Scary

I've mentioned recently that I'm not particularly brave, rather a chicken, in fact. People, especially, tend to make me wary, because they are unpredictable and it's hard to read their motives. You just can't know what's going on inside another person. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, because it's what I want from them, but it's hard not to interpret certain signals negatively and go into emotional-self-protection mode. My tendency is to duck and cover. I don't want to be hurt, and my instinct is to make myself a smaller target and "disappear" when I think other people are unhappy with me, or have rejected me. It's probably not the wisest approach to life. Things go unresolved when you disappear, and if other people can possibly interpret your motives wrongly, it's a pretty good bet that they will a large portion of the time. Protecting yourself emotionally by withdrawing from potential sources of pain can be interpreted as rejecting others, for example, or as punishing someone else for previous hurts. It doesn't matter what's true, usually, or how much internal good will you have toward others. What matters is what's perceived, and it's hard to reengage once walls have been built to hide behind. I usually need encouragement to come out from behind them, and it's often the case that that encouragement never comes. It would be far better never to hide in the first place, but instinct is a hard thing to fight. That's a problem I'm still wrestling with, the struggle between instinct and wisdom. May God grant me grace and strength for the ongoing struggle.

So what happens when this occurs on an international scale? What happens when it's countries interacting, interpreting motives, and even "disappearing?" China, for example, withdrew from the world for a good deal of the twentieth century. Isolating herself from other nations, she put up a big Do Not Disturb sign and turned her back on the rest of humanity. That has changed for the most part these days. China wants trading partners, and customers to buy the goods of her billion or so budding entrepreneurs. The world has pretty much thrown its arms wide to China, buying her merchandise and exploring this once closed land. The Olympics gave the Chinese government the perfect chance to cast as benign a light as possible on her culture, people and intentions. Still, the international community does not know China very well after all those years of isolation, and there's bound to be some legitimate suspicion.

As an example of a "how am I supposed to interpret that" scenario, what should the world make of China's development of new and extremely powerful weapons systems? Gizmag has an article out today about what is believed to be a new and truly scary Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile, "capable of targeting and destroying US aircraft carriers"--in one shot. How does the world, and the U.S. in particular, go about giving China the benefit of the doubt here? Are the Chinese, in their own way of thinking, just protecting themselves from real or perceived threats, or are they getting ready to attempt a take-over of Taiwan? How should the countries of the world react?

Is China's development of aircraft carrier killers any different than the U.S. developing what we would consider defensive weapons systems, like Star Wars, or is China just keeping ahead of the game in a big, bad world? Many would say that China has shown herself to be a bully, and that once places like Tibet are free, then we can talk about China's legitimate right to self-defense. Of course, many in the world (I consider them in error) would say that the U.S. is a bully, and has no right to limit the military acquisitions of any other sovereign nation. For example, some people would say Iran has a perfect right to develop nuclear weapons capability. They would claim that if we can do it, Iran should be able to as well. Of course, the U.S. doesn't go around supporting Canadian terrorists and threatening to wipe Mexico off the map, as Iran has done with Iraq, Lebanon and Israel, so I'd say there are moral canyons between America and Iran, but that doesn't change the fact that reasonable people can disagree on the rights of nations, and that it's a difficult task to interpret the motives of another person, let alone another culture. I'd say Iran is pretty hard to misinterpret, if you take them at their word at all, but China is a different story. China is not nearly as talkative as Iran. Can we really know what the Chinese powers intend?

So, how should the U.S. react to this Chinese development? The Gizmag article makes it seem that the U.S. is taking this new weapon pretty darned seriously. I'm glad that I don't have to make the decisions here. As I've said, I'm a bit of a coward. I'd probably just duck my head and hope the situation went away. Okay, not really, but I'm taking my earlier analogy to its ludicrous extreme. Hmm... is it so ludicrous, though? I'm sure there are lots of people here in the States who would love to give China the benefit of the doubt, as we would like others to give it to us, and assume that her intentions are totally self-protective and not at all aggressive in nature. They would love to simply ignore the situation and assume that China will just happily go along supplying Wal-Mart with inexpensive merchandise, but can we afford to be that charitable and trusting? Probably not. Instinct says that not everybody can be trusted. Wisdom actually says the same thing. I hope the Chinese motives truly are as benign as the face they tried to show the world during the Olympics, but I also hope that the U.S. military finds a counter to this aircraft carrier killer soon. Both instinct and wisdom are telling me that's a good idea. May God grant us all grace and strength for the ongoing struggle.

