You will have both immediately noticed that this letter does not address Mr Hu Jintao as ¡®President of the People¡¯s Republic of China¡¯. This is because the term ¡°People¡¯s Republic of China¡± contains three falsehoods: ¡°People¡¯s¡± ¨C it cannot be the people¡¯s when the people¡¯s wishes are deliberately twisted and soiled. ¡°Republic¡± ¨C it cannot be a republic if democratic elections continue to be refused by a dictatorial and totalitarian regime. And it cannot be ¡°China¡± while the communist mainland continues to threaten the culturally Chinese democratic Taiwan with armed aggression. Mr Hu, you are not, therefore, the leader of China; rather, your ¡®authority¡¯ is derived from your position as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has become a violent, corrupt and morally bankrupt cabal.

Mr Blair, you are included as a recipient of this letter because in your position as a democratically elected leader of a country with an established tradition of rule of law, you should be aware that the CCP sends thugs to assault its opponents on British soil. A Falun Gong practitioner who sat opposite the Chinese embassy in London in peaceful protest against the Chinese government¡¯s persecution of Falun Gong, was physically attacked by a person who emerged from the embassy. We implore you to bear this in mind ¨C this propensity to resort to thuggish brutality, the CCP¡¯s assumed right to employ the foulest means ¨C when you meet with Mr Hu. 

The communism of the Cold War continues to poison and sully China. The original violation of all things human in China was the opening salvo against traditional concepts of property and society; the rulers monopolised power and wealth in the name of ¡®public ownership¡¯, and tens of millions of lives were lost and destroyed along the war-path to the ultimate victim ¨C Chinese culture itself. 

Mao Zedong¡¯s beloved Cultural Revolution was about finding the most elegant style with which to bludgeon his way to absolute power. The Tiananmen Massacre was Deng Xiaoping ignoring communism¡¯s collapse the world over; China was beaten and dragged in the opposite direction to the history of humanity. In the age of Jiang Zemin, power and money colluded to turn all of China into the world¡¯s largest National Museum of Communism, exhibiting ¡°the worst of socialism and the worst of capitalism¡±. 

Jiang Zemin outlawed Falun Gong and initiated the horrifically cruel treatment of its practitioners, but in doing so he conversely reawakened an interest in traditional Chinese culture ¨C the exact opposite of his intention. 

Practitioners of Falun Gong believe in truth, benevolence and forbearance, and strive for freedom of belief through peaceful protest. Falun Gong have already become an important and durable component of China¡¯s democratic forces, and they are earning the admiration and support of people the world over ¨C more so for contrasting so sharply with the barbarity of the CCP. 

Indeed anyone with a penchant for truth in the China you sustain is unsafe. Communist propaganda units under your leadership, Mr Hu ¨C like a Ministry of Punishments ¨C sanction any part of the media even vaguely attempting to give voice to the people. Harbouring or expressing thoughts at even the slightest variance from the ¡°correct requirements¡± are targeted for prohibition, with the obvious intention of obliterating independent thought and voices in China. 

Southern Metropolitan News was closed, the editor sentenced to six years in prison, the deputy editor sentenced to eight years and the editor in chief detained for more than a year. The reason? They reported to China and the rest of the world the outbreak of SARS while your ¡®government¡¯ tried to hide it. 

The editor of Southern Weekend was transferred, the deputy editors removed from the office, and the journalists were dismissed. The reason? Southern Weekend¡¯s reports of a bank raid and the spread of HIV/AIDS were a ¡®black mark¡¯ against the local CCP and ¡®government¡¯. 

On 24 January 2006 (the same day that the Falun Gong protestor was assaulted in London), the weekly Freezing Point ¨C the ¡®last remaining voice¡¯ ¨C was closed and the editor Li Datong was dismissed. Freezing Point had been a vocal critic of your ¡®government¡¯ and the effects of its policies. 

As leader of an organization with one of the most sophisticated public surveillance systems in the world, you are no doubt aware of Shi Tao, the poet and editor sentenced to 10 years in prison having sent e-mails about CCP meetings to overseas Chinese democracy activists? 

And in case you¡¯d forgotten, the Singapore-based journalist Ching Cheong is now being detained illegally under China¡¯s own laws ¨C he should have been either tried or released by 16 February. Your ¡®government¡¯ have effectively kidnapped him because he was trying to research the writings of one of your predecessors, Zhao Ziyang. 

And now western media companies like Google and Yahoo! have abandoned any principles they ever had to join your game of double standards; they have established a system of checking, forbidding and extirpating information not conducive to your totalitarianism. 

The grubbiest scene so far in the twenty-first century¡¯s intellectual history is thousands upon thousands of Internet pages of independent thought being blocked by this political firewall, built, to their eternal shame, by western companies. 

And as you face Chinese society, with its mounting problems and contradictions, rather than address or reform its twisted socio-economic structures, you instead pursue a small group of brave lawyers who dare to defend the rights of the weak, as though in the enforced silence your lies and lullabies will plaster over the growing cracks. 

