian surge, there's plenty of useful stuff he could do. For example he could tell the Chinese government that high level UK political representation at the games is conditional on specific improvements in human rights. He could call on the government to implement their long promised and much touted relaxation of restrictions on foreign journalists. He could call for the new press freedoms for foreign reporters to be extended to the Chinese media. He could raise the cases of prominent detained human rights activists such as Hu Jia. He could call for an end to the crackdown on the loosely organized network of lawyers, legal academics, rights activists and journalists known as the weiquan movement which is pursuing social justice and constitutional rights through litigation - a "civilian surge" if ever there was one.
So far the world has signally failed to grasp the opportunity of the Olympic Games to up the pressure on China. On the contrary most governments, together with the corporate sponsors, the International Olympic Committee and national Olympic associations, have bent over backwards to sweep human rights abuses under the carpet. They see the games not as an opportunity to support reform, but as an excuse to kowtow to the new China and cement their commercial relations with the world's emerging economic giant.
Up until now the UK has fallen into this camp. When Gordon Brown went to China in January, he studiously ignored calls from Human Rights Watch and others to raise the issue of human rights abuses and make his attendance at the games conditional on real improvements. In doing so he sent a clear message to the Chinese leadership that they are right to believe that they can get all the benefit of the Games without drawing public international attention to their abysmal human rights record.
Stephen Spielberg’s decision to pull out of his role as artistic consultant to the games, in protest at China's failure to put pressure on the Sudanese government over Darfur, has now exploded that fantasy. China's human rights failures, at home and abroad, simply cannot be ignored in the year of the Beijing Olympics. They are too glaring, too serious, and too egregious. And Spielberg has not just exposed the weakness of the Chinese position, but also the cowardice of the international actors who have connived at it.
By showing the courage of his convictions, Spielberg has challenged others to do the same. So when the foreign secretary goes to China next week he now has a rather stark choice: he can tread delicately around the subject of human rights and be exposed as a hypocrite. Or he can put himself firmly and publicly on the side of the 'civilian surge' and remain true to the ideas laid out in his Aung San Suu Kyi speech. It should not be such a difficult choice.
Tom Porteous is London director of Human Rights Watch.