Falun Gong, And Involuntary Organ "Donation" In China

Last May I posted on an article I read in The Weekly Standard, about suspected atrocities in the treatment of Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong by the Chinese government. Falun Gong is a system of meditation and exercises designed to promote physical and spiritual health, sometimes called "Chinese Yoga." The Chinese government came to see the practice as an ideological threat, and declared it illegal in 1999. Since then, many practitioners of Falun Gong have disappeared, and there is strong suspicion that these disappearances are tied to the sale of donor organs in a growing Chinese "tourist transplant industry", with adherents to Falun Gong becoming involuntary donors, at the cost of their own lives.

When I linked to the Weekly Standard article, the U.S. State Department had dismissed the allegations, being unable to confirm any of the accusations of wrongdoing, given a very closed and controlling Chinese government's monopoly over accurate information. Since then, however, other reports have served to solidify human rights organizations' suspicions about the expanding Chinese organ transplant business. A couple of days ago, a reader here at the Meow commented on my original post, concerning the availability of more recent information, and was kind enough to come back and provide a link to "An Independent Investigation into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China by David Matas, Esq. and Hon. David Kilgour, Esq." from July of 2006. According to their website:

David Matas is an immigration, refugee and international human rights lawyer in private practice in Winnipeg. He is actively involved in the promotion of respect for human rights as an author, speaker and participant in several human rights non‑governmental organizations.

David Kilgour is a former member of Parliament and a former Secretary of State of the Government of Canada for the Asia Pacific region. Before he became a parliamentarian, he was a Crown prosecutor.

The website includes links to media reports, and event information, as well as various language versions of their complete report on their investigation into the allegations against the Chinese government. Here is a direct link to that original report in English. Here is an updated report, published January 31, 2007. The revised report is, if anything, more direct in its concerns, although that is barely possible.

Kilgour and Matas make clear that they cannot point to any irrefutable proof that the Chinese government is actually harvesting and selling the organs of Falun Gong prisoners, because the government denies it, and tightly controls the access to official information, but the mass of unofficial information and evidence is damning. (Matas and Kilgour's work is meticulously documented.) Such evidence includes taped conversations with hospital staff, in which they used the availability of Falun Gong organs as a selling point for their transplant programs. (Ironically and tragically, the organs of Falun Gong practitioners are desirable because of the good health of the prisoners.) Further evidence is to be found in the many admissions of complicity from Chinese medical personnel. There are even statements made on Chinese hospital websites, touting the availability of live organs. The sheer volume of transplants being performed in China is a clear indication that the government has an organ supply that far outstrips the number of organs made available through accidental death or involuntary donation from non-Falun Gong prisoners. (China has no compunction, it seems, about harvesting organs from those people subjected to the death penalty by its court system, either. Those "donations" are more openly admitted, unlike the "donations" of the people who have simply disappeared throughout China for practicing their religion.) Matas and Kilgour's report also includes interviews with former Falun Gong prisoners, escaped to Canada, whose stories are heartbreaking. The compilation of history, testimony and lack of credible refutation paints a rather complete picture of a situation that warrants grave concern from the world at large, and human rights advocates in particular.

Read the entire report. It's sobering, and by no means pleasant, but extremely informative; the more people know of this, the more the information is spread worldwide, the more chance there is that the Chinese government can be made to feel outside pressure and either open the access to information and facilities, possibly clearing themselves of suspicion, or halt this barbaric treatment of its citizens, if the allegations are correct--and honestly, I think there's little doubt that practitioners of Falun Gong are being officially persecuted, and worse. The more people are aware outside the borders of China too, the more citizens can seek action from their own governments. Here in the U.S. it's a very simple matter to contact our representatives in Congress and let them know of our awareness of the situation and concern. I have no doubt that citizens throughout the free world have similar avenues open to them for expressing their concerns. I know many of us have written our government representatives for various reasons, and received the frustrating form letters that make us feel as though our concerns are ignored, but the truth is the more of us who speak up, the more the people who represent us in government pay attention to what we have to say. It's worth the effort.

