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IRISH LEADERS MUST be ‘forceful’ about human rights abuses when the Chinese vice president visits Ireland this weekend, Amnesty International has said.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has promised that the issue of human rights abuses will be raised during the visit by Xi Jinping.
The vice prseident, who is widely predicted to take over as leader of China from president Hu Jintao later this year, is due to arrive at Shannon Airport on Saturday afternoon.
Human rights group Amnesty International has welcomed Gilmore’s assurance that human rights issues will be raised and urged the government to be “clear and forceful” in delivering the message.
“China’s human rights record is appalling,” said Noeleen Hartigan, programmes director of Amnesty International. “It is the world’s number one executioner”.
“A minimum of 190,000 people are in ‘administrative detention’, many of them in forced labour camps. Human rights activists are targeted for harrassment, arrest, and some have even disappeared, while the use of torture is endemic”.
It is obviously important that we build and maintain trading relations with a country like China. But even in the midst of a recession we cannot let trade opportunities blind us to our responsibility to support courageous Chinese human rights activists risking their freedom and their lives every single day.
Xi Jinping is due to visit Croke Park on Sunday afternoon before attending a performance of Riverdance in Belvedere College. He is scheduled to meet president Michael D Higgins in Áras an Uachtaráin on Monday morning before visiting the Dáil.
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Yeah, I can see the Chinese already worried and shaken!
Amnesty international are a load of crap these are the people who give murders pedophile and rapest the 5 star prison in this country
Yea man! and their spelling and grammar is woeful!
Let’s eat kids
Let’s eat, kids ….. Commas save lives!
Yeh. Go on Inda yer good man. There’s gotta be money in human rights abuse. Show end how to disappear hundreds of child asylum seakers – ccould make this a franchise opportunity for new startups in Tibet….
It is morally corrupt for Ireland, the EU and USA to go looking for investment from China. I don’t care who disagrees with me. That’s the truth.
China should keep their money to improve the lives of their citizens, it is supposedly communist, ahem!!!, and pay the transportation costs to get their troops out of Tibet!!!
Laozi’s writings manifest wu wei when advising on how a ruler should govern their kingdom: Ruling a big country is like cooking a small fish (治大国，若烹小鲜[1]). When you’re frying a small fish, too much poking will ruin the meal, so the meaning is: create general policies and direction, but do not micromanage. To do this well, you must understand the ways of your people and not go against the grain.
Laozi (Taoism: Circa 600 BC)
The architect of China’s transformation was Deng Xiaoping. He was inspired by neighbouring Hong Kongs staggering economic success, which began in the 60′s and continues to date. Deng’s market reforms transformed China from famine ravaged Marxist nation to a brutal but economically successful totalitarian nation.
Perhaps, rather than attempting to leech ourselves to this corrupt tyranny, if we like Deng attempted to emulate Hong Kong’s success we may be able to achieve sustainable economic growth without having to prostitute our nation the Chinese government.
http://www.arbitragemagazine.com/topics/international-affairs/asia/the-chinese-marketplace/
Sean. You are so much better when you use your own words. You can even make your kinda capitalism have a social caring edge. ;)
Surely we, the citizens, are at least equally as morally corrupt? Trade relations mean Irish consumers or businesses buying imported Chinese goods on Irish markets and selling Irish goods on Chinese markets. The same goes for those, including myself, that buy clothes and other goods from companies that have engaged in other unethical and/or immoral practices such as slave labour, child labour, unfair trade prices etc.. It is we, as consumers, that help perpetuate these cycles, and in effect, make this exploitation a profitable business.
It is we, SeanC, who are given little choice. Most technological devices are made in china or similar where cheap labour can be exploited. Big business does not have a conscience. This world is sick SeanC and big money doesn’t care to find a medicine.
Sorry should have said SeanS
We do business with the USA which commits human rights abuses on the international stage. It is bombing 6 countries. Their drones are killing innocent men, women and children in places like Pakistan. Obama should be put on the dock for war crimes. Is a Pakistani a lesser human being than a westerner?
As for Tibet, China has had suzerainty over Tibet since Ming dynasty times.
The USA, on the other hand, is a settler colonial state that refuses to acknowledge or apologize for its genocide of the American Indians, the original human inhabitants of its lands.