These lawyers, who have dared to take you at your word when you talk about the need for rule of law in China, have been harassed, beaten or detained for attempting to use the law to defend the rights of people abused by the CCP. 

Gao Zhicheng and Guo Feixiong are representative of this breed of lawyers. Both are involved in attempting to represent and defend villagers in Guangdong Province, victims of a ¡°mini-Tiananmen¡± when security forces opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in December last year. 

They and many more lawyers like them continue to fight for what is obviously right by any standard of humanity and conscience; yet they are up against a system dominated by the CCP which has absolutely no vested interest in recognising and respecting the human rights of the Chinese people. 

The plight of Gao, Guo and lawyers like them has given rise to hunger strikes being staged throughout the world to declare support for all human rights defenders in China, and to condemn the brutality of the CCP.

Mr Hu, your ¡®government¡¯ is actually increasing control and repression of independent thought; after 30 years of reforms, the human rights situation in China is ranked 177th in the world. And it must be clearly understood that improvements in the lives of Chinese people have not been because of the generosity or benevolence of the ¡®government¡¯ you represent. Instead, improvements have been the result of grudging concessions made by the CCP in the face of demands from the people and the international community ¨C improvements despite, not because of, the CCP. 

Yet we are still disposed to offer you a friendly reminder, Mr Hu: there are secret agents amongst your evil doers. Soldiers who shoot over the heads people protesting their loss of rights are secret agents; a lawyer living in safety while defending protestors¡¯ rights is also a secret agent; a journalist with the sense of justice to express the outrage of the Chinese nation with every ounce of his being is yet another secret agent. 

And it is through these agents that the world is judging you, Mr Hu, and not the impression you hope you make when you attend G8 or come to the United Kingdom. 

What is the value of high GDP and enormous foreign exchange reserves when they¡¯ve been acquired by a money-grubbing, power-corrupted, justice-perverting clique of gangsters under your command? And what is the point of ever-higher sky-scrapers for your rich and famous lackeys to name in honour of themselves, when the souls of the Chinese people have been so thoroughly polluted?

We beseech you, Mr Hu, to ponder long and hard upon these questions: why is it that lawyers are taking risks and why are the people they defend still protesting? Why are journalists braving such extreme personal danger to work for the rule of law in China? Why is it that so many people in China and elsewhere ¨C known and unknown ¨C are writing reproving letters to you, and even going on hunger strike as a token of their determination? Could it be that spiritually and in truth, ¡°the Chinese people have stood up¡±? Could it be that an ancient culture has found its way to modernity? Can we now start to discard of the stinking, rotting baggage that has been grafted onto ¡°China¡± by dint of the CCP¡¯s continued existence? 

It does not matter that you hold the most powerful position in China ¨C you are still just a person, Mr Hu. You too, therefore, need to consider how history will judge you. 

And even as you consider yourself, don¡¯t forget those secret agents!

Mr Tony Blair, you can see from the above that clearly, the human rights situation in China is not improving; indeed, it is becoming critical. 

It must be realised that while the CCP finds ever more ways to pervert human rights standards while lulling the world with promises of riches, those who oppose the CCP¡¯s brutality are living some of the most precarious and dangerous existences in China. 

Western governments¡¯ duties to protect these people are part and parcel of the same duties these governments have to protect their long-term national interests; and therefore the extreme danger of being bewitched by the ¡®Chinese Economic Miracle¡¯ must be realised. As western companies troop to China in search of cheap labour and western workers are laid off, people are asking why is Chinese labour so cheap? It¡¯s not because China¡¯s population is so big; more, it¡¯s because independent trade unions are illegal, Chinese workers are not given medical insurance, there is no national minimum wage, nor is there a pension fund. Labour could be cheaper still if a company moved to North Korea! 

Helping Chinese workers defend their rights today is to help establish a fairer, more competitive global business environment, which in turn is to help workers in the west regain their own employment rights. 

We should in fact be genuinely grateful to the people who are standing on the front line of political opposition to the CCP. 

If the west is submitting to the lure of the order book and unilaterally abandoning principles of democracy and human rights ¨C to the extent that it is shoring up the CCP¡¯s ¡®stability¡¯ to protect huge investments in China ¨C then principles about the value of humanity are being dangerously eroded. Surely that is too high and too terrifying a price to pay. 

The sages of western culture would be deeply pained by this; the ideals and sacrifices of generations of Chinese people are being ridiculed and belittled. Was the whole struggle really for no more than a homogenous, indifferent and sneering world? 

This is your secret agent, Mr Blair. The ¡®China Question¡¯ is not unfolding in some faraway place; it is here beneath the feet of you and your government, and is a large part of the reality of western governance. 

Hollow platitudes and appeals for human rights and democracy are nothing compared to standing and facing challenges with determination and clarity. 

The world is patiently watching and waiting to see which choice you make. 

We implore you to think long and hard on this crucial issue. 



Yang Lian (drafted) 
14 February 2006