Interview with Nancy Li

By Paolo Pietrosanti

P. This is Radio Radicale. We continue tackling the issue of China, as usual, with a clear viewponit and clear goals. We are happy to be connected with Nancy Li, who is a well known activist for democracy in China. She is a very important exponent of the International Federation for Human Rights, which is also an NGO within the United Nations, in the ECOSOC. Nancy, first of all I would like to ask you to describe your organization for us.

L. The FIDH, International Federation for Human Rights has 89 chapters in different countries. There are countries, like China, where we are not allowed to conduct our missions. Otherwise, in many parts of the world, in South America and in North Africa, in Turkey for instance, we do go in and conduct our facts finding mission. These activities are also carried out by members who are lawyers.

P. Which is your way of working, in particular on the issue of China?

L. China is a particular case, because it does not allow any Human Rights NGO to go in to do indipendent missions. We carry out our activities through an information network and we also work in cooperation with Amnesty International, Asia Watch and with the New York based Human Rights in China organization. We do have very fast news about arrests or releases, minority unrests or religious persecutions. And very often we are contacted by the press as some kind of alternative to New China Agency, because no press really trusts what New China says.

P. The International Federation for Human Rights has a long history. After the fall of Berlin wall may be your attention is more focused on China than before. More energies of yours are focused on the issue of China.

L. Really, the coincidence has less to do with the fall of Berlin wall than with what had happened a few months before, that is the Tiananmen massacre. We also thought that the two things were related, I think the massacre in Tiananmen square had some influence on the transformation of Eastern Europe later that year; that all happened in 1989. And also it is true that, before, many of the major NGOs were more focused on Eastern Europe or on what was going on in Soviet Union. And now China is the only big country that seems to abuse human rights with complete impunity.

P. What does this complete impunity depend on? Does it depend on economic and trade relationships?

L. Yes, in part. Of course, the continued impunity has to do with the fact that the West is softer and softer, as every year goes by, on China, the way it was not on Soviet Union. Nobody during the Cold War wanted to do business in Soviet Union, whilst the Western countries now feel the need to sound more conciliatory and to turn a blind eye to many of the abuses committed in China. On the other hand there is also the geographical aspect. China can afford to isolate itself, it is a big country occupying a far away continent. That's why a massacre like that in Tiananmen square can happen in China and cannot possibily happen in Eastern Europe anymore in the 80s and in the 90s. Why? Because, for example, if a massacre had happened when the Eastern Germans went marching before the fall of the wall, Western televisions would have picked it up immediately and everybody in Eastern Europe would have been able to see it and know what was happening. Whereas in China, the information blackout in the media is still very

effective. For example, the Chinese doctor who revealed the affair of the orphanages told me that when she was in Shanghai she never believed that the massacres happened in Beijing. She believed what the Government told her and she never got to see any TV images until she was out of China.

P. Nancy, do you think that the Tibetan issue, given its relatively big coverage in the world, can help the initiatives, the fight for a more democratic China?

L. I think so. I think the Tibetan issue may just be compared to David, in the Bible, who defeated Golia, the giant. Tibet is for China what Vietnam used to be for America in the 60s and 70s. On this issue, China cannot justify itself. Even according to its constitution, its army should never be occupying Tibet, and a growing number of Chinese people, who have nothing to do with politics, are questioning the Chinese policy in that region. Also well-to-do businessmen are all questioning what is going on in Tibet. I also noticed that what many members of Chinese delegations who travel in the West do first is to look for books that they cannot read, that are banned in China. Last year they looked for Mao's doctors biography(NO), and this year they are looking for books by the Dalai Lama, actually.

P. How do you see the internal situation of China from a political point of view? What is sure is that Deng Xiaoping is virtually dead or, may be, actually dead. How do you see what is going to happen in the internal political scene and what consequences will it have on the democratization process in China?

L. The internal situation looks very bad right now. Deng Xiaoping is dying and politically he is already dead, he is no longer effective. Why do we say so? Because we noticed that his childrens' business practices are increasingly being questioned and other companies that have to do with the Deng family have run into trouble. The Chinese Government would never dare touch the family if Deng was still politically active. So that means that Deng is out, Deng is as good as dead. On the other hand, every time I go to China, that is once per year, I see an increasingly bigger gap between the poor and the rich. Rich people in China are reacher than people in the West. I have been in restaurants where I was the only person without a portable phone; everybody - not every table - but everybody had a "telefonino". And in the traffic jams you can see BMWs and Rolls Royces. Yet you can also see poor people that are so poor as to have lost any dignity: naked children covered with mud just outside the major train station.