Update: I wanted to include a portion of the report, for its clarification of Matas and Kilgour's position on the official involvement of the Chinese government:

The widespread corruption of official Chinese institutions raises the question whether the harvesting of Falun Gong organs for transplants, if it does occur, happens as the result of official policy or as the result of the profiteering of individual hospitals, taking advantage of the defenceless of a captive Falun Gong population in their regions. The policy of repression of the Falun Gong means that they are in prison without rights, at the disposition of corrupt authorities. The incitement to hatred against the Falun Gong and their dehumanization means that they can be butchered and killed without qualms by those who buy into this official hate propaganda.

Whether the harvesting of Falun Gong organs, if it does occur, happens as the result of official policy or unofficial corruption, is for us difficult to be absolutely certain about. Chinese officials, in theory in charge of the country, sometimes have substantial difficulty in determining whether corruption exists, let alone how to put an end to it. For us, on the outside, it is easier to form a conclusion on the result, whether or not the alleged organ harvesting occurs, than to determine whether this practice, if it exists, is the result of policy or corruption.

I don't believe this changes anything in terms of applying pressure, since the Chinese government, whether responsible or not, is the only entity with the power to change the situation, but I thought it was worth drawing out of the text in any case.

Update II: February, 2008--I have received emails, and now a comment saying that this information has been discredited. In the comment left today, Charles Liu includes links which he says disprove the allegations. I'll leave you to read them for yourself to determine how much these documents disprove, and what level of credibility you to give them. Frankly, I don't know what the truth is regarding the organ theft, and have never claimed to, but I do believe that attention should be paid to the situation. I will note, also, that even the documents this reader links do not deny that there are troubling questions, or that Falun Gong practitioners are grossly mistreated by China's government. I followed every link Mr. Liu provided, and nothing I read has convinced me thus far that the world should not continue its scrutiny of China and its treatment of these and other prisoners.

In This Corner...

There's an excellent post by The Futurist about whether the U.S. will still be the world's only superpower by the year 2030, or if China has a shot at the title.

From Growing A Bladder, To Stealing A Kidney

Yesterday I posted about advances in engineering human organs. Today, I read a much more disturbing story from The Weekly Standard, not about growing organs, but about stealing them. There is a religious movement, originating in China, called Falun Gong, which was outlawed by the Chinese government in 1999. According to Ethan Gutmann, who wrote the piece for The Weekly Standard, many of its followers have been imprisoned. "The number of Falun Gong practitioners in custody is disputed; estimates by the Chinese dissident community range from 235,000 to one million or more." There are accusations from practitioners of Falun Gong, and workers in the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, that imprisoned members of this group have had their organs harvested, while still living, and their bodies incinerated once divested of anything of value.

The article makes it clear that these are unconfirmed allegations to date, and have in fact been dismissed by the U.S. State Department, but Gutmann runs through a sizable list of reasons that the charges should not be dismissed out of hand. He suspects the worst, believes profit to be the prime motivation, and Falun Gong practitioners an easy target.

One reason is that the Chinese authorities have always handled Falun Gong with a peculiar vehemence, even in comparison with other enemies of the CCP. When Falun Gong was declared illegal on July 21, 1999, ancient sound trucks drove around Beijing to make sure that no one missed the point. That's unusual. At the time, I was working in Chinese television, and I remember the day well. Several of my Chinese colleagues began laughing nervously and buried their faces in their hands, muttering that they had not seen such a thing since the Cultural Revolution. Since then, Falun Gong participants have regularly disappeared, with no arrest record, nothing but an assigned number, leaving them particularly vulnerable.

He goes on to say:

But the main reason I'm pessimistic is the money. Organ transplants are a profitable business. Until recently, a website out of Shenyang carried a price list for organ transplant operations in English to attract foreign customers, with a kidney transplant going for $62,000. And there is precedent; it is indisputable that the Chinese Communist party has sanctioned the sale of body parts from executed prisoners. As a former Beijing business consultant, I am familiar with the peculiar combination of state directive and entrepreneurial acumen pervasive in the New China. A directive comes from on high. The money is made down below.

Read the whole thing. It's not conclusive, but certainly has enough substance to warrant the world's attention.

Chinese Spacewalk

Futurismic led me to a bit of off-planet information. Looks like the Chinese are heading back to space. After hosting the Olympics in 2008, the Chinese hope to celebrate their first spacewalk, with the aim of eventually building their very own space station. Lofty goals for an up and coming Superpower. And here we are limping along with a couple of ancient shuttles. We'd better get to building that Space Elevator if we want to keep ahead of the Joneses, or in this case the Lees. (The space elevator link requires registration, but it's free.)