We can learn from China. Kenny should be visiting twice in one week like he does to the USA. We should send trade delegations there frequently. We market ourselves as China’s gateway to Europe.
Better keep Michael Martin out of sight and earshot though. His Chinaman impressions will probably turn a prospective trade deal sour.
China made a great deal of progress even under Mao Zedong. I read the life expectancy of a Chinese person was just 49 years in 1949. By 1976, it had risen to 72 years. Of course, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping ad since, there has been a slight recalibration of Communist party policies, more opening up and market reforms. China has continued to go from strength to strength.
Hi Paul. Long time, no speak. Say thank you for giving you someone to disagree with. :-| Been through it with you already so … Bye.
Obviusly you have never visited communist countries réada. You really don’t seem to understand it.
We might gain investment from the Chinese with this visit.
We might get a chance to raise the subject of human rights in a country on the otherside of the world.
Which would you guys go for if you had to pick one?
As inhumane as it may sound, I would have to go with trying to gain investment.
Money money money, growth growth growth, money, growth, money, growth, money money money, growth growth growth!!!
So obviously human rights is the more popular option.
I’m all for human rights but it’s like talking to a brick wall in cases such as these unfortunately.
@Michael…..investment, totally
Don’t upset this powerful man. Lots of Irish hospitality. Jugs of tae and plates and plates of hang sammiches and chocolate Kimberley.
They’re building their China-Europe trade hub in Athlone.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1203/1224308524209.html
Will love to see what minister can open his/her mouth to ask that question…i wouldnt count in that…
Maybe Micheal Martin should greet the Chinese at Dublin Airport and talk about our IT sector?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x5Rcc17eb8
How do we elect these people?:)
Hahahaha…and just who’s going to get tough with him? Pink But Perfect???….bit like getting attacked by a dead sheep. The guy could eat babies for dinner and our crowd wouldn’t say a word.
Having travelled through many areas of China I can say that most people there are happy with the way the country is run. Their politicians say what they mean and mean what they say. Everyone earns a living wage and is well educated. There are poor areas same as every country and for millennia the Chinese have had authoritarian leaders. The fact that it is not how we wish to lead our lives is up to us but looking at the state of our so called western democracy finally being taken over by Berlin after 100 years of tying along with their French lapdogs. Give me Chinese friends any day.
Alas, your comment gets more negative feedback than positive! I’ve also been to China and Hong King! Yes there are issues that need to be dealt with, by the people are genuinely happy. The government delivers in promises and is aiming to improver living conditions for its citizens! There are human rights issues that’s for sure, but should we be involved? There’s also human rights issues in Congo and Liberia, where conditions are much worse! Perhaps we should encourage the UN to intervene there!
Dublin Airport *Shannon Airport*
When the chips are down and we need Chinese investment we’ll happily turn a blind eye to human rights. Remember US rendition flights through Shannon.
By that logic, no head of state would have the authority to lecture Human Rights. Gas and light aren’t human rights, nor is food, at least not that I know of.
The cheek of Enda Kenny preaching about Human rights when he heads up a country where some of the citizens are hungry and quite a few have no light or gas. Thank god Joan Burton didn’t speak or I would be twice as upset. When will these politicians wake up to our reality?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngvtLDeWm9g&feature=player_detailpage&list=PLACDDDDE94F1DD81A
Free The Tibetan people from over 50 years of cruel, violent occupation by China!… Over 1 million tibetans have died since China INVADED TIBET!
Yes i agree with boosting economy, but i don’t agree selling ourselves to the devil man, and i am a bit suspicious why china picked Ireland out of Europe! why us, this Government has no caring on Human Rights at all, because if the Did, they wouldn’t have made these devil corrupt deals with a corrupt man like XI JIPING not very good for the Chinese people who have been tortured and killed by the hand of his Diseased Father and Himself.
this government would sell their own body to get hands on cash, sick corrupt bunch of cowboys.Rita Cahill
I’m suprised, (with all this talk about how Irish government should challenge Xi on China’s human rights record) that no 1 has mentioned that Xi was in America last week. I wonder how much heed the Chinese paid to the Americans when they brought up human rights? I imagine very little.
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