This also depends on the fact that there is no longer a communist ideology, nobody is going to stand up for these poor people, nobody is going to take care of them. Socially this is going to create a big danger, very soon. The Communist Party now no longer has the legitimacy it used to have before, when it had the hearts and minds of the people. Now it has nothing left. Nobody really believes in that Party anymore. That's why this year they have adopted the hardline, because there is no other way to control the people anymore. Before people were controlled by the army and by the heart, but since now the people's heart is no longer theirs they can only use the force. That's why they are imprisoning every dissident, they are giving heavy sentences over nothing. Nobody I know in Beijing now is walking free, everybody has been arrested or is in exile. The situation looks very bad; Deng Xiaoping is dying and the country is entering a phase of transition. If the hardliners inside the Chinese Government, who are no

w in power, have decided to be completely intolerant of dissent they will perpetuate or aggravate the situation. Either you and me could be dead, and so it's going to be a continuing purge and intolerance is bound to grow. It's just a policy of hate.

P. Nancy, is it possible that there is not a wing inside the establishment, which is preparing some steps towards democracy or liberalism?

L. Democracy is too far away a word. I would say that there are elements in the Government who are much more welcoming about legal, political and economic reforms. But these people must lie low, they must shut up. It is not them who are in power now, and they must never say anything, they must not even question the repression that is going on. It is the hardliners that have been in power since a few months ago. Even at the beginning of the year we were not sure, but since a few months ago they have become very strong and they don't even talk about legal or political reform. They are even attacking the bases of economic reform. So the situation looks very bad. There are reformers in the Government but they are not in power and they are very much in danger.

P. Nancy, you know that very few days ago the European Parliament awarded Wei Jingsheng with the Sacharov Prize, and that he is also candidate for next year Nobel Prize for Peace. Do you think these prizes could help the Chinese cause?

L. Yes, I think so. Wei Jingsheng is a very special case, Deng Xiaoping and the hardliners want him dead. They don't want him to come out of prison alive. To all of us who rally around him, who try to help him, it seems a long, frustrating case. It seems that everything we do turns out to nothing, it seems that he is going to be shut away for years, for decades to come. But, in many cases it does help. It helped his family already. And for everybody who has been in prison in China, just knowing that the outside world cared made the difference. It makes them able to continue to face torture, to face the rest of the sentence. The morale is different, the psychology is different as compared to that of those who are in prison and don't have outside help, outside support. Everybody who was in jail told me this. So this kind of thing is very good. International Governments' support is very important.

P. Nancy, tell us some encouraging words to go on collecting supports for the nomination of Wei for next year Nobel Prize.

L. Encouraging words are very difficult to find right now given the situation in China. What I can say is that I have met people who have been saved, whose lives have been saved because of the outside international support. Our support from so far away does make a difference. There are people who were very sick and were helped just in time and who are now walking free. There are other people in jail who we seem not to be able to help, and yet we do help them, we do help their families. Do you remember how Wei was when he came out of prison last time, for a brief period of 7 months? He was morally intact, he was intellectually intact. All the years spent in an isolation cell did not seem to have hurt him, the way they did not seem to have hurt Nelson Mandela. They come out, and they are intact and they continue fighting. I want all of you to wait for that day and welcome that day. And when time will come they are not going to be hurt.

P. Nancy, we are sure that the Chinese Embassy in Rome listen to our programme and probably they transcript our words to send them to Beijing. Do you want to send them a message?

L. In the Chinese Government and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs there are all kinds of elements. I have a message for the Chinese authorities, though. I want to ask them not to encourage nationalism, not for themselves and not for the other Chinese. We Chinese have to face what is wrong with our country, just like Italians have to face what is wrong with their country. That is the only way a country can improve itself. We must not think that everytime a country is being criticized, and I'm not talking of the country actually but of the Government, it is something terrible. Criticism is not necessarily negative, it could be positive. Banning all criticism is just cheating onself.

P. Thank you very much Nancy.

L. Thank you.